Teacher told not to use gendered language

[Pregante]

In a teaching observation this month my department head noted as a point for improvement that I should try not to use gendered language when addressing the class. I use boys & girls or ladies & gents depending on the age of the students. She advised this was in order not to potentially offend any trans children. She also mentioned this to some of my other colleagues and gave them the same advice.

I care about my students and would never humiliate anyone. Is this just the norm now? What do I use instead?

You seem to be quite hung up on semantics of language which is my whole point. What do you think is actually achieved by using gender neutral language, in the real world for real women and girls? The very real problems that we as a sex class face are not being solved by gender neutral language. Has it had any effect whatsoever on the epidemic of male violence towards women? Has it made it any safer for women on public transport or walking home alone? Has it done anything to close the gender pay gap? I already know the answer to those questions, do you?

It's bizarre. Actresses demanded to be called actors in the name of equality and feminism. 'Ladies and gentlemen' is phased out, also in the name of equality (as well as being outdated language that Mumsnetters usually despise) and all is good.

But as soon as the trans issue rears its head, people want to throw out sensible decisions made for feminist reasons, and go back to the old days of actresses and ladies?

What a backward step.

We don't but generally use female versions of job descriptions in English although there are other examples but many other languages do. There is nothing g intrinsically wrong in doing so.

I haven’t seen one person on this thread say we need to go back to calling women ‘ladies’. You seem to be missing the point. You keep saying that the use of gendered language is a step forward for women and I have asked you repeatedly to explain how that has helped actual women in the real world to overcome the actual, real issues that we face, specifically because of our sex class. You haven’t done that. The eradication of female terms is absolutely pointless if it doesn’t advance the cause of women, and you have yet to provide a shred of evidence that it does. Calling a woman a person is correct but sometimes it is necessary to call them a woman, I still don’t see how refusing to do that helps women.

That's something at least

'Ladies and Gentlemen' was phased out because activists demanded and threatened companies to phase it out.

For example, guess who was the person who demanded it on the London Underground?

Yes, Aimee Challenor, and if you don't know which activist Challenor is then you must be new to this village. I'd link you to threads about him but he has probably also got those nuked just like all the other stuff he has managed to get disappeared from the Internet. Including all the gender critical reddit boards. And anything else that he personally didnt like. But he is a furry baby nappy wearer in a polycule so that's just fine. Nothing to see here, generic humans of no particular anything.

Actors and actresses do have different jobs in the sense that actresses are only considered for female roles.

And as for equality and feminism, male actors still:
Are paid more
Have more roles
Have less competition for those roles because there are fewer male actors and more parts available
Have a much longer career
Have meatier roles
Have more dialogue
Have more clout in the industry
Are allowed to be overweight or unattractive especially when it comes to film and TV
Are not routinely predated upon.

Just calling everyone "actors" hides all that inequality, it doesn't make it go away.

What has helped is women taking matters into their own hands and becoming producers.

Edited for clarity

Different perspective: I usually have all girls but sometimes one or two boys who aren't always obvious but are already defying a stereotype, and could get discouraged by being addressed as "girls". OTOH such boys don't like bring highlighted.
I call them all manner of collective nouns ranging from the class name, whatever they are supposed to be doing eg "athletes", whatever they aren't supposed to be doing eg "chatterboxes", something aspirational like "champions", or something in a random language "bonjour la classe"/"hola chicas y chicos".
"Folks" is used by a trans organisation, with a different spelling.
The girls object to "guys", " chaps", "lads", but are fine with "lasses, lads, and [name of child who isn't paying attention but doesn't mind the spotlight]".
It's about a personal style - one of my colleagues addresses 16 year olds as "my little squirrels". They adore her.

There is also no need not to say “girls and boys”.

I didn't realise that I tended to set up the lesson, give handouts etc and then say, "OK" before starting to talk / explain / put the ppt on.

But then I had a couple of girls knowledge accumulators of the female variety imitating me.

So I ended up with giving out handouts etc, then saying, "OK" to receive a reply of "OK" in my accent as an indication that the lesson proper had started.

Children

It's a very common word

It's a simple word

It's not hard to spell

Treat all people equally and respectfully

I mean you wouldn't say "disabled and able bodied please line up" or " gay and straight please line uo " or "ethnic minorities snd white European please line up "

But you think it's OK to segregate in speech based on sex?

Sex is a protected characteristic for a reason

Be aware of sex when it matters and ignore it at all other times

Treat all people equally and respectfully

If you think saying "girls and boys" is treating them unequally or not respectfully, that's telling.

