I never realized how heavily gendered my vocabulary was until I started making an effort to remove all gendered terms from my everyday vocabulary.
Bro, man, dude, guy . All masculine terms. I used them casually to refer to everyone no matter the gender but they are undeniably masculine terms.
The default-man thinking really runs deep.
I remember reading about how he/him used to be used as a gender neutral pronoun in laws because man was assumed to be the default of a person and thinking it was silly. And I’m here realizing I used to use man in a gender neutral way, and many people still do. We still have a lot of work to do to break down unconscious misogyny in our everyday language.
Pro of getting rid of gendered language: I don’t accidentally misgender people
Con: can no longer say “girl” in a sassy gay way because it now goes against my goal of not using gendered language
