浅析英语中的性别歧视现象
[摘 要]
语言在社会中所处的地位尤为重要。作为一种社会现象的语言，必然会反映出人类社会的各种社会观念。性别歧视作为这其中的一种，是指把男性视作社会规范和中心，轻视，侮辱女性或使她们显得微不足道。而这一特定的社会现象必然会在语言中折射出来。
论文首先剖析了英语中性别歧视现象形成的根源。从本质来说，语言中的性别歧视是社会中性别歧视的体现。两者紧密相连。性别歧视的社会内涵反映的就是这种语言中的性别歧视现象与社会中的性别歧视的本质的关系。接着论文从阳性词泛指，词序，词义的贬降等方面对英语中的性别歧视现象进行了详细的分析。最后论文还着力探讨如何改变这种歧视。作者认为，改变性别歧视主要解决以下几个问题：(1)避免阳性代词的泛指；(2)词汇的中性化；(3)命名与称谓的对等；(4)创造新的对应词。语言中的性别歧视的最终消亡取决于社会变化。只有改变社会结构，即男女真正拥有平等的地位，语言中的平等才能真正实现。消除语言中的性别歧视的根本在于实现男女的平等的社会变革。
[关键词] 性别歧视；英语语言；词汇中性化；女权主义
1. IntroductionAs the peculiar result of the development of human society,language is a kind of social phenomenon and reflects all thesides of human society naturally. Its existence anddevelopment are closely linked with the social attitudes ofhuman beings and to a great extent are affected by theirsocial views and values. Historically and sociologically, oursociety is man-oriented and man-centered. Women, regarded as aweaker gender in society, are discriminated for a long timeand completely subordinated in political life, economic lifeand even family life in the society dominated by men.
Unavoidably, this kind of phenomenon has been embodied inlanguages. In linguistic aspect, language is bias-based andwomen suffer from language sexism. Gender-differentiatedlanguage use can reflect and help perpetuate the subordinatestatus of women in society.
Since 1960s, feminists strive for the elimination of genderdiscrimination, for the greater recognition of women’scontributions to society and aim to change many cultural andsocial customs that perpetuate patriarchal value systems. Manyfields of life around the world have been, or are being,affected by this movement. One of the many impacts feminism onsociety is its impact on language. Language was and is seen bymany feminists as a powerful instrument of patriarchy.
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2. The Factors of Sexism in the English LanguageSexism in English is not formed in one day, but built up inthe long period of the development of language, which leads tothe variety of the causes. What causes the sexism in theEnglish Language? There are four factors: cultural factor,physiological factor, social factor and psychological factor.
(1) Cultural factorIn the Holy Bible (The Books of The Old Testament): “So theLord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and heslept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its placewith flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from theman he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then theman said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of myflesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this onewas taken.’ ” [1]
Man came to the world first while woman made from one of man’sribs was created just as a help meet for him. And she was notcreated until all other animals failed to meet thesatisfaction of the man. From the order of the birth, it isobvious to see the different importance of man and woman. Andman and woman are not equal at all because woman is only apart of man, which itself is the discrimination against women.
It is said in the Holy Bible that the first sin is alsocommitted by the woman. She was seduced by the snake intoeating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and eviland having the man eat, too. At last, the woman was punishedto bring forth children in pain and was ruled over by the man.
From above, the superiority of men and inferiority of women isclearly seen. The Holy Bible is actually a book of men. AsChristianity is such a powerful religion in Western countries,it is unreasonable to deny that this helps to set andconsolidate the inferiority of women.
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(2) Physiological factorFor extended work and life together, people realized that menare tall in stature, strong in muscle and robust in physique.
In contrary to men, women are small in stature, weak inphysique and have more fat and less muscle than men. Womenalso mature more rapidly. [2] In a word, men are stronger thanwomen. This determines that men play a more and more importantrole in social and economic lives. A man’s job is to workoutside but a woman’s job is to stay at home, do the houseworkand take care of the children. Women are treated as the weakerones and they realize their own values through their marriagesto men. At last, women are lower in status. They have to leechon to men and are dominated by men. Gradually, people begin todiscriminate women and think that they are inferior inintelligence. This wrong perspective forms slowly and reflectsin language.
