Jerz > Writing > Grammar and Syntax >
A phrase like “a good policeman knows his duty” unnecessarily excludes women. While it might be excessive to read history as if every general use of “man” is overtly sexist, today’s culture calls for alternatives.
Using “police officer” instead of “policeman” is easy, but replacing every “his” with “his or her” will sound tedious in a longer document.
| Gender-specific | Gender-neutral | Comment |
| Dear Sir, | Dear [Specific Name or Title] | Okay, so “Dear Sir or Madam” avoids the problem of exclusivity, but it’s stuffy and awkward. If an internet search doesn’t turn up the person’s actual name, try “Dear Admissions Committee,” or just “Admissions Committee Members”. |
| policeman | police officer | The same goes for salesman, businessman, etc. Note that in some contexts, calling Sally Jones “a successful businesswoman” or referring to “Congresswoman Mary Smith” is perfectly acceptable. Still, such terms may subtly reinforce the idea that it is unusual for a woman to have that job. |
| gunman | shooter | The term loses a bit of specificity when “gun” is removed, and in fact journalists do regularly use “gunman” — presumably after a legal official has identified a suspect as male. When the gender of the person with the gun is unknown, writing a story about a “shooter” is better than referring to “the gunman or gunwoman” over and over. |
“Every man for himself.”
I can imagine using this image deliberately, because I wished to evoke an image from a bygone era (abandoning ship, giving up the battle). To change the phrase, then, would divorce it from its historical context. To many, of course, that’s precisely the point of advocating gender-neutral language; if we change the way we speak, we will change the way we think, so that we don’t perpetuate the imbalanced cultural view that shaped our language. Still…
| Every man or woman for himself or herself | |
| Every man/woman for him/her self | |
| The above examples are quick fixes that avoid sexist language, but the result is stylistically awkward. | |
| Everyone for him- or herself. | |
| Correct, but still a bit awkward, though. | |
| Everyone for yourselves. | |
| If you really needed to shout this while on board a sinking ship, the people around you would probably forgive the slight awkwardness. | |
The best solution is probably to avoid the cliché altogether.
“No man is an island.”
| Nobody is an island. | |
| None of us are islands. | |
| Both of the revisions above are efficient ways of removing the gender-specific language, but the original is actually a quotation from Meditation XVII by John Donne. If you rewrite Donne’s observation, you may end up sounding ignorant and silly to a person who knows the source of the quote. (If you simply avoid clichés, you won’t have to deal with this issue.) | |
| No man is an island, but with his great girth stretched out on his inflatable raft, Bill sure looked like one. | |
| When used carefully, this phrase might still have value. In the above sequence, the quote applies only to Bill. | |
“Stanley Fischer, Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System”
| Stanley Fischer, Vice Chairperson of the Board of Governors… | |
| Stanley Fischer, Vice Chair of the Board of Governors… | |
| The word “Chairman” is part of Mr. Fischer’s title. You can’t go around changing other people’s official titles just because you don’t like the phrasing — it would be inaccurate to call Fischer “Vice Chairperson of the Board”. You are, of course, free to refer to Fisher according to his official title (“Mr. Vice Chairman”) but refer in general terms to “being the vice chair.” | |
| Stanley Fischer, who serves as vice chair, … | |
| Janet L. Yellen, Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. | |
| On the organization’s official website, Fischer is listed as “Vice Chairman” but his boss, Janet L. Yellen, is listed as “Chair.” I might prefer the parallel nature of “chairman/chairwoman” or the simplicity of “chair,” but my wishes don’t determine what other people’s job titles are. | |
3) Grammatical Whimsy
The following experimental and activist techniques remain too awkward for general use, though I do find it fascinating when one of these terms takes root.
| Womyn (alternative spelling avoids using “man”) | |
| I think s/he is standing outside of his/her house. | |
| A writer should sharpen her pencils daily. A reader should keep his eyes open. | |
| Whenever I encounter these forms, I keep imagining all the more elegant, less obnoxious alternatives, but I also enjoy the creativity. (In recent years, I have noticed this tendency being mocked by people who use “s/h/it” instead of “she/he/it”.) Is all this politically correct nonsense, or a usefully creative response to a social problem? The answer you get depends on whom you ask. More widely accepted strategies for avoiding sexist language include pluralizing (“Writers should sharpen their pencils”) or alternating the gender of the people in your examples. | |
“…to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
Though the 1960s Star Trek TV show was famously progressive for putting a black female officer on the bridge, its opening narration used the word “man” to mean “a person.” How can we improve this?
