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"A council in France has abolished the word 'Mademoiselle' from all official documents because it is 'condescending and sexist'. The Paris suburb of Fontenay-sous-Bois said the term - the French equivalent of 'miss' - discriminates against women by asking them to reveal if they are married. ... Julie Muret of campaign group Osez Le Feminisme, meaning Dare Feminism, said in September that the equivalent word for men of 'Damoiseau' - meaning squire - was abolished decades ago."

Due to the rising amount of female figures in this modern day, the local regional council of Sardinia, Italy has decided to ban all "sexist" language from official communication. This includes banning some traditional parts of the Italian language such as the different conjugations and distinctions between a profession based on gender (ie. consigliera instead of consigliere).

French and German, like other Romance language, have masculine and feminine forms of nouns, and "when referring to several people by their role... and the gender of that group is either not known, irrelevant or mixed," they will use the masculine form. However, the masculine form used in this way is traditionally thought to be generic - but "the French and German participants took longer to say that the second sentence made sense if it referred to women."

Computer programs often reflect the biases of their very human creators. That's been well established. The question now is: How can we fix that problem? Adam Kalai thinks we should start with the bits of code that teach computers how to process language.

_Slate _ blogger Amanda Marcotte examines the decision of Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO, to disavow the term "feminist". Mayer suggested that she lacked "the militant drive" and "chip on the shoulder" often accompanying the term. Marcotte counters that "militant drive" and "chip on the shoulder" are code words for traits exhibited by those brave enough to challenge the sexist status quo, even at the risk of personal vilification.

As early as 1690, the terms "mademoiselle" and "demoiselle" were used to signify "unmarried female". In 2012, the French government struck the honorific from official forms and registries, as the result of pressure from two feminist organizations, who argued that no such sexist distinction exists for young males. "You've never wondered why we don't call a single man 'mondamoiseau,' or even 'young male virgin?' " the feminist groups ask on a joint Web site. "Not surprising: this sort of distinction is reserved for women."

Whenever someone is called out for using sexist language, as in the recent case involving Collingwood AFL president Eddie McGuire's comments about journalist Caroline Wilson, the first line of defence is always "but it was just a joke".

There is no such thing as "just language." Anne Curzan, associate dean of humanities and Arthur F. Thurnau professor of English at the University of Michigan, uses her knowledge of linguistics to discuss the social power language holds. Curzan is the author of "Gender Shifts in the History of English" and is the subject of a 36-lecture series titled "The Secret Life of Words." In Curzan's lecture, "Politically Correct: Do Our Language Choices Matter?," she discusses everything from sexist language to preferred pronouns in order to dispel the stigma against politically correct speaking. She spoke to students in the Memorial Union Thursday evening. "It is never just language," Curzan said. "As soon as anyone says it's just language, it's because they don't want to deal with the real issue."

The article, which is about serial sexual predator and businessman, the late Jeffrey Epstein, also explores the media's use of the term "underage woman" and the socially-sanctioned sexism behind the term: a way to lessen the seriousness of pedophilia and abuse.