(3) Social factor (Labor division)Feminists all claim that we live in a patriarchal society: asociety of men, ruled by men and for men. Patriarchy depictsmen as the perfect norm against which women are measured andfound lacking.
Both the Western and Eastern societies use sex, to one degreeor another, in allocating tasks, activities, rights, andresponsibilities. As for the job done by men and women, thereis a long-stereotyped notion of what they can do. In history,there has been a division of labor--a division in whichwomen’s place was restrained at home for housework andchild-care while men worked outside being the breadwinner. Atlast, men had dominance over women, and women had to bedependent on men. This was the turning point for women. Fromthen on, in paternal society, slavery society and capitalistsociety, women had been on the bottom of society. In long andendless course of history, sexism against women has beenaccumulated. It is due to different labor division that leadsto different social status. This has been clear in ancient andmodern society. Later, in addition to domestic work, womenbegan to enter the paid work place. However, even though halfof women are employed outside the home, the belief persiststhat woman is mainly, and primarily, in the roles of wife andmother.
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Due to women's relative physical weakness and lowereducational background, they do primarily the low-status,low-paying jobs. Although men also have family roles, they aredefined primarily by their economic or occupational position.
Thus the sexism in the society has been in existence, theembodiment of which is necessarily the sexism of language.
(4) Psychological factorBecause of the social and cultural factors, women are alwaysconsidered to be the weak. People treat women as inferior tomen. They educate men to be manly, decisive, and brave whilewomen are required to be polite, conservative, obedient, andgentle. Because women are in subordinate status in thesociety, they have to constrain their emotion and give uptheir own need to meet the satisfaction of men. As timepasses, when speaking women pay more attention to the eleganceand standard of language than men. They use more pleasant andpolite words in the hope that they can receive other’sapproval. And they are taught to speak softly, to avoidcontradicting others, to be obedient in communication, and tobe aware of giving cues of strong confidence. They mouldthemselves to be inferior in their potential subconsciousness.[3] Therefore, women try their best tostrengthen their social status through their speech than mendo. The lower women’s position is, the more polite they are inthe face of others. And the standard language they use canshow their submission and politeness. This also suggests thatwomen are in a lower position in the society.
3. Phenomena of sexism in the English language3.1 The generic masculineSexism in language in general comes in three major forms:
language ignores women; it defines women as less significantthan men; and it completely opposes women. They can be locatedin the generic masculine terms.
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3.1.1 Generic pronounsGeneric pronouns are pronouns that are said to refer, withequal likelihood, to women and men. But the English languageignores women by allowing masculine terms to be usedspecifically to refer to males and commonly to refer to humanbeings in general. The generic pronoun “he” is perhaps themost well known example of the gender-specific of sexistlanguage, and is frequently referred to be “he/man” language.
The most significant manifestation of the sexism is in the useof generic masculine pronouns “he” and its variants “his”,“him” and “himself” in such sentences as:
(1) He who laughs last laughs best.
(2) Everyone must do his homework well.
(3) If anyone calls, tell him I will be back later.
(4) Everyone should learn to solve problems himself.
In the above examples, “he”, “his”, “him” and “himself” areused not sex-specifically, but generically, that is, althoughthe pronouns refer grammatically to the single male citizen,they should be taken to refer to both male and female citizensin general. On the formal occasions, ‘he’, ‘him’ or ‘his’ canbe used to refer to such indefinite pronouns as each,everyone, everybody, no one, someone, anyone and so on. While‘she’, ‘her’, ‘herself’ don’t have such usages.
3.1.2 Generic nounsAnother well-known example of generic masculine terms is“man”. The definitions of “man” in Oxford Advanced Learner’sEnglish-Chinese Dictionary (Extended fourth edition) are asfollows: ① adult male human being; ② human being of eithersex; person ③ [sing](without the or a) the human race;mankind. There are some examples taken from the dictionary. ①All men must die. ②Growing old is something a man has toaccept. ③Man is mortal. [4] From these definitions andexamples, it is easy to see that “man”, and “men” can be usedgenerically to refer to both male and female. But ‘woman’ and‘women’ cannot be employed in reference to men.
