Nouns can also reveal unequal attitudes to men and women. Words such as actor, lion, hero and poet are used as names for males. The female equivalents are actress, lioness, heroine and poetess. All of these have the ess suffix. So they are male words with a suffix added to create a female word. This implies that the woman is from the man and therefore the man is more important. Deborah Cameron has referred to ‘trivialising suffixes for women in professions’. She, and H.W. Fowler, argues that women should have separate names from men for their professions. For example, words such as teacheress, singeress and danceress which lead us to cantatrice and danseuse. It is argued that it makes it more practical and people would know whether it was a male of a female. These words would also stop anyone from implying inequality between the sexes. However it is an inconvenience and most people now a days do not mind having a title that could mean a male or a female.
Default assumptions can also lead to problems in society. This is when people assume something is ‘normal’. For example, many people assume a surgeon is a male and would never think of it as a female. Therefore if someone spoke about a surgeon, they would be puzzled if it could not possibly be a male and there was no other route out because it would not occur to them that it could be a female.
Adjectives when used to describe the sexes can be both positive and negative. The same adjective when used to describe a different sex can have opposing connotations. For example ‘manly’ used to describe a man implies strength and bravery. However ‘manly’ used to describe a woman would imply she was of masculine appearance or lacked femininity or perhaps even implying that she may be of masculine sexuality. Similarly, to describe a woman as being ‘feminine’ may be a compliment but would almost certainly be insulting to a man because it would question his masculinity and challenge his sexuality. The same contradiction would occur when using ‘masculine’ as an adjective to describe either of the sexes.
Verbs are used to identify the sexes. e.g. Mother and Father describe the relationship to the child and therefore identify the sex of the person. However culturally, the social expectation is that ‘Mother’ implies being a carer whereas ‘Father’ would be more associated with the role of a provider.
Robin Lakoff investigated the way metaphors we use can reveal social values. People often name men and women using metaphors. However there is a lexical gap as there are a many more feminine metaphors than masculine. There are also more derogatory metaphors for woman than men. Many metaphors both positive and negative are associated with food. e.g. sweetie, sugar, egg head, honey, couch potato, and tart.
‘Man’ in its generic form refers to human kind and is derived from ‘mankind’ as a species. However the false generic ‘man’ refers to the human male. This changes the context completely and has often led to misconceptions. This is especially true in the context of biblical teachings where ‘man’ is mostly used in its generic form, but often interpreted in its false generic form, thus leading to a complete misunderstanding of the teaching. e.g. The bible states that ‘all men will go out and preach’. To this day some people believe that this is a clear indication that women should not become preachers. Whilst others think that the text was in the generic form, meaning that all humanity will spread the word of the God.
-Man as a suffix, similarly, often occur as a derivative of ‘humMANity’ rather than being a false generic. E.g. manpower, mankind, manmade. The female equivalents often occur as a result of the cultural expectation of the female being the carer, protector and primary educator. E.g Motherland, Mother tongue, Mother earth.
Whether or not sexist language should be avoided depends on the circumstances and the context. Demeaning or derogative language is not desirable in modern society where we are expected to be considered as equals. However there are biological differences between the sexes and to avoid all sexist language would not acknowledge this. e.g. mother changed to parent would not acknowledge the unchallengeable biological role of the female. Some of our language has developed over a long period and is part of our culture. It should not be oppressed because a minority of radical thinkers find it offensive. However, the English language is constantly evolving, and should adapt to suit the majority views on what is acceptable.
