On February 24th we reported on a Purdue University online writing and grammar resource that tells students to avoid using words with ‘man’ in them because such terms are sexist. Well, someone didn’t like the Perdue Speech guide because they quietly changed it.
While the guide still suggests finding alternatives to these words, some substantial changes have been made … Instead of declaring that “writing in a non-sexist, non-biased way is both ethically sound and effective,” for instance, the guide now simply states that “writing without gender bias is sound and effective,” changing the section title to “gender-biased language” rather than “non-sexist language.
So Purdue managed to make”non-sexist” sound sexist. Nice work.
