Are Languages Inherently Sexist?
While learning a new language, you may have stumbled upon gendered nouns.
Nouns are either masculine or feminine in languages like Hindi, French and Spanish. There are also more than two genders in some languages such as Russian, where a noun is either masculine, feminine or neuter.
In fact, the masculine form is usually the neutral or default form in most Romance languages. In other words, masculine forms often take grammatical dominance.
What exactly does this mean?
In Spanish for instance, the word “ellos” for “them,” refers to a group of only men, while the feminine form, “ellas” refers to a group of only women. However, when referring to a mixed group of women and men, you automatically default to “ellos”, even if there is just one man in a group of 99 women.
At the tender age of 11 years old, I had a deep-seated dissatisfaction when I learned this language rule where the masculine form prevails over the feminine.
This means that as a woman, I have the added responsibility of changing an adjective to match my gender. For example, I must remember to change “estoy cansado” (the default masculine form) to “estoy cansada” to express that “I’m tired”.
While my male counterparts easily use the default form, as a woman, I must always remember to alter the adjectives. To make matters worse, some words do not have two gendered forms, so that I had to remember which words I had to change, and which I did not.
While the 11-year-old me felt disagreement with the rule, the present me realises that this annoyance is rooted in the profound effects that such rules have on society and women.
How language informs our notions on gender
Language can and does have an effect on society and power structures. A 2017 study shows that “language subtly reproduces the societal asymmetries of status and power in favour of men” and linguistic forms whereby the male forms, as the norm, “have the negative effects of making women disappear in mental representations”.
Another 2012 study finds that countries with a gendered language system have significantly lower female labor-force participation. Meanwhile, this 2016 study of German job descriptions reveals that a masculine job title (e.g. policeman) meant there was a perception that males were more suited for the job, but a gender-neutral title (e.g. police officer) meant male and female applicants were judged more equally.
Now you might ask, what about languages without genders?
Gendered notions can still make their way into genderless languages. When speakers of gendered languages learn languages with no gendered nouns, it is inevitable that when they translate, the gender carries over. During my time in Tajikistan, I would often hear a Tajik refer to objects as “he” instead of “it,” because “он” or “he” is how you would refer to a masculine object in Russian. This automatic deferral to the male form unconsciously bolsters gender inequalities that may already exist in society.
But one does not need to venture into translation to notice how gender makes it way into “genderless” language. You can see this play out even in English. Why do we have words like “mankind” and “manpower”? For a long time, profession titles like “firemen’’ were the norm (and in many cases, still are).
What does a more gender-inclusive society look like?
In genderless languages, there are still words that are often used to describe women. For example, “bossy” and “high-maintenance” refer to women in a negative light. Avoiding such gendered descriptions can contribute towards a more equal and inclusive society.
Folks around the world also implement different methods for gendered languages. In France, activists have introduced écriture inclusive, in which both gendered endings are added to a word to make it gender-neutral, such as “ami·e·s”. In Argentina, teens are campaigning to add the letter, “e”, as a gender-neutral ending.
Such changes can affect public perception on gender. For example, a 2019 study reveals that gender-neutral pronouns can “weaken people’s mental bias towards men’’ and increase positive attitudes towards non-male groups, such as women and LGBT+ groups.
Meanwhile, there are those who oppose such changes as they argue that it makes the language “ridiculous” or “unnecessary”. In Germany, there is resistance towards adding a “gender-neutral star” or asterisk (“*”) to signal inequality.
However, just because gendered languages have always been the norm, it does not mean that a language — or its speakers — can’t adapt with the times. Just look at the relatively new term, “Latinx”, to describe people of Latin American cultural or ethnic identities. The use of “x” in place of the traditional Spanish “o” or “a” is increasingly accepted by Latinx communities as a way to make the term more gender-neutral.
Although small pockets of change are happening, altering centuries-old language systems can be a challenging feat. Just as the King may continue to be mightier than the Queen in poker, it is incredibly hard to change the way languages are.
But we can be mindful of the way we use language to stop perpetuating gender inequality.
Written by Toffy Charupatanapongse
