Beyond the He-man Approach: Guidelines for gender-inclusive language

1996

ISBN 0-86981-963-1

This document has two focuses: the use of gender-inclusive or gender-neutral language, particularly within university documents, and corporate behaviour at the university which is non-sexist. The basic document was prepared in English and then translated into the other official languages where practical. For instance, documentation within the university up till now has only been in English and Afrikaans and therefore it was not possible to provide African language examples. Furthermore, languages do not all encode reality in the same way so there were not always parallel examples even in English and Afrikaans. The African languages with their gender neutral third person singular do not require the same amount of awareness raising as English, for example, which has 'he' and 'she' but often uses 'he' and 'man' to imply 'people' of either gender. It was therefore decided to translate only those sections of the document that were equally applicable to all university situations.