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This also reminds people of the famous saying from the USDeclaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.”
Should people argue that the “men” does not include womenbecause women were not given the right to vote in theeighteenth century America? [5] A clear explanation of thisphenomenon may be found in sentence like:
(1) Man is a social animal.
(2) Men remake nature.
When seeing the three sentences, speakers of English are ableto readily interpret “man” and “men” as meaning “the humanrace”; “humankind”. If not, the two sentences could be changedinto(3) Woman is a social animal.
(4) Women remake nature.
Of course, they are grammatically well formed; semantically,however, the third sentence has the defect of being partial,and the fourth sentence is very ridiculous.
From above, one can know that in English using “man” or “men”
to indicate “the human race”, neglects the fact that men andwomen are equal in the society. By contraries, they treat manas the center of society, an embodiment of criterion andtotally ignore the existence of woman.[6] There are many othergeneric masculine terms such as man-to-man, prehistoric man,brotherhood, chairman, and policeman.
3.1.3 Women being attached to menThe English language distinguishes women’s courtesy titles onthe basis of marital status, but not those of men. There isonly one form of address for men, Mr., regardless of martialstatus. However, the martial status of women is distinguishedby Miss and Mrs., reflecting the notion that whether or not awoman is in a marriage. This discriminatory practice is saidto mark the availability of women in terms of marriage (sex)and reinforces the view that a woman is the property of a man(either her father or her husband). When a woman has beenmarried, people address her as “Mrs. plus her husband’ssurname”. That is to say, if a woman is married to somebody,she has no right to be treated like an unmarried lady. As to aman, that’s a different matter. For example: InEnglish-speaking countries, you can often hear someone callthe wife of John Smith “Mrs. John Smith”. There is noexception of famous Madame Curie, Mrs. Thatcher, and Mrs.
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Gandhi.[7] Mrs. Thatcher is the former Prime Minister in UK.
However, few people know her own family names.[8] Mr.
Clinton’s wife, Hilary Clinton, as a liberated woman, kept hername Hilary Rodham after marriage. But in order to help herhusband in the election, she had to change her name. From theaddress of men and women, one can clearly see the submissiveposition of women and women are merely an extension of theirhusbands or part of their husbands’ estate. This also reflectsin the language.
3.1.4 Female as an exceptionEnglish itself has no difference of gender. But in thisman-centered society, people is used to believing thatprestige person are always males. However, a woman who oncereceives great popularity is regarded as a special exception.
Many professionals such as doctor, professor, engineer,lawyer, pilot, judge, surgeon can be used to indicate bothmales and females. But when indicating female’s position,professional, etc., these words are created by adding a boundmorpheme or by combining them with a word referring tofemale.[9] Because these satisfactory jobs are traditionallyviewed as ones qualified only by males. Women are just theappendant to men. The words below can best illustrate it:
Common gender Masculine gender Femininegenderwaiter waiter waitresshero hero heroinepilot pilot woman pilotdoctor doctor woman doctorsurgeon surgeon femalesurgeonlawyer lawyer lady lawyerInterestingly, when we hear other people say “ My cousin is alawyer.”, most people always conclude that my cousin is amale. Most of the time, whenever we refer to a woman, we haveto elaborately add woman, female or lady before manyprofessionals.
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But other professionals like secretary, nurse, typist,receptionist, dressmaker, are often used to indicate females.
When they are used to refer to males, you should add male orman before them, such as: male nurse, male typist, and malesecretary. It makes clear that men monopolize the high statusprofessionals. Women can only do service work or low socialstatus work.
English is a kind of super masculine language. This can beeasily seen in compound words formed by word plus manstructure, such as chairman, businessman, congressman,newsman, statesman, salesman, mailman, policeman, andspokesman. From these words, we can easily know that males arethe center of the society. These jobs are certainly taken bymales and women are completely excluded.
In addition, there are some female professionals formed byadding the bound morpheme such as –ess, -ine to the root. Forexample:
Male Femalepoet poetessprince princessgod goddesscount countesshero heroineThis kind of word-formation seems to tell that women arederived from men and attached to men. These discriminatorypractices often make women invisible and treat them secondary.
