‘Dear Sirs’ – can you stop calling us that! That’s the appeal from Ellie Rees, co-founder of London estate agency Brickworks (main picture), who is challenging sexism in the property industry.

A petition she started 18 months ago, calling for an end to the use of ‘Dear Sirs’ on legal letters, has now collected nearly 4,500 signatures.

Rees wants The Law Society to stop the use of a salutation she says excludes half of the population and is totally outdated.

Conveyancers most guilty

“Dear All, will you join me?” she asks at the end of the message accompanying the petition. “Conveyancers are the most guilty of it [using Dear Sirs],” she says.

She tells The Neg: “I want an explicit plan to phase this out. But it is not just those two words [Dear Sirs], it is a neat little hook that we can hang this sexism on, and it gets the conversations going.”

“Why not use ‘Dear All’, ‘Dear Friends’, or ‘Dear Colleagues’,” she asks.

Old boys’ clubs

She also says the lack of diversity in the make-up of C-suites and boards in the property world, which are like “old boys’ clubs”, and the gender pay gap, show how much progress still has to be made.

The big estate agencies are “stereotypical masculine and very mono cultural”, she says.

Less than 13% of agencies are owned by women, she says, and a majority of female staff find the working environment male-dominated and inflexible.

The campaign is gaining traction, Rees explains, with a recent article in The Times, which was the second one she has done, and she was interviewed on BBC Radio Four’s ‘Women’s Hour’.

And two law firms, Freshfields and Clifford Chance, have recently stopped using ‘Dear Sirs’.

You can sign the petition here