Yesterday, right-wing outrage masters, Nazis, and other assorted homophobes didn’t like much of the news. More Republicans showed some disagreement with the xenophobic rhetoric of Presidential Pretender Donald Trump, Rep. Ilhan Omar took a bold stand for free speech in the halls of Congress, and one of the most intellectually influential cities in the world, Berkeley, CA, took a profound move towards gender equality.
A Californian city has blanket banned gender-specific words, changing all references to ‘he’ and ‘she’ with ‘they’ and ‘them.’
Berkeley City Council announced on Tuesday that around two dozen commonly used terms will be replaced with gender-neutral terms instead, according to NBC News.
This will range from manholes being renamed ‘maintenance holes’ and ‘man-made’ replaced with ‘artificial.’
What’s happened?
In a move costing the city around $600, according to Californian councillors, Berkley’s leaders voted unanimously to replace 40 words in the city code with inclusive terms instead.
That means ‘manpower’ will become ‘human effort’ or ‘workforce.’
‘She,’ ‘her,’ ‘he,’ and ‘him’ will be replaced by ‘they’ and ‘them,’ according to the measure approved Tuesday by the City Council.
Furthermore, in an ordinance read out on the day, ‘firemen’ is set to become ‘firefighters.’
Terms like fraternity or sorority will be changed to ‘collegiate Greek system residence.’
Also, other terms that will be changed include pregnant woman or women. It will be switched to pregnant employees as well as brothers and sisters being switched to sibling.
Of course, the right wing did not relent in their gloom and doom forecast for open societies, as America has become in the last decade since Obama introduced true inclusiveness to American public life. White nationalist favorite Tucker Carlson tried to invite the councilmember who spearheaded this onto his hateful power hour.
Language matters. Racist, sexist, and transphobic terms being used like it’s nothing normalize bigotry and racism. Terms like “black-hearted,” calling things “dark,” the “three dollar bill” meme, the notion of “playing like a girl,” etc. and others marginalize POC, LGBTQIA+, and women. This is an important step, and we should all work to replicate this thruout the United States. (I will not say “America” because “America” originally meant all of the two continents in the Western Hemisphere. White men sought to make “America” synonymous with the white country).