Watching Their Language : Councilwoman Makes an Issue of Gender-Insensitive Speech

They speak of her with a touch of reverence, as if Judy Abdo personally led them to the door of heightened sensitivity and ushered them--well, OK, shoved them--through.

Before Abdo, pier commissioner William Spurgin Jr. said, “the word she or woman didn’t exist in my vocabulary.”

Herb Katz, Abdo’s colleague on the Santa Monica City Council, gushed: “I have literally changed my entire way of thinking, based upon years of Judy educating me.”

The two are among Abdo’s more fervent converts in her battle against sexist language--a campaign that draws kudos and complaints at City Hall.

Planning to make a presentation before the City Council? Better bring a mixed bag of pronouns. Abdo may ignore your first few generalized references to he or his. She may even let you slip in a fireman (as opposed to the gender-neutral firefighter) or a meter maid (in lieu of the politically correct meter reader).

But habitual offenders beware: Eventually you’re likely to be interrupted by Abdo, the lone female person on the council, and asked to start using “gender-inclusive language.”

“I do feel pretty strongly that I want to say something,” said Abdo, a former schoolteacher, in describing how she reacts when someone launches into an unintentionally sexist soliloquy. “The hard part is to do it without embarrassing anybody.”

The trouble is, Abdo’s interruptions often are awkward. Speakers get rattled. Audiences titter. And a few of Abdo’s colleagues are getting tired of it.

“Philosophically, I do agree with her, but I don’t think I’m there to correct people in their choice of words,” said Councilman Robert Holbrook. “If someone says, ‘It took five minutes for the policeman to show up,’ I understand it was a police officer.”

Councilman Kelly Olsen said he, too, admires Abdo’s convictions. But if speakers wish to be gender specific, that’s their right.

Olsen said speakers can lose their trains of thought as they struggle to make sense of Abdo’s polite but stern admonitions.

“You look at the faces of the people,” Olsen said. “Their eyes are racing by, going, ‘What!? I know I’m talking to an intelligent person, but I can’t understand.’ And then it hits them. By the time they figure it out, 10 or 20 seconds have gone by.”

One recent victim was Richard Fajardo, an attorney who spoke at last week’s council meeting on charter reform.

An expert on election districts and how they often disenfranchise minorities, Fajardo is no stranger to the sting of discrimination.

But his language betrayed him.

Referring to a hypothetical Latino council member in Texas, Fajardo said: “But it was another thing to . . . have him raise a series of issues, and you’re in the back of your mind thinking, ‘I may need his vote.’ ”

The soft-spoken Abdo had had enough. “I wonder if you could use inclusive language on gender?” she inquired. “Talk about he or she.”

Interviewed days later, Fajardo immediately recalled the exchange and praised Abdo for correcting him.

“It throws you a little off stride,” he said of the interruption. “You might lose a little focus on the subject--but by bringing it to your attention you have to deal with it.”

Not everyone is such a quick study. In 1983, for example, Abdo found herself on the Pier Restoration Commission’s Board of Directors alongside Spurgin.

The board was Spurgin’s first venture into political life--and his first encounter with the Abdo School of Gender Neutrality.

“Judy started in on me at the very first meeting,” Spurgin recalled. “I would say ‘he.’ She would say ‘or she.’ Every time I would say ‘some guy,’ she would say ‘or gal.’

“We were looking for a director and I’d say, ‘This guy’s gotta be experienced in construction,’ and she’d say, ‘or she.’ ”

It became a running joke that lasted for weeks, but eventually Spurgin--receiving additional coaching from his wife--slowly improved.

“Today I’m pretty good,” he boasted.

But if the re-education of Spurgin was a victory for gender-inclusivists, the evolution of Katz has been something of a miracle.

The eight-year councilman recalls his initial response to Abdo’s interjections.

“My first reaction was, ‘Come on, what are we doing here? . . . This is a lot of baloney.’ ”

In the 10 years that followed, Abdo turned Katz into lunchmeat.

In an interview, he lamented a language studded with exclusionary references to males and pointed out that God is not necessarily a He.

“I am amazed at myself--at my level of consciousness,” Katz said.

Katz said he has reached the point where he, too, needles a speaker now and then for making sexist references--something Abdo said she’d like to see more from all her colleagues.

“For me,” she said, “the best thing would be if all the council members were sensitive to it and didn’t wait for me.”