SLAGS & STUDS Gender Bias in the English language AIMS: • To examine male/female terms of reference - the language used about men and women TASK 1: Linguistic Labelling Once you have identified a list of male and female words as a group try to organise them under different semantic categories. Record your observations on this sheet. MALE
FEMALE
DISCUSSION POINT: What does this suggest about the way men and women are labelled?
……………………………………………….compiled similar inventories of words and found that there were more words for men but also that there were more ………………………………………. She also discovered that many words for women had sexual overtones (220 for a sexually promiscuous female compared to only 20 for a sexually promiscuous male.) Therefore, language embodies…………………………………………………... …………………………………………………argues that it is not an accident that there are more negative words for women. It represents ……………………………………… and is rule governed. Words that are ‘marked’ for females become……………………. In many western cultures, the largest dominant group of all consists of white, middleclass men. Historically, power has rested with men and has been handed on to men. A society in which power is distributed in this way is called a …………………………. TASK 2: Titles Record the outcome of your group’s discussion in the table below. During feedback make notes on the other groups’ observations. MALE titles
FEMALE titles
What are the connotations of the male/female terms? MALE FEMALE
DISCUSSION POINT: What has happened to the female titles?
This is known as…………………………………………………..
MARKED AND UNMARKED TERMS When women move into a profession they do not gain a ‘noun’. Instead, the male terms are converted to female equivalents by the addition of a bound morpheme, such as ‘-ess’ or by the qualifier ‘lady’. List some examples of male terms with the addition of a bound morpheme for the female equivalent.
Julia Stanley refers to this as women having ……………………………………………… Are there any cases where this happens for men moving into a ‘female’ profession?
HE/MAN LANGUAGE In Groups, discuss the gender issues in each of the following examples: God bless her and all who sail in her. Man, being a mammal, breastfed his young. The men and their wives… Mr Jones owns a travel agency with his wife, a striking blonde who mans the telephone We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal… Constitution of the USA That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Neil Armstrong DOCTOR, n a man of great learning The American College Dictionary, 1947
DISCUSSION POINT: What is the effect of recording human history and thought in terms of male achievement? To what extent are the achievements and activities of women silenced or marginalised by this technique?
This seems to show that there is a bias in the English Language in favour of males. …………………………………….. refers to this as…………………………………….. ‘Man’/’Mankind’ is always a generic term but this has been criticised because it implies that men are more important. ‘Deer’ is a generic term for a species – male deer are ‘stags’ and female deer are ‘does’. ‘Man’ refers to the species as a whole and males – this is why the term man has been labelled the …………………………………. What’s the alternative?
How do you respond to arguments that the term ‘man’ naturally includes ‘women’? Is this a natural arrangement or is it culturally constructed?
ORDER OF PRECEDENCE There is evidence that the word ‘man’ naturally includes ‘women’ from as early as 1553 when it was considered more neutral to place the male before the female – men and women, husband and wife, boys and girls, son and daughter etc. male superiority is reflected in the structure of the language. DISCUSSION POINT: Can you think of any exceptions to this
pattern? Do the exceptions provide further evidence of sexual inequality?
GENERIC ‘HE’ The masculine pronoun ‘he’ is used generically to refer to both males and females. Grammarians of the 19th century argued that the use of ‘he’ included women on grammatically objective grounds. In 1850 an Act of parliament legislated that ‘he’ stood for ‘she’ in texts. Some use ‘they’ although this is considered grammatically incorrect. However, it is becoming increasingly acceptable. PLENARY Is language sexist?