The "Generic" Masculine

In the past, writers claimed that sentences such as "Man should live in harmony with his environment" were acceptable because everyone knew "man" and "his" were being used generically to refer to men and women. However, several decades of research have shown that not to be true.

Some of these studies asked subjects to draw or choose pictures of what they actually saw in their mind when hearing or writing sentences such as "Do not judge a person by the color of his skin." Overwhelmingly, but not surprisingly, the subjects chose pictures of men when hearing or writing masculine nouns or pronouns that were supposedly generic.

Today it is widely recognized that the use of masculine in such cases is a type of biased language that should be avoided.

Catagorical Bias

There also used to be a time when you could say doctor, lawyer, fireman or policeman and be confident that you were referring exclusively to men. However, today, as more equality has come to the workplace and to the professions, our language has undergone a substantial shift away from these historical job titles that refer to gender. These changes are important for your writing in a variety of circumstances where you will need to use these new job categories. 

Three Good Reasons To Avoid Bias

Finally, it's important to point out that the academic style guides you are often required to use in school--APA, MLA, and Chicago--employ these guidelines for avoiding biased language.

Most major universities and colleges have also adopted guidelines for the use of unbiased language. And it should come as no surprise that most major employers in the U.S., including the largest employer, the federal government, have also adopted guidelines for the use of fair and unbiased language in the workplace and in all communications.

However, perhaps the most important reason for adopting these guidelines into your writing is a practical one: Your goal as a writer is to communicate to an audience, all members of that audience, with inclusive language that welcomes to your message and gives it the best chance of success.