For example, it might be unwise to use “he” and “him” when talking about professions stereotypically associated with males; e.g., engineering. 7. Be careful about using constructions like his/her, he/she.
Evaluating women less positively than men (e.g. in job application and promotion processes). Ignoring and talking over women. Side-lining women in social and work networks. Seemingly harmless comments about women, such as that they are naturally better at collaborating, detailed work, child care, cooking or shopping.
Sexist language is language that expresses bias in favor of one sex and thus treats the other sex in a discriminatory manner. In most cases, the bias is in favor of men and against women.
Example. A doctor cares for his patient. In this sentence, his is used as a generic form because it is intended to refer to any doctor, male or female. However, it implies that doctors are male, and therefore it excludes females.
Sexist writing is language which excludes one of the sexes. For example, writing “all of the policemen gathered at the parade” is sexist because it excludes women. The correct word to use is “police offers.” History reveals vague periods of time when sexist language might have evolved.
Sexist language/terms: The use of language that demeans women in a variety of ways. For example, “I've been called 'hun,' 'sweetheart,' and even 'beautiful' as a greeting from various employees, customers and clients.”
These ten types of women's language features are lexical hedges or fillers, tag questions, rising intonations on declarative,empty adjectives, precise color term, intensifiers, hypercorrect grammar, superpolite forms, avoidance of strong swear words, and emphatic stress.
In English, this would include using gender-specific terms referring to professions or people, such as 'businessman' or 'waitress', or using the masculine pronouns (he, him, his) to refer to people in general, such as 'a doctor should know how to communicate with his patients'.
derogatory comments, objectification, sexist humour or jokes, overfamiliar remarks, silencing or ignoring people, gratuitous comments about dress and physical appearance, sexist body language, lack of respect and masculine practices which intimidate or exclude women and favour fellow men.
Examples of Sexist Language
For instance, the statement, "Each student chose his own topic for his term paper," leads the reader to assume that all the students in the class were male, despite the probability that half of them were female.
Gender in Different Languages
There are some languages that have no gender! Hungarian, Estonian, Finnish, and many other languages don't categorize any nouns as feminine or masculine and use the same word for he or she in regards to humans.
The world's four most spoken gendered languages are Hindi, Spanish, French and Arabic. They share many of the same gender patterns: masculine as the default grammatical gender, mixed-gender groups using masculine endings, and feminine nouns derived from masculine versions.
Gender-biased language either implicitly or explicitly favours one gender over another and is a form of gender-discriminatory language. Example of gender-biased language: “Every day, each citizen must ask himself how he can fulfil his civic duties”.
Men talk more about things and facts, whereas women talk more about people, relationships and feelings. Men's way of using language is competitive, reflecting their general interest in acquiring and maintaining status; women's use of language is cooperative, reflecting their preference for equality and harmony.
The main focus of feminist language reform is to acknowledge the often unconscious ways that language both silences and emphasizes gender in negative ways. In some languages it is clear with gendered nouns how some words are gendered to associate those words with femaleness or maleness.
Sociolinguistic researches, over the years have shown that the English language favors the masculine gender as opposed to the feminine. Sexism in the English language is only one of the many products brought to us by acculturation.
You can avoid sexist language by using passive voice or plural constructions, by eliminating pronouns, or by switching to direct address. Whenever possible, you should choose from among nonsexist terms that are increasingly available. Be sensitive when you write. Avoid any language that might offend others.
Why do writers need to avoid sexist language? A writer wants to present a good ethos or character to the audience so the audience will find him or her believable. A good ethos will make your arguments even more convincing; a bad ethos will undermine your arguments by making your reader doubt your credibility.
: feeling, showing, or characterized by hatred of or prejudice against women : of, relating to, or being a misogynist. misogynistic attitude/behaviors. a song with misogynistic lyrics. As you might imagine, the group's ethos is extremely misogynistic and accepting of violent threats against women.
She described her former boss as an old-fashioned sexist pig. Women are often the subject of sexist jokes. The discussion proved that sexist attitudes still remain. It's a bit sexist to say that men don't do housework.