Gender Issues

Nowadays, some of the most debatable issues concerning the English language are those referring to gender differentiation. There have been a lot of criticisms concerning the way the language reflects social attitudes towards men and women. These criticisms mainly refer to the English grammar and vocabulary, where one is usually faced with the traditional male oriented view of the world. According to this view, men are considered to have a higher status in the society than women. The feminist movement in the USA gave rise to linguistic changes affecting English. These changes have affected both grammar and vocabulary.

In vocabulary, the “male” words were replaced by more neutral items; for example, “chairman” was changed into “chairperson”, “salesman became “sales assistant”. It was interesting to find out that in some job descriptions the use of sexually neutral words has become a legal requirement. However, in my opinion, these changes are hard to be applied to the whole vocabulary. For example, there is still certain disagreement on whether these changes should also affect traditional idioms such as “Neanderthal Man”.

In grammar, the linguists suggested using a sex-neutral third-person singular pronoun instead of he and she. The problem usually occurs when we need to replace a sex-neutral noun or an indefinite pronoun with a third-person singular pronoun.  I myself, have often come across such problem in my writing. And, usually, I prefer using one of the alternatives suggested in some textbooks, i.e. replacing such words by he or she.

All such changes in a language are usually more noticeable in writing than in speech. For example, nowadays, there have been published many guidelines that recommend that the authors should avoid using sexist language. However, when it comes to spoken language, it is usually hard to say whether it will really be affected by these changes. For example, in written language I try to avoid using sexist language, but in speech I often find it hard to use sex-neutral words. The reason, I think, is that speech is usually spontaneous and fast, and I often find it difficult to control its flow.