90 Chapter 5

Adult education courses taken by males and females (with percentages)

Reasons and objectives for taking adult education courses (with percentages

Women form more than 9 percent in the U.S. engineering workforce. Still, engineering is a

Male-dominated profession. Even so, many customs and habits that once seemed OK in all-male workspace, now are no longer viewed that way. Among these, the use of sexist language, either intentionally or unintentionally, is a growing source of anger in the office.

One of the issues is the general use of the masculine gender to denote both male and female subjects. In many Indo-European languages, gender marks words as masculine, feminine or neuter.

This is not always accurate, however. Perhaps the most ridiculous example is the German word for girl, «das Mаdchen», which is neuter. But the English language does not utilize gender. Instead,

sexism — the belief that one sex is not as good, clever, etc. as the other, esp. when this results in unfair treatment of women by men

anger — strong feeling of displeasure укр.——гнів

to denote — to be a name of; mean.

укр. позначати, виражати.

ridiculous — silly or unreasonable

укр. нісенітний, безглуздий

to utilize — to use, to make use of (to employ)

укр. використовувати

consensus — a general agreement, the opinion of most of the people in a group укр. згода, одностайність

the sex of a person is designated by using the appropriate pronoun or possessive adjective. Traditionally, «he» has been used to denote a sexless person, making it a neuter pronoun. A growing consensus, though, no longer accepts this view, so that the way people communicate is changing. In «The Elements of Nonsexist Usage» (1990), Val Dumond writes that pronouns present one of the greatest challenges for avoiding sexism in language. As a first choice, Dumond suggests omitting the pronoun whenever possible. A sentence such as «An engineer should never trust his computer» can be rewritten as «An engineer should never trust a computer». Alternatively, the plural form may be employed, generating in this case «Engineers should never trust a computer».

Even in traditional correspondence the use of «Dear Sir(s)» as a universal form of address to an organization, or to an individual when (his? her? their?) sex is not known has come under fire. Some suggest that the salutatory «Dear» has itself become an archaism, and should be dropped. Letters to organizations, which are usually formal could use a «To:» line with the name of organization or department, such as «Customer Service Manager».

to omit — to leave out (by mistake or purpose)

укр. пропускати

to trust — to believe in the honesty and worth

of (someone/something), to have confidence in

укр. довіряти

formal — based on or done according to correct

or accepted rules, e.g. social behavior or official

business. Also: official

укр. офційний, формальний

The most useful rules are to avoid the generic use of man to refer to both men and women, and not to imply gender when it is unnecessary to do so. Make your language inclusive, always give equal treatment to both men and women. If the sex of the subject is not relevant to the matter, it should be omitted.

For dealing with titles and job descriptions, a non-gender-specific form of the word can usually be found. Luckily, the most common terms, such as «scientist», «engineer», or «technician» are already grammatically neuter.