Pedagogica: Tips for the Gender-Sensitive Speaker

Non-sexist literary standards for newspapers and magazines have been set by stylists and have significantly improved the printed word for over years now. Many of these guidelines serve us well when we are standing in front of an audience as speakers or trainers, especially when our presentation is somewhat formal. Here are some tips which professional speakers have found useful:

1)   "Ladies & Gentlemen" is a time-honored ritual to which some few object. However, to address an all-female audience simply as "Ladies" would in all but the most conservative circumstances be unacceptable. Another approach that might be more comfortable is, "Good morning, everyone."

2)   Jokes and humor require the greatest discretion. Because they to often rely on old stereotypes for creating rapport with the audience. The trick is to get us to laugh at ourselves for having these stereotypes and avoid our laughing at each other's expense. It is sad to see so many excellent speakers spoil an otherwise great presentation with an offhand remark about their wives' shopping habits or their husbands' football addiction.

3)   Citing and quoting. Use the same format for speaking about women and men. For example, if Mr. John Jones and Dr. Lucy Larson are to be quoted in your talk, don't say, "As Mr. Jones pointed out..," and later follow up with, "As Lucy Larson also demonstrated ..." "Mr. Jones and Dr. Larson" is appropriate, and so are "Lucy and John" and "Lucy Larson and John Jones."

4)   Compliments and acknowledgements. Traditionally women are complimented for "looks" and men for "deeds" by male speakers. Rarely do we hear a woman speaker do this. Even more rarely do we hear men complimented on their appearance. Most speakers would well to keep their thanks and acknowledgements focused on what people have done or achieved, unless the topic the talk itself is personal appearance couture.

5)   Man-talk and Woman-talk. There are words that tend to be used primarily by men or by women. Their use is rarely problem unless we overdo it to the point excluding or boring part of the audience. A steady dose of "he-man" sports and military slang can be a bit much for even a male group with "absolutely gorgeous" patience, and speakers who use too many flowery and effusive adjectives won't "get to first base" with the most feminine of female audiences.

6) Problematic pronouns. No one wants to say "he or she" or "him and her" every time there is need for a generic singular pronoun, though it seems less cumbersome when speaking than when writing. If one does not have to make many such references, it is tolerable, e.g.,  "Every doctor I know complains about the cost of the malpractice insurance that he or she is required to pay quarterly."

Where frequent generics are needed, some speakers prefer to alternate between the masculine and feminine pronouns still others choose to use "they" and "them" in; still others choose to use “them” and “them” in a generic sense, e.g., "Every doctor I know complains about the cost of the malpractice insurance that they are required to pay quarterly." This last solution is becoming more common and is probably the simplest even though staunch grammarians still shift uncomfortably in their seats when they hear it. Of course, it is often possible to avoid the whole problem by using plurals, e.g., "Doctors I know..."

7) Avoid superfluous indications of gender. These tend to diminish the subject, e.g., "He found a good female lawyer to make the case," should be stated, "He found a good lawyer to take the case," unless here is some real reason to stress the gender of the lawyer. 

8) "Male" and "female" are adjectives, "women" and "men" are nouns. Avoid statements like, "We have lots of males applying for this job." Say either, "We have lots of male applicants for this job," or, "We have lots of men applying for this job."

Besides being careful to avoid giving offense by saying or doing the wrong thing in front of an audience and paying attention to eliminating sexist biases in the very structure of the language, the sensitive speaker will want to be proactive in her or his approach to the issue of gender. This means habitually using representative examples and stories about both sexes and deliberately posing people in non-stereotypical roles. This needs to be done again .and again as the bias toward men is often very deep. We recently heard the story of a little boy who didn't want to be a pilot because he thought it was "a girl's job." (His mother was an airline pilot.)

Though most of the attention to sexist language has in recent years been rightly directed at avoiding put-downs and eliminating linguistic prejudice against women, we should also be careful, especially when discussing women's issues, not to portray men as the source of every evil. We all share in a social and linguistic heritage which has lessened both sexes' ability to live a fuller life.

Those of us who have the opportunity to address the public can become powerful models of the kind of speaking which will benefit both sexes.