The Mouth of a Sailor: The Power of Language to Build an Inclusive Culture

Every morning, I step off the ship’s brow, salute the officer of the deck, and recite the traditional words: “I report my return aboard.” This is the first of many naval phrases I will use throughout the day, some almost unintelligible to those not steeped in Navy culture. Like in any culture, in the Navy, we communicate in ways that reflect our lifestyle, values, and goals. When sailors first step aboard a ship, they learn the words “P-way,” “bulkhead,” and “chow line,” alongside phrases such as “watch team management,” “forceful backup,” and “mission readiness.” It immediately becomes clear that to live on board and belong to the crew will require learning a new language—one that influences behaviors.

After being immersed in Navy vernacular, sailors rapidly report to their battle stations at the words “General Quarters” or instinctively retrieve a CO₂ bottle after hearing “Class Charlie Fire.” But the influence of language in the Navy goes beyond warfighting and damage control. The Navy must broaden the contexts in which it employs language as a tool and begin to wield it to improve organizational culture. Promoting the use of inclusive language throughout the fleet has the power to cultivate a culture that facilitates cohesiveness, celebrates diversity, and fosters inclusion.

Noninclusive Language is Pervasive

As it stands, failure to use inclusive language—language that is respectful, accurate, and reflective of the diverse social fabric of the fleet—persists across the Navy. From official training to colloquial banter, the use of exclusively masculine pronouns, vulgar insults, or “locker room talk” persists. These forms of noninclusive language can hinder team building and generate a hostile work environment that resists reformation by policy or regulation alone. Although the Navy has taken measures to promote inclusive language, such as updating the Navy SEAL ethos with gender-inclusive language and including “offensive jokes, epithets, … insults or put-downs” in the Navy’s definition of harassment, language among some sailors has yet to reflect these executive-level changes.¹ The phrase “mouth of a sailor” lives on, and it is gnawing away at the Navy’s efforts toward building an inclusive workplace.

Not all noninclusive language in the Navy is spoken with harmful intentions. For example, those who use exclusively masculine pronouns perpetuate gender stereotypes that are no longer accurate in the fleet, but they often do so unwittingly. Although seldom ill-intentioned, the routine absence of female pronouns in training presentations, emails, and conversations ignores the contributions of women across the Navy, especially those serving in roles that traditionally have been filled by men.

During my time in the Navy’s nuclear training program, I listened to countless instructors refer to reactor operators, throttlemen, electrical operators, and all other engine room watchstanders with male pronouns: “You will tell him,” “He will take these actions,” “He will give the brief.” After lectures, I made it a point to provide constructive feedback to my instructors, reminding them that women also stand these watches. Their responses were often empty and trite; despite promises to incorporate female pronouns, the problem persisted.

After the fourth or fifth offense, I was more pointed, bluntly calling out “or she” when an instructor blew through a presentation using only “he.” Sometimes, an instructor would catch my comment and correct the sentence with an accompanying eye roll: “Oh, yeah, he or she.” But my efforts were largely ignored, and this undertaking became unproductively repetitive. From my seat in the classroom, I soon found it inappropriate to stop the lesson at every instance of gender exclusivity.

I wanted my instructors to understand the subtle, yet transformative power of including female pronouns when speaking about roles in the Navy. As a midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy, I took notice of the rare occasion an instructor would refer to a commanding officer as “she” alongside “he.” It was a shock to the system. How many times did I have to hear an instructor assume that my future captain would be a man before hearing just once that it might be a woman? (My first captain was, in fact, a woman.) Did it matter that I was a woman at a school whose purpose is to develop and graduate future captains?

Noninclusive Language is Damaging

The practice of using exclusive pronouns is not just a matter of offending women. Noninclusive language also discourages diversity in the Navy by portraying roles as unachievable for women or any other excluded group. Inclusive language, in contrast, enables all members to feel valued, respected, and regarded with equal expectation of achievement. When a Navy instructor says, “You will call the captain and he or she will answer the phone . . .” women in the audience can more easily envision themselves someday fulfilling the role of a commanding officer, and men in the audience are more likely to expect a woman’s voice on the other end of the captain’s line.

Fostering a culture of inclusive language in the Navy requires individuals to improve their own daily pronoun use, and, to that end, the Navy must set the example by editing official documents to reflect inclusivity. The Office of NATO Secretary General’s Special Representative for Women, Peace, and Security recognizes the importance of inclusive language in the military and provides a manual with explicit guidelines for producing gender-inclusive documents. Techniques include rephrasing sentences to omit pronouns altogether or using the singular pronoun “they.”²

Currently, the Navy lags its NATO counterparts in implementing these changes. On reporting to my second sea command, I received instructional notes to help with my qualifications and found that the roles in my department had been defined with exclusively masculine pronouns. When I addressed this with the officer who had compiled the notes, he dismissed my concern, curtly explaining that the definitions had been copied from the ship’s Reactor Department Organizational Manual (RDOM). But, I thought to myself, had he not just transcribed the notes from the RDOM into a secondary document, in which he could have easily edited the definitions to reflect reality—that both men and women occupy these roles within our department? Moreover, could we not revise the RDOM—a local instruction—itself? Without any answers, I moved on. Pronoun use was not a topic I was willing to take up with departmental leaders during my first days on board.

