1. By Dennish G. Jerz Presented by Adrienne Lundy

2.  Lots of language excludes women and can be considered sexist  Quick Fixes  Avoiding Stylistic Clunkers and Other Mistakes  Special Terms for Women  Gender Neutral vs. Non-sexist  Links on Gender-Neutral Language

3.  The phrase “a good policeman knows his duty” excludes women  Instead of saying “policeman” you can easily say “police officer”  Replacing “his” with “his or her” every time would be very tedious  A good solution would be to pluralize  So instead of saying “a good police officer knows his or her duty” say “a good police officer knows their duty”

4.  When you use gender neutral language you want make your message accessible to everyone so that no one feels excluded  Gender Specific: Dear Sir, salesman, gunman  Gender Neutral: To Whom it May Concern, salesperson, shooter  By using saleswoman or businesswoman you may subtly reinforce that it is unusual for women to have these professions

5.  Avoid easy edits that introduce stylistic clunkers such as “his/her” and “he/she” because this just gets awkward and repetitive

6.  Over-correction of Historical phrases  Ex. “Every man for himself”  Be careful when you alter quotes because you may just sound ignorant to someone who knows the historical context

7.  Over-correction of Official Titles  Ex. "Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System”  You can’t just go around and alter people’s official titles because you don’t like it; that would be inaccurate.  You can however, speak of them in general terms.

8.  Woman pilot, woman photographer  It is not common to say the “man pilot” or “man photographer”, which implies that pilots or photographers are usually male which makes these terms biased.  Use the terms pilot and photographer  If the gender is important, mention it in a different sentence or throw in a pronoun.  In most cases the name gives away the gender of the person.  Ex. “If Sally Jones is flying my plane, she's the pilot.”  Ex. "The winning photographer, Chris Jones, impressed the judges with her creativity.”  Saying the “lady pilot” or “female photographer” would attract to much attention the gender

9.  The article was titled “Gender Neutral Language” as opposed to “Gender-Fair Language” or “Non-sexist Language” because the author felt these were too emotionally loaded and implies that you are unfair or sexist unless you write in a certain way. (Which for some people is the point.)

10.  What are Editors For? What are Editors For?  Gender-Free Pronoun FAQ Gender-Free Pronoun FAQ

11.  Many terms are gender-specific and exclude women  It is very easy to alter your language to make it gender-neutral  Just be careful to avoid grammatical and stylistic errors  ANY QUESTIONS?