| …to boldly go where no man or woman has gone before. | |
| …to boldly go where no one has gone before. | |
The above revision (from the 1980s series, Star Trek: The Next Generation) solves the gender problem, but introduces a new wrinkle — one that really only matters in the specialized world of science fiction, but which makes an interesting case study.
| |
| ..to boldly go where no humanoid, android, robot, intelligent gaseous cloud being, non-corporeal energy entity, holographic projection, or psychokinetic thought-pattern reflection has gone before. | |
| Okay, that solves the technical problem, but it would hardly be a stirring monologue. | |
| ..to boldly go where we have never gone before. | |
| Nobody from Star Trek ever asked me but, I’d prefer this version, which aims to retain the epic, stately language of the original, it’s more personal than “no one,” and it avoids terms that might exclude the non-human crew members. (Here’s hoping some future iteration of Star Trek will use this version.) | |
| stewardess (dated); waitress (iffy); actress (still current) | |
| New professions are not creating feminine forms; there are no “reportresses” or “computer programresses,” but the terms for older professional categories are still in flux. The term “stewardess” is out of date; a female server who is waiting on you probably won’t correct you if you call her “waitress,” and the term “actress” is still current (although MTV’s award of “Best Actor” to Emma Watson in 2017 is an innovation that may catch on). | |
| woman pilot, woman photographer | |
| Because it is not common to refer to a “man pilot” or “man photographer,” these terms imply that a pilot or photographer is usually male. Even if that were statistically the case, this usage is biased. | |
| female pilot, lady photographer | |
| The clinical tone of “female” would probably be acceptable in a scientific study. The word “lady” carries an elitist tone, which would not be appropriate if you were simply talking about a photographer who happens to be a woman. Further, the term “lady photographer” might also refer to a person who photographs ladies. | |
| women pilots, women photographers | |
| A related problem is the formation of plurals of the “woman [noun]” variety, which are commonly given as “women [noun]s”. For example, we often read of “women doctors” or “women athletes.” The English language simply does not form plurals this way. One girl genius. Two girl geniuses. One woman pilot. Two woman pilots. | |
| pilot, photographer | |
| If the person’s gender is important to the point you are making, go ahead and mention it in a different sentence. If Sally Jones is flying my plane, she’s the pilot Sally Jones. Calling her the woman pilot Sally Jones, or the lady pilot Sally Jones, or the female pilot Sally Jones calls a lot of attention to her gender. I can tell by the name that she’s female.If you are writing about someone with name your aren’t sure your reader will be able to place as male or female, just throw in a pronoun: “Sitting in the pilot’s seat, Afaf Hadad adjusted her headset.” “The winning photographer, Chris Jones, impressed the judges with her creativity.” | |
Many English speakers feel that we need new ways to handle the thorny issue of gender. Our culture has changed faster than our language.
No matter what I say, people will still go on talking about “women lawyers” and “women supreme court justices.” And while I may wince a little — deep inside — when I hear someone say “Whoever it was left their car running,” A far more important, more lasting point is that when push comes to shove, grammar changes to meet the needs of its users.
Perhaps the current fuss over gender in language has something to do with the fact that English has been without the concept of grammatical gender for centuries now, so we think of gender personally, not grammatically. In Latin, the word for manliness was feminine in gender; in German, the word Mann means “a person, or a human male,” but man [lowercase] means “one” or “you.”
I am very careful to avoid sexist errors on the one hand, and grammar errors (like those mentioned above) on the other. Still, writing this web page actually forced me to become a bit more of a traditionalist, since I noticed how easy it is to avoid sexist mistakes without introducing grammatical or stylistic ones.
I chose “Gender-neutral Language” as the title for this web page. Another option was “Non-gender-specific Language“, which I rejected as being too long (one often sees it written “Non-gender Specific Language”, but all three words form a single, hyphenated term modifying the word “language”).
I could have titled my site “Gender-fair Language” or “Non-sexist Language,” terms used on some of the web pages I listed above, but I felt those were emotionally loaded titles, since the implication is that you are unfair or sexist unless you write in a certain way. Of course, to many people, that’s precisely the point!
Is it the job of the writing teacher (or grammar handbook author) to effect social change by advocating a certain way of writing? Can language ever actually be apolitical?