3.1.5 Word orderSexism in language is also reflected in word order. When menand women are presented together, usually words denoting malesex are put in front of female sex. Making females come secondreflects the sexist attitude that men are superior to women.
It is not hard to find male-female word order pairs in Englishliterature, newspaper, magazines as well as in speech, such asmale and female, husband and wife, father and mother, boys andgirls, his and hers, son and daughter, brother and sister,host and hostess, king and queen, Adam and Eve and so on. Nomatter in books or on radio, even in daily dialogue, we canoften read and hear such words:
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(1) Good morning, boys and girls!
(2) They would have allowed males and females to go to schooltogether.
Such a language phenomenon seems to appear so unquestionablynatural as to be widely accepted as a language norm.
However, there are also cases in which male-female order isreversed, for example bride and groom, and ladies andgentlemen. The former shows that marriage is important towomen and the latter is influenced by the notion that menshould protect women. Putting ladies before gentlemen doesn’tshow that women are more superior to men or ladies first, butindicates that in men’s mind, women, the same as children, arethe weaker ones.[10]
3.2 Semantic derogation of womenLanguage has a tendency to neglect women, treat women assubmission and also demean women.[11] The process of wordsthat refer to women acquiring demeaning or sexual connotationshas been widely observed, and has been called semanticderogation.
3.2.1 Non-parallel semantic developments of paired termsMany sociolinguists have claimed that words become negativewhen shifted into the female sphere, while male has remainedpure and neutral. For example:
(1) King and queenOne is masculine, the other feminine and both mean “ruler ofan independent state”. King has retained its initial meaning,but besides the core meaning of queen, queen is also used as“a disparaging term for a gay or homosexual man”.
(2) Master and mistressBoth of them indicate ‘someone who possesses and/or has powerover someone or something else. For example: “ He is mymaster.” usually means “He is my boss.” or “He has more powerthan me.” While “She is my mistress.” is more likely to beinterpreted as meaning ‘She is my illicit lover.’ Mistressoriginally refers to a woman in a position of authority,control, and ownership, as the head of a household like ahousekeeper, but it implies a woman who has a continuingsexual relationship with a usually married man who is not herhusband and from whom she generally receives material support.
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(3) Wizard and witchBoth of them can be used to refer to people with evil magicpowers. Wizard also has a meaning of person with extraordinaryabilities, while witch means an ugly old woman.
(4) Sir and madamSir and madam both can be used to refer to high status people.
Madam is used formerly as a courtesy title before a woman’sgiven name but now used only before a surname or titleindicating rank or office or used as a form of polite addressfor a woman. Unlike sir, madam is also used to refer to abrothel keeper. There are also many other examples such aslord and lady, governor and governess. The examples citedabove demean women rather than men.
3.2.2 Semantic collocation and change(1) Semantic collocationIn English, a word may have different connotations when it isused to describe different sexes. For example:
① imposinga. He is imposing.
b. She is imposing.
Sentence a means “He is impressive and admirable.” Whilesentence b could be interpreted to mean that “She isdisgusting and apathetic.” When the sex changes, so does themeaning.
② looseLoose seems a neutral word for both male and female. But “aloose woman” reminds people of “a woman considered to besexually promiscuous” whereas “a loose man” just means “acasual man”.[12]
③ trampIt is defined as “a person with no home or job, who wandersfrom place to place” or “a woman considered to be sexuallyimmoral (esp. in American English).” In the example, He/She isa tramp. For the male, tramp refers to a vagrant whereas forthe female it can mean that she is promiscuous.
From the above, we can see that the same word shifts frombeing positive to being negative once it has moved fromreferring to a male to a female.[13]
(2) Semantic changeBesides, words, which begin with either neutral or positiveconnotations over time, acquire negative implications andfinally end up as “sexual slurs”. For example, the term hussyderives from Old English huswif (“housewife”), which means“the female head of the house”. The term graduallydeteriorated to “a rustic rude woman” and finally comes tomean “an indecent, impudent woman or prostitute”.[14]
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3.2.3 MetaphorLanguage exists to allow us to communicate with one another.
