University students are being encouraged to dump gender-specific terms such as boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, and wife and replace them with gender-neutral words such as partner.

According to the Inclusive Practice manual issued by Australia’s Western Sydney University, students should do their best to “make everyone feel included” despite their sexual orientation or status.

“Swapping gendered words for gender neutral ones (and using terms like ‘partner’ instead of boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife), can make everyone feel included in the conversation,” the guide suggests.

As if dropping gender-specific terms wasn’t enough, another university has warned its students and staff members that using last names and Christian names to call out to someone can be offensive. Instead, they proposed to call people by first names.

“At UNSW we aim to help students find respectful and culturally inclusive ways of dealing with controversial issues,” the University of New South Wales stated on their page.

Meanwhile, the University of Newcastle came up with an Inclusive Language Guide in which they focused on guiding students towards the use of “inclusive language” on the campus.

The university specifically targeted “forms of sexist language” and claimed that “masculine pronouns” like “man-made” should be avoided.

“Where these terms are never varied to include reference to women, the absence/unimportance of women is reinforced,” they wrote in their guide.

“Alternatives are needed if language is to challenge the implication that women are either absent or less important.”

As the University of Newcastle proposed, terms containing the word ‘man’ could be altered to contain the word ‘human’ instead.

This way, according to the university, the person speaking or writing will be reminded of “the equality of men and women rather than reinforcing – even subliminally – the perception that men are more important than their female counterparts.”

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Replaced!