Gender-inclusive Language - How to avoid sexism

Hi there, my name is Emma, and today we are going to be talking about gender-inclusive

language or gender-sensitive language.

So before we begin, I just want to talk a little bit about language.

Language is always changing, and so what we used to say 50 years ago, 100 years ago, sometimes

we don't talk the same way as we did back then.

Now this is really true when we talk about women, or when we talk about professions that

used to be filled with men, but now because a lot of women work, they're also filled with

women.

And so because of these changes in society, changes in the status of women, now we are

using different ways, different grammar to talk about men and women.

So if you're a little confused, that's okay, because as we go through this lesson, it's

going to become very clear and easy to understand what I'm talking about.

So let's get started.

Let's look at a common example of what I mean by language that is not gender-inclusive.

So I have this sentence, "Man has always been driven by his desire for happiness."

Now in this case, I don't have "a man" or "the man."

There's no article before man, so we're talking about man in general, not a specific man.

Maybe about 50 years ago, 100 years ago, and even sometimes today, people, when they wanted

to talk about people in general, they would use the term "man."

And so this actually means people.

People have always been driven by their desire for happiness.

And so what we're trying to do in the English language is we're trying to change sentences

like these so they also include women.

So anytime in history books, in old English literature, in literature even from the 1950s

and '60s, anytime you see the word "man," it's usually referring to people if there's

no article before it.

And so again, this is a bit of a problem because we're not including women in this.

People are made up of both men and women, and in this sentence, we're only talking about

men.

So how do I fix a sentence like this to make it more inclusive of both men and women?

Well, like I said, "man" is actually a synonym of "people."

That looks like my marker has run out.

Much better.

"People."

So I can say "people" -- in this case, I'd have to change this to "have" -- "people have

always been driven by their desire for happiness."

So this is the first thing I want you to think.

Man can become people in gender-inclusive language.

Mankind is another thing we often talked about.

This means all the people of the world.

We now talk about it as humanity.

So think of some famous quotes, famous English quotes.

Maybe you know them, maybe you don't.

First of all, I'd like to talk about when, in 1960s, Neil Armstrong went to the moon,

and he made a very famous quote.

He said, "This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

Now if you took that sentence and you brought it into the 21st century, it would be changed.

He would have probably said something like, "This is one small step for a man, one giant

leap for humanity."

We've just talked about man, mankind, people, humanity, and again, this is language we'd

be using in the 1950s, maybe.

This is the language of the 21st century.

What I'd like to talk about next are certain jobs.

In the past, these jobs were mainly done by men, and as a result, most of them contained

the word "man."

But now we have a lot of women doing these same jobs, and so we want to include both

men and women when we talk about these jobs.

So what do they become?

Well, first of all, we have "chairman," which is a businessman of a sort.

What we do is we change the word "man" to "person."

This becomes inclusive of both men and women, so we have "chairperson" or "chairpeople."

"Policeman" has now become "police officer."

"Fireman" has become "firefighter."

"Mailman" has become either "letter carrier" or "mail carrier."

Both are fine.

And finally, "salesman" has become "salesperson."

Now this is not the whole list.

I'm sure you could find many different words in English where they have "man" at the end

of them.

So if you want to make this gender inclusive, just get rid of the "man," and oftentimes

just add in "person."

So gender inclusive language is not only about vocabulary.

We've looked at some vocabulary examples, like "policeman" becomes "police officer,"

"fireman" becomes "firefighter."

It's also about the grammar of the language, too.

So I have here four sentences -- well, five, but we'll get to this one a bit later -- about

a manager.

The first sentence -- and this is general.

We're not talking about a specific manager.

We're talking about managers in general.

In the past, I probably would have said, "A good manager knows his staff."

Keyword "his."

Because in the past, most managers were men.

But this is changing.

Now we also have female managers, too.

So in order to include them in our language, this one is not really used so frequently

anymore.

So one way people have gotten over this grammatically is they've added "his" or "her."

So they say, "Okay, well, a manager can be both a man or a woman, so why don't we just

use 'his' or 'her'?

A good manager knows his or her staff."

So grammatically, this is okay to do, but the problem is if you have a very long paragraph

where you use "his" or "her," "he" or "she" again and again and again, it makes the paragraph

a lot longer, and it's not so easy to read.

And so even though this is correct grammatically, there are better ways to deal with this type

of problem.

So this one, I would give it -- I would give this one, first of all, an angry face.

This one gets maybe okay.

So not angry.

We're not angry about this, but it's not ideal.

It's not perfect.

If we look at number three, "A good manager knows their staff."

So now we're not saying if it's a man or a woman, which is good, but the problem is this

breaks a gender -- not a gender rule -- this breaks a grammar rule.

We have a singular subject, "a good manager," so this is similar to "he."

It does not agree with "their."

This is for plural.

This is for "they."

We use "they," "their," "he," "his," "she," "her," so this causes a grammar problem.

So a lot of native speakers actually use this one.

They use it informally when they talk to friends, when they talk to family.

You hear this on TV all the time.

A lot of people like to say "their" instead of "his" or "her," and it's fine to use.

You can use it, but don't use it when you're writing an essay.

Don't use it in business.

It's informal.

So this one, it's not the best one to use, but it's an okay phase.

Now we get to the best one.

The best thing to do if you come across this problem is pluralize it.

So then you can use "their" and subject, verb -- sorry, there's an agreement now.

So we have good managers know their staff.

This is the best thing to do.

If you can, anytime you come across this problem, make your subject plural and use "their."

So now let's look at -- so let me give this one a big smiley face.

This is the best thing you can do.

So let's do a practice one using this.

So for number five, a nurse should be nice to her patients.

Now when we think of nurses, when we think of teachers, when we think of certain professions,

sometimes we think women do these professions, but it's not true.

I know many male teachers, and I know many male nurses as well.

And so in this case, it's actually being -- it's not gender inclusive for men who do these

professions.

So we have the same problem as we did here.

So be aware of your own bias.

Do I think that there are certain professions where it's all women?

Be careful with those cases specifically, because maybe you're more likely to use language

that's not gender inclusive.

So a nurse should be nice to her patients.

How can we change this?

Get rid of "a" -- capitalize it -- to "nurse."

Add an "s" to make it plural.

Nurses should be nice to -- change this to "their."

Nurses should be nice to their patients.

So there you have it.

So again, we've talked about vocabulary.

We've talked about using "man" versus "people."

And finally, we've talked about grammar and how to make your grammar more gender inclusive.

So to practice this more, I invite you to come check out our site at www.engvid.com.

We have a quiz there that you can practice these types of sentence structures on.

So until next time, take care.

>> They will continue the voyages we have begun and journey to all the undiscovered

countries boldly going where no man, where no one, has gone before.