People concerne about issues of social inequality. There is a relationship between our language use and our social reality. If we "erase" women from language, that makes it easier to maintain gender inequality. [M]ale-based generics are another indicator—and, more importantly, a reinforcer—of a system in which "man" in the abstract and men in the flesh are privileged over women. Words matter, and our language choices have consequences. If we believe that women and men deserve social equality, then we should think seriously about how to reflect that belief in our language use. The clear example of gendered language is the way the words "Mr.," "Miss," and "Mrs." are used. "Mr." can refer to any man, regardless of whether he is single or married—but women are defined by their relationship to men (by whether they are married or not). A way around this is to use "Ms." (which doesn't indicate marital status) to refer to women. Sometimes we modify nouns that refer to jobs or positions to denote the sex of the person holding that position. This often done if the sex of the person holding the position goes against conventional expectations. To get a sense of these expectations, think about what sex you would instinctively assume the subject of each of these sentences to be
The doctor walked into the room.The nurse walked into the room.
Many people assume that doctors are men and that nurses are women. Because of such assumptions, someone might write sentences like "The female doctor walked into the room" or "The male nurse walked into the room." Using "female" and "male" in this way reinforces the assumption that most or all doctors are male and most or all nurses are female. Unless the sex of the nurse or doctor is important to the meaning of the sentence, it can be omitted. Also good examples of using gender identity in language are the nouns: fireman, firefighter, mail carrier, letter carrier, postal worker, police officer, congress person, legislator, representative, freshman, congressman. There are much more examples of gender identity in language. Because of our historical development of the society, we have specific preferring the male identity in language. All work occupations we identify as a male opportunity. While a women always associated in our society as a weak beings, who don not have a social power. Because of that patriarchate culture the female identification in the work occupation on the lowest level.
Friday, March 28, 2008
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