Council debates use of word 'chairman'

A council has been discussing the use of the word "chairman" and whether it should be changed to be more gender neutral.

It was part of a Cornwall Council Constitution and Governance Committee debate on Tuesday at the request of Liberal Democrat councillor Ruth Gripper, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

She was unable to attend the meeting but a statement was read on her behalf which said when she joined the council the phrase "chairman of the committee" to her felt like "the council assumes that a committee chair is always a man".

She said: "Happily that is not the case in practice, but I thought surely we could update our official language to reflect this?"

Councillor Nicky Chopak said as the head of a committee she was "quite happy to be called a chair rather than a chairman or a chairperson".

"We look at our language quite carefully at Cornwall Council," she said.

"We've had conversations about 'his' and 'her' and issues around how we should be looking at men and women. I actually just think 'chair' fits every box."

The committee unanimously agreed to a recommendation that where legislation refers to "chairman", the council interprets this as "chair" for the purposes of equality and diversity, except where the statutory term must be used for legal compliance.

During the debate Conservative councillor Jane Pascoe said: "I'm always happy to be called chairman and I think it should remain the same."

Green Party councillor Drew Creek believed a change was important.

He said: "I think we should move away from what is essentially a gender term and make it much more neutral and inclusive, and remove the masculine default of the word 'chairman'."

Fellow Green Party councillor Karen La Borde said: "One of the things Cornwall Council should be doing is leading its community and, as we all know, female representation in politics is much lower than male representation.

"If we want to send the right message to females we have to remove gendered language."

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