Inclusive Greetings: Short, Sweet, and Gender-Free
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” is the all too familiar greeting and introduction, synonymous with live spectacle events, the circus, concerts, theme parks, and it has crept into the mundane. We still hear the shortened “ladies and gentlemen” when the flight attendants make boarding announcements, when we attend virtual webinars, or even when we watch SNL as cataloged by @SNLHostIntro (on Twitter). This unintentional exclusion has become so entangled with our common practice that there are movies, TV Shows, songs, albums, and even a play with it as the title.
The above uses of the greeting “Ladies and Gentlemen” do not pass for inclusivity, and considering how much they are used, we have to decide what the better alternative would be. We may have to look a little deeper at what the full old-timey introduction sounded like…“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, come one and all...” and there it is! Right at the very end, there was a little bit of inclusion the whole time, it just got blocked by conditional and binary language.
The Tokyo Disney Resort has tossed the usual first half of this greeting and has opted for the all-encompassing “Good evening and welcome, one and all…” as they relaunch their Electrical Parade, with hopes that Disneyland Anaheim will follow suit after they teased it on Instagram. A Twitter user posted a video of the new introduction here.
Although Disney often receives backlash when they remove problematic and biased practices or content from their nearly 100-year-old business (see Splash Mountain retheming), we don’t know whether or not this decision was made by The Walt Disney Company. Tokyo Disney is owned and operated by The Oriental Land Company and has licensed Disney properties for their resort.
Here are 4 more examples of changes in gender inclusivity:
Transport for London (TfL) has made the decision to toss their announcements into the bin for the London Underground. Mark Evers, director of Customer Strategy at TfL, said: "We want everyone to feel welcome on our transport network. We have reviewed the language that we use in announcements and elsewhere and will make sure that it is fully inclusive, reflecting the great diversity of London."
Podcast Host Drew Ackerman opted to add “Friends Beyond the Binary” to his “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” intro back in 2016, inspired by seeing a sign stating “Be The Community You Want to See”. He wanted to create a safe and welcoming space within the audience of his Sleep with Me podcast.
The University of Pittsburgh released a gender-inclusive guide for students, faculty, and staff to avoid “unintentionally creating a sexist and homophobic classroom environment.” One suggestion in the guidebook is for faculty to ask students to write down their names and pronouns, “If you are unsure what name or pronoun set a colleague or student uses in a particular setting, ask!”
Lufthansa Airlines and its partners are using gender-neutral phrases so that they are inclusive of anyone still questioning gender identity, Lufthansa crews will be greeting passengers with phrases such as "Dear guests," "Good morning/evening," or simply, "Welcome on board”.
These examples show how companies are working to be more inclusive in their first interaction with customers to ensure everyone feels welcome. Sometimes these updates can be super simple and even save time/effort (most of these examples show companies shortening or omitting pre-existing greetings).
Do you have greetings or other scripted customer interactions? Make sure to get them reviewed for inclusivity by contacting us today.