Economist Style Guide - Redress Information & Analysis

part 1: the essence of style
112
are exceptions), feminists have come to argue that language
should be gender-neutral.
This would be a forlorn undertaking in most tongues, and
even in English it presents diffi culties. It may be no tragedy
that policemen are now almost always police offi cers and
fi remen fi refi ghters, but to call chairmen chairs serves chiefl y to
remind everyone that the world of committees and those who
make it go round are largely devoid of humour. Avoid also
chairpersons (chairwoman is permissible), humankind and the
person in the street – ugly expressions all.
It is no more demeaning to women to use the words
actress, ballerina or seamstress than goddess, princess or queen.
(Similarly, you should feel as free to separate Siamese twins
or welsh on debts – at your own risk – as you would to go on
a Dutch treat, pass through french windows, or play Russian
roulette. Note, though, that you risk being dogged by catty
language police.)
If you believe it is “exclusionary” or insulting to women
to use he in a general sense, you can rephrase some sentences
in the plural. Thus Instruct the reader without lecturing him
may be put as Instruct readers without lecturing them. But some
sentences resist this treatment: Find a good teacher and take
his advice is not easily rendered gender-neutral. So do not
be ashamed of sometimes using man to include women, or
making he do for she.
And, so long as you are not insensitive in other ways, few
women will be offended if you restrain yourself from putting
or she after every he.
He or she which hath no stomach to this fi ght,
Let him or her depart; his or her passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his or her purse:
We would not die in that person’s company
That fears his or her fellowship to die with us.
In some contexts, though, she can be a substitute for he:
That ever was thrall, now is he free;
That ever was small, now great is she;
Now shall God deem both thee and me
Unto His bliss if we do well.
(15th-century carol)
Avoid, above all, the sort of scrambled syntax that people