To this end, language serves two purposes: to communicate whatour reality is and also what we wish it to be. So if weidentify a trait in a language, such as sexism or other formsof prejudice, this only reveals a prejudice that exists insociety. Language, in particular metaphor, helps form socialreality. There are many metaphors to describe a female. Butoften it has a totally different meaning.
(1) food metaphorSome food words can also be used to refer to females, suchas cheese cake (奶酪蛋糕——****女画)，cherry (樱桃——处女)，cookie(点心——可爱的女人)，crumpet (松脆饼——性感女人)，tart (果馅饼——妓女)，tomato(西红柿——漂亮女人), honey (蜜糖——宝贝、亲爱的), piece (点心——女人)，peach(桃子——漂亮女人) and so on. Men often use these words to expresstheir appreciation to women. It even includes the meaning thatmen treat women as dolls.[15]
(2) animal metaphorThere are also many words showing contempt for women. Theyembody sexual discrimination but still enjoy great popularity.
For example: chick (小鸡——少女)，kitten(小猫——活泼年轻的姑娘)，bitch（母狗——泼妇），cat (猫——丑妇、贱妇、讨厌的女人)，dragon(龙——倔强的女人)，hen (母鸡——爱管闲事的女人), cow (奶牛——子女多的女人、妓女)，crone(老母羊——干瘪的丑老太婆) and mare-horse (母马——粗声大气、肥胖固执的女人) and so on.
[16] These are all pejorative terms for women, because animalsare considered to be inferior to human beings on the earth. Sousing animals to refer to females indicates that females areinferior.
The semantic derogation of women helps to construct femaleinferiority and because women are confined to negative terms,women continue to be devalued.
4. Signs of the fading of sexism in the English LanguageLanguage is not only used to exchange ideas, conveyinformation, but also used to set up and maintain theharmonious relationship between human beings, create and keepthe effective communication environment among social membersand groups. Any form of sexist language, whether on purpose ornot, will probably stand off or offend some social member orgroup. Language and language use mirror social attitudes andstereotypes and bias.
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Along with the women’s liberation movement, people began torealize the importance of the language reform and desexismbecomes necessary. Then, should sexist language be changed oravoided? The answer is definitely positive, but how? The mainstrategies here to achieve this goal are avoiding the use ofgeneric masculine, changing some naming and addressing terms,coining new words and advocating some neutral words.
4.1 Avoiding using generic masculine pronounsLinguists engaged in study of sexism in the English languageare not satisfied with merely pointing out the problem. As asolution to the problems that the generic masculine cancreate, a number of proposals have been made. A major categoryamong these solutions is to avoid using generic masculine.
Some alternatives to avoid generic masculine are offered asfollows:
(1) The generic masculine he, his, him should be replaced withhe or she, his or her, him or her, and the like, whichexpressly indicate that women are included in the antecedentof the pronouns. This strategy can be illustrated with thefollowing sentence: Every good citizen should love his or hercountry more than him or herself; he or she should be ready todie for it if the need arises.
(2) The gender-neutral third person pronoun they and itsvariants should be used with a singular meaning. The proposalmakes it possible to say: Every good citizen should love theircountry more than themselves; they should be ready to die forit if the need arises.
(3) Changing the whole sentence into plural form can also helpto avoid sexism. Look at the sentence: Anyone can take part inthe picnic if he is interested. It is discriminatory. So wecan change it into a nonsexist one: All people can take partin the picnic if they are interested.
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(4) Sometimes the first and second pronouns are used toreplace he. List an example: One has to be careful when hecrosses the road. Obviously, it use he to refer to a personwhose sex is unknown. We can change it into “You have to becareful when you cross the road.” to avoid the discrimination.
(5) If permitted, the sentence can be changed into passivevoice to be nonsexist. Instead of saying “One should not loseheart when he is beaten in a match.”, one would be able to say“One should not lose heart when beaten in a match.”
(6) Dropping the masculine pronoun can also be seen as auseful way to escape from gender bias.[17] The followingsentence can help to know the strategy better. Anybody canattend the meeting if interested in it. Being discriminatory,it is written into “Anybody can attend the meeting if he isinterested in it.”
