What is understood by ‘nonsexist language’?

The term "nonsexist language" refers to words and ways of
speaking that do not imply that men are better than women.  Because society (and
especially the business world) has typically been male dominated, many of our speech
mannerisms and much of our language does imply that men are better than
women.

One of the examples of this that is often given is
our tendency to use the pronoun "he" by default.  When we write sentences about
unidentified people, we tend to call them "he."  This implies that anyone you are
writing about in a business context must be male because men are supposed to work and
women are supposed to stay home.  The same is true of our use of the term
"businessman."  These are usages that are not meant to be offensive, but which clearly
imply that business is a man's world, not a woman's
world.

Nonsexist language, then, avoids these sorts of word
choices.  Nonsexist language might speak of "business executives" instead of
"businessmen."  It might alternate referring to generic people as "he" and "she."  It
will avoid word choices that imply that men are better than women or that it is more
natural for men to be in the business world than for women to
be.