A letter on political correctness…

Is political correctness destroying debates? Does society just need a push in the right direction for us all to leave in a more open, more equal and more just world?

Political correctness and all that comes with this umbrella term is highly necessary for the society to evolve not only regarding national interests but on a global language perspective. We should not forget that English is spoken by so many people around the world and is used for international communication. Therefore, if the English language does not include people of all nations, ethnicities, genders and religions, is it really an international language?

There were some points in my life where I became acutely aware of language and how my words can shape the way other people feel. One of those moments was when an African American colleague came to me after a meeting and asked me why did I not correct the person running the meeting when he totally mispronounced my name. While this was a very simple question it made me stop and think – why didn’t I? Was it because he was above me in the organization? Was it because it would not have looked good? Well my answer to the question was that my name is really hard for most people, and it usually gets mispronounced, so I just not care so much anymore. My colleague’s response was that it does make a difference and I should not just take it as it is. At that time I just took the advice but did not follow though. I just told myself well I will make sure my children will have easier names than me.

The second time when I became aware of language and its impact was when I took over my first team. Still young and with a mispronounced name I was eager to take over the team and make a change. Now we all know those emails that some managers get to distribute further, I got one of those in the first days as team leader so as I knew from my boss I sent the email further to my team with the following sentence: “Hi guys, FYI – wish you a good day.” Now probably nobody beside the intern in my team read that email, but she picked up the phone and gave me a call. She challenged why did I not include the women in my team. My response was well they are in the distribution list, so they are included. She was not happy with my answer and challenged my formulation “Hi guys” when I could have written “Hi all”. That is when it became clear to me, today’s organizations are still so male dominated that we even refer to them as the norm in our emails which are basically saying “Hi my male colleagues (all other colleagues be happy that you are even in the distribution list)”, so from that phone call on I changed the way I am writing emails from “Hi guys” I went to “Hi all”.

As a feminist it means that I fight for political correctness and respect towards everyone. This does not mean that I get it always right, my name is misspelled and mispronounce on a daily basis, but I am able to learn, to admit when I am wrong and to change in order to be a better human being.

One day we will leave in the perfect world, but today we have to still fight for it.