Tuesday, October 7th

It was my turn to present. I chose gender bias at schools as way to introduce an inclusive language in our classrooms because this specific gender association much of the times may be unconscious.

“Gender bias is difficult to detect because it affects girls and boys in different ways. In school, it is the boys who may be expected to “act out” and rebel at school work, while the girls are expected to be docile, conforming and willing to work hard" (Sadker 1994)

Susan Hoy Crawford propose to introduce an inclusive vocabulary. Some specific changes that can be made in our English classroom can be replace by some words and job titles like:

mankind; humanity, humankind, human civilization.
man-made: synthetic, manufactured, artificial,imitation.

businessman: executive, wholesaler, business person.
cameraman: camera operator, technician
congressman: member of Congress, representative.
craftsman: carpenter, artisan, skilled craftworker
landlord: land owner, property manager.

Eventhough I got nervous at the beginning I consider that I made a good presentation. It may seem that this topic is not too relevant or current but the society we live in is highly characterizided by man dominance since job positions and payment, health fiance and recently homicides commited towards girlfrieds and wives are part of our society. A way to introduce a more equal community it can be by simply taking the lead in a non-biased language.