Men themselves are distressed when they are made invisible by language. Spender relates how in the 1960’s, when most primary schoolteachers were female, articles referring to them habitually followed the gender free pronoun primary schoolteacher with the feminine pronoun ‘she’. One of the few males in the profession wrote a letter to protest. He preferred the male pronoun to be used instead, on the ‘objective’ and ‘correct’ grounds that women would be understood to be included in ‘he’.
In marriage the woman gives up her own name. Taking on the husbands robs women of a public identity of their own.(3) The extent of their identity is one they share with their husbands. Which to some may be seen as degrading the woman.
In the workplace women are not always given the same gender free title as their male counterparts: doctor, lawyer, solicitor, constable. The appropriate noun is used, but prefaced by lady or woman. In the same way, women are not given job titles such as waiter or steward. The diminutive -ette or -ess is added. The makes women seem less important.
American feminists in the 1960’s drew attention to the ways in which the English language both reflects and encourages perceptions of gender. They criticised words which seem to be gender marked such as ‘dustman and fireman’. They encouraged the adoption of neutral terms such as ‘refuse collector and fire-fighter’.(4)
An American survey of textbooks revealed that he/him/his were used five times as often as she/her/hers.
Baker and Freebody found that girls were more frequently described with adjectives such as ‘little’ or ‘pretty’ and boys as ‘tiny’ or ‘brave’ or ‘naughty’. Mothers were associated with ‘hug’, ‘kiss’ and ‘thank’, and fathers with ‘paint’, ‘fix’ and ‘drive’.(5) Which stereotypes the genders making females seem inferior, weak and overly loving.
There is evidence that the language used to represent women has changed for the better in recent years. We no longer live in an androcentric society, as there as there are gender free words used in replacement of words relating to one gender.
In the 70’s words like s/he, humankind and chairperson were introduced so that words were not just male orientated. In the 80’s the main thing to do was to avoid words with gender marking altogether. Like ‘server’ instead of ‘waiter’ or ‘waitress’.(6)
There are certain words which their meanings have changed making them more negative. Such as ‘mistress’. This used to be a word describing a housekeeper, whereas now it has gained a sexual connotation and is very rarely used to describe a housekeeper.(7)
The word ‘mensch’ has started being used to describe women. Whereas it used to only be used to describe a man as its meaning is: “a decent and responsible guy even your mother would like”(Newman 1994). In Yiddish, mensch actually means ‘man’ so is naturally a male orientated word. But as it has undergone gender neutralisation it is now accepted as a work to describe women also.
Historically, it has been common in English to refer to females with [+male] words if they denote negative characteristics, (e.g. shmuck: literal Yiddish meaning, “penis”; common English meaning, “jerk”).(8) The predictions for future changes in this category are for gender neutralisation to apply to other words in which there is no female counterpart meaning.
Language however could change even more and there be separate words for men and women (e.g. policeman, police lady) which separate gender fairly. However it would be a lot easier just to use gender free words like police officer which is where we are now. Nowadays due to gender neutralisation and gender free marking, women are included a lot more in the English Language.
Bibliography
(1) the language of society - grammar, structure & style. Shirley Russell.
(2) the male as norm syndrome - grammar, structure & style. Shirley Russell.
(3) gender, titles and naming - grammar, structure & style. Shirley Russell.
(4) gender pack - introduction.
(5) gender pack - page 8
(6) article by Rachelle Waksler.
(7) article by Spender.
(8) article by Waksler.
