An Analysis of Sexism in English Language
[Abstract] Language plays an important role in society. As a phenomenon of society, language reflects all the sides of human society naturally. Sexism is a phenomenon that takes a male-as-norm attitude, trivializing, insulting or rendering women invisible. As a special social phenomenon, sexism is inevitably reflected through language.
To start with, the thesis traces the reasons for the occurrence of sexism in the English language. In nature, sexism in language reflects sexism in society. The two are closely related. Social connotations of sexism in English tell the relationship between phenomenon of sexism in language and essence of sexism in society. Then the thesis analyses sexism in terms of the generic masculine, word order and semantic derogation of women in greater detail. Finally, a large part of the thesis is contributed to how to change sexism in English. The author of the thesis thinks the key to the problem is: (1) solve the problem of generic pronouns; (2) neutralize lexis; (3) strive for balanced naming and addressing system; (4) coin new corresponding words. The elimination of linguistic sexism lies in social change. Only by changing the social structure, that is, women and men own really equal status, can language equality be truly achieved.
[Key Words] sexism; English language; lexical neutralization; feminism
浅析英语中的性别歧视现象
[摘 要] 语言在社会中所处的地位尤为重要。作为一种社会现象的语言，必然会反映出人类社会的各种社会观念。性别歧视作为这其中的一种，是指把男性视作社会规范和中心，轻视，
侮辱女性或使她们显得微不足道。而这一特定的社会现象必然会在语言中折射出来。
论文首先剖析了英语中性别歧视现象形成的根源。从本质来说，语言中的性别歧视是社会中性别歧视的体现。两者紧密相连。性别歧视的社会内涵反映的就是这种语言中的性别歧视现象与社会中的性别歧视的本质的关系。接着论文从阳性词泛指，词序，词义的贬降等方面对英语中的性别歧视现象进行了详细的分析。最后论文还着力探讨如何改变这种歧视。作者认为，改变性别歧视主要解决以下几个问题：(1) 避免阳性代词的泛指；(2) 词汇的中性化；(3)命名与称谓的对等；(4)创造新的对应词。语言中的性别歧视的最终消亡取决于社会变化。只有改变社会结构，即男女真正拥有平等的地位，语言中的平等才能真正实现。消除语言中的性别歧视的根本在于实现男女的平等的社会变革。
[关键词] 性别歧视；英语语言；词汇中性化；女权主义
1. Introduction
As the peculiar result of the development of human society, language is a kind of social phenomenon and reflects all the sides of human society naturally. Its existence and development are closely linked with the social attitudes of human beings and to a great extent are affected by their social views and values. Historically and sociologically, our society is man-oriented and man-centered. Women, regarded as a weaker gender in society, are discriminated for a long time and completely subordinated in political life, economic life and even family life in the society dominated by men. Unavoidably, this kind of phenomenon has been embodied in languages. In linguistic aspect, language is bias-based and women suffer from language sexism. Gender-differentiated language use can reflect and help perpetuate the subordinate status of women in society.
Since 1960s, feminists strive for the elimination of gender discrimination, for the greater recognition of women’s contributions to society and aim to change many cultural and social customs that perpetuate patriarchal value systems. Many fields of life around the world have been, or are being, affected by this movement. One of the many impacts feminism on society is its impact on language. Language was and is seen by many feminists as a powerful instrument of patriarchy.
2. The Factors of Sexism in the English Language
Sexism in English is not formed in one day, but built up in the long period of the development of language, which leads to the variety of the causes. What causes the sexism in the English Language? There are four factors: cultural factor, physiological factor, social factor and psychological factor.
(1) Cultural factor
In the Holy Bible (The Books of The Old Testament): “So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.’ ” [1]
Man came to the world first while woman made from one of man’s ribs was created just as a help meet for him. And she was not created until all other animals failed to meet the satisfaction of the man. From the order of the birth, it is obvious to see the different importance of man and woman. And man and woman are not equal at all because woman is only a part of man, which itself is the discrimination against women. It is said in the Holy Bible that the first sin is also committed by the woman. She was seduced by the snake into eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and having the man eat, too. At last, the woman was punished to bring forth children in pain and was ruled over by the man. From above, the superiority of men and inferiority of women is clearly seen. The Holy Bible is actually a book of men. As Christianity is such a powerful religion in Western countries, it is unreasonable to deny that this helps to set and consolidate the inferiority of women.
