Text B. Read the text and be ready to answer the questions about it.

 

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 ofman to refer to bothmen andwomen,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.

 

1. What is the subject of the passage?

 

2. What is one of the tendencies in language usage?

 

3. What are the strategies of avoiding sexism in language?

 

4. Give examples of some grammatically neuter terms denoting titles and job descriptions.

 

92 Chapter 5

Exercise 9. A. The following sentences contain stereotypes of male and female roles. Propose your options to avoid stereotyping:

 

1. A secretary should be familiar with her duties.

2. Every member of congress will cast his vote.

3. When everyone contributes his ideas, the workshop will be very stimulating.

4. A professor should meet his students regularly.

5. A director will bring his draft.

 

B. Avoid sexist language by choosing the appropriate options:

 

spouses to have a career lay people the average person/ordinary people

assistant humanity chairperson police officer

 

1. This problem concerns the whole mankind.

2. My girl will inform committee members of the meeting.

3. Alexandra is a career woman.

4. The policeman arrested the criminal.

5. The common man will suffer most.

6. The professors and their wives attended the meeting.

7. Who is a chairman?

8. To laymen the jargon that hedges such words as WIMP can seem impenetrable.