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- The Conscious Language Newsletter: March 2021
The Conscious Language Newsletter: March 2021
From the World of Conscious Language
Note: The authors’ viewpoints are not necessarily shared by Conscious Style Guide.
Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome | Harvard Business Review
“Imposter syndrome directs our view toward fixing women at work instead of fixing the places where women work.”
5 Ways Parents Can Help Kids Avoid Gender Stereotypes | The Conversation
Counterstereotyping is “a powerful way to disrupt gender stereotypes in play. For example, a caregiver can look at dolls with a boy and say things like, ‘Boys like dolls’ and ‘Daddies are really good at caring for babies.’”
Mr. Potato Head Drops the Mister, Sort Of | The Associated Press
“Kimberly Boyd, a senior vice president at Hasbro, said the intention of the brand name change was to be more inclusive and to have the characters still live within the Potato Head universe.”
Women in Construction Push for More Inclusive Terminology | Construction Dive
“‘Foreman,’ ‘workmanship,’ ‘manlift,’ ‘tradesman’ and many other words seemed out of place in an industry that is striving to attract more workers.”
Not as Simple as “No Means No”: What Young People Need to Know About Consent | The Conversation
“Consent isn’t about doing whatever we want until we hear the word ‘no’. Ideally we want all our sexual encounters to involve an enthusiastic ‘yes’.”
Should We Stop Saying “Slut”? | The Daily Targum
“Do we remove the word from our vocabulary or do we reclaim the word in a new context?”
Make Space for “Whole Whale”
Written by Conscious Style Guide founder Karen Yin,Whole Whale is a story about making space for everyone.
Coming out May 1, 2021, from Barefoot Books. Illustrated by Nelleke Verhoeff.
Available for preorder everywhere books are sold.When you use our Bookshop.org affiliate link, we will earn a commission from your purchase.
“If it’s relevant to include the race of the victims, it’s equally relevant to include the race of the suspect.”
“The words [‘by blood’], added to the constitution in 2007, have been used to exclude Black people whose ancestors were enslaved by the tribe from obtaining full Cherokee Nation citizenship rights.”
In a New Series, TCM Takes a Look at “Problematic” Classics | The Associated Press
“We’re just trying to model ways of having longer and deeper conversations and not just cutting it off to ‘I love this movie. I hate this movie.’ There’s so much space in between.” —Jacqueline Stewart, host, TCM
The Language of Food and Bodies | Rabbit With a Red Pen
Crystal Shelley presents information from fellow editor Jill Campbell’s presentation “Don’t Eat Your Words: How We Talk About Food and Bodies and Why It Matters.”
Slurs like “oreo” and “banana” are “reductive, demeaning and they propagate the idea that there’s only one correct way to be a person of colour.”
Only 2% of Conversations End When We Want Them to—Here’s Why That’s Cause for Celebration | The Conversation
“Saying ‘anyway’ or ‘alright’ in a certain tone can help precipitate a closing routine.”
Why Disease Names Matter | The Globe and Mail
“The naming of diseases can seem to be an abstract question, but attention to history and rising racism are evidence that words matter.”
CSG in the News
5 Features of the Best Content Style Guides | UX Planet
Make your content style guide “human-centered, clear, concise, useful, and accessible. Always.”
“By setting company-wide guidelines, you create standards for communication while opening the door for conversation around what inclusive language means for each person in your company.”
5 Ways to Make Your Communications More Inclusive | Representation Plus
“You may not notice when you’re using exclusive language, but the people you are excluding will.”
From the Archives
Drop the Hyphen in “Asian American” | Conscious Style Guide
“Those hyphens serve to divide even as they are meant to connect. Their use in racial and ethnic identifiers can connote an otherness, a sense that people of color are somehow not full citizens or fully American.”
In Case You Missed It
Read about the media’s lack of coverage of rising anti-Asian violence, how journalists can responsibly cover Trump now that he is no longer in office, what the media got right when reporting about Elliot Page, and more.
Tap Into the EOC Network
The Editors of Color Database, a project of Conscious Style Guide, is a free service that connects employers and recruiters with editors, proofreaders, and sensitivity readers of color in the U.S. and Canada. It’s also free to submit job listings for distribution to our private network of editorial pros. The Editors of Color website is home to the Database of Diverse Databases, now with over 75 resources featuring underrepresented communities. Diversify your staff and sources now!
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Follow @consciousstyleguide on Instagram for examples of how context can support sensitive content, with a focus on children’s books, including young adult.
The Conscious Style Guide newsletter rounds up the best news and blog posts from the world of kind, compassionate, mindful, empowering, respectful, and inclusive language. Note: Spotlighting an opinion is not intended as an endorsement. Please send news tips to [email protected].
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