(2) Physiological factor
For extended work and life together, people realized that men are tall in stature, strong in muscle and robust in physique. In contrary to men, women are small in stature, weak in physique and have more fat and less muscle than men. Women also mature more rapidly. [2] In a word, men are stronger than women. This determines that men play a more and more important role in social and economic lives. A man’s job is to work outside but a woman’s job is to stay at home, do the housework and take care of the children. Women are treated as the weaker ones and they realize their own values through their marriages to men. At last, women are lower in status. They have to leech on to men and are dominated by men. Gradually, people begin to discriminate women and think that they are inferior in intelligence. This wrong perspective forms slowly and reflects in language.
(3) Social factor (Labor division)
Feminists all claim that we live in a patriarchal society: a society of men, ruled by men and for men. Patriarchy depicts men as the perfect norm against which women are measured and found lacking.
Both the Western and Eastern societies use sex, to one degree or another, in allocating tasks, activities, rights, and responsibilities. As for the job done by men and women, there is a long-stereotyped notion of what they can do. In history, there has been a division of labor--a division in which women’s place was restrained at home for housework and child-care while men worked outside being the breadwinner. At last, men had dominance over women, and women had to be dependent on men. This was the turning point for women. From then on, in paternal society, slavery society and capitalist society, women had been on the bottom of society. In long and endless course of history, sexism against women has been accumulated. It is due to different labor division that leads to different social status. This has been clear in ancient and modern society. Later, in addition to domestic work, women began to enter the paid work place. However, even though half of women are employed outside the home, the belief persists that woman is mainly, and primarily, in the roles of wife and mother.
Due to women's relative physical weakness and lower educational background, they do primarily the low-status, low-paying jobs. Although men also have family roles, they are defined primarily by their economic or occupational position. Thus the sexism in the society has been in existence, the embodiment of which is necessarily the sexism of language.
(4) Psychological factor
Because of the social and cultural factors, women are always considered to be the weak. People treat women as inferior to men. They educate men to be manly, decisive, and brave while women are required to be polite, conservative, obedient, and gentle. Because women are in subordinate status in the society, they have to constrain their emotion and give up their own need to meet the satisfaction of men. As time passes, when speaking women pay more attention to the elegance and standard of language than men. They use more pleasant and polite words in the hope that they can receive other’s approval. And they are taught to speak softly, to avoid contradicting others, to be obedient in communication, and to be aware of giving cues of strong confidence. They mould themselves to be inferior in their potential sub consciousness.[3] Therefore, women try their best to strengthen their social status through their speech than men do. The lower women’s position is, the more polite they are in the face of others. And the standard language they use can show their submission and politeness. This also suggests that women are in a lower position in the society.
3. Phenomena of sexism in the English language
3.1 The generic masculine
Sexism in language in general comes in three major forms: language ignores women; it defines women as less significant than men; and it completely opposes women. They can be located in the generic masculine terms.
3.1.1 Generic pronouns
Generic pronouns are pronouns that are said to refer, with equal likelihood, to women and men. But the English language ignores women by allowing masculine terms to be used specifically to refer to males and commonly to refer to human beings in general. The generic pronoun “he” is perhaps the most well known example of the gender-specific of sexist language, and is frequently referred to be “he/man” language. The most significant manifestation of the sexism is in the use of generic masculine pronouns “he” and its variants “his”, “him” and “himself” in such sentences as:
(1) He who laughs last laughs best.
(2) Everyone must do his homework well.
(3) If anyone calls, tell him I will be back later.
(4) Everyone should learn to solve problems himself.
In the above examples, “he”, “his”, “him” and “himself” are used not sex-specifically, but generically, that is, although the pronouns refer grammatically to the single male citizen, they should be taken to refer to both male and female citizens in general. On the formal occasions, ‘he’, ‘him’ or ‘his’ can be used to refer to such indefinite pronouns as each, everyone, everybody, no one, someone, anyone and so on. While ‘she’, ‘her’, ‘herself’ don’t have such usages.
3.1.2 Generic nouns
Another well-known example of generic masculine terms is “man”. The definitions of “man” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary (Extended fourth edition) are as follows: ① adult male human being; ② human being of either sex; person ③ [sing](without the or a) the human race; mankind. There are some examples taken from the dictionary. ① All men must die. ②Growing old is something a man has to accept. ③Man is mortal. [4] From these definitions and examples, it is easy to see that “man”, and “men” can be used generically to refer to both male and female. But ‘woman’ and ‘women’ cannot be employed in reference to men.
