Gendered Language
In common everyday terms, gendered language is one that is often biased towards a particular sex; it carries a prejudice which degrades one sex in comparison to another. It needs no explaining as to which is the debased one. In the global cultural scenario, the legacy of patriarchy is so deeply seated that our language system too whether spoken or written has evolved with a bias against women. Within this biased linguistic construct, ‘man’ has become a term which is not only used for a male human being born with a pair of XY chromosome but also ‘being a man’ has become a reference for everything that is of import, demanding respect and recognition. Thus within the ambit of language across all cultures and lands, man became the norm while woman became the ‘deviation’, something/someone who does not follow the original.
Any language in its process of evolution is a product of its society. We speak and listen in a manner in which we are conditioned to. Each word has a meaning which involves a signifier, a signified and a hidden struggle of power associated with the use of that word. For example, when a common person ‘says’ something, it is a simple utterance of a series of words that convey his thoughts, but when a ruler, a king, a commander ‘says’ something, it becomes an order, a thought, a proverb or something equally worthwhile. Within this power struggle, woman has become the ‘signified’ one, which means she is the passive receiver for all that language had to offer. She is the subject who is spoken to and is spoken for, one who listens and obeys. She has become the one who is being talked about without asking for her opinion.
Thereby throughout the centuries, language had developed as one of the most powerful tools of gender discrimination. Sexism has found its way into our lives by means of gendered language where everything that is passive or weak is characterised as female, while whatever exudes power is symbolised as male. Sex determines who becomes the commander and who becomes the follower and language honours this discrimination.
Language that we speak today evolved and seeped into our daily lives through various literary texts. Words flowed from Iliad and Odysseys, and from the pen of Shakespeare and mingled with the lingos, jargons, and vocabulary used by common men and women. The dialogues and symbols used in the classics became our dialogues and symbols. This evolution further enhanced the gender bias as language used for women in most of the ancient epics was derogatory to their dignity. They were objectified and identified in terms of their physical appearance rather than talents. Only the meek and submissive woman in need of protection was fit enough to be the partner of the protagonist. Men though were very conveniently allowed to be manipulating cheats like most lead characters of picaresque novels. Thus women who stood up for themselves, worked hard to make a name, and competed with men became un-feminine, a disgrace to womanhood and were name called, an idea which is quite commonplace even in the twenty first century.
The idea of stereotyping has proved throughout generations that women should display certain warmth in their behaviours, they are expected to be subdued and submissive, someone in dire need of protection while men are allowed to be arrogant and dominating in their mannerism. This prejudice got filtered from literature into the society and thus began the unending cycle of getting inspired from those texts and moulding women into the stereotypical cast.
This happened mainly because of the fact that the ‘higher’ classical genres of epic and poetry were inhospitable to women. Women did not have the benefits of a classical education which included knowledge of languages such as Greek and Latin thus the language construct and culture that came out of these epics and became a part of our daily lives was male centric.
This overwhelming influence of men over classics enshrined overtly masculine qualities and values of virility and martial prowess. Consequently every word that reflected power became masculine by default.
Within the process of this staged evolution, man and authority became synonymous. Everyplace that one looks at from job postings to law and order, gendered words such as policeman, fireman, mankind and chairman abound. These words are a part of the norm that colours the language in bias against women. While we never stop to think of this as wrong, however, the use of such words unconsciously frames the male as absolute. This develops a prototype for that particular role or job. Then an expectation related to that profession develops within which the professional has to behave in a certain way irrespective of their innate nature.
In order to fulfil this language generated expectation, women are supposed to shed their feminine traits and behave as men. A woman who works as a firefighter or a police woman is expected to have a masculine gait and musculature if she wants to excel or be the one to be treated with respect. A woman’s work, mannerism, and output are always questioned because of her sex and that reflects in the language used at the workplace. Women are judged as soon as they make a mistake and called out as if that mistake was made on account of their sex. They are mostly kept out of jobs that involve higher risks as those jobs are supposedly a ‘man’s arena’, thereby elevating the standing of the sex as well as the word associated with it. She isn’t fit for this kind of work. It’s a man’s job after all; is the most commonly used sentence.
As a result of this biased development of language and lexical choices, an asymmetry in status of men and women in our society comes to play. This status awards power to men and hence places them at important position as compared to women. Linguistic, syntactical and grammatical rules are often formed in such a way that feminine terms are usually derived from the corresponding masculine terms. Common examples of the same include - ‘heiress’ derived from ‘heir’, ‘actress’ derived from the word ‘actor’, and so on. This has the effect of making woman disappear from the mental image while talking about the positions/ terms in general. She becomes the secondary while man retains the position of primary.
