How Gender Specific Language Impacts Children And Society Surrounding Us

While reading “Gender,” an essay by Jack Halberstam, the topic of sexism was brought to the forefront of my mind. It has been brought up more often in conversation in the modern era, issues such as how a few cruel insults pertain to female reproductive anatomy and, in a sense, degrade females and ultimately identify them, as well as femininity, as inherently “bad”. Such a thought stemmed from how Halberstam touches on the “problematic stabilization of the meaning of ‘women’ and ‘female’”: meaning there is no room for argument when it comes to your gender—you’re either a girl or not. You either fit into a strict mold, or you do not.

"Gender Stereotyping in the English Language" written by Laurel Richardson in 2003, Richardson argues people use the English language in such a way that limits, depreciates and ultimately dehumanizes women . Richardson develops and supports this theory by proposing the notion that historically, women have not only been limited by the terms used to describe them, but women are raised to think they must be confined to subservient jobs,  that customarily require less skill. Richardson's purpose through writing this article is to highlight an issue often overlooked, in order to promote the appropriate and equitable use of the English Language. The author intends for this principle to be turned into practice among women, men and children developing linguistic habits.

For a long time, men and women have been dealing with the controversy of gender roles. In modern day, the battle for gender equality has been more known. In the story “Guys Suffer from Oppressive Gender Roles Too”, the author Julie Zeilinger explains how males are held to a more macho standard, but do have prevalent emotions. If we were to let go of these rigid rules about what is manly, there would be no standard for any gender. If that was reality, men shouldn’t have to feel humiliated about staying home, and if their companion makes more money than they do. Zeilinger talks about how males detach themselves from some emotions, and live a “life nub to a true range of human emotion” so they can meet this masculinity standard. However if males

Tannen Deborah acknowledges that men are in a completely divers standard than women. In the article “But What Do You Mean?” by Tannen Deborah sees that the fundamental differences between men

In origins of gender dichotomy of various adjectives and phrases is debated. Some, such as myself, believe that gendered expressions derive their meanings from the intentions of the speaker. Others, such as Mira Ramesh, believe that the interpretation of the listener is key in developing the gendered meanings of these phrases. While Ramesh makes some good points, many of her statements are one-sided and left unexplained or unanalyzed.

Stereotypes, whether about a race, gender, or ethnicity, have continuously been created and destroyed with the evolution of society’s thoughts. Movements of all kind have fought tirelessly to break down barriers that confine certain groups of people. The Women’s Rights Movement forged against immense repression to acquire the right to vote, work and have true independence. While they achieved their goals, women are still treated as an inferior to a more “dominant” male. Women are classified as lesser, more emotional and weaker than men.

The article by Sally Raskoff states the current situation of gender and power in society. She states that we currently live in a male dominated society and hence our actions and languages reflect that. Examples of curse words are given to show how they refer to women negatively. This is happening because of male masculinity. According to Sally Raskoff, Males want to be seen as assertive, aggressive, and strong. And in order to show they are those things, they insult other males by referring to them as inferior things, body parts of women they consider to be “dirty”. One way to combat male masculinity is by emphasizing femininity, which is about encouraging women to be more nurturing, caring, mothering, and passive.

In Robin Lakoff’s article “You Are What You Say”, she explores how from a young age, girls are taught to speak daintily. She examines how after they are taught to speak this way, they are let out into a world where soft-spoken people are often thought of as too fragile or indecisive to take on positions of power. Being taught to speak softly essentially sets girls up so that they could never move up in the workplace because they aren’t taken seriously. Lakoff also notes how far ingrained in the English language this misogyny is. Many words that are indicative of females lose their proper meaning without a masculine possessive noun to precede it (such is the case with the words mistress), or have a negative meaning when compared with its male counterpart (like with the word spinster). As a last point, Lakoff mentions how in everyday life, even doing something as simple as grocery shopping, this linguistic double standard still exists. Cashiers tend to call women of any age a name such as “sweetie” or “love”; you’ll never hear a clerk call an adult male something like this.

In the fourth session, Kristen Keen talks about gendered language choices and how they affect how people relate in the society. Power based violence and the tendency of blaming victims has been on the rise in the society. The theme of the session is “She’s such a slut! Analyzing our gendered language choices and their impact”. Kristen Keen agrees that there is an increasing gendered language that has both negative and positive connotations and can either have positive or negative effects on how people relate.

Phrases such as “man up” or “like a girl” are often used to discriminate against or discourage women. Women are also mostly portrayed to be weaker than men. An example of this in the classical text To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is when Scout’s brother, Jem, says to her “Scout, you act more like a girl every day”. This quote is really hurting Scout because since she was a child, she believed that girl things were bad and boy things were good. So to avoid the badness of girl things, she would act more like a boy.

Society has established roles in which differentiate men and women, by focusing on how they, as individuals, should portray different characteristics. This allows for the opportunity of mislead perceptions, by the displays of gender in an unequal manner. If a man shows any characteristics that only a woman should have, he may be seen as weaker or maybe even deviant. This is true for a woman too, as that if she portrays too much aggression or competitive characteristics, she may be too manly, instead of fulfilling what should be her more nurturing role. Both men and women seem to face gender inequality, not just one more than the other. They both can face criticism, unequal treatment and stereotypes based on whether they choose to follow the exact way society has classified the gender “norms.” Although society has created these labels, it solely comes down to the individual on whether or not they choose to be deviant against them completely, in some ways, or simply not at all.

In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into

Throughout today’s society, almost every aspect of someone’s day is based whether or not he or she fits into the “norm” that has been created. Specifically, masculine and feminine norms have a great impact that force people to question “am I a true man or woman?” After doing substantial research on the basis of masculine or feminine norms, it is clear that society focuses on the males being the dominant figures. If males are not fulfilling the masculine role, and females aren’t playing their role, then their gender identity becomes foggy, according to their personal judgment, as well as society’s.

In Robin Lackoff’s book, Language and Women’s place, she attempts to provide diagnostic evidence from language use for one type of inequity that has been claimed to exist in our society: that between the roles of men and women. She studies the usage of color between men and women. She uses a scenario where a man and a woman are both staring at the same pinkish shade of purple wall. She states that the woman would use a more specific name for the pinkish shade of purple (mauve). She clarifies that 'Women 's language ' shows up in all levels of the grammar of English. She discovers differences in the decision and recurrence of lexical items; in the circumstances in which certain syntactic standards are performed; in intonational and other super-segmental examples. Now if a man uses the

This is seen in two ways; the first is interpersonal interactions, and the second is representations of men and women in that are embedded in form and content of language. For example Cameron (1992) found that women are referred to by their first name as well as terms of endearment such as ‘love’ and ‘dear’. It shows that language and representations are closely linked and that language holds representation of ideas in clichés, epithets etc. It has also been represented that a women’s experience is systematically devalued in comparison to that of the male norm. Weitz (2003) has highlighted that throughout history women’s bodies have centrally affected the structures within which women live. Females are described as passive, for example Mother Nature. Objects such as cars and boats are mostly deemed female and temperamental and are also dominated by males. English language reflects the power that men have historically held in many areas of life. The sexist language against women shows them in lower social and economic status. An example of this is nouns ending in ‘ess’ e.g. waitress, stewardess, these are then seen as less significant than their male equivalents. This also applies to the suffix ‘ette’ this is giving feminine status to objects such as cigarette, this shows inferiority. Some studies have shown that individuals who do not believe in traditional sex stereotypical roles are less likely to write an educational essay using sexist language (McMinn, Lindsay,