Further Resources R ecent changes in social awareness have made people think about the ways language tends to downgrade certain groups. Common sense and some specific strategies can help you avoid suggesting putdowns where you don't intend them. Many standard wordings seem to assume that every individual is male. Repeating he and she, him and her, his and hers at every reference is clumsy. Finding alternatives can be as simple as using plural rather than singular, or avoiding a pronoun altogether.
Man is a tool-building animal.
Every artist has learned from those who came before him. Wordings from historical or literary texts often don't follow these principles. You may feel awkward using them, but commenting isn't usually worthwhile. In academic writing, do so only if you are sure the original meaning was distorted. Don't get stuck in the habit, though, of referring to people only as representatives of categories.