Priorities! Berkeley city council makes town more inclusive by renaming manhole covers (and more)

Doug P. | 12:09 PM on July 18, 2019

We often write about “progressive priorities,” and few cities contribute more to those kinds of stories than Berkeley, California. The city council in that town has again provided another example:

City of #Berkeley ditching gender-specific terms from city code. Among the changes: “Manhole” will be “maintenance hole.” “Manpower” – “human effort.” “He/she” – “they.” Sorority/fraternity to be called “Greek system residence.” What do you think?? @KTVU

— Elissa Harrington (@EHarringtonTV) July 18, 2019

Berkeley gonna Berkeley

The city will no longer use “gendered” words like “manhole.”

They’re now “maintenance holes”https://t.co/I2Mt2J2xmP

— Ashe Schow (@AsheSchow) July 18, 2019

Some of the changes include the word, "manhole" that will now be "maintenance hole." https://t.co/uesmrK0zNB

— KTVU (@KTVU) July 18, 2019

From the Daily Wire:

The full list of changed words is reminiscent of the decades-old move to change words that typically end in “-man” to ending with “-person,” such as “salesperson” instead of “salesman.” But the Berkeley list goes further, changing words in a way that would make a Gender Studies professor proud.

Instead of “manhole,” city code must now say “maintenance hole.” Instead of “brother” or “sister,” city code must now say “sibling.” Instead of “manpower,” city code must now say either “human effort” or “workforce.”