The Debian Constitution is very well written, in a way that is almost completely ungendered. The only gendered word left is the Chairman of the Technical Committee. There is no reason for this position to be gendered. Ungendered alternatives for Chairman are Chair and Chairperson. While both work, Chair is simpler and shorter. I'm therefore proposing the following General Resolution: === BEGIN GR TEXT === Title: Replace "Chairman" with "Chair" throughout the Debian Constitution All appearances of the word Chairman shall be replaced with the word Chair. === END GR TEXT === This change can be applied by a simple sed command (s/Chairman/Chair/g). I'm attaching the diff between the current constitution document and the output of said sed command to make it explicit that no other changes are intended. -- Regards, Marga
--- constitution.wml 2016-02-25 08:03:04.000000000 +0100
+++ constitution.new.wml 2016-07-08 15:18:41.857474553 +0200
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
<li>The Project Leader;</li>
- <li>The Technical Committee and/or its Chairman;</li>
+ <li>The Technical Committee and/or its Chair;</li>
<li>The individual Developer working on a particular task;</li>
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@
<li>
<p>A person may hold several posts, except that the Project Leader,
- Project Secretary and the Chairman of the Technical Committee must
+ Project Secretary and the Chair of the Technical Committee must
be distinct, and that the Leader cannot appoint themselves as their
own Delegate.</p>
</li>
@@ -460,10 +460,10 @@
</li>
<li>
- <p>Appoint the Chairman of the Technical Committee.</p>
+ <p>Appoint the Chair of the Technical Committee.</p>
<p>
- The Chairman is elected by the Committee from its members. All
+ The Chair is elected by the Committee from its members. All
members of the committee are automatically nominated; the
committee votes starting one week before the post will become
vacant (or immediately, if it is already too late). The members
@@ -476,10 +476,10 @@
</li>
<li>
- <p>The Chairman can stand in for the Leader, together with the
+ <p>The Chair can stand in for the Leader, together with the
Secretary</p>
- <p>As detailed in §7.1(2), the Chairman of the Technical
+ <p>As detailed in §7.1(2), the Chair of the Technical
Committee and the Project Secretary may together stand in for the
Leader if there is no Leader.</p>
</li>
@@ -561,10 +561,10 @@
<li>
<p>Details regarding voting</p>
- <p>The Chairman has a casting vote. When the Technical Committee
+ <p>The Chair has a casting vote. When the Technical Committee
votes whether to override a Developer who also happens to be a
member of the Committee, that member may not vote (unless they are
- the Chairman, in which case they may use only their casting
+ the Chair, in which case they may use only their casting
vote).</p>
</li>
@@ -627,10 +627,10 @@
</li>
<li>
- <p>Can stand in for the Leader, together with the Chairman of the
+ <p>Can stand in for the Leader, together with the Chair of the
Technical Committee.</p>
- <p>If there is no Project Leader then the Chairman of the
+ <p>If there is no Project Leader then the Chair of the
Technical Committee and the Project Secretary may by joint
agreement make decisions if they consider it imperative to do
so.</p>
@@ -658,7 +658,7 @@
<p>If there is no Project Secretary or the current Secretary is
unavailable and has not delegated authority for a decision then the
-decision may be made or delegated by the Chairman of the Technical
+decision may be made or delegated by the Chair of the Technical
Committee, as Acting Secretary.</p>
<p>The Project Secretary's term of office is 1 year, at which point
@@ -671,7 +671,7 @@
Developers.</p>
<p>When acting together to stand in for an absent Project Leader the
-Chairman of the Technical Committee and the Project Secretary should
+Chair of the Technical Committee and the Project Secretary should
make decisions only when absolutely necessary and only when consistent
with the consensus of the Developers.</p>
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