"men and women" in uniform

You hear it from elected officials across the political spectrum, laced in and out of the media, and charging from the mouths of disgruntled voters. Whether you want them home or abroad, in better health, given more job opportunities, better equipped, or just more respected--we are inundated with references to our "men and women in uniform."

Why insist on creating mental categories of men and women as separate from one another? Why reaffirm men and women and separate social characters over and over again?

We could call them troops or soldiers or brave citizens or patriots in uniform--anything at all. But we insist on categorically differentiating based on genitals. Perhaps you scoff at this as pure semantics. But these words are culturally loaded and work in tandem with a greater social structure that not only separates men and women, but presents them in diametric opposition to one another. These words service a larger and deeply-embedded socio-political framework that processes "male" and "female" differently, and perpetuates gendered assumptions and gendered relations of power.

Do the humanist movement a favor: drop sex/gender-differentiated vocabulary from public discourse and cultural vernacular.