Why Sexist Language Matters Kleinman

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.

Throughout history, women have been regarded as of lesser value than men particularly in the public sphere. This is the result of gender stratification. Gender stratification refers to the issue of sexism, “or the belief that one sex is superior to the other” (Carl et al., 2012, p. 78). The theory that men are superior to women is essential to sexism. Sexism has always had negative consequences for women. It has caused some women to avoid pursuing successful careers typically described as “masculine”—perhaps to avoid the social impression that they are less desirable as spouses or mothers, or even less “feminine.”

Sexism is the idea that one gender, predominantly female, is secondary to the other. Now, sexist thinking is the thoughts or actions that a person develops from believing a gender is superior to the other. This often leads to the idea of gender roles which Suzanna Kessler in “The Medical Construction of Gender” on page six explains as the “cultural expectations of one's behavior as “appropriate” for a female or male.” If a person does engage in sexist thinking, they may believe that phrases like, “Girls cry all the time and are way too emotional”, a real phrase a male has said to me, are justified to speak. Andrea Smith, the author of “Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy”, helps explain why our society thinks this way by explaining on page 72 that “In order to colonize peoples whose societies are not based on social hierarchy, colonizers must

Sexism: the belief or attitude that one sex is inherently superior to, more competent than, or more valuable than the other (most commonly used for male superiority). This idea that women are weak is not a new one in the modern world. It has been studied for countless years along with the concept of a patriarchal society. A patriarchy is defined as a system of society or government in which men hold the power and women are largely excluded from it. Such systems currently exist in several forms and areas around the world; however, the most common place for these patriarchies is in literature. Novels, plays, works of nonfiction, and other forms of literature have shown to either “reinforce or undermine the

    In reading this excerpt I discovered many commonly used words I typically overlook as standard, or insignificant, to carry power and social weight . Richardson discusses the idea "woman is always part of man" in the literal linguistic sense, but also allegorically. She writes, historically women have been forced to live under a masculine framework of language with respect to specific occupations one may hold. Fireman, policeman, and mail man are words requiring neutralization, in Richardson's opinion, for gender equality to prevail. Furthermore, Richardson posits doing so will enable children, specifically young girls, to be open-minded regarding the jobs they are capable of doing. I believe it is critically

Kendall, S., & Tannen. D. (1997). Gender and Language in the Workplace. In R. Wodak (Ed.), Gender and Discourse. London: Sage, pp. 81 – 105.

I found that gendered/sexed language, mainly the concept of language as an oppressor, to be helpful in creating a critical gendered lens. Concepts like semantic derogation, semantic imbalance, trivialization, and lack of vocabulary all outline the fact that language is completely gendered/sexed and unequal. Language can be used as a power source, both positively and negatively. It can be used to put others down, whether it’s through the use of derogatory terms or even just through the ways certain people speak and are spoken

Years later McConnell-Ginet (1989, as cited in McConnell-Ginet, 2011) began to study about language and gender in which it focused on speeches of men and women. Later in 2002, in investigating the characterisation of men and women in language, a study has been conducted that covered the sexism in language (Weatherall, 2002). Thus, the foundation of this research is based on the study of language and gender and its effect on

In Robin Lakoff's Language and Woman's Place the author Robin tells us her side of the inequity that women face. She wants to see what she can conclude from her experiences. In this article she tells us about her first hand accounts of this through introspection (Lakoff 46). Robin tells us about what language use can tell us about the nature of inequality (Lakoff 45). The author also talks about the subservient functions of women and the roles that sexes play in society (Lakoff 45). Robin wants to know if anything can be done for this cause or is this what our society has destined for women (Lakoff 46). Robin talks about how tag questions avoid coming into conflict about the question with the addressee (Lakoff 55). The author feels like

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.

The 1991 edition of the Random House Webster’s College Dictionary includes “an appendix titled ‘Avoiding Sexist Language’” with “linguistic mutations [such] as ‘womyn’ [woman],” according to Michiko Kakutani (Source B). Most of society perceives the word “woman” as a lady or a girl, and accepts this word as it is. If “women” is then changed to “womyn” though, society will only arise in confusement and suspicion of the origin of the word. This then contradicts Kakutani’s efforts to try to eliminate attention in the word “women” altogether. Attempts for political correctness can also be seen in Daniel Okrent’s

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

Social status and structures have definitely shaped the construction and experience of gender inequality. Men and women are constantly analyzed, compared, and grouped together in society. The result of this yields discrepancies in how sexes are viewed by society. Throughout my examination and explanation of gender inequality, I concluded both men and women are victims to gender inequality.

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,

Over the years it has been seen that sexist language lower women by using male pronouns like he, his, and him instantly in contexts where the sex of the person is not defined. These pronouns tend to be generalized when talking about an uncertain group of people or any person. For example, "Each student must go to his class to meet his new teacher", "Each one should write his own fantasy story", “The boss did not attend the meeting, he is very busy.” In the same way, there are many professions that are male-oriented because they contain the suffix "-man". For instance, “foreman”, “congressman”, “councilman”, “freshman”, “chairman” etc. (Lei, 2006)However, these terms are used for women and men commonly.