UBC Researchers Suggest Alternative Terms For Male, Female, And More

A group of researchers from the US and Canada suggested that alternative words for terms like "male" and "female" and "mother" and "father" should be coined in science because they assume sex is binary and heterosexuality is the norm.

Instead, males should be referred to as "sperm-producing" and females as "egg-producing," stated the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) Language Project, according to the Times of London.

In the scientific field, however, the father should be labelled as a "parent sperm donor" and the mother as a "parent egg donor."

Alternate Terms For Male Female

The research group has called on the scientific field to use terms that are more inclusive and precise, according to a press release from the University of British Columbia, where three researchers are a part of the initiative.

"Much of western science is rooted in colonialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy, and these power structures continue to permeate our scientific culture," some project members wrote in the Trends in Ecology and Evolution Journal.

Assistant Professor of the University of British Columbia (UBC), Dr. Kaitlyn Gaynor, said that the undertaking began with a Twitter conversation among a few people about potentially harmful terminology.

"We reached out to different networks in ecology and evolution that were focused on increasing inclusion and equity in the field of science to rally support for a specific action—revising terminology that might be potentially harmful to certain people, especially those belonging to groups that are historically and currently excluded from science," Dr. Gaynor said in the press release.

The research group’s website lists its top 24 "harmful terms," which were created through crowdsourcing by community members with possible alternative suggestions.

For instance, "primitive" and "advance" are problematic because they are used derogatorily towards humans and human practices. Also, these terms are scientifically inaccurate as they imply an evolutionary hierarchy. Instead, the words "ancestral" or "derived" are suggested.

The term "survival of the fittest" could be linked with "eugenics, ableism, and social darwinism." So the researchers suggested the terms "natural selection" and "survival difference" instead.

The researchers stated that even the term "citizen science" is troublesome because it could possibly mean "harmful to non-citizens." So the EEB language project advised the use of "participant science" or "community science."

The aim of the EEB language project is to be a "living document," said Dr. Danielle Ignace of the UBC. "Potentially harmful words and their alternatives can change over time," she added.

"People can submit their suggestions online and have their voices heard. They can also get more involved individually, through an institution, or at the community level. The goal is to unite people's efforts at the grassroots level.

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