Gender-neutral language in English

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Gender-neutral language (also called gender-inclusive language, non-sexist language, sex-neutral language or politically-correct language) is becoming increasingly frequent in written and spoken language, and attempts not to favor either gender over the other in contexts where the gender of a person or group of people is ambiguous. The perceived need for inclusive language arises because, according to widely accepted norms of current usage, masculine pronouns no longer communicate a generic sense of “anyone.” Indeed, many people find such usage not only inaccurate but offensive.[1]

There is a growing awareness that language does not merely reflect the way we think: it also shapes our thinking. If words and expressions that imply that women are inferior to men are constantly used, that assumption of inferiority tends to become part of our mindset…. Language is a powerful tool: poets and propagandists know this—as, indeed, do victims of discrimination.[2]

In some cases, Gender-neutral language may be achieved through the use of gender-inclusive, gender-neutral or epicene words ("human being," "person," "individual," and so on) instead of gender-specific ones ("man," "he," "businessman," etc.), when speaking of people whose gender is unknown, ambiguous, or unimportant. If no gender-inclusive terms exist, new ones may be coined (e.g., "businessperson"), or there may be parallel usage of the existing gender-specific terms (as in "men and women," "he or she," "he/she," "(s)he," and so on).

Inclusive language follows the principles of gender-neutral language and extends them to other areas of language, such as referring neither to adults nor children when discussing a person whose age cannot otherwise be determined.

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[edit] Examples

As an example concerning gender-neutral language, since the majority of physicians historically have been male and most secretaries female, the cultural habit is to refer to all physicians as "he" and all secretaries as "she" when their particular gender is not known.

One might state, "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope he is friendly." However, unless one is certain that the new doctor is male, advocates of gender-neutral language generally argue that it would be better to alter the sentence so it does not use the gendered pronoun "he." Options might include:

  • "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor, whom I hope is friendly."
  • "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope the doctor is friendly."
  • "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope he or she is friendly."
  • "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope they are friendly." (This example of using the singular "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun is considered colloquial or wrong by some English speakers. "Doctor" is singular, and "they" is plural.)
  • or even neologisms (e.g., "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope e is friendly").

A business might advertise that it is looking for a new "chair" or "chairperson," rather than "chairman," which gender-neutral language advocates believe would imply that only a man would be acceptable for the position. Some advocates of gender-neutral language see it as unobjectionable to use gender-specific terms provided they are equally applied. For instance, one could refer to a male in such a position as a "chairman," provided that a female would be referred to by the supposedly equivalent term "chairwoman" (which itself contains the word "woman"). This practice is increasingly found objectionable due to the perceived irrelevancy of including gender/sex in any kind of title, position, or job. Therefore, some advocate that "chairperson" or "chair" are the only acceptable terms. (Traditionally the term "chairman" has explicitly included females, such a person being addressed as "Madam Chairman" rather than "Mr. Chairman." However, others argue if the word "chairman" were really gender-neutral, the female term "Madam" would not be necessary.)

[edit] History

The practice of assigning masculine gender to neutral terms is said to come from the fact that every language "reflects the prejudices of the society in which it evolved, and English evolved through most of its history in a male-centered, patriarchal society."[3]

Many of the masculine terms in Modern English come from words which were not gender-specific in Old English. For example, the word mann was originally gender-neutral (though grammatically masculine) and could be used to refer to any adult human. For gender-specific usage, wer was used to mean "man," and wíf to mean "woman." Since then, "man" has replaced wer as the primary word referring to male persons, while also preserving its original gender-neutral meaning (people), especially in compounds such as "mankind." On the other hand, the word "woman" (from wífman, grammatically feminine) replaced wíf as the word for female person. The word "human" is from Latin humanus, the adjectival form of homo "human being" (also grammatically masculine but epicene).

Professor C. Jacobson of the University of Pennsylvania states that the use of the word "man" as a truly generic word referring to all humans has been declining:

Man…has gradually narrowed in meaning to become a word that refers to adult male human beings. […] By the 18th century, the modern, narrow sense of man was firmly established as the predominant one. When Edmund Burke, writing of the French Revolution, used men in the old, inclusive way, he took pains to spell out his meaning: "Such a deplorable havoc is made in the minds of men (both sexes) in France…." Thomas Jefferson did not make the same distinction in declaring that "all men are created equal" and "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." In a time when women, having no vote, could neither give nor withhold consent, Jefferson had to be using the word men in its principal sense of "males," and it probably never occurred to him that anyone would think otherwise.[3]

During the 19th century, attempts to overlay Latin grammar rules onto English required the use of feminine endings in nouns ending with -or. This produced words like "doctress" and "professress" and even "lawyeress," all of which have fallen out of use; though "waitress," "stewardess," and "actress" persist.

