There has been a lot of talk about moving towards a more inclusive place of communication, as a packaging agency in London, we pay particular attention to the way we communicate, hoping to avoid offending those advocating for ditching gendered language altogether. However where we lose gendered terms ‘she’, ‘hers’, ‘woman’, we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Brands will need to make a call on what their inclusivity sounds like, and where they stand on the binary-free spectrum.
The copy of 2020 will explore gender neutrality, with some brands opting to adopt gender free terms, while others decide their responsibility lies with those who identify as women or men.
That being said, future copy, while moving towards a more inclusive and responsible way of communicating, will faze out toxic terms which stereotype the behaviour of men or women into overly feminine or overly masculine categories, making room for androgynous wording which can say ‘her’ without referencing specifically how ‘she’ should look, or behave.