It's a case of better late than never. Recently, Google introduced a feature in Google Docs that will create an automatic prompt for users to change words like ‘chairman’ and ‘mankind’ to ‘chairperson’ and ‘humankind’. It was the Internet giant’s way of creating an environment where people are more attuned to using gender-neutral terms, instead of fostering a culture of using words and phrases that are laced with patriarchy and misogyny. That’s a welcome move, and the average person (notice how we didn’t say ‘the common man’) would do well to take a leaf out of the same book. There are certain gender biases that are so culturally ingrained in us that we often aren’t even aware of how we might be coming across as insensitive to other people during verbal and non-verbal communication.

Watch what you say

For instance, life coach Farzana Suri points out how some people don’t think twice about addressing women as ‘sweetie’ or ‘dear’ when they wouldn’t refer to a man in the same manner. “It’s condescending, and when you use words like that, you violate the other person’s sense of dignity,” she tells us, adding that a similar problem exists when you refer to someone as a ‘woman entrepreneur’ or ‘woman coder’. She asks, “Why not leave it at ‘coder’? When you say ‘woman entrepreneur’, your underlying statement might mean, ‘She’s an entrepreneur, but she’s a woman. So, don’t expect too much from her.’”