Pros And Cons Of Political Correctness

Language is a powerful tool that is deeply associated with the culture of a society. It manipulates people’s thoughts, beliefs, and emotions, allowing people to base their decisions and judgments upon it. Often, people are influenced to use language that is offensive to other people because of their different personal backgrounds and beliefs. Issues such as racism, sexism, and other prejudices are expressed through this offensive language. People are hurt by these attitudes, so people have established the idea of political correctness. This idea improves the treatment of others and creates a safer, fairer society. Ultimately, politically correct language is necessary for an understanding society. A simple approach to using politically correct language is to use alternative phrases and words for those that might appear offensive. For example, The North York Women Teachers’ Association suggests to use an

Michiko Kakutani, for example , is an opponent. She critiques the author Rosalie Maggio for her idea to avoid using “the pseudogeneric he,” “man for humanity,” “fellow,” “king,” and “lord” because all of these terms refer to men (762). Maggio’s wish is to avoid sexism by not using these words, but Kakutani believes that “this vision of harmony clashes with the very ideals of diversity and inclusion. . . and it’s cost at the freedom of expression and freedom of speech” (763). Choosing not to use words that refer to males is actually more inclusive than Kakutani believes. It allows women to have more representation within literature and other texts. To avoid these words, one could use a more inclusive word, such as “humans” instead of “men,” or rearrange the sentence in order to eliminate the need for the word in question. People might need to be more creative and flexible when writing, but it would not be difficult to remedy the issue of