Ford Motor Company’s board voted recently to amend the company’s bylaws to adopt gender-neutral language throughout. This new taxonomy of position titles include using ‘chair’ in place of ‘chairman. This very interesting topic came to us from Corporate Secretary in their article, “The week in GRC: SEC exam chief to step down and Ford adopts gender-neutral titles.”
Proponents of gender-neutral language generally advocate the use of gender-neutral job titles, particularly in contexts where the gender of the person in question is not known or not specified.
The changes come after many companies have committed to being more diverse, equitable and inclusive. By stepping away from gender-based titles, it helps limit ambiguity and contribute to a more equitable culture.
There can also be bias in the job description itself so it will be interesting to see if their efforts will perpetuate a closer look at all the language around recruitment and human resources. Some of it is explicit bias and some is implicit bias.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