This also reminds people of the famous saying from the US Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.” Should people argue that the “men” does not include women because women were not given the right to vote in the eighteenth century America? [5] A clear explanation of this phenomenon may be found in sentence like:
(1) Man is a social animal.
(2) Men remake nature.
When seeing the three sentences, speakers of English are able to readily interpret “man” and “men” as meaning “the human race”; “humankind”. If not, the two sentences could be changed into
(3) Woman is a social animal.
(4) Women remake nature.
Of course, they are grammatically well formed; semantically, however, the third sentence has the defect of being partial, and the fourth sentence is very ridiculous.
From above, one can know that in English using “man” or “men” to indicate “the human race”, neglects the fact that men and women are equal in the society. By contraries, they treat man as the center of society, an embodiment of criterion and totally ignore the existence of woman.[6] There are many other generic masculine terms such as man-to-man, prehistoric man, brotherhood, chairman, and policeman.
3.1.3 Women being attached to men
The English language distinguishes women’s courtesy titles on the basis of marital status, but not those of men. There is only one form of address for men, Mr., regardless of martial status. However, the martial status of women is distinguished by Miss and Mrs., reflecting the notion that whether or not a woman is in a marriage. This discriminatory practice is said to mark the availability of women in terms of marriage (sex) and reinforces the view that a woman is the property of a man (either her father or her husband). When a woman has been married, people address her as “Mrs. plus her husband’s surname”. That is to say, if a woman is married to somebody, she has no right to be treated like an unmarried lady. As to a man, that’s a different matter. For example: In English-speaking countries, you can often hear someone call the wife of John Smith “Mrs. John Smith”. There is no exception of famous Madame Curie, Mrs. Thatcher, and Mrs. Gandhi.[7] Mrs. Thatcher is the former Prime Minister in UK. However, few people know her own family names.[8] Mr. Clinton’s wife, Hilary Clinton, as a liberated woman, kept her name Hilary Rodham after marriage. But in order to help her husband in the election, she had to change her name. From the address of men and women, one can clearly see the submissive position of women and women are merely an extension of their husbands or part of their husbands’ estate. This also reflects in the language.
3.1.4 Female as an exception
English itself has no difference of gender. But in this man-centered society, people is used to believing that prestige person are always males. However, a woman who once receives great popularity is regarded as a special exception.
Many professionals such as doctor, professor, engineer, lawyer, pilot, judge, surgeon can be used to indicate both males and females. But when indicating female’s position, professional, etc., these words are created by adding a bound morpheme or by combining them with a word referring to female.[9] Because these satisfactory jobs are traditionally viewed as ones qualified only by males. Women are just the appendant to men. The words below can best illustrate it:
Common gender Masculine gender Feminine gender
waiter waiter waitress
hero hero heroine
pilot pilot woman pilot
doctor doctor woman doctor
surgeon surgeon female surgeon
lawyer lawyer lady lawyer
Interestingly, when we hear other people say “ My cousin is a lawyer.”, most people always conclude that my cousin is a male. Most of the time, whenever we refer to a woman, we have to elaborately add woman, female or lady before many professionals.
But other professionals like secretary, nurse, typist, receptionist, dressmaker, are often used to indicate females. When they are used to refer to males, you should add male or man before them, such as: male nurse, male typist, and male secretary. It makes clear that men monopolize the high status professionals. Women can only do service work or low social status work.
English is a kind of super masculine language. This can be easily seen in compound words formed by word plus man structure, such as chairman, businessman, congressman, newsman, statesman, salesman, mailman, policeman, and spokesman. From these words, we can easily know that males are the center of the society. These jobs are certainly taken by males and women are completely excluded.
In addition, there are some female professionals formed by adding the bound morpheme such as –ess, -ine to the root. For example:
Male Female
poet poetess
prince princess
god goddess
count countess
hero heroine
This kind of word-formation seems to tell that women are derived from men and attached to men. These discriminatory practices often make women invisible and treat them secondary.