Belief in social effects of language was largely a 20th century phenomenon in the English-speaking world, and has been linked to the development of the concept of politically correct language and the principle of linguistic relativity by Benjamin Whorf and others.

[edit] Motivations

The use of gender-neutral language is rapidly becoming compulsory in business and educational institutions. Its stated purpose is typically social or ethical, such as promoting diversity or opportunity. Concern about the use of what has come to be called sexist language is part of our increased awareness that the perceived meanings of some words have changed in response to the changing roles of men and women in our society.[4]

Gender-neutral language has gained support from major textbook publishers, and from professional and academic groups such as the American Psychological Association and the Associated Press. Newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal avoid such language. Many law journals, psychology journals, and literature journals do not print articles or papers that use gender-inclusive language.[3]

Recent employee policy manuals have begun to include strongly worded statements to require intentional avoidance of language that potentially could be considered discriminatory. The wording of this statement from a policy manual is typical: "All documents, publications or presentations developed by all constituencies…shall be written in gender neutral and/or gender inclusive language.[5] Employees are told that they need to be aware of their responsibilities to avoid discriminatory language, and that they are required to implement the enterprise's commitment to treat stakeholders equally and with courtesy. Institutional members are instructed, as a matter of corporate policy, to avoid using language that may even appear to be discriminatory, or that may gratuitously give offense in verbal or written communication. They also provide guidance about how to reflect the concept of valuing diversity in language usage.

[edit] Affirmative positions

Some advocates of gender-neutral language argue that traditional language fails to reflect the presence of women in society adequately. This is referred to as "symbolic annihilation." In general, they are concerned about a number of issues:

  • Use of exclusively gender-specific pronouns like "he" and "she." While English first person pronouns("I"/"we"), second person ("you"), and third person plural ("they") are gender-neutral,[6]
  • Use of "man" to refer to all people. (e.g., "mankind.")
  • Use of gender-specific job titles.
  • Use of "Miss" and "Mrs." (see "Ms.")
  • Non-parallel usage, such as "man and wife."
  • Stereotypical words such as "virile" and "ladylike."
  • Words with stereotypical derivations such as "hysterical."
  • That the word "woman" appears to include the word "man," as though "man" were the default or normal form.

Some reasons stated for these concerns are that gender-specific language:

  • It marginalizes women and creates the impression of and reflects a male-dominated society.
  • It makes women invisible in language, which, it is claimed, reflects their reality
  • It is demeaning, such as when the wording appears to treat women only as property of marriage or calling other 'things' owned or operated by men by female adjectives (e.g., that car: "she's" a beauty, the "mother"land, etc.)
  • It can perpetuate inaccurate and biased stereotypes about where men and women are supposed to be [e.g., chairman, statesman, congressman, physician vs. secretary, waitress, hostess]

Many people believe that the general use of the term "man" is offensive, or at least inaccurate. Phrases like "no man is an island" or "every man for himself" seem to exclude women. Although reading history as if every use of "man" or "he" was a deliberate insult to women is probably excessive, today's culture is said to call for alternatives.[7]

Gender neutral language has become both accepted and expected. As a result, gendered language sounds parochial and out-of-date. It also risks offending readers of both sexes. This is particularly true when the language is based on stereotypical assumptions about occupations, as when the language infers that all lawyers are men or that all teachers are women.[8]

Advocates point out that language is rich in alternatives that speakers and writers, sensitive to attitudes and beliefs of audiences, can use without impinging on the effectiveness of their communication. They are also able to be true to their notions of grammatical propriety. Further, proponents suggest that insensitive language usage may be an unintended form of discrimination based on a "lack of awareness" which they assert is not justifiable or acceptable.

A deeper variant of these arguments involves the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the suggestion that our language shapes our thought processes. Then to eliminate sexism, we would do well to eliminate allegedly "sexist" forms from our language. Some people dismiss the effectiveness of such a suggestion, viewing "non-sexist language" as irrelevant window-dressing which merely hides sexist attitudes rather than changing them. The converse hypothesis is that language is an expression of attitude. The implication is that one's language choices shows that person's attitudes.

Some advocates support the enforcement of rules and policies against gender-specific language by institutions including schools, governments and workplaces. Many editing houses, corporations, and government bodies have official policies in favor of in-house use of gender-neutral language. In some cases, laws exist regarding the use of gender-neutral language in certain situations, such as job advertisements. The majority of advocates for gender-neutral language generally prefer persuasion rather than enforcement. One method for such persuasion is creating guidelines that indicate how they believe language should be used, or providing an example through their own use of gender-neutral language.

