We female authors have a sacred duty to wipe out every vestige of sexism in writing. We need to go through not only our own work but we need to go further. We must set up a Sexist Writing Police Squad to monitor every writer, journalist, Hallmark card, et al, to make sure that sexist writing is eliminated forever.
Oh, yes, there has been some backward movement in that regard. I notice that actresses no longer exist. Nor do poetesses. They are all actors and poets now. As for a seamstress, there may be seamsters around. I just haven't come across any yet.
But getting back to the point, we owe it to every woman, er, sorry, wo-person, on the planet to change, massage, even person-ipulate words to strike at the very heart of male dominance. I'm all for changing chairman to chairperson (although I've always understood that the 'man' bit came from Latin, meaning hand. Thus, hand on the chair. But I may be wrong.) What about changing fisherman to fisher-person or seaman to sea-person
And what about man-eating tigers? Don't we wo-persons have the right to be eaten by tigers? Of course, we do. In fact, I de-person-d it.
All this word changing just doesn't go far enough,m in my humble opinion. What about cities, Person-chester, for example. Or countries, Ru-peson-ia and even book titles like The Third Person or Of Mice and Persons. And there are surnames - which can be tricky but we should give it a go. For example, the surname Williamson is anathema to wo-persons. It should be Wiliamson-ordaughter-whichever-the-case-may-be. From now on please address me as Harrison-or-daughter. Thank you.
Life has become tricky. We have a flock of men going around dressed in wo-person's clothes and demanding to be addresses as wo-persons. Whereas real wo-persons who dress in men's clothes and get testosterone injections and think they're men. Language is in turmoil and with my feminine demands I'm afraid it is about to become trickier.
 As a hu-person-being I'm completely convinced we can root out sexism from our language and I intend to start a hikoi and a protest and a demo right now. Well, tomorrow. The ways we can change the world are endless We just have to get to it! I'm making the banners as we speak. It's a noble cause and I urge you to join me in this crusade. With a bit of effort I'm sure se can person-age it.
Yeah, right.

If you use the word napkin for serviette, or hood for bonnet or trunk for boot of a car, or if you spell programme without the extra ‘me’ at the end or liter for litre, then you probably love Americanisms. Or at least you ignore the difference between American “dialect and “proper” English.
You can see where my preferences lie. I much favour the British variety, as do most New Zealanders, and find such words as aluminum for aluminium and neighbor for neighbour really stomach-clenching. But hey, whatever works for you…!
Americans have developed their own expressions that are characteristic of their more casual sort of lifestyle. It’s evolved over time and started when the first settlers arrived on its shore from their homeland, Britain. Some of their language still retains elements of old English, for example the word ‘gotten’ instead of ‘got’’. But most changes are directed more at ease and comfort than correctness.
Languages are a social construct and we English speakers can be irritated by Americanisms largely, I think, because we instinctively believe that English belongs to us and how dare Americans change things to suit themselves. But it does show how far apart the two nations have drifted.
Vocabulary is the most obvious – faucet, restroom (whatever happened to the good old toilet or lavatory?), normalcy, cookie.
And does the hair in the nape of your neck rise when you hear ‘he dove for the door’ or ‘I drug him out of the burning building’?
Yeah, me too.

YOU CAN’T BE PERFECT ALL THE TIME
Are you a perfectionist? Do you continually fiddle with the finished book, article, blog, paragraph, or sentence? Is that book still sitting on your computer because it isn’t perfect? Are you forever asking friends, family or strangers to read your work and then, worst of all, take notice of what they say?
Yeah, me too.

Our problem is that we often lack confidence in our ability to write a thoroughly good book, article, letter or whatever. We want to see the destination long before we’ve even begun the journey. We plan ahead, we may even mindmap the darn thing.

But, you know what? No good creation came from a tightly-held reins.

Now, get over the perfection, already! We all write crap and most of us write it every day and then the next day we delete it. That’s life, there’s even a little button called ‘delete’. But hold on!  Not so fast.
If we dig into what we’ve written we may just pick up a nugget that's pure gold.

Life is always in flux, the inspiration to write comes and goes like the ebbing tide. Ideas come and go. It’s day, it’s night. The tide’s in, the tide’s out. Perfection isn’t permanent and what seems crap today may be tomorrow’s best-ever. Always remember your present circumstance isn’t your final destination. The best is yet to come. And the best will not necessarily be perfect.
So, sit down and write, my friend, open the floodgates. Write as if no one is going to read it and put perfection into the bin where it belongs.