3.1.5 Word order
Sexism in language is also reflected in word order. When men and women are presented together, usually words denoting male sex are put in front of female sex. Making females come second reflects the sexist attitude that men are superior to women. It is not hard to find male-female word order pairs in English literature, newspaper, magazines as well as in speech, such as male and female, husband and wife, father and mother, boys and girls, his and hers, son and daughter, brother and sister, host and hostess, king and queen, Adam and Eve and so on. No matter in books or on radio, even in daily dialogue, we can often read and hear such words:
(1) Good morning, boys and girls!
(2) They would have allowed males and females to go to school together.
Such a language phenomenon seems to appear so unquestionably natural as to be widely accepted as a language norm.
However, there are also cases in which male-female order is reversed, for example bride and groom, and ladies and gentlemen. The former shows that marriage is important to women and the latter is influenced by the notion that men should protect women. Putting ladies before gentlemen doesn’t show that women are more superior to men or ladies first, but indicates that in men’s mind, women, the same as children, are the weaker ones.[10]
3.2 Semantic derogation of women
Language has a tendency to neglect women, treat women as submission and also demean women.[11] The process of words that refer to women acquiring demeaning or sexual connotations has been widely observed, and has been called semantic derogation.
3.2.1 Non-parallel semantic developments of paired terms
Many sociolinguists have claimed that words become negative when shifted into the female sphere, while male has remained pure and neutral. For example:
(1) King and queen
One is masculine, the other feminine and both mean “ruler of an independent state”. King has retained its initial meaning, but besides the core meaning of queen, queen is also used as “a disparaging term for a gay or homosexual man”.
(2) Master and mistress
Both of them indicate ‘someone who possesses and/or has power over someone or something else. For example: “ He is my master.” usually means “He is my boss.” or “He has more power than me.” While “She is my mistress.” is more likely to be interpreted as meaning ‘She is my illicit lover.’ Mistress originally refers to a woman in a position of authority, control, and ownership, as the head of a household like a housekeeper, but it implies a woman who has a continuing sexual relationship with a usually married man who is not her husband and from whom she generally receives material support.
(3) Wizard and witch
Both of them can be used to refer to people with evil magic powers. Wizard also has a meaning of person with extraordinary abilities, while witch means an ugly old woman.
(4) Sir and madam
Sir and madam both can be used to refer to high status people. Madam is used formerly as a courtesy title before a woman’s given name but now used only before a surname or title indicating rank or office or used as a form of polite address for a woman. Unlike sir, madam is also used to refer to a brothel keeper. There are also many other examples such as lord and lady, governor and governess. The examples cited above demean women rather than men.
3.2.2 Semantic collocation and change
(1) Semantic collocation
In English, a word may have different connotations when it is used to describe different sexes. For example:
① imposing
a. He is imposing.
b. She is imposing.
Sentence a means “He is impressive and admirable.” While sentence b could be interpreted to mean that “She is disgusting and apathetic.” When the sex changes, so does the meaning.
② loose
Loose seems a neutral word for both male and female. But “a loose woman” reminds people of “a woman considered to be sexually promiscuous” whereas “a loose man” just means “a casual man”.[12]
③ tramp
It is defined as “a person with no home or job, who wanders from place to place” or “a woman considered to be sexually immoral (esp. in American English).” In the example, He/She is a tramp. For the male, tramp refers to a vagrant whereas for the female it can mean that she is promiscuous.
From the above, we can see that the same word shifts from being positive to being negative once it has moved from referring to a male to a female.[13]
(2) Semantic change
Besides, words, which begin with either neutral or positive connotations over time, acquire negative implications and finally end up as “sexual slurs”. For example, the term hussy derives from Old English huswif (“housewife”), which means “the female head of the house”. The term gradually deteriorated to “a rustic rude woman” and finally comes to mean “an indecent, impudent woman or prostitute”.[14]
3.2.3 Metaphor
Language exists to allow us to communicate with one another. To this end, language serves two purposes: to communicate what our reality is and also what we wish it to be. So if we identify a trait in a language, such as sexism or other forms of prejudice, this only reveals a prejudice that exists in society. Language, in particular metaphor, helps form social reality. There are many metaphors to describe a female. But often it has a totally different meaning.