In 1972… some three hundred college students were asked to select from magazines and newspapers a variety of pictures that would appropriately illustrate the different chapters of a sociology textbook being prepared for publication. Half the students were assigned chapter headings like “Social Man”, “Industrial Man”, and “Political Man”. The other half was given different but corresponding headings like “Society”, “Industrial Life”, and “Political Behavior”. Analysis of the pictures selected revealed that in the minds of students of both sexes use of the word man evoked, to a statistically significant degree, images of males only — filtering out recognition of women’s participation in these major areas of life — whereas the corresponding headings without man evoked images of both males and females…. The authors concluded, “This is rather convincing evidence that when you use the word man generically, people do tend to think male, and tend not to think female.” Words and Women, Casey Miller and Kate Swift, pp. 23-34.
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The only problem with neutral words is that, as a creative writer, they are boring. Aviatrix is exciting, pilot boring. Waitress is a more fun word then server. It looks better on the page. Can’t we have more exciting neutral terms?
My problem is with things like neutral dressing which usually means pants and tee shirt, which is essentially male dress, leaving females who like to wear dresses or women who wear skirts for religious reasons out in the cold. Why is the male word or manner of doing things the default? It is like women do not matter or using a female term is degrading. It is like saying if you embrace your womanhood, you are degrading yourself. Actor is ok, actress...girl word...icky?
I know this is a bit different from asking advice on how being gender-neutral in publications re: humans, but I get irritated when the gender of animals is always assumed to be male when unknown. When talking about doing the same thing for humans I can recognize how it harms women bc of feeling excluded (especially bc I am one lol). How does being sexist when talking about animals hinder equality? When reading about hypothetical animals I don’t put myself in the shoes of the animal. Know what I mean?
Cats always seemed to be addressed as “she” as far as my experience goes. Just an odd traditional view...women are more like cats and men dogs...ugh...no matter what sex the animals actually are.
Human still features the word “man”. I sometimes think words like actor corrupt feminism because when I see the word actor, I always think male. I though words like actress make language easier.
Regardless of philosophical views, I will give due respect for the fact that you place importance on proper grammar; thus, we can agree to disagree and say you're doing your job well by advocating the use of proper grammar. So, just to say, the above post I made, by which I still stand, meant no disrespect to you; furthermore, I give respect for the fact that you were willing to respond to my post in an adult and intellectual manner, in doing so I can see you have a respect for free speech and an individual's right to personal opinions.
I hope you read this in good health and prosperity ~John
You do understand that the terms for male and female were set up dynamically, correct? It was set up in such a way that the terms are already inclusive: man: a male human: wo(man): a fe(male) human; thus, you cannot really call policeman a gender-exclusive term. It’d be a different story if the term were policeboy, in that girl would not be included; however, the terms for adult humans is set up to include both genders.
To be honest, i think the whole gender-inclusion is getting a bit out of control, it grates itself against everyone as a cry for attention. I know what your arguments are going to be:
“Well… It only says ‘man’ in policeman, that doesn’t include women..” Seriously, stop and reread the first paragraph, we are all men, wo(men) are men too, the addition of “wo” is there to indicate that men and women are the same, in that we share a species; however, we are different enough to warrant a slightly different title.
I want you to look t the following, and look at it in a serious manner, I want you to think about it as though I’m seriously making an argument for this:
What’s next? Is it sexist to say per(son)? Why does it have to be a son, why isn’t there a perdaughter? Why does it have to be a manhole, and it can’t be a personhole… Because that’s sexist because it has son, so what should it be? Are we going to call that thing in front of your house a postal box? Is that bill you got, is it’s a piece of postal? What about that email you sent your boss? Is that an e-letter?
It’s one thing to be accepting of people, but seriously, between gender identity and gender inclusivity… It’s getting out of hand.
Moral of the story, you are included in any term containing man as a (wo)man. Frankly, i don’t care if you disagree with me; however, i would love a rationale to defend why the fact hat your title contains man isn’t including a woman.
Thank you, John, for sharing your thoughts. A living language changes to suit the needs of its users, and a complex language suits a culture that comprises diverse viewpoints.
Anyone who knows that the “man-” in “manufacture” comes from the Latin word “manus” (meaning hand) won’t mistake it for a sexist term. But I’d hate for one of my students who correctly uses the word “manned” in a resume to lose a job offer because some HR manager misinterprets it as sexist. It’s the same principle that I’d invoke when warning anyone against ever using the adverb “niggardly” (which has nothing at all to do with race, but could still cause real social tension).