Feminists regard masculine pronouns as being ambiguous anddiscriminatory against women because they can be interpretedas being masculine-specific or neutral and thus, in somecases, be interpreted as not referring to women at all. So itis time that masculine pronouns were changed. The above aresome strategies used to avoid generic masculine. Thesestrategies are so useful that they can help the improvement ofsexism in language in some extent. And sexism in language isclosely linked with sexism in society. So it is good to theelimination of sexism in society in the final analysis.
4.2 Lexical neutralizationLexical neutralization is also regarded as the major categoryamong solutions to sexist language. Above I have cited someexamples that some professions are used to refer to men. Whenthey are used to refer to woman, female or woman or lady isoften used. In fact, people do not need to designate the sexof an occupation, for example, woman psychologist or malenurse. If you are quoting a qualified psychologist or nurse,should it make a difference if the information is coming froma man or woman? Generally, I sum up five solutions of lexicalneutralization.
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(1) Try to avoid using man/men or mankind to refer to peoplein the world and replace it with person, people, humanity,human, human being, the human race, and the human species. Thegeneric term man has been used in two ways: to refer to anadult male human being and as a synonym for "human being".
Obviously, when you use man and related words to refer to bothwomen and men, you are being sexist. For example:
① Man is the most intelligent of all species. (sexist)Humankind/human being is the most intelligent of all species.
(nonsexist)② All men should maintain the ecological balance. (sexist)All people should maintain the ecological balance. (nonsexist)Or: Everyone should maintain the ecological balance.
③ The project is one of the greatest man's achievements.
(sexist)The project is one of the greatest human achievements.
(nonsexist)(2) Try to avoid using compound words that consist of man torefer to both genders. If a compound word is for specific use,we can use a word+man to refer to man and a word+woman torefer to woman, for example, businesswoman, chairwoman,policewoman, saleswoman, spokeswoman, etc. If it is forgeneric use or the gender is unknown, we can create new wordsor compounds involving the word person or word people leadingto nouns, or shorten the word by cutting of the -man suffix,or replacing it with existing gender-neutral synonyms. Forexample,Avoid Preferbusinessman businessperson, businesspeoplechairman chairperson, chair, president, headforeman supervisor, superintendentmanmade artificial, syntheticcongressman representative, legislatorcouncilman council memberpoliceman police officer, law enforcement officer(3) Try to avoid using gender-suffixes which reflect women'slower rank and avoid using prepositional attributes likewoman, lady, madam when there is no necessity to show theirsex and use one form to designate a person in all threecontexts, i.e., in reference to a male, to a female or to aperson whose sex is not specific. For example:
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actress actoraviatrix aviatorusherette usherpoetess poetwoman engineer engineergirl athlete athleteIf it is important to mark the sex of the person, this couldbe done lexically, for example, we can use the adjectives maleor female.
It was a woman driver who sent me home. (sexist)It was a female driver who sent me home. OrThe driver who sent me home was a woman. (nonsexist)(4) Gender-free words are words including both sexes, such asteacher, officer, people, worker, immigrant, coach, churchmember, leader, grandparent, evening student, employee,testee, engineer, customers, dealer, clerk, civilians,scientist, operator, patriot, person, planner, politician,producer, tutor, writer, chief executive, expert, everybodyand so on. Making the most use of gender-free words can helppeople reduce sexism in the daily life and in the language.
(5) Try to avoid giving examples that are traditionallyregarded as of male or female. For example, usually whenreferring to a lawyer, a statesman or an officer, we use amale name or he as the subject. When referring to a secretary,a nurse or a teacher, we use a female name or she as thesubject. In other words, boxing or football player must bemale, while dishwasher or assistant must be female. We cantackle such problems by using plural forms or otheradaptations. [18] For example,① the lawyer...he -------- lawyers... theythe assistant...she --------- assistants...they② It is a party that held by the officers and their wives.
