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Masculine and feminine terms can have very different connotations, and so the distinctions
make the females separate and unequal. If it is written, In the nineteenth century, the kings of
nonsense were Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, the reader understands the message to mean that
those two men were the best of all nonsense writers at that time. But if the quote says, The queen of
twentieth-century nonsense is Gertrude Stein, the implication is unequivocal - Gertrude Stein is,
among female writers of nonsense, the best. It leaves completely open her ranking relative to males.
(1)
In everyday language, it is quite normal to hear phrases like Everybody must turn in his paper
by Tuesday, or An assistant professor has to get along with his colleagues if he wants to get
tenure.(1) In both example the use of the masculine pronoun unconsciously forms the idea that
males are more intelligent and capable. There are also the more colloquial phrases like Be a man!
and Hes got balls which imply that men are braver and stronger than women and relate those
characteristics with masculinity. It is quite common that most biases that people obtain come from
what is taught in early childhood. People will believe in the words they receive as children. Words
we hear as young adults follow us and shape our thoughts throughout the rest of our lives. As
children attend school and interact with adults, teachers, and each other, the first stages of linguistic
prejudices begin. Many teachers do not realize that stories read to children have numerous
linguistic biases deeply etched inside of them.
All the facts mentioned are as relevant in Serbia, just as they are anywhere else. Aside from the
many important issues everyone deals with day by day, attention should still be devoted to this
problem. There is always a little something each and everyone of us can do in order to help mend
one of the worlds problems even by a little bit. The use of gender-biased language is a very live
issue today and one way of dealing with it is by removing biased phrases from our vocabulary and
replacing them with more appropriate ones that are not offensive. For example, businesses and
individuals have been sued, because job descriptions used he and it seemed to exclude women
whether or not the exclusion was intended (2). Therefore, gender-free language is an important
part of both the school and the working environment.
Aside from the possible legal punishment, there are much more important moral consequences
when using and allowing such derogatory way of speaking in the classroom or work environment.
Studies have proven \ the negative parts of any difference in attitude play on children in the process
of growing up. If a teacher shows any kind of favour and many students might feel unworthy of the
teachers affection. There is also the case where teachers pay more attention to boys, rather than
girls, which occurs almost daily. Research has shown that gender-bias in the classroom diminishes
girls self esteem, expectations and even opportunities later in life.(2) On the other hand, the act of
excluding girls and their feminine nature in language itself will reinforce stereotypes and teaches
young children to grow up with sexist ideas on the subconscious level.
A lot of attention was devoted to this issue and there were many articles written on the problem
of bias in the English language. The main focus was usually on the different rules for written and
spoken language, some dealing with race and ethnicity, while others referred to age and education,
but the leading interest befell the area of gender.(4) Prof. Vanderhoof suggests a simple tripartite
classification of the problems of gender bias and gives the respective ideas of how these could be
dealt with.
He states, first of all, that one should deal with the use of the word man to denote to all
people, which is highly common and quite easy to correct.
- There are many other alternatives that include both men and women in their meaning that can
be used. We can remove its generic use by including words such as person, individual, human,
or human being.
Example: A man who is depressed really needs a friend.
Alternative: Someone who is depressed really needs a friend.
Example: For centuries, men have struggled to find the meaning of life.
Alternative: For centuries, people have struggled to find the meaning of life.
- Mankind can be replaced by humankind, humanity, human race
Example: This policy would benefit all of mankind.
Alternative: This policy would benefit all of humanity.
Secondly, we should avoid using gender-specific pronouns. This problem can be approached
from several perspectives so that we make sure that sexist sentences like the one bellow appear as
rarely as possible.
Example: Each employee should read his packet carefully.
- Since the use of the neutral is out of the question, a possible solution is to use both pronouns, i.e.
pronoun pairs, every time, e.g.:
Alternative: Each employee should read his or her packet carefully.
Sometimes the pronouns can be abbreviated to she/he or even s/he.
- Another very common approach lately has been the otherwise grammatically incorrect use of a
pronoun in plural to refer to a subject in singular:
Alternative: Each employee should read their packet carefully.
Though this might sound strange at first, people easily get used to hearing and using it, so it is a
fairly good alternative.(4) In any case, such usage is something normal for the novels of Jane
Austen, for at her time using their in both singular and plural has been as normal as using your
today in a similar way, i.e. to refer to subjects both in singular and plural.
Using either of these methods might work once, but using them several times over will slow
the reading down dramatically and draw attention to their very use. So, the easiest way to avoid
such occurrences is to convert the noun to its plural form and rewrite the sentence accordingly:
Alternative: Employees should read their packets carefully
Lastly, we a simple of subtle gender stereotyping should be discussed. For this to be prevented
people would have to remember that even though some occupations, or hobbies, may be connected
with certain gender, the association is never absolute and definite. When talking about such
occupations, one should never come to a conclusion that all individuals concerned with it are of
one gender or the other. (2)
Example: In recent years, women have been spending less on sewing supplies than they have in the
past.
Alternative: In recent years, people have been spending less on sewing supplies than they have in
the past.
Nowadays, using politically-correct language means the natural replacement of more crude,
incorrect terms, with more adequate alternatives. Another thing that should always be avoided are
the all too familiar gender-biased titles. This could be easily corrected by
1. Using Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs.
2. Using a married womans first name instead of her husband's
Example: Mrs. John Smith
Alternative: Mrs. Jane Smith
3. Using Dear Sir or Madam or To Whom It May Concern instead of Dear Sir in letters to
unknown persons.
Conclusion
There are numerous reasons why gender-biased language is dangerous. Even with the greatest
efforts it is still widely present even today. However, there are always ways to fight something that
only in the language. The only problem is that fight will be a very slow process. One should stop
and think for oneself What can I do to help?
One fairly simple and effective thing that each person could do is start employing and paying
attention to the use politically correct language in his own mother tongue. It is as simple as
replacing a couple of words with one another. As time moves on, the need to be politically correct
will be more imminent, so why not start now. And why not pass it onto the young generations of
today step by step, instead of waiting for the problem to resolve itself.
There are many reasons for using politically-correct language in everyday life. For that reason
should all spend some time thinking about how we could make our point in conversation while
thinking about some of these questions: How often do we think about gender issues when preparing
to go out, or while going to work? Do we try to be objective in using gender-biased words? Have
we explained to our friends and family what gender bias is, and do we insist on them using the
acceptable alternatives? How do the men and women feel in our communities? Do we give equal
chance to females in conversation, or do we have an easier time accepting opinions from men? Do
we know of some examples that depict women in non-traditional roles and that include many
examples of influential women?
We should all have these questions in mind because the fate of generations is in our hands, and
we certainly do not wish to be blamed for rearing a backward characteristic, such as using genderbiased language, in our youth.
Literature
1. Cogdill, Sharon and Kilborn, Judith - Avoiding Gender Bias in Pronouns
http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/style/genderbias.html
2. Goetz, Jill - Education expert: Classroom gender bias persists, http://www.news.cornell.edu/
3. Guidelines For Avoiding Gender-Biased Language, an electronic article available at
http://www.utexas.edu/
4. Vanderhoof, David - Be On The Loookout Gender Bias
http://www.uncp.edu/faculty/vanderhoof/