A giant step for peoplekind?

Mansplaining’ and other transgressions of our gendered world seem to be spinning out of control with practically every utterance being seen as an affront or appeasement.

The blurred line between the two is probably what led the earnest young Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau to intervene this week to tell a questioner to use the world ‘peoplekind’ instead of ‘mankind’. Humankind must have been out of contention for containing a gendered joey word, as also personkind.

But excising the English lexicon of the words ‘man’, ‘son’, ‘bro’ and other male references because of their sexist implication or adding it to other words to emphasise that aspect — such as ‘mansplaining’, ‘manspreading’ and ‘manterrupting’ — could prove difficult. After all, it is not merely the words that begin with the proscribed trio, such as mane, manmade or manufacturing, but a gamut of other manwords from dismantle to commander, permanent to emancipation, even German and romantic.


Some may call it mere semantics — if the word is allowed — but the danger of allowing sexism to colour our view of words is, well, manifest. However, considering a major brand is reportedly planning to launch chips and snack packages that are specifically suited to female consumers, it still is too early to declare neutered words to be a giant step for peoplekind.