In addition to addressing pronoun use, the Navy must take a stand against more severe, malicious forms of noninclusive language: slurs and vulgar insults. It is not uncommon that I hear sailors refer to each other as “retard,” “gay,” “pussy,” and other insulting words that have long since been abolished from appropriate vernacular. The prevalence of these epithets is overwhelming, creating an environment that normalizes verbal abuse and insults people with intellectual disabilities, the LGBTQIA+ community, and women. I acknowledge that many sailors who use such language typically do not do so in a direct effort to disparage these groups. Nevertheless, their language creates a sexist, homophobic, and harassing environment that, over time, can have similar negative effects on an individual’s wellbeing as less frequent but more intense experiences, such as sexual coercion.³

“Locker-room talk” is a similarly insidious force that precludes the development of inclusive environments. When the sharing of sexual jokes and anecdotes is tolerated in the workplace, individuals who are uncomfortable with such language are deterred from integrating with certain team members and are therefore stripped of opportunities to contribute valuable input. Amid foul language and inappropriate tales of last weekend’s escapades, decisions are made about future plans, leadership positions, and workload distribution. Those uncomfortable around “locker-room talk” must make a choice between avoiding those who exhibit its use, thereby risking ostracization and loss of professional opportunities, or bearing the discomfort of working in an offensive environment.

Change is an Uphill Battle

Converting the Navy’s lexicon into an inclusive one requires confronting rigid stigma. While the Navy is taking action to address these issues, portions of the public lament promoting inclusive language as a priority for a warfighting organization.

For example, the Navy released a training video in June 2022 titled “NAVSpEAks: Pronouns,” in which two engineers discuss the importance of correctly addressing individuals by their preferred pronouns and using inclusive pronouns when speaking to groups.⁴ The video was met with derision. To paraphrase the comments section, viewers questioned, “Is this really the problem the Navy is tackling instead of winning wars?”

While the Navy faces stigma at the organizational level, individuals within the Navy encounter the same uphill battle when promoting inclusive language, as my experiences demonstrate. I eventually grew hesitant to interrupt classroom lectures for fear of being incorrectly labeled as obsessed with political correctness. I faltered in confronting departmental leaders about our instructional notes for fear of being perceived as prioritizing human resource concerns over my qualifications. I correct sailors’ foul language regularly, but only when they pause long enough for me to interject. Each time, I struggle to decide if this is the battle I want to fight at that moment.

If I make noninclusive language my proverbial hill to die on, I run the risk of losing credibility among my sailors. They will ask, “Is this really the problem LT is tackling instead of [the upcoming maintenance inspection, inport emergency team drills, preparations for next month’s underway, etc.]?” akin to the public comments on the Navy’s pronoun training video.

Language Can Be Transformational

Adjusting these attitudes cannot be done in a transactional way; mandatory group training sessions that prescribe or prohibit specific language will not solve the problem, nor will disciplinary initiatives. An article in the Harvard Business Review describes how training sessions that outline what employees can or cannot say “quickly become the butt of participant jokes,” and may actually have negative effects on diversity and inclusion outcomes.⁵ Disciplining sailors for using insulting words such as “retard” might have short-term positive effects, but only because sailors will stop using the word around key leaders who enforce the policy, not because of lasting changes in behavior.

Making Navy language inclusive must be done in a transformational, conversation-based manner that relies on passionate individuals to communicate deliberately and empathetically. When educating sailors about inclusive language, one must emphasize why noninclusive language is so damaging to both individuals and the workplace environment, not just what can or cannot be said. Those who intervene to correct noninclusive language should be genuine, perhaps even sharing personal stories about their experiences and the effect of biased language. By saying “this has hurt me” or “my friend” or “my brother or sister,” individuals personalize the consequences of noninclusive language and incentivize others to be more inclusive based on the promise of maintaining relationships, not on the threat of discipline.

These conversations also must affirm that making a positive change toward inclusive language is important. And it does not come at a risk to mission, deployment, inspection, or test. In fact, it enhances the Navy’s effectiveness. When we fail to use inclusive language, we marginalize individuals who contribute to these larger organizational goals. Noninclusive language creates fault lines within a team, prevents cohesiveness, and degrades relationships, all of which negatively affect a crew’s ability to fight the ship. Viewing the Navy’s endeavor to use inclusive language as an insignificant, even inane priority disassociates unit cohesion from unit success.

Inclusive language has the power to invite sailors from all backgrounds into the conversation, whereby they can offer their ideas, talents, and skills. It fosters an environment in which stereotypes fade and eventually disappear. In a Navy in which inclusive language abounds, saying “he or she” or the singular “they” is just as natural as requesting “permission to come aboard.” In a workplace free of insults and vulgarities, all are comfortable participating, speaking up, and providing input. The Navy must embrace inclusive language to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of all members, teach sailors to expect equal representation in all roles, and help foster relationships that are respectful and empathetic. “The mouth of a sailor” should be one that speaks truth to the Navy, is proud of its diversity, and is humbled to be its champion.