Equalingua Writing Assistant

Unlike French, English does not have gender markers. Nevertheless, some words that are supposed to be gender-neutral hold gendered connotations. For instance, we often associate jobs with a particular gender. For example, we typically think of a construction worker as a man, and a nurse as a woman. To illustrate this idea, Tommaso Buonocore, an Italian biomedical engineer, published an article https://towardsdatascience.com/gender-bias-word-embeddings-76d9806a0e17 on the online platform “Towards Data Science” entitled “Man is to Doctor as Woman is to Nurse: the Gender Bias of Word Embeddings”, in which he presents the following fictitious situation: “Imagine you are stepping in the elevator of a hospital with two people: a man and a woman. They wear the same white coat, but their badges are covered so you can’t tell what is their role within the hospital. At some point, the elevator doors open and a young lady pops up saying: “good morning, doctor Smith!”. Which one do you think is going to greet her back? Common sense says that both are equally likely to be doctor Smith, but several experiments show that individuals are much more likely to associate women with nursing and men with doctoring.”

What’s the purpose of using gender-fair language ? In other words, why should you care ?

According to the guidelines on gender-neutral language adopted by the European Parliament in 2008 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/151780/GNL_Guidelines_EN.pdf, “the purpose of gender-neutral language is to avoid word choices which may be interpreted as biased, discriminatory or demeaning by implying that one sex or social gender is the norm. Using gender-fair and inclusive language also helps reduce gender stereotyping, promotes social change and contributes to achieving gender equality.” Moreover, according to a study from the job search engine ZipRecruiter, job listings with gender-neutral wording get 42% more responses. https://www.ziprecruiter.com/blog/removing-gendered-keywords-gets-you-more-applicants/

So what is our solution ?

The purpose of our AI-powered tool is primarily to enable public and private institutions to become aware of the fact that our language perpetuates unconscious gender biases, by highlighting gender-biased words, and suggesting gender-bias free synonyms instead.

What do we mean by gender-biased words ?

• Words such as “man-made”, “mankind”, “manpower”, which, according to Jemma Prior, an English language instructor who owns a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Aston University, “exclude women, or make them invisible, and they tend to demean the contribution to society that women have made”. https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/what-is-gendered-language

  Instead, think about using, artificial, humankind, and workforce.

• Gender-specific job titles such as “policeman/policewoman”, “fireman/firewoman”, “chairman”, “headmaster/headmistress”

  Instead, think about using “police officer”, “firefighter”, “chair”, and “principal”.

• Gendered wording (words associated with gender stereotypes), such as “strong”, and “competitive”, which are usually associated with men, and “affectionate” and “caring”, which are usually associated with women.

What would be a concrete example ?

1. Consider this job offer for a salesperson:

Female-biased phrasing: You’ll have to nurture and connect with customers.

Male-biased phrasing: We’re looking for a salesman with strong communication and interpersonal skills.

Gender-neutral phrasing: You’ll have to provide excellent customer service and ensure customer satisfaction.

Or: We’re looking for a salesperson with solid/excellent/proven communication and interpersonal skills.

1. One can also find examples of gender-biased wording in legal texts:

Think about the Preamble to United Nations Charter :

Mankind vs.humankind https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/ctc/uncharter.pdf

One could also find examples of gender-biased wording in (newspapers) articles:

Here’s an example from an article published on August 12, 2019, entitled “Relationship between the doctor and his patient”, written by Peter Lepham, and published on the website “Thrive Global”:

“The relationship between the doctor and his patient plays a very important role in the practice of medicine and is essential for the provision of high quality medical care in terms of diagnosis and treatment of the disease. The relationship between the doctor and his patient is one of the foundations of contemporary medical ethics”.

Gender-neutral phrasing: “The relationship between doctors and their patients plays a very important role in the practice of medicine…”

Keep in mind that photos can also reveal gender bias :

Pictures from the website of Walmart Canada http://careers.walmart.ca

Here’s a list of gender-biased words and expressions that we use in our everyday life, and their neutral equivalents :

Along with its different services and certifications, Equalingua provides a cutting edge AI-powered software, helping you write and correct gender-equal texts. Just input your text, and, just like a grammar checker, the Equalingua Writing Assistant will automatically spot any issues in vocabulary or grammar related to gender-biased language. Here are a few screens of demonstration :

The Equalingua Writing Assistant can be used in any setting and any device as it is hosted in the Cloud : it is power-savy and very reactive! It is available on web browsers, desktop and mobile apps, as shown by the screen below.

While the Writing Assistant can help a human operator write gender-neutral text in real-time, it can also automatically process thousands of documents by itself if needed. Its decisions will be based on the sampling on many already-existing gender-neutral texts assimilated through machine learning.