Subtle sexism in language emerges when the male gender is prescribed as default, contributing to gender inequalities and linguistic biases.
Language Across the World. Emma Howard. CC BY 2.0
Language shapes and reflects the cultural norms and values of its speakers. Unfortunately, many languages around the world include subtle forms of sexism which have historically prescribed the male gender as their default. From grammatical structures to the usage of words that perpetuate unequal dynamics, language can unintentionally serve as a vehicle for sexism.
Most languages around the world fall into three categories: gendered languages—nouns and pronouns have a gender (Spanish—el es pequeno/ella es pequena—he/she is little, French—il est petit/elle est petite—he/she is little), genderless languages—nouns and pronouns do not have a gender (Mandarin—他很小 / 她很小—he/she is little) and natural gender languages—gendered pronouns and genderless nouns (English, he is little/she is little). Of the gendered languages listed, the two share patterns of a masculine grammatical default, mixed-gender groups taking masculine endings and feminine nouns derived from masculine ones. In Spanish and French there is a male default that applies when the gender of a subject is unclear or if a group is mixed-gender. A male friend in French is ami while a female friend is amie. In French, there is no gender neutral pronoun for ‘they’ and the masculine is considered the dominant plural form. Therefore, if there is a group of French girls who are amies; add one male and they become amis. Aside from grammar, some words in French did not have a feminine form until official guardians of the French language approved the feminisation of certain titles to eliminate male linguistic dominance. Insistence on calling female presidents Madame le president was subsequently dropped in an attempt to end the bias putting women at a disadvantage.
Mandarin, unlike some European languages, does not assign gender to its nouns, but some of its written characters ascribe negative stereotypes to women. Chinese characters are made up of phonetic and semantic radicals that are listed together in dictionaries. The Chinese radical for “woman” (女) can be found in characters such as “mother,” (妈) “sister” (姐) and “safety” (安) but is also found in more negative characters including “jealousy,” (妒) “slave” (奴隶) and “rape” (强奸). The contrast between these positive and negative connotations are stark but even those that are positive are representative of gender stereotypes themselves; “safety” (安) is thought to represent a woman under a roof. Conversely, the word for “man” (男) is made by the radicals for “field” (田) and “power” (力). Aside from the makeup of the characters themselves, grammatical word order has been said to favor men, for example, in instances where the word “parents” means literally “father and mother.” Ironically, even the phrase for “gender equality” places the male character before the female one (男女平等).
Globally, some languages are representative of a time where the patriarchy was more powerful. They serve as a reminder that words and grammar can sustain sexism covertly and can also impose particular worldviews on their speakers. Some words have different meanings depending on whether they are used in a masculine or feminine form. Others have no male equivalent for a derogatory female word. For instance in Italian, un passeggiatore is a man who loves to walk. Make this word feminine and the definition drastically changes to have a sexual connotation. Alternatively, in English, there is no male equivalent of a “spinster,” the closest being “bachelor” which tends not to carry the same negative, undesirable connotations.
Negative connotations have made their way into technology as well, with one study finding that Google Translate often assumes that, when translating from other languages into English, the subject is male. Male default has also shown up in translator applications where gender bias shows up most in “fill in gender” translations. One tweet focused on Turkish and its gender-biases when translating to English. Sentences like o bir ascı translated to “she is a cook” while others like o bir muhendis translated to “he is an engineer.” Because Turkish is a gender neutral language it becomes clear that Google Translate filled in genders based on stereotypes and bias. Modern neural network-powered machines derive meaning from the statistical patterns of large texts during training, meaning that if our data is biased, machines will be as well.
Women already face barriers to their participation in society, but now with gendered languages playing a role. One research project examined the grammatical structure of over 4,000 languages spoken by 99% spoken by the world’s population, finding that nearly 40% of people speak a gendered language. From this it was found that grammatical gendered language is associated with roughly a 15% gap in female labor force participation. Consequently, gendered languages have become associated with worse labor market participation for women and regressive gender norms. Recognizing how linguistic sexism is causing quantifiable effects is a crucial step in creating more inclusivity in language and society. Efforts to challenge sexist vernacular have gained momentum in the form of gender-neutral language or inventing female-gendered nouns, as opposed to the old practice of adding suffixes onto male ones. In Spanish, the masculine “o” and feminine “a” endings are being replaced by a gender-neutral “e” to create more inclusion for women and those who identify as non-binary. Similarly, in Russia women are advocating for female-gendered nouns which are not mere add-ons to male nouns. In Russian, “doctor” is vrach but becomes vrachinia in its feminine forms, roughly translated as “doctoress,” housing some sexist undertones.
As to be expected, there has been some backlash over leaving behind current gender structures and deviating from the original languages, but speech is not a stagnant entity. Language, to be inclusive, must evolve and change over time in order to progress and mitigate pervasive forms of gender inequality. Recognizing and challenging these linguistic biases is crucial for dismantling the systematic disadvantages and stereotypes that women face.
Mira White
Mira is a student at Brown University studying international and public affairs. Passionate about travel and language learning, she is eager to visit each continent to better understand the world and the people across it. In her free time she perfects her French, hoping to someday live in France working as a freelance journalist or in international affairs.