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(sexist)It is a party that held by the officers and theirspouses.(nonsexist)4.3 Coining new corresponding wordsThe gender bias can also be seen in the way that women areaddressed through their social relations to men. The termsMiss and Mrs. indicate the sex and marital status of the womanwhile the term Mr. indicates the sex only. It is unbalancedand unnecessary to specify the marital status of women but notof men.
Since the 1960s,feminists had coined a new word “Ms” tode-emphasize the improper perception of marital status as adefinitive feature of a woman's identity and personality. Thenew term Ms, which is a combination of Miss and Mrs.,functions as an exact counterpart of the term Mr.. Women whoobject to having a title that is marked for marital statushave adopted “Ms”. There are also some other examples, such assalesman and saleslady, housewife and househusband, bride andbridegroom and so on. [19]
But there are some aspects of language that are more resistantto change. For example, the word history comes from Greekroot for such concepts as inquiring, knowing and learning.
Women have pointed out the irony of the word history. Theysay, it has told only “his story". So they created the word“herstory” (a word not recognized by standard dictionaries) toemphasize that women' s lives, deeds and participation inhuman affairs have been neglected or undervalued in standardhistories. However, both linguists and common speakers find itabsurd to change ‘history’ into “herstory”.
4.4 Alternatives to Addressing TermsAddressing terms are very important in our dailycommunication, and gender discrimination certainly has someinfluence on them. In English, there are many addresses usedto look down upon the females. In order to solve the problem,there are some strategies that may help:
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Firstly, don’t introduce some female through her husband, e.g.
Jim Green and his wife Helen; Chairman's wife Daisy Brown.
Secondly, don’t use terms which belittle women as wives orotherwise, e.g. the better half, the little woman, the weakersex, the fair sex, dumb blondes, (woman's) libber, and so on.
And the traditional expressions with prejudice such asambitious men and aggressive women, cautious men and timidwomen should try to be avoided.
Thirdly, try not to use the traditional form of address suchas Dear Sir, Dear Gentleman, Dear Madam when writing tosomeone of unknown sex. The following may be useful.
Dear friends of the library Dear Madams and SirsDear Personnel Officer Dear Committee MemberDear Citizen Dear CustomerDear Councilor Dear Agent4.5 The social change of attitude toward womenAs I have said, language is something that society creates andcan also be seen as a mirror of society. If women and men arestill unequal in society then just changing the language willnot really grant equality or make things much better. Languageis not in and of itself a sexist thing. The users of alanguage grant it practical meaning depending on how they viewsociety and according to their values and beliefs.
Both historically and presently marriage status is moreimportant to women than to men because marriage virtuallydetermines how well a woman could live. In the past, women hadlittle opportunities to work outside the home. Furthermore,working out of the home was often considered inappropriate orpresented poor options. As they were unable to supportthemselves, their marriage basically determined how well theywould live. This was demonstrated in Jane Austin’s novel Prideand Prejudice where women dressed up and learned to sing anddance in order to impress a man and find an eligible husband.
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These women were in some sense subordinate to their husbands,as their positions and careers took precedence in theirrelationship. As marriage was so important to a woman it isreally necessary to differentiate between Mrs. and Miss. Eventoday, in most families men continue to play a more importantrole. Although many women work outside they still make a lowersalary on average.
Although women today have taken all kinds of careers and haveproven that they can do anything men can do, positions of ahigh rank are still rarely held by women. Therefore it is notstrange that one may think of a man when they hear the word"chairman". This indicates that the main reason behind sexistlanguage is not the language form itself, but our thought thatcomes from social experience. In other words eliminatinglinguistic sexism must happen simultaneously with socialchange. Women must be given the same opportunities as men.
The above are some suggestions on how to avoid sexist languagein English. To some people, especially the male, it seemsquite unnecessary. They take it for granted that the so-calledsexist language is some kind of habit or for the seek ofconvenience but not looks down upon or discriminates againstthe female on purpose. Anyhow, the topic of how to avoidsexist language has become more and more popular among thelanguage and social workers abroad.
5. ConclusionSince human being appeared on the earth, there have beenexisting two different genders-----male and female. On accountof the differences between their physiological features andthe superiority and inferiority in social activities, men andwomen are differentiated from each other in individuality,value, image and status, which give rise to variations intheir language styles and language uses.