[edit] Neutral positions

Many people have no recognition of any potential problem with gender-specific language. Thus, they have no opinion on gender-neutral language and make no special effort to avoid what advocates may describe as sexist language. However, many terms advocated or proposed by advocates of gender-neutral language, such as "firefighter" or "he or she," have entered the common lexicon and may be used by those who do not have any particular feeling about the subject.

[edit] Negative positions

The criticisms of promoting gender-neutral language extend from a nihilistic "It's much ado about nothing," and a sarcastic "It's political correctness gone mad,"[9] to an academic "It's unnecessarily ruining the English language."

Some regard gender-neutral language as revisionist, as excessively politically correct, as promoting poor or heavy writing, or simply a cosmetic change that does nothing to actually repel sexism. They may consciously refuse to use forms of speech advocated by promoters of gender-neutral language. Though the reasons vary, the passion can be felt in most of the criticisms:

  • Traditional use of the English language, and other Indo-European and Afro-Asiatic languages, including using male pronouns when referencing both males and females, is not sexist. They point out that the difference between, for example, "waiter" and "waitress," is purely for specificity, not quality differentiation, and the difference is not synonymous with judgment.
  • Men and women are different and speakers need not be afraid to admit that.[citation needed]
  • There is no reason to assume that the traditional linguistic gender hierarchies reflect a bias against women. The female grammatical gender is simply marked and it could actually reflect women being "more" valued than men.[10]
  • Rewriting text to eliminate gender-specific pronouns often results in an awkward and ugly writing style.
  • So long as the speaker does not intend a derogatory meaning, then there is no issue and the remnants of the past need not be changed.
  • Traditional use of gender in English does reflect sexism. However, a change in language should evolve organically from changing public attitudes towards gender issues, rather than be achieved either by enforcement or by persuasion.

[edit] Neologisms

Some terms, such as "firefighter" and singular "they", are sometimes criticized by opponents of gender neutral language-modification as neologisms. But supporters argue that such terms have a long history that predates the beginning of the women's liberation movement by centuries. At other times new terms have indeed been created, such as "womyn." The issue is sometimes confused by satirists who invent extreme examples of the supposed consequences of "non-sexist language."

Some critics accuse advocates of gender-neutral language-modification of "re-gendering" language, replacing masculine in some cases by feminine terms that are equally sexist. Other critics argue that some phrases used in non-sexist language violate the rules of proper grammar and style.

Some critics claim that phrases like "he or she" are not real English, for they only exist in print, not in speech. In print it is easy for an editor to employ rules of gender-neutral language, but speech is practically impossible to control. People simply do not use "he or she" in their everyday speech; instead they use "they" or "he." Only the most determined reformer would actually use "he or she" in a casual conversation, since it would sound stilted and affected to many people.

Many linguists see phrases such as "he or she" as a solution to a non-existent problem, arguing that many English speakers happily use the singular "they" without thinking. But many others still insist that it is a grammatical error. The feminist linguists argue that the case for the singular "they" is quite compelling based on the history of the English language. They argue that it has been in continuous use since the Middle Ages, and cite its use by some of the greatest English authors including Shakespeare and Chaucer. The editors of some style guides have been convinced by these arguments, and some guides have begun to accept the singular "they" as grammatically correct, while others continue to reject it.

Critics of the singular "they" argue that while it may sound acceptable in some contexts, in others it would clearly sound absurd.[citation needed] For example, "ABC Bakery invites you to taste their pastries" sounds acceptable in part because of the expectation that ABC Bakery is not a one-person shop. "Each candidate must submit their credentials" sounds acceptable because there are implicitly multiple candidates. In contrast, the above example "Tomorrow I will meet my new doctor; I hope they are friendly" sounds absurd because "my doctor" is necessarily an individual.

[edit] Guidelines

Many different authorities have presented guidelines on whether and how to use gender-neutral, or "non-sexist" language. Several are listed below:

Many, but by no means all, dictionaries, style books, and some authoritative guides now counsel the writer to follow gender-neutral guidelines. These guidelines, though accepted by many, often remain controversial. Conflict often arises between the desire of some to modify the English language to avoid what they perceive as sexism, and the desire of others to either continue writing and speaking in a way that feels natural and comfortable to them, and/or to maintain traditional standards of grammatical correctness.

Standards advocated by supporters of the gender-neutral modification in English have been applied differently and to differing degrees among English speakers worldwide. This has reflecting differences in cultures and language structure, for example American English in contrast to British English. They are also impacted upon, depending on whether a person uses English as their first language or as a second language, regional variants or whether their form of English is based on grammatical structures inherited from a no longer widely used other language (for example, Hiberno-English) or owes its linguistic structure to earlier Old English or Elizabethan English. In these cases, language structure from their native tongue or linguistic inheritance may enter into their terminology.

