The Gender Pronoun Backlash and the Vindication of Jordan Peterson

Commentary

In 2016, Jordan B. Peterson, a somewhat obscure psychologist from Canada, made headlines for refusing to participate in the gender pronoun charade. He argued, reasonably and persuasively, that terms like “gender identity” and “gender expression” were far too broad. Moreover, he suggested, the “propositions of radical social constructionists” were (and still are) being used to coerce people into using language they weren’t comfortable using.

Compelled speech, he rightly asserted, is the antithesis of free speech. Gender pronouns, insisted the outspoken academic, had little, if any, place in civilized society. Six years on, Jordan Peterson is one of the biggest public intellectuals on the planet, and gender pronouns appear to be everywhere.

However, according to a new report, including gender pronouns on your CV, contrary to popular belief, won’t help you land a job. In fact, gender pronouns could end up costing you a job. Are we witnessing a gender pronoun backlash? If so, it’s about time.

With each year that passes, the number of U.S. adults who self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and non-binary (LGBTQ+) continues to increase. The latter group, according to the LGBT Foundation, feel that their gender identity can’t be “defined within the margins of gender binary.” As the number of people identifying as non-heterosexual continues to increase, so too does the number of people using gender-neutral pronouns.

But, in modern-day America, could identifying as a non-heterosexual and using gender pronouns affect one’s chances of being hired for a job? According to a new report by Business.com, an American digital media company, the answer is yes.

First, the authors of the report asked hundreds of nonbinary people to describe the ways in which their gender identities impacted both their job searches and their experiences in the workplace. “More than 80 percent of nonbinary people,” noted the authors, “believed that identifying as nonbinary would hurt their job search.”

Inspired by a famous study conducted by the University of Chicago and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 20 years ago, which evaluated racial bias in hiring practices, the researchers simply substituted gender-neutral pronouns for race. They then sent two “phantom” resumes to 180 different job postings. The resumes, basically identical, both featured a generic, somewhat gender-ambiguous name, “Taylor Williams.” The only difference—a vitally important one, however—between the test and control resumes saw the test version include gender pronouns. Specifically, the test resume included “they/them” pronouns, placed directly under the applicant’s name in the header (you can read the author’s full methodology in the report).

Both phantom candidates and college graduates had identical qualifications that matched the requirements of the entry-level jobs they applied for. “Despite this,” noted the report, “the test resumes that included pronouns received eight percent less employer interest than the control resumes without pronouns.”

Interestingly, although the vast majority of companies they applied to were Equal Opportunity Employers, “the test resume with pronouns received less interest and fewer interview invitations than the control resume.” Equal Opportunity Employers have previously promised not to discriminate against employees and applicants based on either their sex, gender, race, religion, or age. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that laws banning sex discrimination also applied to employees and applicants who identified as gay, lesbian, and transgender. Equal Opportunity Employers, it seems, are not as open to the idea of equality as they so openly profess to be. The preachers of equality are not exactly practitioners of it.

To find out why resumes loaded with pronouns received less interest, the authors of the report sought feedback from the hiring managers. They found that these particular managers were considerably less likely “to want to contact an applicant whose resume included ‘they/them’ pronouns.” Perhaps, just perhaps, pronoun use is, in the eyes of some hiring managers, a red flag, a sign that an individual is, for lack of a better description, high maintenance.

The report’s findings are important for a number of reasons. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans identifying as something other than heterosexual has more than doubled in the space of a decade. Personal gender pronouns (PGPs), a rather recent phenomenon, are part of someone’s gender expression. They are commonly used by queer, gender non-conforming, non-binary, and transgender individuals, although an increasing number of straight Americans are also using them. Nearly two-thirds of adults under 30 say they’re comfortable using gender-neutral pronouns, according to YouGov.

Now, perhaps, it’s time to reconsider using these questionable pronouns. Again, contrary to popular belief, sex isn’t a social construct. The same is true of gender. This means gender-specific pronouns are, at best, an unwelcome distraction. A gender pronoun backlash, it seems, is taking place, albeit very quietly. This, one assumes, will make Jordan Peterson, as well as many other reasonable individuals, very happy indeed.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.