"Excuse me! Did you call me 'it'?! I'm a she, thank you very much, and my name is Emma. Ms. Emma to you!"

Long ago, in my previous life, I was a linguist and one of my areas of interest was sexism in the English language. Of course, all the "male chauvinists" pooh-poohed this as a non-problem, but I knew they were wrong. In my research, I had found studies showing that women had worse recall of texts that were couched in "masculine generic" language, such as using "he" and "man" to mean both men and women, but they had much better recall of texts that used "gender-inclusive" language, such as "humankind," "people," "he or she," and "they." And even when "man" was intended to include women, it often didn't. I looked at books with the supposedly generic "man" in the title, such as How Man Began, or something like that—and there really were very few women in the books at all, except in chapters on reproduction.

So language can actually influence the way we think, and that is very significant. That's why they say, "The pen is mightier than the sword."

Of course, since coming to PETA, my focus has shifted more toward avoiding the use of inanimate pronouns ("it" and "which") for animals so as not to promote a lack of respect for them. Animals are living, breathing, locomoting beings with intense feelings, just like us, so why should we refer to them in the same way that we refer to a table or a cup? Not only is it disrespectful and inaccurate, it also gives tacit permission to treat that animal in a less humane manner. In other words, if you call both a dog and a punching bag "it," they might be equally likely to get hit. That may seem like an extreme example, but is it really? Dogs and other animals are being beaten, starved, kicked, mutilated, and otherwise abused all across our country every single day. Could language be at least partly to blame? I can't prove it, but I think it does play a role.

So in my book, all dogs are "he," "she," "he or she," "they," "Fido," "Fluffy," etc.—never "it."

In a related language issue, at PETA we usually avoid the term "pet" for dogs and other animals. Is that nitpicking? I don't think so. To me, "pet" conjures up the image of an animal who is really nice and pretty but nevertheless expendable, that is, not essential to the family. Just someone to play with and caress and look at but not someone to go to bat for if inconvenient circumstances were to arise. So we give dogs a label that expresses something more substantial: "companion animal." Better yet: "animal companion." "Animal companion" is better because it refers to a companion who just happens to be an animal, whereas "companion animal" refers to an animal whose purpose is to be a companion to humans, which could be construed as the animal's use. And we don't care whether dogs are useful or not—they have an innate worth apart from their usefulness.

One final note: Dogs are the most loving, forgiving, beautiful creatures on the planet. So please don't call someone a "dog" unless you mean it as a compliment!