[edit] In other languages

This section may stray from the topic of the article into the topic of another article, Gender-neutrality in languages with grammatical gender.
Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page. (help)

English-speaking feminists are often proponents of what they consider to be non-sexist language, using "Ms." to refer to both married and unmarried women, or "he or she" (or other gender-neutral pronouns) in place of "he" where the gender is unknown.

Feminists are also often proponents of using gender-inclusive language, such as "humanity" instead of "mankind." Feminists in most cases advance their desired use of language either in the interest of equal and respectful treatment of women or in order to affect the tone of political discourse. These feminists argue that language directly affects perception of reality (compare Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis), and move to change language which may be viewed as imbued with sexism, for example the case in the English language in which the word for the general pronoun is "he" or "his" (The child should have his paper and pencils), which is the same as the masculine pronoun (The boy and his truck).

In languages that have masculine and feminine grammatical genders, however, few feel any need to construct what an English-speaker would consider a gender-neutral sentence. It is often impossible to do so. Accordingly, language modification advocates have focused on promoting language which represents both genders equally, rather than favoring masculine gender words, as is traditionally done. As such, "gender-inclusiveness" does not necessarily mean eliminating grammatical gender, but rather a use of language which they feel is balanced in its treatment of the two sexes. The general situation is similar to that of the English third person singular pronouns "he" and "she."

A different tendency can be seen in feminism-inspired changes to the French language. Grammatical gender is much more pervasive in French than in English, making it virtually impossible to create inclusive language. Instead, nouns that originally had only a masculine form have had feminine counterparts created for them. "Professeur" ("teacher"), once always masculine regardless of the teacher's sex, now has a parallel feminine form "Professeure." In cases where separate masculine and feminine forms have always existed, it was once standard practice for a group containing both men and women to be referred to using the masculine plural. Nowadays, forms such as "Tous les Canadiens et Canadiennes" ("all Canadians," or literally "all the male Canadians and female Canadians") are becoming more common. Such phrasing is common in Canada and in France, where President Jacques Chirac routinely uses "Françaises et Français" (French women and French men) in political speeches, but is practically unknown in other French-speaking countries. Moreover, it is possible only in short phrases, such as those cited: even the phrase "Tous les Canadiens et Canadiennes" quoted above would need to become "Tous les Canadiens et toutes les Canadiennes", to avoid altogether applying to female Canadians a grammatically masculine word.

An equivalent tendency in Germany, where male and female terms are both required in the plural, is to use the male term followed by the female plural ending.[citation needed] An example of this is, instead of the bulky phrase sehr geehrte Kollegen und Kolleginnen, meaning highly honoured male colleagues and female colleagues, one uses sehr geehrte Kolleginnen, which, though literally meaning "highly honoured female colleagues", expresses the plurality of both genders.[citation needed]

The current article discusses gender-inclusiveness based on English. For other languages, see Gender-neutrality in languages with grammatical gender and Gender-neutrality in languages without grammatical gender.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Chappell, Virginia. "Tips for Using Inclusive, Gender Neutral Language." Marquette University, 2007. http://www.marquette.edu/wac/neutral/NeutralInclusiveLanguage.shtml
  2. ^ "Guidelines on Gender-Neutral Language." United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 1999. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001149/114950mo.pdf. Accessed March 25, 2007.
  3. ^ a b c Some Notes on Gender-Neutral Language. http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cjacobso/gender.html
  4. ^ Redfern, Jenny R. "Gender Fair Language." The Writing Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/genderfair.html
  5. ^ "Gender Neutral Language." University of Saskatchewan Policies, 2001. http://www.usask.ca/policies/2_03.htm. Accessed March 25, 2007.
  6. ^ Cobbett, William. A Grammar of the English Language in a Series of Letters: Intended for the Use of Schools and of Young Persons in General, but Especially for the Use of Soldiers, Sailors, Apprentices, and Plough-Boys. London: Printed for the Author and sold by T. Dolby, 1819.
  7. ^ Jerz, Dennis G. Gender-neutral Language Seaton Hill University, http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/style/gender.html
  8. ^ Bales, Richard A., "Gender Neutral Language." Bench & Bar Kentucky, Vol. 66, No. 3, May 2002 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=910040
  9. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1988952.stm
  10. ^ Against the Theory of "Sexist Language," by Kelley L. Ross

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] Specific issues

[edit] Related articles

[edit] External links

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