Week of July 6 | Gender Neutrality

This week’s news cycle about gender neutrality was slower than usual. Gender-neutral restrooms were mentioned in the news this week. While the group Showing Up for Racial Justice in Beloit, Wisconsin aims to address racism in their community, they also are advocating for more gender-neutral bathrooms in their town and school district. One article interviewed a transgender high school student and their struggles with using the restroom at school due to gender-neutral facilities occasionally being locked. Another article mentioned how bathrooms with a gender-neutral design are more favorable in a COVID-19 world, in terms of keeping things sanitary.

Gender-neutral language was also featured this week. Forbes published an article on the importance of using gender-neutral language and provided several examples such as using “Mx” instead of “Mrs, Ms, Mr, or Miss” and using gender-neutral terms for jobs like “mail carrier” instead of “mailman”. The AP Stylebook also discussed gender-neutral language and tweeted:

“A true gender-neutral noun often presents itself easily: chair or chairperson, firefighter, workforce. In other cases, a noun may technically not be gender-neutral but instead be a masculine noun that assumes the generic case under English language convention: actor, host.”

This week’s news also discussed issues of parental leave. One article about parental leave in the U.K. mentioned that the gender specific term “maternity leave” is twice more likely to appear in job advertisements than the gender-neutral term “parental leave”. Meanwhile the company Japan Tobacco International announced a gender-neutral family leave policy with the CEO stating:

“Our new family leave policy is a great milestone in our diversity and gender equality journey. We are proud to introduce the new gender-neutral benefit which supports all families, giving every parent equal opportunity to spend quality time with their children, without worrying about the impact it could have on their finances or careers.”

Several articles discussed Netherland’s decision to remove gender from their IDs. While the country allows a gender-neutral “X” option, gender will be removed within 5 years from their country’s IDs. The country is also looking into providing gender-neutral birth certificates. In other international news, Korea’s National Police Agency is changing their mascot for policewomen to a more gender-neutral looking character in order to avoid perpetuating gender stereotypes.