sexist language

sexist language

Roughly since the 1970s, certain established uses of language have come to be regarded as discriminatory against women, either because they are based on male terminology or because women appear to be given a status that is linguistically and socially subsidiary. Specific aspects of this will be found at the entries for -ess, gender-neutrality, -man, Ms, -person. Since the 1980s, many official style guides (including Judith Butcher's Copy-editing, third edition, Cambridge, 1992) have included advice on how to avoid sexist language. In 1989 the General Synod of the Church of England debated a report on the need to introduce non-sexist language into the liturgy, and in the same year a revised version of the Bible substituted one for man in such contexts as Happy is the man who does not take the wicked for his guide. It is in the realm of idiom that male-biased language will most likely persist, since it is difficult to reconstruct without awkwardness or affectation such compound words and phrases as manpower, maiden voyage, every man for himself, and the man on the Clapham omnibus.