some political economy of gender

Linguistic sexism.

Sexism is basically about the sexual discrimination especially against women. There are certain behaviors or beliefs that perpetuate or encourage stereotypes of social roles based on sex. In the use of language, especially the English, its structure and content is an issue as it reflects bias in favor of one sex, which is in most cases, men while it discriminates the other sex or women.

It has been a question whether or not language reflects gender inequities that already exist or if it is language that influences thought. If it is the latter that is present in the society, linguistic change will be necessary to be a step on changing the culture of gender. If it is the other way around, that is, if language merely reflects inequities, then, social, political and economic changes have to come before we can expect substantial linguistic change to occur.

The English language represents gender inequities and it is thought to be sexist in structure and form. One example is the word “man”, it is a widely used term and in English, it technically refers to all humans while the word “his” refers to the thinking of a single person of either gender. The frequent use of such words shows the notion that males are more important than females. In words such as “chairman”, “policeman” and “businessman”, there is a gender bias, as the often use of these words may convey that males are supposedly the ones to have those jobs. On other terms, usually the base or root word is male, to make up for the female form, a suffix is added. It may convey that the female form is just an afterthought and the less important, while on other gender terminologies, like in pairs of words “master/mistress” and “wizard/witch”, more often than not, the female versions have negative connotations.

These may be the result of theories like the strength theory which states that the greater strength of males and their superior capacity to mobilize their strength had became the reasons for the universal pattern in the division of labor by gender. Also, men seem to take over certain crafts in societies in full time specialization while women usually do the tasks that require less strength and effort. In the old times, women are supposed to stay at home which shows the society's view of them as powerless and subordinate to men, while men are considered to be the center of the family and the society. As we move into this day and age, it is a good thing that the way the English language is written and spoken has begun to change. The words such as “chair” or “chairperson” and “police officer” have begun to replace their former male versions.

Linguistic sexism is a social problem. It reflects how the people in the society thinks and how they view their differences with discrimination. To address this social problem, the first thing to do is to eliminate gender biases and sexism in the society.