The European Commission has been forced to row back on an attempt to put an end to gendered words such as “man-made” and “ladies and gentlemen” and replace them with neutral phrases like “human-induced” and “dear colleagues”.
The “guidelines for inclusive communication” were designed to force EU officials to “update their language” and avoid expressions considered stigmatising according to gender, sexual identities, ethnic backgrounds and culture.
Helena Dalli, the European Commissioner responsible for equality, said the guidebook, which was issued about four weeks ago, “clearly needed more work”, after the 32-page document was scrapped.
‘Human-induced’
“It is not a mature document and does not meet all Commission quality standards,” she said. “I therefore withdraw the guidelines and will work further on this document.”
“Concern was raised with regards to some examples provided,” the EU’s equality chief added.
Brussels sources said the guidebook, which Ms Dali proudly posed with for pictures last month, was rejected by Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission’s president, before it was withdrawn.
Under the scrapped guidance, officials were ordered to avoid gender-specific language, and told to use phrases like “chair”, “colleagues” and “human-induced” instead of “chairman”, “ladies and gentlemen” or man-made”.
Mind your language
In a further push for gender-neutral language, it was suggested that expressions such as “fire is man’s greatest invention” should be replaced with “fire is mankind’s greatest invention”.
Commission staff were also told to scrap the pronouns “Mr, Mrs and Ms” unless they were specifically requested. “In the absence of such information, Mx should be used as the default,” the guidebook stated.
The guidebook noted that officials should never “presume” a person’s gender or sexual orientation. “Do not ask what pronoun a person ‘prefers’. This assumes that gender identity is a personal preference — it is not,” according to the guidelines.
It called on officials to “never use gendered nouns such as ‘workmen, policemen’ or masculine pronouns (he, his) as a default”..
Ms Dalli recommended banning references to Christmas and “Christian names” because they could be deemed as an “intolerance or judgement, fuel stereotypes or single out one religious group”.
“Not everyone celebrates the Christmas holidays… we need to be sensitive to the fact that people have different religious traditions,” her guidance reads, urging officials to use “holiday season” instead.
The Virgin Malika?
Christian names, such as “Mary” and “John”, would have been banned in Commission publications. “Malika and Julius” were proposed as alternative examples.
In a separate section of the manual, the issue of colonialism was tackled. The expression “colonisation of Mars” is considered negative and inappropriate under this heading. Instead “the sending of humans to Mars” should be used.
The withdrawn publication was widely mocked by right-wing politicians across the EU. Marine Le Pen, a far-right presidential candidate in France, said: “These technocrats show their real face: that of an enemy to our identities, our roots, our traditions.”
Marco Zanni and Marco Campomenesi, who represent Italian right-wing party Lega in the European Parliament, added: “We hope that Brussels invests better their time and above all the money of European citizens, working on the most urgent issues and on real emergencies.”
In September, Ofcom unveiled a list of ‘offensive’ words. “Gammon” and “Karen” were added to a list of offensive words by the watchdog, with political labels ranked by them for the first time.
Terms including “Remoaner”, “Snowflake”, and “Boomer” have now been included by the media regulator in a survey of swear words and offensive terms which could upset TV and radio audiences.