In other contexts, linguistic wordplay can be delightful. I Ioved it when the young girl in Spy Kids says, “Oh, shit...ake mushrooms.” I laughed when my own kids used that wordplay around the house, but warned them that adults who didn't appreciate the humor might justifiably be offended by it.
As I say in one part of this handout, it’s extreme to interpret every historical use of the general “man” as a deliberate choice to exclude women, but I advise my students to be mindful of the power of words. The best-informed, most empathetic language experts I know are more interested in watching and learning from the evolution of language than they are in enforcing universal rules of correctness.
In my opinion it is more important to be inclusive than to use correct grammar. The plurality/singularity issue in they/them pronouns is a little annoying, but language evolves over time, and so maybe someday they/them will be recognized as both singular and plural.
Additionally, keep in mind that when using "he or she" you are still not including everyone, since some people do not conform to the binary gender restrictions.
Being grammatically is much more important. If you were an intelligent human, you would find a way to be accurate and inclusive. Only an important lazy mind would sacrifice intelligent speech to make sure not to hurt feelings.
It’s really not that hard to do both:
I want to make sure no one gets their feelings hurt.
The only reason a person would write it that way is to go out of the way to show inclusivity and sensitivity, a cry for attention. Why couldn’t you just say:
I want to make sure i don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.
Another example would be something i just said:
The only reason a person would write it that way is to go out of the way to show inclusivity and sensitivity.
Most people would just write:
The only reason a person would write it that way is to go out of their way to show they are sensitive.
Let’s be real, there are two reasons people use improper pronouns: they’re either too ignorant of the language they speak (see how that works? I didn’t indicate a gender-based pronoun, but i still met the pronoun-antecedent agreement because the antecedent was in the plural), or to go out of their way to show they’re being sensitive. The latter is rather pathetic, such proclivities are l, quite frankly, just sad.
Should we change the word for sun because it sounds like son?
Should we change the word for person because it contains the word son?
Should we change the term for email because it contains the word mail? Are you going to protest Google for sexism for Gmail?
Should we stop saying that women menstruate because it contains the word men?
Should we change the word for manner because it contains the word man?
Should we change the word for humanitarianism because it has man?
Should we change the word for performance because it is “for man”?
Should we change the word for manufacture because it has man in it?
Would you like me to continue? I have a rather large vocabulary and can think of countless words containing man or male, should we change every single word containing either; moreover, should we just start making new words for human beings?
I’m sorry, but it’s a joke to think that a person cannot find a way to be inclusive and proper and, frankly, if you can’t, perhaps you should just give up.
What about 'Everyone for themselves'. I like 'they' and 'them' when the gender is unknown.
It is certainly an option. I'd say it's better than the gender-exclusive alternatives, though it still has the singular-plural mismatch.
This is mostly TOTAL transgender hogwash of liberal lefties gender insanity. Get it straight Man is Man and Woman is Woman. Standard English was never a problem for anybody until all of a sudden people have become brainwashed over the subject of gender identity!
Some innovations bother me, too. For instance, I cringe when I hear young people use "based off of" as a synonym for "based on."
Depending on the context, usually "he/she" strikes me as awkward, and "womyn" strikes me as satirical; however, when I see a present-day writer use "man" to mean "person," that strikes me as exclusionary.
If you disagree with my advice on certain points, I'd welcome a discussion; however, applying labels (hogwash, insanity, brainwashed) tends to shut down rather than encourage the exchange of ideas.
As I wrote towards the end of this handout, "Is it the job of the writing teacher (or grammar handbook author) to effect social change by advocating a certain way of writing? Can language ever actually be apolitical?"
A blogger I follow (and love) continues to call the company leaders the "Beards". I think this excludes women, but I wonder if there is a term that doesn't necessarily change his meaning or wit but is also inclusive? Even the "Suits" would be better, but doesn't quite have the same meaning. Also, he is British, so maybe there is something there that I am missing.
Weird. I thought Beards were women gay guys used to disguise their homosexuality by pretending to date them.
The link to the study doesn't work (Miller et al. 1980). Where can we find this article?
I did some digging and have updated the broken link.
Nice topic. I especially love how this topic has been discussed for many years, but today I see "his/her" and I know we're not thinking clearly yet. Well done!
**Everyone for themselves.
Yourselves is so painfully awkward there in my opinion. Sorry about that, it was hurting me.
On a side note, fellow has a male meaning in my mind. My two cents.