Sexist language thus breeds a bias that shows men to be morally, spiritually, and intellectually superior as compared to women. The most frequently cited examples for the same include:
Use of ‘man’ to refer commonly to the entire population: The word ‘Mankind’ is used as a reference to the entire population of universe, while when women are specifically being talked about, their sex is emphasised like a ‘sample’. Proverbs such as ‘practice makes a man perfect’ very conveniently use the word to denote men and women both.
Overuse of the pronoun ‘he’: The pronoun has come to symbolise everyone instead of just men. Whenever one talks/writes about a random person whose sex is unknown, the common practice is to use the pronoun ‘he’. This ultimately leads to complete removal of women from the majority. They evaporate from the vision unless being referred to especially.
Use of ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’: Though the new convention to use MS before a woman’s name has been brought about, women are still called as Miss or Mrs depending on their marital status while men are quite conveniently called Mister from the very beginning of their youth till the end. Thus proving that marriage somehow makes a marked change in the status of women while having a negligible effect on men. The effect of this biased use of prefix can be seen in the way a single, divorced, or widowed woman is treated by men in general. They are deemed to be ‘available’ for flirting. A married woman though is given a wide berth in this respect, is often considered incompetent in office work on account of her role in the household. Men on the other hand enjoy all the freedom that comes with the constant prefix. They are never judged on account of their ‘marital status’, neither are single/married men differentiated with while being handed over a project or promotion. Thus the use of language that evolved in our culture through generations becomes a source of burden to women.
Stereotypical words: There are words in English language which are specifically used to praise someone and make them feel glorious. Problem arises when these words are associated with a particular sex. For example, the word ‘manly’ or ‘man up’ is used in the stead of ‘courageous’ or ‘become courageous’ respectively. While calling someone ‘ladylike’ has of late become a derogatory remark used on purpose to make fun of a man for his ineptitude. Men are often called ‘sissy’ if they are scared.
Such use of language marginalises women and creates an impression of a male dominated society. It reduces women to a small sample unit within the universe whose main claimant are men. Such speech patronises women and puts forward the assertion that man is the original, the absolute, the light, while woman is the opposite of that absolute, absence of power, darkness. Reality thus becomes a construct which is mediated by language working blindly in favour of men.
Efforts of many crusaders and linguistics have brought into existence gender neutral language but that is not seemingly enough. Language in the context of countries and culture still use terms that are offensive to women. Anglo American culture has filtered into the language of most English speakers across the globe, who fondly use terms like ‘pet’, ‘love’ for women thus denying them recognition of an individually thinking alert. Woman gets reduced into a creature that needs to be tamed or trained like an animal. This creature is expected to lose its own identity and form a new one that is more favourable in the eyes of men and thus in the eyes of society at large. Hence, gendered language robs them of the chance of being a person with a separate identity.
Moreover, compliments in our language which label culturally likable women as ‘goddesses’, ‘princesses’, deny them the right to be ‘normal’. Since childhood, girls are conditioned to be the ones in need of such nicknames. This affects the choices that men and women make in their everyday lives wherein women while growing up learn that they should strive to be more than just normal humans, they need to put in extra effort to be praised in terms of beauty or behaviour. If they are not looked upon as ‘goddesses’ or ‘princesses’, something is missing from their lives.
Insults hurled at women by people especially men use words such as ‘slut’, ‘tart’, ‘whore’ that mark women as promiscuous or unattractive. Judging women by appearance, calling a pretty woman ‘blond’, has come to an unsaid meaning that she must be of low intelligence. More than half of the stand-up comedians make the world laugh by cracking jokes on hysterical mothers-in-law. Such instances enforce patriarchal control over women through language. These humiliating words and jokes ironically have no male counterparts. There is no male-slut or male-bimbo/male-blond even though there are men who behave the same way as women being termed as slut, bimbo or blond do. Similarly hysterical males rarely make appearances in jokes or literature. Additionally women are taught that men are mean to them because they like them. Thus they are trained to take insults welcomingly.
All these patterns in our everyday language are a reflection of the how deep are the roots of patriarchy in our minds, which has contributed to creating an unequal world for women wherein every remark has a hidden sexist undertone. Ignoring these undertones has become so commonplace that any woman who tries to raise a voice is an enemy of culture, who is raising hell to undo our centuries old traditions. Such women are treated with contempt and
the language used for them is again the one that she has been fighting against. The need of the hour is to un-learn the association of masculine and feminine with words and bring into existence and usage gender neutral linguistic constructs. We need to look for a middle ground in language that defies the power struggle and paints a bias free picture.
Nazia Kamali is a research scholar of Gender Studies. She has written for local news paper as well as research journals. Additionally her poems have been published in anthologies by Cape Comorin Publishers, PCC Inscape and also in magazines. When not hunched over the keyboard clicking away keys, Nazia is busy admiring birds and trees around her.
