Hello, my name is Soohyeon and I live in Korea. I'm a reporter of my school newspaper. I'm doing an article of the changes of words that unneccessarily showed gender. For example- businessmen(women)-->businessperson, steward(ess)-->flight attendant... and so on. I would like to let people know that we should use words without distinction of gender. I'll be waiting for your reply. Take care.

P.S. I'm sorry if my English is broken.... It's not my mother tongue.

Thanks for your note. Thanks, too, for doing the article that you are doing about words and their effect on gender perceptions. I think this is a very important part of feminist work--it's subtle differences such as these that make a big, but often unnoticed difference. I think the best way to understand the absurdity of some word usage is to reverse the gender in the word--for instance, what if every person who worked for the post office was called "mailwoman," and that every time you described a professional nurse you said "female nurse," the opposite of which we do if the person is male, or female writer, which wrongly presumes that all writers are male, unless described otherwise.

I actually learned this reversal tactic from Gloria Steinem, who actually wrote an article "Words and Change", which can be found in her book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. The Australian writer Dale Spendor, is also an expert on this topic. You should reference her work via Amazon.com or maybe your library. I hope that helps with your article. Good luck.

P.S. By the way, your English is great!!!

—Amy