(1) food metaphor
Some food words can also be used to refer to females, such as cheese cake (奶酪蛋糕——裸体女画)，cherry (樱桃——处女)，cookie (点心——可爱的女人)，crumpet (松脆饼——性感女人)，tart (果馅饼——妓女)，tomato (西红柿——漂亮女人), honey (蜜糖——宝贝、亲爱的), piece (点心——女人)，peach (桃子——漂亮女人) and so on. Men often use these words to express their appreciation to women. It even includes the meaning that men treat women as dolls.[15]
(2) animal metaphor
There are also many words showing contempt for women. They embody sexual discrimination but still enjoy great popularity. For example: chick (小鸡——少女)，kitten (小猫——活泼年轻的姑娘)，bitch（母狗——泼妇），cat (猫——丑妇、贱妇、讨厌的女人)，dragon (龙——倔强的女人)，hen (母鸡——爱管闲事的女人), cow (奶牛——子女多的女人、妓女)，crone (老母羊——干瘪的丑老太婆) and mare-horse (母马——粗声大气、肥胖固执的女人) and so on. [16] These are all pejorative terms for women, because animals are considered to be inferior to human beings on the earth. So using animals to refer to females indicates that females are inferior.
The semantic derogation of women helps to construct female inferiority and because women are confined to negative terms, women continue to be devalued.
4. Signs of the fading of sexism in the English Language
Language is not only used to exchange ideas, convey information, but also used to set up and maintain the harmonious relationship between human beings, create and keep the effective communication environment among social members and groups. Any form of sexist language, whether on purpose or not, will probably stand off or offend some social member or group. Language and language use mirror social attitudes and stereotypes and bias.
Along with the women’s liberation movement, people began to realize the importance of the language reform and desexism becomes necessary. Then, should sexist language be changed or avoided? The answer is definitely positive, but how? The main strategies here to achieve this goal are avoiding the use of generic masculine, changing some naming and addressing terms, coining new words and advocating some neutral words.
4.1 Avoiding using generic masculine pronouns
Linguists engaged in study of sexism in the English language are not satisfied with merely pointing out the problem. As a solution to the problems that the generic masculine can create, a number of proposals have been made. A major category among these solutions is to avoid using generic masculine. Some alternatives to avoid generic masculine are offered as follows:
(1) The generic masculine he, his, him should be replaced with he or she, his or her, him or her, and the like, which expressly indicate that women are included in the antecedent of the pronouns. This strategy can be illustrated with the following sentence: Every good citizen should love his or her country more than him or herself; he or she should be ready to die for it if the need arises.
(2) The gender-neutral third person pronoun they and its variants should be used with a singular meaning. The proposal makes it possible to say: Every good citizen should love their country more than themselves; they should be ready to die for it if the need arises.
(3) Changing the whole sentence into plural form can also help to avoid sexism. Look at the sentence: Anyone can take part in the picnic if he is interested. It is discriminatory. So we can change it into a nonsexist one: All people can take part in the picnic if they are interested.
(4) Sometimes the first and second pronouns are used to replace he. List an example: One has to be careful when he crosses the road. Obviously, it use he to refer to a person whose sex is unknown. We can change it into “You have to be careful when you cross the road.” to avoid the discrimination.
(5) If permitted, the sentence can be changed into passive voice to be nonsexist. Instead of saying “One should not lose heart when he is beaten in a match.”, one would be able to say “One should not lose heart when beaten in a match.”
(6) Dropping the masculine pronoun can also be seen as a useful way to escape from gender bias.[17] The following sentence can help to know the strategy better. Anybody can attend the meeting if interested in it. Being discriminatory, it is written into “Anybody can attend the meeting if he is interested in it.”
Feminists regard masculine pronouns as being ambiguous and discriminatory against women because they can be interpreted as being masculine-specific or neutral and thus, in some cases, be interpreted as not referring to women at all. So it is time that masculine pronouns were changed. The above are some strategies used to avoid generic masculine. These strategies are so useful that they can help the improvement of sexism in language in some extent. And sexism in language is closely linked with sexism in society. So it is good to the elimination of sexism in society in the final analysis.
4.2 Lexical neutralization
Lexical neutralization is also regarded as the major category among solutions to sexist language. Above I have cited some examples that some professions are used to refer to men. When they are used to refer to woman, female or woman or lady is often used. In fact, people do not need to designate the sex of an occupation, for example, woman psychologist or male nurse. If you are quoting a qualified psychologist or nurse, should it make a difference if the information is coming from a man or woman? Generally, I sum up five solutions of lexical neutralization.
