That said, as a linguist I am skeptical about engineering language change to be more inclusive. Language is never sexist, it's the language use or connotation is sexist. What good is that if we introduce neutral terms or pronouns to deal with these issues if they develop derogatory or male connotation over time. The only sustainable way to deal with these issues is to reset the expectations. Hence the importance of DEI, as long as it is done well. We need more women in traditionally male-dominated roles.
I think the argument in favor of engineering language is that words have no meaning outside their connotation and use, they cannot convey information without it. So to undo sexist connotations of a word, is to change the implied meaning of the word itself. Instead of trying to get everyone to scrub those connotations from their minds, why not start with something that doesn't carry those connotations and go from there (i.e. reset the expectations
explicitly)? For groups looking to enact change on the scale of a human lifetime, I can see the appeal.
Considering how many folks I run into that can't even describe a concept that they hold to be "self-evident", meaning the connotations aren't something they can consciously examine, I don't really blame folks for trying to short-circuit what they see as a task akin to pushing a boulder up Mount Everest. And language will evolve whether we want it to or not, so why not leverage that to our advantage?
And the thing is, I don't necessarily disagree. For example, I've grown fond of "they" as a singular genderless pronoun because it already had some use 40+ years ago for the purpose. It also is a little less awkward in practice than the more formal (although dropped out of use) "he or she", or the more myopic use of "he" for anyone you don't know the gender of. So if there's a sort of pre-existing path the language could go down, encouraging adoption can have multiple benefits. I'm also reminded of the exchange in Hot Fuzz about "traffic accidents" vs "traffic collisions". It's a small change, but it's a change made
based on how people think about words to convey something more accurately. Language is flexible, and that's not a bad thing.
I'm less fond of something like "Womyn" because, honestly, it is meant to be pronounced the same way as "Woman". You aren't really dropping the connotations of the original word, just changing the spelling, so you get the worst of both worlds. It's fine as a political statement, but that's about all the use it will get. And because the term came out of a particular corner of second-wave feminism that was looking to create separate spaces for women, there was little chance for it to become mainstream. It's more jargon than anything else. It does get trotted out from time to time to create knee jerk reactions out of folks (thanks Rush Limbaugh /s), but it's largely irrelevant.
I used to be dismissive of the gender term issues when I was younger, then I went to a conference on that topic and it totally changed my stance. There is very clear neurocognitive evidence that professional terms such as "doctor" are associated with male practitioners. That's what women have to deal with.
This is partly why I am always disappointed by people looking to make things "less biased" with LLMs. And unsurprised with every new article about how someone's new resume filtering algorithm tends to bin resumes with names and writing styles that are not used by white men.
, but obviously those are big ones which arguably went waaaay the other way.
