The place of Inclusive Speech as a deterrent for Women entering Leadership roles
In the spirit of international Women’s day, I thought to discuss something.
So the other day I postulated something that upon researching, I found already existed in a well thought out manner- Inclusive Speech.

I might not expound on this thoroughly but I would hopefully be opening the doors for some new thinking.
I believe it is the responsibility of Storytellers, those in authority or those who bear a semblance of influence to be inclusive of women in their addresses with the goal to normalize Women in Management.
I will list a few examples of how we could be more inclusive and how exclusivity in speech could keep Gender Bias where it is or worse.
- A pastor in church decides to teach on the subject of Grace and says “How you treat your wife will make her happy, how you treat your children would make them happy but Gods happiness with you is dependent on Christs perfect sacrifice”.
This statement is true for the Christian reader however, it leaves out the women in the congregation listening to the message. Its important to highlight exactly how I, a woman can be a founder.

- An author speaks on running a business and how a founder should behave or address challenges as they come up. The author could consider making the protagonist both female and Male in examples in their book to normalize the founder status of women for readers.
I didn’t know how the effect of this would be as powerful as I felt it when I read “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz.

- Childrens’ books, movies and stories need to have women as the heroes of the stories. This will normalize ambition for girls.

- Stories should avoid situations where women are portrayed as leaders without putting down their male counterparts as they lead. Leadership with women needs to not only be possible when male folk are portrayed as inadequate or downright stupid. Women need to never see THE route to leadership as emasculation. This article expounds men looking like idiots in advertising.

- Condiser that in Nigeria, where females from the Northern part of Nigeria are concerned, it has not occurred to a vast majority of them that a reality exists that they can aspire to anything outside domestic duties.
Primary school texts where “Amina” or “Fatima” is a doctor or a lawyer opens girls to a reality where higher education is a possibility. “Eze goes to school is great”. Let’s also read “Amina becomes an Engineer”, especially in these parts.
The above are different areas I thought to highlight during this period.

Let me know in the comment section areas I missed out. In the course of writing this article, I kept thinking about an animated movie I saw once where the female aliens who were smart and industrious had removed men from their community. All the men were in fact dumb and only contributed to procreation. I can’t remember the name of this movie. Have you seen it?
March 10, 2020 @ 1:10 pm
I agree! It’s important for us to normalise these things. It enables women to aspire to positions of authority and men to see that women can reach great heights.
March 10, 2020 @ 2:07 pm
I agree, A. Thanks
March 10, 2020 @ 3:18 pm
Your article is very enlightening. I totally agree, women can be great with emasculating the men around them. The media and people of influence have a great role to play I’m achieving this. It gives me great joy that the world is consciously working towards this. The future looks bright for women. It’s a great time to be alive.
March 11, 2020 @ 9:44 pm
It is a great time to be alive
March 11, 2020 @ 8:21 pm
Thnkx Kaeto for nudging us on our women and use of inclusive language. Honestly, I think fair progress has been achieved in the last few years in achieving diversity and inclusion. Unlike in the past there is now shared understanding on what constitutes respect for women especially in tbe workplace.
For real the society still remains largely gendered; the men push the gender card: to create superiority complex whilst surprisingly women push feminity ro achieve favours but turn round ro project equality where there is a leadership contest.
Kaeto, I honestly agree that we need to model inclusive speech starting from kids story book by making women leaders in male community communities. I really believe the near future is great for our women.
Thanks for sharing
March 11, 2020 @ 9:46 pm
Very gendered society indeed. I hope this small action will help. Both men and women need to learn and unlearn accordingly