Presentation Notes
“A man and his son were involved in a serious road accident, the father being killed outright.
The boy, with serious head injuries, was taken by ambulance to the nearest hospital and prepared
for brain surgery. The neuro-surgeon entered the O.T., looked at the child and exclaimed: I can’t
operate on him. This is my son. How can this be?” (pg 78)
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We automatically assume that the term “brain surgeon” applies to a male. Pronoun use
also reinforces these ideas of masculine imagery.
What is sexist language?
Sexist language (hereafter referred to as unnecessarily gendered language) has been defined as
“words, phrases, and expressions that unnecessarily differentiate between women and men or
exclude, trivialize, or diminish either gender”
Common definition of sexism: “the practices whereby someone foregrounds gender
when it is not the most salient feature” - question the view that sexism is just an
individual mistake or slip caused by thoughtlessness or lack of awareness
o This is sometimes the case, but a more accurate view is that sexism, just like
racism and other discriminatory forms of language, stems from larger societal
forces and wider institutionalized inequalities of power - pg 1
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Some studies of sexist language argue that sexism resides in certain words or phrases
which can be objectively exposed by feminist linguistics
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Others argue that the “belief systems which are articulated are sexist, ones which see
women as inevitably different and inferior to men.” – pg 3
History:
Traditionally, sexism has been defined as open antipathy toward women (Glick & Fiske, 1997).
However, over recent decades, sexism has become less overt due to strong normative pressures
not to express blatant prejudicial remarks (McConahay, 1986). Although this new form of
sexism – modern sexism (Swim et al., 1995) – resembles the traditional form (i.e., old-fashioned
sexism) as it is characterized by endorsement of traditional gender roles, it is expressed in a
subtler way – for instance, by denying that women are currently discriminated against. Examples
of modern sexist beliefs are: “On average, people in our society treat husbands and wives equally
or over the past few years, the government and news media have been showing more concern
about the treatment of women than is warranted by women’s actual experiences” (examples from
the Modern Sexism Scale, Swim et al., 1995).
Second Wave Vs. Third Wave
Linguistic routinization of discrimination: When the biased language and discourse practice
become normalized (taken for granted as normal) and practiced as a matter of course in daily
discourse, discrimination is routinized and less visible.
Overt/Direct : The type of usage which can be straightforwardly identified through the use of
linguistic markers, or through markers of presupposition, which has historically been associated
with the expression of discriminatory opinions about women, which signals to hearers that
women are seen as an inferior group in relation to males.
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Contested by feminists and has become stigmatized for most language users
Still exists, but is seen by many as anachronistic and signaling very conservative views of
women, which are at odds with current views of gender
Feminist reforms have led to changes in the way that people refer to women and the
way that people feel about articulating sexist beliefs
Types:
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Words and meanings: institutional and conventional
sexism
o Challenges to it
Dictionaries: argument that dictionaries have institutionalized sexist language in their choice of
definitions
o Efforts to create new dictionaries
 Ie. “He has brains and courage” -> “She has brains and courage.”
o Don’t need elaborate example – make this part quick
Generic Pronouns and Nouns: When he/him/his/himself/ is used to refer to both men and
women
o Contribute to the invisibility of females within language and society as a whole
o Strategies of dealing with pronoun reference
Insult terms for women: uses the example of rap music to show that such words have a
multiplicity of meanings
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Using sex specific words such as “he” contribute to the feelings of importance, power,
and superiority which are common among men, and the feelings of unimportance,
powerlessness and inferiority which are common among women. It is assumed that when
someone says the word “he” it is supposed to refer to both men and women, but the
primary meaning actually excludes them. (MacKay, pg 47)
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Examples were in the other book
Semantic derogation: process whereby words and phrases associated with women become
negatively inflected
Examples were in other book
o Democratic leveling: words referring to women of power are more likely to degenerate
to have a wider reference (ie. Dame, mistress, governess, madam)
 Male equivalents have retained status
 Can insult by calling a man a “woman” or “girl” – not the same for men
 Terms that referred to women used to be diminutive – derived from male term
 Terms like actress (actor), aviatrix (aviator), and authoress (author) are
becoming a lot less common
 Pg 60 – how patterns of derogation are established
o Progress has been made in this area
o Could talk about neutral versions of words because it tends to eliminate this issue
First names, surnames, and titles:
o Conflict of the tradition that women take the surname of their husband – form of
possession and/or dependency?