Sexism is the systematic mistreatment of women as enforced bythe cultures and the institutions of society. Sexism hasdiminished the societal rights of (mostly) women to exerciseeconomic, political, and personal power. Sexism deniesindividual power, even over your own body. Sexism says thatone gender is superior to another gender in intelligence,strength, and leadership abilities. Sexism, along with otherforms of oppression, is hurtful to every woman no matter whatage, nationality, ethnic group or class she belongs to. Itconditions every woman to be submissive and forces them, bywhatever means necessary, to perform and accept the rolesassigned to individuals in society.
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Feminism has been one of the main social movements since the1960s, and there is no doubt that this movement will continuein this century. Its impact is felt in many societies aroundthe world and in many spheres of life. Language was and isseen by many feminists as a powerful instrument of patriarchy.
It is therefore not surprising that language is subject tofeminist scrutiny, which leads to elaborate and detaileddescription of sexist practice affecting language use.
In the previous paragraphs, sexist language use in vocabularyhas been pointed out. However, it is not enough to just pointout the problem. A desire to change the patriarchal and sexistnature of language has been expressed and therefore we shouldbe engaged in various types of linguistic reform or languageplanning. The feminist’s demand for linguistic reform, if weare to be careful in our attempt to understand it, cannot beinterpreted as a demand for purging of certain words,sentences, or statements from the English language. It israther to be interpreted as a demand for halting the use ofsuch words, sentences or statements, either because the use isitself objectionable, or because what the use implies ismorally objectionable. One of the important reasons forfeminist language reform is that linguistic change is seem tolag behind social change, effectively hindering the linguisticreflection of social change.
So, the key to better sexist language in English is lexicalneutralization, eliminating generic pronouns, coining newwords and striving for balanced naming and addressing system.
But the elimination of linguistic sexism lies in socialchange. Only by changing the social structure till one daywhen women and men own really equal status can languageequality be truly achieved. Therefore, linguistic action andsocial action should be taken simultaneously for the purposeof eliminating sexism in language.
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Basil Blackwell Inc.1986, P303[3] 单文波. 英语中的性别歧视现象及其文化因素探析[J]. 江汉大学学报(人文科学版),20xx年8月(第24卷第4期). P112[4] AS Hornby著, 李北达编译. Oxford Advanced Learner’sEnglish-Chinese Dictionary (Extended fourth edition ) [M].
商务印书馆和牛津大学出版社, 20xx年1月. P899[5] 靳梅琳. 社会语言学与英语学习[M]. 南开大学出版社, 20xx年2月. P27[6] 叶梅. 管窥英语中的性别歧视现象[J]. 安徽农业大学学报(社会科学版), 20xx年1月(第13卷第1期).
P122[7] 谢元花. 语言中的性别歧视及其社会文化内涵[J]. 湖北师范学院学报(哲学社会科学版),20xx年(第22卷第3期). P41[8] 田宇. 英汉语言中的性别歧视现象研究 [J]. 黑龙江大学, 20xx年4月. P15[9] 同 [5]. P30[10] 同 [8]. P16[11] 同 [7]. P41[12] 刘晓天. 从标记、大小、褒贬看英语词汇中的性别歧视[J]. 外语与外语教学,20xx年(第5期). P24[13] 代新黎. 论英语中的性别歧视和规避策略[J]. 商丘师范学院学报, 20xx年12月(第21卷第6期). P157[14] 叶碧慧. 英语中的妇女歧视现象[J]. 肇庆学院学报, 20xx年2月(第24卷第1期), P58[15] 同 [5]. P31[16] 李蕊丽. 英语词汇中的性别歧视现象[J]. 韶关学院学报(社会科学版), 20xx年11月(第25卷第11期). P108[17] Sandra Lee McKay and Nancy H. Hornberger.
Sociolinguistics and Language Teaching [M]. 上海外语教育出版社,20xx年10月. P224[18] 同 [13]. P157[19] 赵靖岩. 英语中的性别歧视现象[J]. 长春师范学院学报, 20xx年12月(第21卷第4期). P81
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