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Gender-neutral language or gender-inclusive language is language that avoids reference towards a particular sex or gender. In English, this includes use of nouns that are not gender-specific to refer to roles or professions, [1] formation of phrases in a coequal manner, and discontinuing the collective use of male or female terms. [2]
Gender-neutral language is language that avoids assumptions about the social gender or biological sex of people referred to in speech or writing. In contrast to most other Indo-European languages, English does not retain grammatical gender and most of its nouns, adjectives and pronouns are therefore not gender-specific.
Non-neutral usage can sometimes be avoided by careful word choice; for example, by using people or humanity (instead of man), layperson (layman), police officer (policeman), business owners or professional (businessmen); in these cases, ensure that the basic meaning is preserved. Where the gender is known, gender-specific items are also ...
These sections offer a detailed history of specific words and phrases, and put them in gendered context. [7] The Handbook also contains a brief thesaurus of terms to use in place of terms that are not gender neutral. Examples include 'married woman' instead of 'matron' and 'person/individual' instead of 'man' when meant to mean "person." [8]
But in the context of emerging consciousness around pronoun language that is gender expansive and more inclusive, neopronouns can take the form of both invented and familiar words, like "meow" or ...
English does have some words that are associated with gender, but it does not have a true grammatical gender system. "English used to have grammatical gender. We started losing it as a language ...
And even with nouns referring to persons, one could not always determine gender by meaning or form: for example, with two words ending in -mæg, there was the female-specific neuter noun wynmæg, meaning "winsome maid" or attractive woman; as well as the gender-neutral noun meaning "paternal kindred" or member of father's side of the family ...
An argument made by cisgender women against using gender-neutral language to push for abortion rights is that the number of cisgender women seeking reproductive care vastly outweighs the number of ...