Sex bias - political correctness in your business

I was recently taken to task because I had used the term "man's ideas" in a piece of correspondence. I was told that I should have written "humanity's ideas" instead.

Now as a male I find "man's ideas" non-offensive and yet I do realise that this term is fraught with political, social and gender bias. It occurred to me that as we correspond with existing and potential clients we need to be so careful about the words we choose. We can lose business from one incorrectly phrased sentence!

In South Africa there is, for good reason, an enormous amount of sensitity to race and gender. It would be in our best interest to be very careful in our choice of words in our correspondence and in our face-to-face dealings with people.

Do you check your correspondence carefully before it is sent?