Treating boys and girls equally does not require pretending to be blind to which they are.

We are better off empowering girls to be capable, ambitious and confident. That does not require pretending that they are not girls.

I'm a female teacher of a very male-dominated subject (the most male dominated). I hope that I lead by example by showing the (few) girls that I teach that it is possible to succeed and thrive in my subject. I do this without making a song and dance about identity or using clunky gender neutral language to make an obscure political point. I just am a woman, doing what I do, well.

I mean you wouldn't say "disabled and able bodied please line up" or " gay and straight please line uo " or "ethnic minorities snd white European please line up "
But you think it's OK to segregate in speech based on sex?

Oh, come on.

Sex is a protected characteristic for a reason
What on earth is the relevance of this, @wherearemypastnames ??

And sex neutral language is now being pushed by a movement that is all about gender stereotypes...

Oh god, this has given me a horrible flashback to planning in the 'noughties' when we had to state which parts of each lesson were V, A and K 😬 And all our resources had to indicate whether they were V, A or K and handed to the appropriate children (who we had to identify as a V, A or K learner!)

Absolutely bonkers!!

Dear God!

I've used this in my classes (or versions of it depending upon the age and 'make up' of the class):

'Alright, you fabulous humans of all varieties, identities, energies, and levels of enthusiasm—eyes on me, voices off!'

Never had a complaint and usually causes much levity...I include the 'levels of enthusiasm' for my own amusement but the students actually love this 🤣

The problem with making a joke of it or using odd phrases like "fabulous humans of all identities" is that you will distract/derail your lesson. It's actually very hard to pull off: you're deliberately distracting your class with a joke, one that might conjure to mind all sorts of controversial issues, and then have to pull their attention back to the class content. It can be done without derailing if they're already used to you as a Jack Black character but the best you can hope for is they simply ignore/eye-roll the joke.

Similarly if I were to address them straight-facedly with a clunky gender neutral phrase, it'd be distractingly prominent.

If I'm trying to start a lesson about, say, magnetic fields, I don't want to (even briefly) cause my class to think about gender politics, identity politics, my views on the same, etc. It's not easy for them to mode switch their thoughts back to the topic.

Experienced teachers don't play those games. We've learnt the hard way that keeping it simple is the best way if you want the kids to actually learn your subject.

Edit to add - I see the pp I'm quoting is an experienced teacher- in which case, she can probably deftly bring the class's attention back after a joke. But I'd warn less experienced teachers against trying things like that unless they are unusually skilled in classroom management.

The only relevance trans issues have on this is that transactivists aim to eradicate the use of accurate sex based language about women. Since they got their hands on so many of our institutions the words women and girls have (remarkably successfully) been eradicated from so much of healthcare, maternity care, policies that specifically relate to women etc. It's directly related to school suddenly suggesting that the use of the word girls in a girls school is unacceptable - such a toxic anti women notion.
It's only in the last 10 - 15 years since transactivism's toxic impact on society and schools that these demands have been made. Prior to this feminists quite rightly raised issues about use of language - feminist writers like Dale Spender highlighted how men and women talk & listen differently and how society has used language to imply a male dominance. So much of our gender neutralising of language (chairman to chairperson etc) has been in recognition of this.

But now we're operating in different territory now with an open onslaught on the language and identity of women from deeply misogynistic groups. That's why we need to be cautious about branding 'girls and boys" as unacceptable. There's lots of examples on here of alternative language to the phrase that's been in use in the majority of schools until recently and they're fine. But so many of these demands don't come from a good place and we need to use some critical thinking (as displayed on this thread) before passively agreeing that of course the word girls is unacceptable.

I support degree apprentices in a university environment and we are told the same.

You soon get used to using them/they all the time and it actually encourages you to refer to people by thier names which is a good teaching skill to have.

Totally agree with this!
That's why I just used 'folks'.

Although I have been asked why I'm calling the class 'my parents' 🙈

👏 👏 👏

@WandaSiri : "Just calling everyone "actors" hides all that inequality, it doesn't make it go away. What has helped is women taking matters into their own hands and becoming producers."
👍
I usually say: "My feminist hero isn't Luise Pusch●, but Tanja Kreil■."

● Feminist linguist, who proposed degenderization of German language
■ Woman who filed a lawsuit against the German government that resulted in the German military opening up all trades (and fighting units) to women. Previously, women were only permitted to serve in the medical and music corps on a voluntary basis.