What is a gender-neutral language?
According to European Parliament 2018, gender-neutral language is a generic term covering the use of non-sexist language, inclusive language, or gender-fair language. Gender-neutral language creates an open-minded environment, promotes gender equality, and puts the focus on the individual rather than the gender. It also could minimize the possibility of gender prejudices, discrimination, and privilege.
How to be more gender-inclusive?
Here are several guidelines to keep in mind when you use language:
Use the singular pronoun “They/Their/Them”:
This is particularly useful and appropriate when the speaker or writer wants to avoid making assumptions about someone’s gender and preferred pronouns. In cases where a person does not identify as either male or female or whose gender is not relevant to the context, singular “they” is a fitting alternative.
Ex: Somebody left their phone in the office.
Please refer to Ariel as “them” because they are non-binary.
2. Beware of the honorifics:
A man, regardless of his marital status, only uses “Mr”. On the other hand, a woman’s honorific depends on whether she is married or not, “Miss” being single and “Mrs” being already married. As women’s emancipation grows, the marital status is gradually deemed irrelevant. Women's honorific “Ms”, irrespective of one’s relationship status, is taking over the other two. For those whose gender identity is non-binary, the gender-neutral honorific “Mx” (/mɪks/) is widely used.
Honorifics also indicate academic and professional titles. When one gender is referred to as their formal titles, first name, last name, or profession, the other must also be as such. Parallelism within forms of address is crucial to maintain respectfulness and all gender inclusion.
Ex: Mr. Holmes (formal title and last name for a man) and Claire (first name for a woman) are in the core team. (✘)
Mr. Holmes and Ms. Knight are in the core team. (title and last name for both) (✔)
3. Omit the generic use of “man”:
It turns out that the generic use of “man” is not so generic since the word excludes women and gender-nonconforming people. Its derivatives make an appearance in different discourse settings, occupation, and career is the most common ones. Below are some gender-neutral alternatives in replacement of the gendered nouns. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a compilation of words you might come across in daily communication.
Ex:
mankind -> humanity
businessman -> business person
chairman -> chair
fireman -> firefighter
policeman -> police officer
steward/stewardess -> flight attendant
man-made -> artificial, synthetic
4. Avoid gender bias, overgeneralization, and discrimination:
In gender-neutral language debates, the right word choice is paid attention to most of the time. However, the content of writing or speech can also carry sexist undertones. You don’t have to be a linguist or a sociologist to be able to acknowledge gender stereotypes. It is apparent that women’s appearance is discussed far more frequently and critically than their male counterparts. They are constantly reminded that their looks are the only thing that matters, valued even more than their character traits.
Likewise, men are going through the struggles of staying “manly”. Perish the thought a man is emotional because men are “strong” and they “do not cry”. They are publicly shamed when they display too much emotion, which is a women's thing. Society teaches them from a young age to turn sadness into anger instead, which is regarded as a “manly” expression. “Man up!”, “you run like a girl”, “a woman's place is in the kitchen” are some discriminatory examples.