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AQA A Level English Language (Gender Essay 2)
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"Evaluate the idea that there is a bias against females in the English language"
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Evaluate the idea that there is a bias against females in the English language.Historically, females have been treated unfairly in society compared to males. This bias stretches across work,
politics, pay and language. The English language currently is biased against women in several ways: generally
excluding them, including them but only in negative semantic space and by directly imposing prejudice through
insulting language reserved only for women.
The generic use of ‘he’ for both males and females and the generic ‘man’ in ‘mankind’, ‘policeman’ and ‘fireman’ are
all examples of bias against women. Julia Stanley said that women are not linguistically represented in our language
and this seems to be true due to the ease it is to think of titles that include ‘man’ compared to titles that include
‘woman’. The same is true for the generic ‘he’. This male pronoun is regularly used to refer to both males and
females instead of the plural pronoun ‘they’ which is designed to refer to both. Dale Spender said that this ‘male as
norm’ rules makes male dominance seen natural and reasonable because we begin to classify the world on the
premise that the standard human is a male. Excluding women from language also risks excluding them in society.
Lexical asymmetry is another way the English language is biased against women. Lexical asymmetry is where a pair
of words should have the same meaning for different genders but in fact provoke different connotations, for
example bachelor/ spinster or cook/ chef. Muriel Schulz explained that the two words should be equivalents but due
to a bias against women they exhibit asymmetry. Dale Spender described this as ‘man made language’ because the
male version, for example ‘bachelor’ connotes rebellion and youth, whereas the female equivalent ‘spinster’
occupies the negative semantic space because it connotes loneliness and old age. This shows a clear bias against
women because when they are represented in language it is negative and belittling.
What’s more, women can also be represented differently to the male equivalent through marked terms. These
involve using a suffix such as ‘-ette’ or ‘-ess’ to indicate a female role. In doing this, it draws attention to the fact that
the term is usually only used for males and that a female presence here is unusual. For example the male ‘actor’
becomes a female ‘actress’ and a ‘waiter’ becomes ‘waitress’. The marking of these terms is unnecessary since there
is no difference in the abilities of a male or female actor however the marking implies that there are differences
beyond gender which could have implications on opportunities given to women.
Language reflectionism suggests that the language we use is shaped by our thoughts and reflects the way we think;
this provides a huge insight into the divide between men and women in society, as well as the bias against women.
Ways of addressing men and women illustrate that still today a woman’s identity is closely connected to her marital
status but this is unimportant when addressing a man. The title ‘Mr’ does not mark a man’s marital status; he could
be married, single or divorced but is still addressed with the same title. However the forms of address for women are
more varied: ‘Mrs’, ‘Miss’ or ‘Ms’. Information about a woman’s life is revealed or presumed no matter what title she
chooses; this is a bias and is unfair because the same is not true for a man.
To overcome the bias and obligation for a woman to reveal her marital status, feminists introduced ‘Ms’. It was seen
as a breakthrough for women when it began to appear on passports however this threatened men who were
benefitting from the status quo and the term quickly pejorated. ‘Ms’ to many now suggests that the woman is
divorced, a feminist or gay. This shows the bias against women, the original words used to address them were biased
and then words coined to overcome the bias become pejorated and pick up more bias.
Another example of bias against females in language is the way in which language undermines any attempts made
by feminists to give women choice over the amount and type of sex they have just like men have had forever. There
are far more insults in the language to do with female sexual promiscuity than there are male, these include ‘slag,
‘slut’ and ‘whore’. Sue Lees said that men control female sexual behaviour through these derogatory terms because
women are afraid of being labelled as such so restrict what they partake in, or at the very least conceal it. This is
important because the bias influences societies opinions about sexual promiscuity to do with women and men, of
course women lose out from this bias whilst men once again benefit.
These gendered discourses give sexist representations of women. Although these are not usually explicit, they
involve focusing on aspects of women’s identities that are to do with body parts, appearance and reproduction. The
Sapir Whorf hypothesis says that language shapes thought and therefore a language that labels women in a certain
way can also lead attitudes to women to all in a certain direction.
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