
Chatty Cathy, Debbie Downer, Lazy Susan, Negative Nancy, Nervous Nellie, Bye Felicia,
The list of gendered colloquialisms is long
Doesn’t ascribing negative traits to women seem wrong?
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It is disheartening for me to realize
(Even though it should come as no surprise)
That women in diverse workplaces find
Themselves with labels of a similar kind
As soon as they express any negativity
While men remain label and criticism-free
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Associating a name with a negative trait can be
A vexing issue for someone with that name unfortunately
This, along with the biases that these phrases represent
Discourages me from using them despite their prevalence
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There are many ways in which an opinion can be expressed
Keeping it free from ingrained biases can be challenging at best
But with changing ideas, language has to keep pace
In my humble opinion, discriminatory language should not have a place

The only negatives that I can remember for men were from the Dilbert comic strip: Wally, who always walked around with his coffee mug and the pointy-haired boss who did nothing. Boy, did he nail those male stereotypes.
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“Average Joe” is one but not so negative..
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I didn’t even think of that one! But yes, not near as negative as those for women.
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