Is Language Shaping Our Perception of Gender Roles?

Recently, I was thinking about what is traditionally considered gender bias. Immediately, the gender pay gap and the lack of women in leadership positions came to mind. Although these are incredibly important issues, I wanted to approach a different topic, one that doesn't immediately scream gender bias: linguistics. For this article, I wanted to take a dive into the ways that language can shape our perception of genders and affirm numerous gender stereotypes. 

When reviewing the literature on this field, I found a fascinating article on the depth that gender bias permeates linguistic structure, and I wanted to share a couple of the most interesting ideas. To begin, in the English language, there are more words that refer to or describe men but 10 times fewer expressions to refer to promiscuous men than to refer to promiscuous women. The differing availability of words for men and women reaffirms societal attitude and inequality of the perception of female "promiscuity" and male "promiscuity" with the word "promiscuous" itself having negative connotations. Furthermore, in the English language, work-related terms also show lexical gaps. For example, the original form of an individual conducting business is a "businessman" or similarly "chairman", "anchorman", or "policeman". Only recently have female alternatives gained popularity. The idea that women should be family-oriented while men should be career-oriented is evident in the words "virgin", "working mother", or "career woman" which have no male counterparts. This further shapes the idea that women being sexually involved is not pure or aspirations other than family are to be distinctively noted. 

Linguistic gender inequality is further evident in the idea is that expressions that refer to women tend to be more grammatically complex in contrast to those that refer to men. For example, the feminine equivalent for "actor" is "actress", and the feminine equivalent for "hero" is "heroine". This trend is found across varying extents in different languages; for example, in Italian, the suffix -essa is added to masculine words to create their feminine equivalent. Even in the English language, evidence suggests that "cousiness", "authoress", "assassinatress", and "lady-cook" were real words in the 19th and 20th centuries that implied a female in a male position (Since when is being a cousin inherently male?). This implicitly suggests the prototypical human is male. To highlight this structure further, "s" is added to "he" for the feminine equivalent, and "wo" being added to "man" further suggests the increased complexity of words using to describe females. Even the word "female" is a derivative of "male" which implies the male form is the basis for language which translates to the outdated idea that men are the basis of society (this point was not directly mentioned in the study but implied). 

Although the literature in this field goes into much more technical detail - look into the linguistic normativity effect if you are interested -, I wanted to end with a colloquial example and why this whole affair really matters. On a daily basis, the plural form guys often refer to both men and women (even in Spanish, "ellos" is used to describe a group of both men and women and the singular form  "el" refers to only a man), and the connotations of "wingman", "right-hand man", and "poster boy" tend to be positive will those of "drama queen", "Debbie Downer", or "Negative Nancy" tend to be largely negative. So, why does this matter? In a study of the 25 languages with the heaviest association of men with careers and women with family, Danish ranks at the top, and English comes in 6th. It has been found that countries with high male-career gender bias have lower percentages of women entering STEM females and higher STEM education (obviously this is only a correlation). Similarly, the use of language affirms stereotypes that are harmful to practically everyone. More communal language suggesting supportiveness, warmth, family, and help is used to describe women, and more agentic language suggesting independence, taking charge, and task execution is used for men. This language not only holds back women in the workplace but also hinders the ability of men to be emotional or vocal about their struggles. Finally, for people that do not identify using the gender binary this language can further inhibit their self-expression and success in the workplace. However, not everything is dull and dreary, the increasing use of gender-neutral terms like "anchor" or "chairperson" serves to help reduce the perpetuation of gender roles by language. So, I encourage all the folks (look at this wonderful gender-neutral alternative for "guys"!) reading this to analyze the use of language around them to see in what ways it may be shaping the way we perceive gender and the world around us. 

Thanks for reading, 

Janvi :)

Image Credits: https://counseling.northwestern.edu/blog/inclusive-language-guide/