'I soften myself' | Women overcompensate in emails - is there anything wrong with this?

In a study from 2019, it was found that the average office worker receives 121 emails and sends out roughly 40 emails a day.

Emailing has been a part of the day-to-day function of almost every business ever since its inception. Workers email externally, but also email internally to communicate with fellow colleagues.

We email so much that the phrase ‘email fatigue’ came into fruition to describe the tiring and unpleasant effect of having to reply to a barrage of messages – for which 38% of employees said would push them to quit their job. Emails are an important part of an employee’s working life, but the way we communicate with each other is often influenced by our background and life experiences.

This was bought to light in a TikTok video that went viral over the pandemic captioned: ‘Updating my email style to match my male colleagues’. The video showed the female user editing non-assertive or ‘too polite’ language from an email, omitting unnecessary exclamation points and the phrase ‘I think...’ before a statement.