A group has listed terms that should be avoided in everyday speech because they are either “sexist, exclude women, or demeaning, most often to women and girls.”
These “problematic” terms are featured in a book written by IPS Asia Pacific, led by regional director Johanna Son.
Titled IPS Gender and Development Glossary 3rd Edition, the book was originally meant for writers and journalists.
“Words are guideposts to mindsets, stereotypes and assumptions and those are the things gender-sensitive news language seeks to reshape and help undo. Rethinking language, as the glossary urges, is not about tinkering with words for its own sake,” Son wrote.
She continued, “In many ways, reporting sensitively and effectively from a gender perspective also means telling stories that touch on gender – without even using the word gender.”
IPS Asia Pacific noted that people usually assume that generic terms are “masculine first before they are feminine, or that the feminine comes from the masculine.”
“More often than not…the masculine in language, whether in word or grammatical form, is assumed to be the norm, while the feminine is ignored or barely noticed. This reflects a distorted world view in which women function as the second sex and language simply holds a mirror up to nature,” the group said, quoting book author Dennis Baron of Gender and Grammar.
For these terms that are either male-centric or gender-blind, IPS Asia Pacific provided alternatives, which are words that are either “sex-specific or gender neutral.”
Below are some of the words that the group thinks should be used to properly address women (and men), as well as those that must be avoided.
INSTEAD OF THIS >>> USE THIS
Airline steward/ess – Flight sttendant
Bag lady – Homeless woman
Barmaid – Drinks server
Chambermaid – Hotel worker
Cleaning woman – Cleaners
Gay female – Gay woman/Lesbian
Gentlemen’s Agreement – Unwritten Agreement
Hooker – Prostitute
Housewife – Homemaker
Maiden Name – Birth name
Mail Man – Mail Carrier
Man made – Handmade
Motherhood – Parenthood
Unmarried mother/father – Single mother/father
Whore – Prostitute
With reports from abs-cbnNEWS.com
