Think you’re a freshman? Nope. You’re a first-year student — since, you know, not all of you are men. At least, that’s how the state of Washington sees it.
As of June 28, legislation Senate Bill 5077 went into effect in Washington. The bill was the last in a six-year effort to change hundreds and thousands of words in various sections of the Revised Code of Washington to gender-neutral terms.
Terms such as “freshman” and “policeman” were changed to “first-year student” and “police officer.” However, a vast majority of the 40,000 changes this bill mandated, were centered around adding “she” and “her” to laws that only reference “he” and “him.” No, this law doesn’t make using gender-biased terms illegal, it just scrubs those terms from the law books to reflect the changing culture — one that is sensitive to the fact both men and women are a vital part of our country.
Many of the state statutes were written several decades ago, when the idea of women doing something as crazy as attending school or joining the police force was preposterous. Times have obviously changed, and with it our language needs to change too.
Words have power. They are a reflection of our culture, but more importantly they influence our culture.
A 2004 study published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly discussed how women are significantly more likely to be in support of gender-inclusive language than men are. This study also established a verifiable link between attitudes toward sexist language and attitudes toward women overall. One set of results, specifically, suggested that in our culture, sexist language (such as terms like “policeman” instead of “police officer”) is important to people whom either consciously or unconsciously still believe in the superiority of men.
Thus, when a state makes a concerted effort to upend sexist language and establish the equality of women through something as simple as words, it reflects the equitable attitudes they have towards women.
And then people defend sexist language or decry such changes being made, it is indicative of their attitudes toward women, even if those attitudes are subconscious.
As a Washington resident and woman, I’m proud that my state now has gender-neutral language in its laws. There isn’t much of a purpose in retaining archaic language that marginalizes a significant portion of society. Unless, of course, you support that marginalization.
Kaitlin Moroney can be reached at [email protected]