What is sexist language?
Sexist language is language that excludes either men or women when discussing a topic that is applicable to both sexes. This includes using the word man to refer to humanity, and using titles like Congressman and fireman. Another common error that shows gender bias is assuming that the subject of all sentences is male. For instance, the statement “Each student chose his own topic for his term paper,” leads the reader to assume that all the students in the class were male, despite the probability that half of them were female. Underlying sexist language is gender bias, which can occur consciously or unconsciously. When unconscious, the gender bias in language can be considered to be the product of society: other people use sexist language, and repetition normalizes it until the speaker unconsciously produces his or her own sexist language where men are the norm and women the “other”.
