Language is one of the most used means when it comes to perpetuating sexism, often displaying societal power in favor of men rather than women. How can we eliminate patriarchal oppression when it is still ingrained in our language?
This widespread image above indicates that “woman” and “human” are all byproducts of the word “man”, and “female” merely derives from “male”. What the creator is trying to say here is that the English language is inherently sexist by making “man” prototypical and “woman” contingent.
A user further comments: “Men fabricated the idea that they are the default sex to compensate for their biological inferiority and general superfluousness. This is not just the ‘natural’ order this is the language of a patriarchal culture.”
Such a bold claim deserves thorough discussion and inspection. However, the user couldn’t care less about fact-checking before expressing their aggressive point of view. The misguiding example was then dissected by linguists stumbling across this post, making all those people in support of the aforementioned image hang their heads in shame. We are no experts, the original commenter was on the wrong track, and the alleged linguists also needed to be open to argument. What to take from this affair is that we should ask: “Is language sexist?”. We debate the reinforcement of patriarchy in language, which we usually overlooked.
Dismissing the role of women is often the case of sexist language. The generic use of “man” and “he” (or any masculine pronouns) is commonly considered gender-neutral. However, according to research, regardless of authors’ intention, the gender-neutral “he” is not gender-neutral to the audience. Three hundred college students of both sexes were asked to select pictures from magazines and newspapers that would appropriately illustrate the different chapters of a sociology textbook. The first half was assigned chapter headings like "Social Man," "Industrial Man," and "Political Man." The other half were given different but corresponding headings like "Society," "Industrial Life," and "Political Behavior." The analysis revealed students, with the use of the word “man” evoked, mainly chose images of males only, filtering out women's participation in these major areas of life, whereas the corresponding headings without “man” evoked images of both males and females. (Miller, Casey & Swift, Kate (1976). Words and women. Garden City, N.Y : Anchor Press). Does that sound generic at all?
Defining women by their marital status is also perpetuated in sexist language, honorifics denote. Not until the twentieth century, “Ms was proposed as a solution to two problems: not knowing a woman's marital status, and women not wanting people to identify them by their marital status”, Researcher Dr. Amy Louise Erickson said. When it comes to men, things are not so complicated. Mr. Simple as that. People tend to focus on a woman’s role as a housewife rather than regard her as a person.
Language is merely a concept, hence is not capable of critical thinking, and also not capable of being sexist. The question is: Are we? There are times where we catch ourselves associate “female” with “pretty and fragile” and “male” with “forceful and muscular”. Denouncing sexual discrimination in a language is similar to beating yourself in a game of rock paper scissors, which is quite ludicrous. Language merely is a reflection of culture, a means of communication practiced by human beings. It won’t change... unless we do.
Is it us who make our languages sexist?