Gender-neutral language

Gender-neutral language, gender-inclusive language, or gender neutrality is linguistic prescriptivism that aims at minimizing assumptions regarding the gender of human referents. For example, this may include replacing words such as chairman and stewardess with terms such as chairperson and flight attendant.

The term should not be confused with that of genderless language, which refers to languages without grammatical gender.

The advocacy of gender-neutral language reflects at least two different agenda:

• One aims to clarify the inclusion of all sexes or genders (gender-inclusive language).
• The other proposes that gender, as a category, is rarely worth marking in language (gender-neutral language).

Clearly, removing gender marking in language altogether would automatically cover issues of inclusion.

Gender-neutral language is sometimes described as non-sexist language by advocates, and politically correct language by opponents.

Various forms of gender-neutral language became a common feature in written and spoken versions of many languages in the late twentieth century. Many feminists have argued that prior to this time, the practice of assigning masculine gender to generic antecedents was due to every language reflecting "the prejudices of the society in which it evolved, and English evolved through most of its history in a male-centered, patriarchal society."^[1]

Various languages employ different means to achieve gender neutrality, see the following articles for specific discussions:

• Gender neutrality in English
• Gender-neutrality in languages with grammatical gender
• Gender-neutrality in genderless languages

See also

• Epicenity
• Genderless language
• Gender-neutral pronoun
• Gender-specific pronoun
• Gender-specific job title
• Gender in Bible translation
• Generic antecedent
• Unisex name
• Gender role
• IGALA (International Gender and Language Group)
• Markedness

References