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Is the English Language sexist? (Essay)

BenFranks · 2010-09-27T16:01:04Z

Done for English language. Looking for tips on quality of argument, point-making and grammar. Thank you. You can discuss the subject of the essay here . ----------- Is the English Language sexist? This question, at first glance, bears an assumed answer of ‘no’ to a general audience of people who have used and breathed the language for most of their lives. However, this is mainly due to the very fact that we simply haven’t noticed it. We’re ignorant to whether or not it is because the sole traditional values and sexist views has, essentially, shaped the way we think as people and also how we have been brought up. Therefore we rarely tend to question it. Sure enough though, our minds soon change when we’re opened up to example and reference of numerous ways our language – or at least the connotations we hold with it – are clearly sexist. In this short essay, I will describe exactly why it is I have come to this conclusion. The English language is firstly built upon the ideology that “the male is the norm phenomenon”. This means that we refer to humans as “man” and other potentially sexist generalisations. On top of this, there are the problems surrounding Lexical Asymmetry in our language. This term is used to describe two words with the same denotation, but generally with an unequal connotation. For example, a woman who sleeps around with lots of men might be labelled a “slut”, which in our perceived society is seen as an insult or a put down; something that makes the person feel less about themselves based on a label. In contrast, a man who sleeps around with lots of women might be labelled a “player”, which in our perceived society is seen as more of a compliment or a gesture of respect for what they’ve done. However, does this really make the language itself sexist or just our ideas about it? This where the ideological theories of the relations between our human minds and language comes in. There are two types: Reflectionism and Determinism. Reflectionism is the theory that language reflects our thoughts; such as someone believing a woman sleeping around with men is unfavourable and labelling them with something profound such as “slut”, or someone believing that a man sleeping around with women is impressive and labelling them with something complimentary such as “player”. Determinism on the other hand is the theory that language influences our thoughts; such as the word “slut” in itself has made us think of it as something bad and the word “player” as something impressive. Therefore, to suggest that Lexical Asymmetry is a birth from reflectionism is to say that connotations of the activity has caused us to think negatively of the word; and that to suggest Lexical Asymmetry is a birth from determinism is to say that the word has led to us creating bad connotations of the activity. My personal opinion is that because language is so old, Lexical Asymmetry has probably been built on over the years due to Reflectionism and Determinism and led us to the modern connotations we have today. As well as Lexical Asymmetry there are other things that suggest more clearly that the English language and our connotations of it is sexist. Like marked and unmarked terms for example, most of which are derived from such traditional usages that we do not think of them as sexist, when really, to a certain extent, they are. For example, the fact that ‘woman’ is the same as ‘man’, but unlike ‘girl’ and ‘boy’ ‘woman’ is a marked term; as is ‘female’ in contrast with ‘male’. So does this mean that the English language is being sexist in the sense that we feel the need to almost create the illusion that a girl is part of a boy? Or does it just mean that age-old traditional views on woman’s roles in society have influenced our language to create these marked terms? I personally think that marking terms is sexist towards females, but the only reason we tolerate this is because it has been the accepted term for so long, and I believe language takes generations to change. Other examples, perhaps more modern, are terms such as ‘actress’ as opposed to ‘actor’ and ‘usherette’ as opposed to ‘usher’. In comparison with words such as ‘kitchenette’ the connotation of these marked terms is that the female’s term is associated with being smaller or less important than a male’s term. However, because these terms aren’t as buried into history, they’re easier to change. These days, some female actors refuse to be called actresses and slowly but surely change is coming around and the more modern marked terms are being used less so every day. Similarly to marked terms is the English language’s gender pre-modifiers. A gender pre-modifier is the fancy name for referring to the gender of a person’s employment title. For example, when a female is working as a doctor it is expected that they are given the title ‘lady doctor’ instead of simply ‘doctor’. However, unlike the other examples that are sexist, there is sexism against males with pre-modifiers too; this is in the modern reference to a male whom is working as a nurse is called a ‘male nurse’ instead of just a nurse. At first impressions this looks simply sexist towards males, but it displays sexism towards females too. Calling them a ‘male nurse’ creates the ideas that a nurse should be a female’s job and therefore feminising the term and creating an illusion that a nurse is a female’s ‘place’ in society. Insulting usages are ways in which the English language displays a semantic over representation. This means that there is a lexical gap when we insult people because of their sex. For example, not only are there more insulting usages for women, but also the connotations surrounding insulting usages for females are generally perceived as far worse than the connotations surrounding insulting usages for males. For example the word ‘whore’, which is generally used to insult women who sleep around, can also be used against males; however the key difference to note is that when it is, it is often a marked term as ‘whore’ becomes ‘man-whore’. Essentially this is sexist in itself, but also the connotations surrounding a ‘whore’ appear more negative than with ‘man-whore’ because we associate the ideas of a man sleeping around as being successful and a women sleeping around as wrong. So, when I ask myself if the English language is sexist, I have come to the conclusion that it is. However, I believe that this is because it has been influenced over many years by our literature, traditional views and age-old terms, built upon a mix of Determinism and Reflectionism to create what we now see as our modern language; these connotations are passed on from generation to generation and the idea of change is a far sight, but not necessarily an impossible one either – perhaps we will always have sexist views and our language will continue to be built upon Reflectionism or perhaps our language will change and Determinism will influence a new era of language that considers far more equality. By Ben Franks