‘No man’s land’ in EU’S sights on guide to safe gender terms

THE EU has urged legislators to abandon “gendered language” including the term “no man’s land”.

Bureaucrats say the First World War phrase should be replaced with “unclaimed territory”, while “Joe Public” should instead be “average citizen”.

A Tory MP has branded the guidelines as “nonsense” and said the EU had “far more serious issues” that it should be concerned about.

A 61-page document, compiled by the the European Institute for Gender Equality, outlines offending language and provides alternatives.

Entitled a “Toolkit on Gender-sensitive Communication”, the bundle advises against terms such as “pushy” and “shrill” which have “have strong connotations that are strongly associated with only women”. Instead, the institute recommends “assertive” for the former and “high-pitched” for the latter.

Meanwhile “virile”, which is considered to be “strongly associated with only men” should be replaced by “strong or energetic”, according to the paper’s authors.

Legislators, policymakers and the media are also advised to reconsider the order of common phrases such as “King and Queen” or “brother and sister”.the document suggest: “Try swapping the order of these phrases sometimes.” And the classic Star Trek line, “To boldly go where no man has gone before”, is cited as an example where “women may be subject to invisibility or omission”.

Tory MP Nick Fletcher said: “I think it’s nonsense, especially when there’s far more serious issues going on. The EU needs to take a good hard look at themselves and think about what other problems are going on.”

The Don Valley MP added: “We’ve got wars being waged, an energy crisis and a lot of countries are dealing with the same kind of problems ... things like this are a waste of our time.”

Nigel Mills, Tory MP for Amber Valley, told The Sun newspaper: “This is utter madness. It’s an attack on the English language.”

In 2022, “fishermen” became the latest term to be targeted by the EU, with the bloc’s staff encouraged to use “fisherpeople” or “fishers” instead. While Britain left the EU in January 2020, English remains the bloc’s official language within the bloc.

‘We’ve got wars being waged and an energy crisis ... things like this are a waste of our time’