(thing) by Rancid_Pickle Tue Dec 19 2000 at 17:35:46
From The Everyday Writer:

  1. Have you used man or men or words containing them to refer to people who may be female?

    Examples:

    • Change Chairman to Chair or Chairperson.

    • Change Fireman to Firefighter.

    • Change Mailman to Mail Carrier.

    • Change Man or Mankind to Humans, People, Humanity, The Human Race, etc.

  2. Try not to use a gender in your writeups unless it is necessary. Don't say someone is a Male Nurse unless you always go around saying Female Nurse. Don't say Female Geek either, because Computer Geek covers both genders.

  3. Don't use occupational stereotypes. Don't refer to engineers or system admins as "he" or secretaries as "she".

  4. Don't patronize either sex. Avoid phrases like "the little woman" or "her old man".

  5. Try not to overuse he, she, him, and her, as it gets annoying to the reader. Match the pronoun to the audience. Since there are many women who frequent Everything2, don't shut them out by constantly assuming they're a male.

    Nifty nodeshell, tim three

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