(1) Try to avoid using man/men or mankind to refer to people in the world and replace it with person, people, humanity, human, human being, the human race, and the human species. The generic term man has been used in two ways: to refer to an adult male human being and as a synonym for "human being". Obviously, when you use man and related words to refer to both women and men, you are being sexist. For example:
① Man is the most intelligent of all species. (sexist)
Humankind/human being is the most intelligent of all species. (nonsexist)
② All men should maintain the ecological balance. (sexist)
All people should maintain the ecological balance. (nonsexist)
Or: Everyone should maintain the ecological balance.
③ The project is one of the greatest man's achievements. (sexist)
The project is one of the greatest human achievements. (nonsexist)
(2) Try to avoid using compound words that consist of man to refer to both genders. If a compound word is for specific use, we can use a word+man to refer to man and a word+woman to refer to woman, for example, businesswoman, chairwoman, policewoman, saleswoman, spokeswoman, etc. If it is for generic use or the gender is unknown, we can create new words or compounds involving the word person or word people leading to nouns, or shorten the word by cutting of the -man suffix, or replacing it with existing gender-neutral synonyms. For example,
Avoid Prefer
businessman businessperson, businesspeople
chairman chairperson, chair, president, head
foreman supervisor, superintendent
manmade artificial, synthetic
congressman representative, legislator
councilman council member
policeman police officer, law enforcement officer
(3) Try to avoid using gender-suffixes which reflect women's lower rank and avoid using prepositional attributes like woman, lady, madam when there is no necessity to show their sex and use one form to designate a person in all three contexts, i.e., in reference to a male, to a female or to a person whose sex is not specific. For example:
actress actor
aviatrix aviator
usherette usher
poetess poet
woman engineer engineer
girl athlete athlete
If it is important to mark the sex of the person, this could be done lexically, for example, we can use the adjectives male or female.
It was a woman driver who sent me home. (sexist)
It was a female driver who sent me home. Or
The driver who sent me home was a woman. (nonsexist)
(4) Gender-free words are words including both sexes, such as teacher, officer, people, worker, immigrant, coach, church member, leader, grandparent, evening student, employee, testee, engineer, customers, dealer, clerk, civilians, scientist, operator, patriot, person, planner, politician, producer, tutor, writer, chief executive, expert, everybody and so on. Making the most use of gender-free words can help people reduce sexism in the daily life and in the language.
(5) Try to avoid giving examples that are traditionally regarded as of male or female. For example, usually when referring to a lawyer, a statesman or an officer, we use a male name or he as the subject. When referring to a secretary, a nurse or a teacher, we use a female name or she as the subject. In other words, boxing or football player must be male, while dishwasher or assistant must be female. We can tackle such problems by using plural forms or other adaptations. [18] For example,
① the lawyer...he -------- lawyers... they
the assistant...she --------- assistants...they
② It is a party that held by the officers and their wives. (sexist)
It is a party that held by the officers and their spouses.(nonsexist)
4.3 Coining new corresponding words
The gender bias can also be seen in the way that women are addressed through their social relations to men. The terms Miss and Mrs. indicate the sex and marital status of the woman while the term Mr. indicates the sex only. It is unbalanced and unnecessary to specify the marital status of women but not of men.
Since the 1960s,feminists had coined a new word “Ms” to de-emphasize the improper perception of marital status as a definitive feature of a woman's identity and personality. The new term Ms, which is a combination of Miss and Mrs., functions as an exact counterpart of the term Mr.. Women who object to having a title that is marked for marital status have adopted “Ms”. There are also some other examples, such as salesman and saleslady, housewife and househusband, bride and bridegroom and so on. [19]
But there are some aspects of language that are more resistant to change. For example, the word history comes from Greek root for such concepts as inquiring, knowing and learning. Women have pointed out the irony of the word history. They say, it has told only “his story". So they created the word “herstory” (a word not recognized by standard dictionaries) to emphasize that women' s lives, deeds and participation in human affairs have been neglected or undervalued in standard histories. However, both linguists and common speakers find it absurd to change ‘history’ into “herstory”.
4.4 Alternatives to Addressing Terms
Addressing terms are very important in our daily communication, and gender discrimination certainly has some influence on them. In English, there are many addresses used to look down upon the females. In order to solve the problem, there are some strategies that may help:
Firstly, don’t introduce some female through her husband, e.g. Jim Green and his wife Helen; Chairman's wife Daisy Brown.
