Qantas has told their employees to use “gender appropriate” language to avoid offending the LGBTQI community. According to the Daily Telegraph, an information booklet, issued by Quanta’s People and Culture group executive Lesley Grant, asks employees to stop using potentially offensive words such as “honey, darling and love.”
Terms such as “partner” are also to be used in place of husband and wife, and “parents” instead of mum and dad. Also frowned upon are gender-inappropriate words such as guys, mankind, or chairman.
Language can make groups of people invisible. For example, the use of the term chairman can reinforce the idea that leaders are always men.
The airline has also advised staff to minimise “manteruptions.” According to the booklet, “Research shows that in many situations, including the workplace, men interrupt and speak over women, while the reverse rarely happens.”
Further, employees have been instructed to, recognise the reality that, “Australia was not settled peacefully. Describing the arrival of the Europeans as a ‘settlement’ is a view of Australian history from the perspective of England rather than Australia. Instead of settlement, try ‘colonisation,’ ‘occupation’ or ‘invasion.'”
