The request from a Bristol reader seemed fair enough, especially in this day and age.
“I would like to see The Courant move toward gender-neutral titles in all articles,” Mary Rydingsward wrote in an e-mail last month. Her point being that “language sends an important message that is not only immediately received by the reader, but also resonates in the reader’s subconscious.”
Rydingsward suggested referring to town council representatives as “councilors.” She noted that “other local newspapers have taken this path to eliminate gender bias.” It would be a small change, she said, that would “have a huge, long-lasting affect.”
The Courant has a style committee – made up mostly of men, by the way – whose charge it is to mull over and decide the newspaper’s “particular manner of dealing with spelling, punctuation, word division, etc.” – to borrow a definition from Webster’s New World Dictionary, Fourth Edition.
The chairman of the committee, Harvey Remer, also happens to be the chief of the news copy desk. (Notice the mixture of gender-designating and gender-neutral titles.) I presented Rydingsward’s request to Remer, who said, “I appreciate the reader’s concern for gender-neutral language. We have moved toward this with terms such as firefighter, police officer, but we’re stymied by women who insist on being called first selectman.”
Indeed, The Courant’s stylebook advises, “Don’t use sex-designating words or phrases when an alternative is available: examples are business executive for businessman; firefighter for fireman; mail carrier for mailman; members of Congress, representatives, lawmakers or legislators for congressmen … police officer for policeman or policewoman; salespeople for salesmen; and supervisor for foreman.”
The stylebook even offers a suitable alternative to councilman/councilwoman in “council member.”
Still, Remer presented the reader’s request to the style committee, which gave a thumbs-down to using “councilor.” The reason: “The most common argument against `councilor’ was confusion with `counselor,’” Remer said.
So, the “councilor” argument was lost, but Rydingsward point applies to some other titles frequently found in the newspaper. The Courant’s stylebook adheres to gender designations when referring to chairman/chairwoman and selectman/selectwoman. The stylebook says: “When a woman is running for chairman, selectman, etc., leave the designation as -man until she wins the position, then call her chairwoman or selectwoman as appropriate.”
As Rydingsward noted after hearing the “councilor” verdict, “I see that there is work to do in the realm of communicating gender equality through the written media.”
I think she’s on to something.
