Thursday, November 19, 2009

A Biased Way of Speaking

The English language has been progressing toward more gender-neutrality: mostly in titles. But the words we use to describe one another, in casual speaking, are not moving toward neutrality at all. In general, words that refer to women have negative connotations, whereas words that refer to men have positive ones. I have, all my life, heard people call one another specific names, which are sometimes joking and often insulting. We use certain terms to describe each other, but we have never stopped to consider what they really mean. My concern is: how is this affecting our society? What can we do to bring our language toward a less-biased condition? My hope is that the trend toward gender-neutral titles will encourage us to change the way that we speak as well.

Once upon a time, most job titles were gender-specific. Some obvious ones include: stewardess, waitress, and actress. I have noticed, with some delight, that these words have changed and become gender-neutral. For example, stewardess is now flight attendant; waitress has become server; and actor is now usually left as actor. The reason this has occurred is because of the concern that gender-specific job titles may promote sexism in the workplace. I believe this to be a rational concern. Studies have shown that the words children hear affect their perceptions of the gender-appropriateness of certain careers. Also, other studies show that men and women apply for jobs in more equal amounts when the language used to describe a position is more gender-neutral. Therefore, the language should always be gender-neutral. While this change is great, still more need to be made.

In conversation, words such as player and slut are often used to describe men and women with similar promiscuous behaviors. While their sexual habits may be the same, the words are not. Player does not have a negative connotation, but the word slut definitely does. A slut is to be avoided as something resentful and disgusting, a player, on the other hand, is usually considered amusing and often prosperous. While listening, I have heard so many words to describe women similar to slut. Some examples include: ho, whore, hooker, bimbo, skank, and tramp. These are the ones heard the most; there are many more. Strangely, I heard nothing else similar to player to describe a man. Thinking hard on it, I suppose you could use gigolo or playboy, but these are not in common everyday usage. Why is it that there are so many words to describe women but only one to describe a man, and it’s not even inherently bad? This is only one of the questions that arise. Other words to consider are bachelor and spinster. They both mean the same thing, but a bachelor is fine and acceptable, and a spinster is definitely not. It seems that most words used for women have a negative connotation, often sexual, and those used for men do not. But still, we continue to use them. This equation, I believe, could have disastrous results.
These casual words we use as jokes or nicknames reflect an unequal state of society. When we speak in this way, we are teaching others that it is acceptable and normal to think of another woman as a slut, or a man as a player. But when it is broken down, is it acceptable? Is it equal? It’s not acceptable or equal. Instead, it is promoting discrimination. Therefore, the strongest thing we can do, in my opinion, is to stop. Stop talking so disparagingly to one another; stop using biased terms! We have clearly and successfully gender-neutralized many words already and so we should with the rest of the language, especially in our verbal usage. The way that we reference one another has a lot to do with how we treat each other.

While we have made changes toward gender-neutrality in the English language there are still some setbacks. Our conversations with others reveal many discrepancies in that we allow others to call us by gender-specific nicknames that are actual insults. Some complain that it goes against their freedom of self-expression to gender-neutralize everything, and they don't want to be troubled with the idea of "sexist terms." But it can hardly be a crime to take these disparaging terms out of the equation. I would feel a lot more comfortable with our language if, at least, the insulting nicknames were equal.