Sunday, 15th March 2009
‘Miss’ & ‘Mrs’ banned in gender neutral EU-speak
A Scottish Euro MP has reacted with fury to a booklet on 'Gender-Neutral Language' which has just been circulated to all MEPs in Strasbourg by the Secretary General of the European Parliament.
Describing the proposed guidelines as "Political correctness gone mad", Scottish Tory Euro MP Struan Stevenson said:
"We've seen the EU institutions try to ban the bagpipes and dictate the shape of bananas, but now they seem determined to tell us which words we are entitled to use in our own language. In fact the guidance booklet warns MEPs to avoid making any reference to a woman's marital status by not using Miss or Mrs when addressing a female colleague.
“In future we are simply to address women members by their full name. This is frankly ludicrous. We must also apparently stop referring to 'sportsmen' or 'statesmen' and refer instead to 'athletes' and 'political leaders.' Similarly, 'man-made' will henceforth be referred to as 'synthetic or artificial.'”
He continued:
“The booklet does admit, however, that while both sexes are now commonly covered by terms such as 'actor', 'author', 'manager' and 'mayor', "no gender-neutral term has been successfully proposed" to deal with 'waiter' or 'waitress', so at least we are spared this lunacy when ordering a coffee!
"Gender-neutrality" is really the last straw. The thought police are now on the rampage in the European Parliament. We will soon be told that the use of the words 'man' or 'woman' has been banned, in case it causes offence to those who consider "gender neutrality" an essential part of life."