Secondly, don’t use terms which belittle women as wives or otherwise, e.g. the better half, the little woman, the weaker sex, the fair sex, dumb blondes, (woman's) libber, and so on. And the traditional expressions with prejudice such as ambitious men and aggressive women, cautious men and timid women should try to be avoided.
Thirdly, try not to use the traditional form of address such as Dear Sir, Dear Gentleman, Dear Madam when writing to someone of unknown sex. The following may be useful.
Dear friends of the library Dear Madams and Sirs
Dear Personnel Officer Dear Committee Member
Dear Citizen Dear Customer
Dear Councilor Dear Agent
4.5 The social change of attitude toward women
As I have said, language is something that society creates and can also be seen as a mirror of society. If women and men are still unequal in society then just changing the language will not really grant equality or make things much better. Language is not in and of itself a sexist thing. The users of a language grant it practical meaning depending on how they view society and according to their values and beliefs.
Both historically and presently marriage status is more important to women than to men because marriage virtually determines how well a woman could live. In the past, women had little opportunities to work outside the home. Furthermore, working out of the home was often considered inappropriate or presented poor options. As they were unable to support themselves, their marriage basically determined how well they would live. This was demonstrated in Jane Austin’s novel Pride and Prejudice where women dressed up and learned to sing and dance in order to impress a man and find an eligible husband. These women were in some sense subordinate to their husbands, as their positions and careers took precedence in their relationship. As marriage was so important to a woman it is really necessary to differentiate between Mrs. and Miss. Even today, in most families men continue to play a more important role. Although many women work outside they still make a lower salary on average.
Although women today have taken all kinds of careers and have proven that they can do anything men can do, positions of a high rank are still rarely held by women. Therefore it is not strange that one may think of a man when they hear the word "chairman". This indicates that the main reason behind sexist language is not the language form itself, but our thought that comes from social experience. In other words eliminating linguistic sexism must happen simultaneously with social change. Women must be given the same opportunities as men.
The above are some suggestions on how to avoid sexist language in English. To some people, especially the male, it seems quite unnecessary. They take it for granted that the so-called sexist language is some kind of habit or for the seek of convenience but not looks down upon or discriminates against the female on purpose. Anyhow, the topic of how to avoid sexist language has become more and more popular among the language and social workers abroad.
5. Conclusion
Since human being appeared on the earth, there have been existing two different genders-----male and female. On account of the differences between their physiological features and the superiority and inferiority in social activities, men and women are differentiated from each other in individuality, value, image and status, which give rise to variations in their language styles and language uses.
Sexism is the systematic mistreatment of women as enforced by the cultures and the institutions of society. Sexism has diminished the societal rights of (mostly) women to exercise economic, political, and personal power. Sexism denies individual power, even over your own body. Sexism says that one gender is superior to another gender in intelligence, strength, and leadership abilities. Sexism, along with other forms of oppression, is hurtful to every woman no matter what age, nationality, ethnic group or class she belongs to. It conditions every woman to be submissive and forces them, by whatever means necessary, to perform and accept the roles assigned to individuals in society.
Feminism has been one of the main social movements since the 1960s, and there is no doubt that this movement will continue in this century. Its impact is felt in many societies around the world and in many spheres of life. Language was and is seen by many feminists as a powerful instrument of patriarchy. It is therefore not surprising that language is subject to feminist scrutiny, which leads to elaborate and detailed descrīption of sexist practice affecting language use.
In the previous paragraphs, sexist language use in vocabulary has been pointed out. However, it is not enough to just point out the problem. A desire to change the patriarchal and sexist nature of language has been expressed and therefore we should be engaged in various types of linguistic reform or language planning. The feminist’s demand for linguistic reform, if we are to be careful in our attempt to understand it, cannot be interpreted as a demand for purging of certain words, sentences, or statements from the English language. It is rather to be interpreted as a demand for halting the use of such words, sentences or statements, either because the use is itself objectionable, or because what the use implies is morally objectionable. One of the important reasons for feminist language reform is that linguistic change is seem to lag behind social change, effectively hindering the linguistic reflection of social change.
So, the key to better sexist language in English is lexical neutralization, eliminating generic pronouns, coining new words and striving for balanced naming and addressing system. But the elimination of linguistic sexism lies in social change. Only by changing the social structure till one day when women and men own really equal status can language equality be truly achieved. Therefore, linguistic action and social action should be taken simultaneously for the purpose of eliminating sexism in language.
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