This booklet was developed in response to a UNESCO resolution calling for the avoidance of gender-specific language. The booklet is intended to help authors and editors avoid writing in a manner that reinforces questionable attitudes and assumptions about people and sex roles. The bilingual booklet discusses problems of ambiguity (cases where it…

Explored whether alternating between the pronouns "he" and "she" in a text would help avoid sexist language. College students read two versions of an essay, one which alternated between he and she and one which exclusively used paired "he or she" pronouns. Readers perceived the alternating version to be biased in…

Examined effects of counselor use of exclusive versus inclusive language (using generic pronouns to describe both genders) on evaluations of the counselor. Results with 88 female and 44 male college students indicated that language style affected evaluations, with participants rating counselors using exclusive language as more sexist. (SLD)

Describes the development and validation of the Inventory of Attitudes Toward Sexist/Nonsexist Language (IASNL), which was based on a conceptual framework related to beliefs about language, recognition of sexist language, and willingness to use inclusive language. Results from four studies indicated that the IASNL was valid and reliable. Two short…

Language can both reflect and shape the way people are treated in today's society. It can be used to open doors when it is gender inclusive, or to create barriers when it is not. The goal of this booklet is to encourage gender-inclusive language. Bias-free language is effective language. A number of studies demonstrate that an audience is more…

Describes a series of encounters resulting from a World Wide Web hypertext project created in a graduate course on electronic culture. Discusses implications of the "male gaze" in the milieu of the Web. Concludes that ending cybersexism entails structural and psychological changes. Intersperses personal reflections and e-mail posts from men with a…

Utilizes a sample of 225 first graders and 246 seventh graders to examine the imagery developed in response to neutral words. Finds that the children developed sex-specific masculine imagery in response to neutral messages, with boys doing so more frequently than girls, but the seventh graders used more inclusive imagery than the first graders.…

Proposals for changing sexist language, while having an increasing impact on patterns of language usage in America, have also continuously been argued against in the media and in academia during the 1970's. The proposals for eliminatinq the usage of masculine terms as "generics" have received the most criticism. In this paper, the various…

The first section of this paper focuses on misunderstandings surrounding two of the proposals for changing sexist aspects of the English language, namely, avoiding the use of masculine pronouns (he, his, him, himself) with alleged sex-indefinite reference, and replacing the word and morpheme "man" with "person" in sex-indefinite usage. Several…

Improving communication among and between men and women is an important part of leadership which entails understanding cultural stereotypes related to masculinity and femininity and understanding that all individuals possess a combination of masculine and feminine traits. Leaders should strive to create a new culture where feminine values are…

Drawing on recent research on sexism in English and the ways in which social forces affect language structure, this paper shows how prescriptive statements about English have been incorporated into linguistic grammars as descriptions of language. It is claimed that Chomsky's "universal grammar" is masculinist and that it is contradicted…

A study examined the frequency with which males and females are represented in picture books available in preschool classrooms. Three areas were examined: pronoun usage and gender of characters; the frequency of gender-neutral pronouns and characters; and written text compared to teachers' wording when reading aloud. The study involved 11 head and…

This book, written in a narrative style that combines autobiography, case studies, and fiction, presents a picture of academic life as experienced by gay men and lesbian women. The way in which research has defined gay identity is the way lesbian and gay people are identified in the daily life of the university, and it looks to the university…

This paper examines the proposition that languages may differ in their potential for non-sexist usage, and that the structure of a language, in particular the gender system, affects the nature of the linguistic response to changing social attitudes regarding sex roles. A brief historical survey of gender and sex-marking is followed by a review of…