The brilliant Mark Gaisford recently published a post on LinkedIn to ask his audience what they thought about a doubt a content marketer from Germany shared with him.
The thing is, even though Mark mentioned the nationality of that person, he didn’t specify their gender.
For this reason, it surprised me that —by resorting to gender-biased language— some of the people commenting the post involuntarily revealed that they had —hopefully and most likely unconsciously— made assumptions about that.
And you know what?
Nobody assumed that the content marketer could be a woman…
It has also to be noticed that the first person who took for granted that the German professional was a man and so started using masculine pronouns (he/him/his) was, actually and interestingly, a woman.
Is gender bias so hardwired in our brain that we inadvertently foster it even against our own interests?
If so, I believe a serious reflection on this topic might be worth it.
Anyway, I would suggest that, in addition to denouncing gender bias, women make sure to lead by example: as long as it’s reasonable, let’s use neutral language and try, at least, not to be the first one who makes the wrong assumption.
By the way, the content marketer from Germany who contacted Mark is…
…surprise surprise…
…a woman! 😉
