A Brief Analysis on Sexism in English

When we hear the word sexism most minds automatically associate feminine oppression. I began to wonder why that was. Webster defines sexism as “prejudice based on sex; especially: discrimination against women.” After reading this I had to know why that was.

Sexism has always been a major issue for women. It seems that today, everyone has to be careful of what they say and do so as to avoid offending someone. While everyone is busy worrying about extinguishing sexism towards women - which still is an issue that needs to be taken care of, who is concerned with sexism towards men? Sexism is just as much of an issue to men as it is to women.

What is it that makes a woman a woman, or what makes a man a man? Deborah Tannen, author and Ph.D. of linguistics, investigates this question within the essay, “There Is No Unmarked Woman.” An excerpt from a larger publication, “Talking from 9 to 5,” written in 1994, “There Is No Unmarked Woman” is an effective examination of the social injustice as to why the state of womanhood is “marked” while the state of manhood is “unmarked”, and what this means for each sex. The book itself is a result of real-life research about the conversational

“Sex Differences” is an essay written by a professor of linguistics named Ronald Macaulay. In the essay, he pointed out that there were no gender differences regarding to language development. He talked about various stereotypes about how men and women speak. He also explains in depth about how social environment made an impact on the talking between men and women. He also concluded that those linguists who still believe in that theory only continue to do so even if what they found in their research is not statistically significant. In many ways, Macaulay’s essay is persuasive. Through this essay, one would agree with him that there is no different form of language in which women and men speak.

This definition has led to a great source of division between genders, and Connell goes on to say that there is now a “gender order” which is essentially a form of hierarchy (in addition to sexism), brought about by his concept of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2002).

While studying art and popular culture in class, our class came across a very interesting topic and story. Throughout time everything has changed in humanity, in the way that humans look at one another. Now in the 1980’s when the whole AIDS and HIV epidemic started that’s when the whole world saw the disgrace in each other. Now in class learning about the disgrace that women had upon the world because of HIV and AIDS has really changed in a way that women are not allowed to be free within themselves anymore. The woman of today have to deal with sexism, classism and even racism just in order to survive in this world. But even through all of this women are still strong and fight for what they believe in and never give up, no matter what

Women are often assigned to something that illustrates weakness and lower in rank than men, and men are always regarded as individuals that is high in rank and possess the strength. According to Marshall (2004, as cited in Ng, Yee, Chong, Lee, & Ahmad Tarmizi, 2013) it is reported that males are always seem as people with independent characters and carrying the important roles in everything they do whereas the females are always be referred to dependent characters in which they always come after men in almost everything. It also happens in language usage in which "man" always take the lead in our language (e.g., male generic, male occupational terms, etc.).

A sport is an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment. Sports originated in early history as males only, and was often used to see which male was more dominant. In today’s society sports have a different meaning and is played by both genders, but still holds a mentality of superiority. In this essay, I will be arguing the Social Constructs of Masculinity in Sports in the language and the actions used when performing these activities through both genders and how some actions are acceptable for one gender and not for the other. Using Laurel Richardson’s article Gender Stereotyping in the English Language, and X: A Fabulous Child’s Story by Lois Gould. The article and story will help distinguish the use of words in our society and how they are incorporated in sport and how the actions of a person that does not fit the social standard faces repercussions for their actions.

Alleen Pace Nilsen began a study of Sexism in American English after returning from a two-year stay in Kabul, Afghanistan. Trying to avoid social issues in her research, Nilsen used the dictionary, as her main source and guide, making note-cards on every entry that seemed to tell something about male and female. She soon discovered that language and society go hand and hand. Furthermore, that the language a culture uses is evident in its values and beliefs. Amore careful look at the English language revealed three main points that Alleen Nilsen elaborates more on.

“You bitches need to learn your places. You do not order a brute around and get away with it!”

Gender and language initiate an approach to the study of language use and looks into relations between the meaning and gender. Christie provides a systematic introduction to pragmatic approaches explaining the rules of social language and how pragmatics can be realized be feminist analyses of language’s nature

Robin Lakoff found that women’s language lacks authority when compared to that used by men and she believes that women use many techniques in their speech that are deficient to men 's speech. In the Deficit Model Robin Lakoff describes male language as stronger, more prestigious and more desirable. She argues that women are socialised into behaving like 'ladies '. She gives examples of language techniques women use that make their language seem deficient these include, fillers, hedges e.g. “sort of”, “you know”, intensifiers e.g. “so”, weak expletive terms e.g. “oh dear”, empty adjectives e.g. charming, sweet, hypercorrect grammar and tag questions which shows uncertainty e.g. “isn’t it?” Moreover she interprets that women use more precise colour terms e.g. mauve, magneta.

The first sense we shall investigate is the power the master or mistress of a household

In fact, man is seen as the universal norm whereas woman is “defined and differentiated with reference to man” (ibid.). Thus, man is defined as the One which entails the submission of woman as the Other (xxiv). This submission, however, is a result of natural condition rather than historical events or social change (xxiv-xxv). Moreover, it is due to the fact that woman do not form an independent unit as they do not have a past or history of their own which differentiates them from men. Hence, woman is the Other in a duality in which both elements - man and woman - are essential, as the division of the sexes is a biological fact not a historical event

Language refers to the method that humans use to communicate either through speech or written. It consists of the use of the word in a structured and conventional way. Language has been referred to as ‘our means of classifying and ordering the world; our means of manipulating reality. In structure and in its use we bring out the world into realisation and if it is inherently inaccurate, then we are misled. (Dale Spender, 1980).Language has power that allows us to make sense out of the reality we live in. Sexism is discrimination of a person based on their gender, especially on women. Sexism in language is the use of language which devalues members on one sex, almost always women, showing gender inequality. In the 1960/70’s there was a