The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has sparked backlash after advising staff to drop the word “businessman” from its official vocabulary, describing it as a “gendered” and “offensive” term.
In a new inclusive language guide, the Paris-based organisation urged employees to adopt “gender-neutral language” that “removes assumptions about gender identity, gender roles and relationships.” Suggested alternatives include “business person,” “chair” instead of “chairman,” “firefighter” in place of “fireman,” and “humanity” instead of “mankind.” The guide also discourages using “ladies and gentlemen,” recommending “distinguished guests” instead.
Lord Young, secretary-general of the Free Speech Union, said the OECD had “been captured by radical progressive ideology.” He told The Telegraph: “Instead of doing its job, which is to promote free trade and economic growth, it now thinks its role is to promote social justice.”
Dr. Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us, called the move a distraction from real economic issues: “These are highly paid people in a country that’s had five prime ministers in two years and is on the point of needing an IMF bailout. Do they not think they should be attending to real problems instead of inventing mythical new ones that only serve the interests of woke cliques?”
The OECD claims the new guide reflects its “commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion,” but the move has been met with ridicule among free-speech advocates who see it as part of a broader trend of bureaucratic “woke-washing.”
The guide follows similar initiatives across Western institutions—from NATO’s decision to replace “airmen” with “air force personnel” to British councils banning “mother” and “father” in staff communications—marking another step in what critics describe as a sweeping attempt to rewrite everyday language in the name of inclusivity.