o Many women now feel more comfortable not taking their husband’s last name, but
negative connotations with this decision still exist
o A simple search of Google shows that there are various guides about how to deal with
negative consequences of keeping your own name (ie. How to explain to your family,
people not believing that your children belong to you)
o Titles: Mrs. Miss, and Ms. – associated connotations
 This was talked about in the other book
Process: sexism in the verbs used to describe women’s actions
http://books.google.ca/books?id=PtpzmIHmAjkC&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=sexism+in+children'
s+books+verb&source=bl&ots=7uB0TKm4Ot&sig=PpyEMzJdwH55ajo4q9xifWvJfxg&hl=en&sa=X
&ei=OOtvUrOoEYq0kAe1o4GAAg&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=sexism%20in%20childre
n's%20books%20verb&f=false
o Transitivity: women represented as being acted upon, objects or passive
 Sexual assault is good example
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Will and Kate
 Process and Transitivity can be spoken about together, as they both talk about elements of
speech
o Analysis of children’s books showed what verbs and adjectives tended to be used in
relation to boys and girls
- Jokes: “Sexist jokes allow generally unacceptable views of women to be expressed, because the
person who tells the joke generally can claim that they themselves did not make up the joke.”
o People use insults as jokes with people they are close to
o Very open to interpretation
- Need to find a way to differentiate between the humour of overt sexism and indirect/covert
sexism – confusing
- Possible examples: online jokes, Oscar jokes
http://www.livescience.com/2005-study-sexist-humor-joke.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/feb/25/news/la-ol-oscars-2013-macfarlane-sexist-jokes-hurt-women20130225
Covert: A direct level of sexism that enables one to express sexism while at the same time denying
responsibility for it. It has developed because overt sexism has become more difficult to
articulate/more unacceptable in social convention.
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Humour:
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Sexist language is popularly treated as a source of humor more often than outrage. Pauli
Murray has called this ridicule of women "the psychic counterpart of violence against
blacks,"10 and Naomi Weisstein speaks of this humor as "a weapon in the social arsenal
constructed to maintain . . . sex inequalities, . . . showing that women can't be taken
seriously.
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Presupposition: to suppose or assume beforehand, take for granted in advance
o Advertisers actively exploit the difficulty of complaining against sexism at the level of
presuppositions or inference, because it can be argued that an interpretation that an
advertisement is sexist is simply that- an interpretation, which would not be agreed on
by the majority of viewers
o Obama ad and parody:
o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3jzyKF6M7g
o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAkdHzpXXo0
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- Words such as ‘director’ presupposed male referent and therefore when it is followed by the
pronoun ‘she’ there may be a feeling of disjuncture
Example: doctor riddle.
Conflicting Messages:
o Because of feminist pressure and general changes in representational practices, many
organizations have found it necessary to adopt certain changes in the way that they
present themselves to the public: these are often superficial changes and they often
conflict with other messages in texts which the organization distributes
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Collocation: The company that words keep – words that do not appear to be sexist themselves
but which collocate or are associated with a number of negative associations
Example: a UK newspaper wrote about a woman who had been sent to jail on a part time basis
for trying to defraud the Social Services
o She was repeatedly referred to as a “Part-time jail fraud mum”
o The fact of this woman being a wife and a mother are referred to repeatedly, despite
the fact that this is not relevant to the crime she committed
o Although “mum” itself is not sexist, in the media It is often used in situations were there
is conflict over responsibility or where there is a convenient perception on the
newspaper’s part that there is a conflict between the person’s actions and their roles as
a wife or mother