A ‘bona fide’ carbon and gender-neutral magazine from students of law

A gender and politically inclusive editorial board setup for the publication; gender-biased pronouns edited out; carbon cost of production compensated by planting 63 saplings

When Government Law College, Ernakulam, released its magazine, Bona fide, last week, it was not just another run-of-the-mill magazine or so, claims the college editorial board that brought it out.

The magazine, the board insisted, stayed true to its name and the guiding principle to emerge as the first-of-its-kind carbon- and gender-neutral magazine to be released by any college.

“Often, we hear lofty sermons about carbon and gender neutrality but hardly any action on the ground. But we chose to walk the talk beginning with appointing a gender and politically inclusive editorial board of 22 members split equally between women and men,” said Aditya S. Sahadevan, magazine editor.

It was not easy to go firm on the ideal of gender neutrality beyond the content. For, so ingrained remains the gender bias in linguistics thanks to its normalisation from repeated use. Thus, the editorial board went through the content with a fine-tooth comb to edit out gender-biased pronouns and terms.

“Gender bias starts with small things like using ‘he’ in certain contexts with scant regard for the gender of the subject being referred to. It becomes normalised from repeated use that very few girls even dare to question them. The first step in eliminating that bias is recognising those seemingly little things and rooting them out. Our magazine aims at delivering a message in this regard,” said Mr. Sahadevan.

While working to bring out the magazine, it dawned upon the youngsters how even a well-intended initiative leaves behind a carbon footprint, howsoever miniscule. The carbon cost of the magazine was broken down based on factors like the environmental cost of printing, increased screen time, and transportation.

“To compensate, we chose to scientifically plant 63 saplings, mainly of fruit trees, on the campus. Based on the thumb rule that a tree can absorb about four tonnes of carbon over 40 years, we estimate that around 240 tonnes of carbon will be ‘decarbonised’ by our initiative,” said Mr. Sahadevan.