An elementary teacher in Toronto got tired of seeing hands go up every time the children sang the line in Canada’s national anthem, “True patriot love in all thy sons command.” “When do we get to the part about the daughters?” the children inevitably asked. The children’s questions point to the ways in which gender-related words can subtly affect our thinking and behavior.

For instance, many young women at one time were discouraged from pursuing careers in medicine at least partially because speakers commonly referred to hypothetical doctors as he (and labeled any woman who worked as a doctor a woman doctor, as if to say, “She’s an exception; doctors are normally men”). Similarly, a label like male nurse may offend by reflecting stereotyped assumptions about proper roles for men. Equally problematic is the traditional use of man and mankind to refer to people of both sexes and the use of he, him, his, and himself to refer to people of unknown sex. Because such usage ignores half the human race, it hardly helps a writer build common ground.

Sexist language, those words and phrases that stereotype or ignore members of either sex or that unnecessarily call attention to gender, can usually be revised fairly easily. There are several alternatives to using masculine pronouns to refer to persons of unknown sex.

One option is to recast the sentence using plural forms.

Another option is to substitute he or she, him or her, and so on.

Yet another way to revise the sentence is to eliminate the pronouns.

You should also try to eliminate words that make assumptions about gender or emphasize it for no good reason.