But other professionals like secretary, nurse, typist,receptionist, dressmaker, are often used to indicate females.
When they are used to refer to males, you should add male orman before them, such as: male nurse, male typist, and malesecretary. It makes clear that men monopolize the high statusprofessionals. Women can only do service work or low socialstatus work.
English is a kind of super masculine language. This can beeasily seen in compound words formed by word plus manstructure, such as chairman, businessman, congressman,newsman, statesman, salesman, mailman, policeman, andspokesman. From these words, we can easily know that males arethe center of the society. These jobs are certainly taken bymales and women are completely excluded.
In addition, there are some female professionals formed byadding the bound morpheme such as –ess, -ine to the root. Forexample:
Male Femalepoet poetessprince princessgod goddesscount countesshero heroineThis kind of word-formation seems to tell that women arederived from men and attached to men. These discriminatorypractices often make women invisible and treat them secondary.
3.1.5 Word orderSexism in language is also reflected in word order. When menand women are presented together, usually words denoting malesex are put in front of female sex. Making females come secondreflects the sexist attitude that men are superior to women.
It is not hard to find male-female word order pairs in Englishliterature, newspaper, magazines as well as in speech, such asmale and female, husband and wife, father and mother, boys andgirls, his and hers, son and daughter, brother and sister,host and hostess, king and queen, Adam and Eve and so on. Nomatter in books or on radio, even in daily dialogue, we canoften read and hear such words:
(1) Good morning, boys and girls!
(2) They would have allowed males and females to go to schooltogether.
Such a language phenomenon seems to appear so unquestionablynatural as to be widely accepted as a language norm.
However, there are also cases in which male-female order isreversed, for example bride and groom, and ladies andgentlemen. The former shows that marriage is important towomen and the latter is influenced by the notion that menshould protect women. Putting ladies before gentlemen doesn’tshow that women are more superior to men or ladies first, butindicates that in men’s mind, women, the same as children, arethe weaker ones.[10]
3.2 Semantic derogation of womenLanguage has a tendency to neglect women, treat women assubmission and also demean women.[11] The process of wordsthat refer to women acquiring demeaning or sexual connotationshas been widely observed, and has been called semanticderogation.
3.2.1 Non-parallel semantic developments of paired termsMany sociolinguists have claimed that words become negativewhen shifted into the female sphere, while male has remainedpure and neutral. For example:
(1) King and queenOne is masculine, the other feminine and both mean “ruler ofan independent state”. King has retained its initial meaning,but besides the core meaning of queen, queen is also used as“a disparaging term for a gay or homosexual man”.
(2) Master and mistressBoth of them indicate ‘someone who possesses and/or has powerover someone or something else. For example: “ He is mymaster.” usually means “He is my boss.” or “He has more powerthan me.” While “She is my mistress.” is more likely to beinterpreted as meaning ‘She is my illicit lover.’ Mistressoriginally refers to a woman in a position of authority,control, and ownership, as the head of a household like ahousekeeper, but it implies a woman who has a continuingsexual relationship with a usually married man who is not herhusband and from whom she generally receives material support.
(3) Wizard and witchBoth of them can be used to refer to people with evil magicpowers. Wizard also has a meaning of person with extraordinaryabilities, while witch means an ugly old woman.
(4) Sir and madamSir and madam both can be used to refer to high status people.
Madam is used formerly as a courtesy title before a woman’sgiven name but now used only before a surname or titleindicating rank or office or used as a form of polite addressfor a woman. Unlike sir, madam is also used to refer to abrothel keeper. There are also many other examples such aslord and lady, governor and governess. The examples citedabove demean women rather than men.
3.2.2 Semantic collocation and change(1) Semantic collocationIn English, a word may have different connotations when it isused to describe different sexes. For example:
① imposinga. He is imposing.
b. She is imposing.
Sentence a means “He is impressive and admirable.” Whilesentence b could be interpreted to mean that “She isdisgusting and apathetic.” When the sex changes, so does themeaning.
② looseLoose seems a neutral word for both male and female. But “aloose woman” reminds people of “a woman considered to besexually promiscuous” whereas “a loose man” just means “acasual man”.[12]
③ trampIt is defined as “a person with no home or job, who wandersfrom place to place” or “a woman considered to be sexuallyimmoral (esp. in American English).” In the example, He/She isa tramp. For the male, tramp refers to a vagrant whereas forthe female it can mean that she is promiscuous.
From the above, we can see that the same word shifts frombeing positive to being negative once it has moved fromreferring to a male to a female.[13]
(2) Semantic changeBesides, words, which begin with either neutral or positiveconnotations over time, acquire negative implications andfinally end up as “sexual slurs”. For example, the term hussyderives from Old English huswif (“housewife”), which means“the female head of the house”. The term graduallydeteriorated to “a rustic rude woman” and finally comes tomean “an indecent, impudent woman or prostitute”.[14]
3.2.3 MetaphorLanguage exists to allow us to communicate with one another.
To this end, language serves two purposes: to communicate whatour reality is and also what we wish it to be. So if weidentify a trait in a language, such as sexism or other formsof prejudice, this only reveals a prejudice that exists insociety. Language, in particular metaphor, helps form socialreality. There are many metaphors to describe a female. Butoften it has a totally different meaning.
(1) food metaphorSome food words can also be used to refer to females, suchas cheese cake (奶酪蛋糕——裸体女画)，cherry (樱桃——处女)，cookie(点心——可爱的女人)，crumpet (松脆饼——性感女人)，tart (果馅饼——妓女)，tomato(西红柿——漂亮女人), honey (蜜糖——宝贝、亲爱的), piece (点心——女人)，peach(桃子——漂亮女人) and so on. Men often use these words to expresstheir appreciation to women. It even includes the meaning thatmen treat women as dolls.[15]
(2) animal metaphorThere are also many words showing contempt for women. Theyembody sexual discrimination but still enjoy great popularity.
For example: chick (小鸡——少女)，kitten(小猫——活泼年轻的姑娘)，bitch（母狗——泼妇），cat (猫——丑妇、贱妇、讨厌的女人)，dragon(龙——倔强的女人)，hen (母鸡——爱管闲事的女人), cow (奶牛——子女多的女人、妓女)，crone(老母羊——干瘪的丑老太婆) and mare-horse (母马——粗声大气、肥胖固执的女人) and so on.
[16] These are all pejorative terms for women, because animalsare considered to be inferior to human beings on the earth. Sousing animals to refer to females indicates that females areinferior.
The semantic derogation of women helps to construct femaleinferiority and because women are confined to negative terms,women continue to be devalued.
4. Signs of the fading of sexism in the English LanguageLanguage is not only used to exchange ideas, conveyinformation, but also used to set up and maintain theharmonious relationship between human beings, create and keepthe effective communication environment among social membersand groups. Any form of sexist language, whether on purpose ornot, will probably stand off or offend some social member orgroup. Language and language use mirror social attitudes andstereotypes and bias.
Along with the women’s liberation movement, people began torealize the importance of the language reform and desexismbecomes necessary. Then, should sexist language be changed oravoided? The answer is definitely positive, but how? The mainstrategies here to achieve this goal are avoiding the use ofgeneric masculine, changing some naming and addressing terms,coining new words and advocating some neutral words.
4.1 Avoiding using generic masculine pronounsLinguists engaged in study of sexism in the English languageare not satisfied with merely pointing out the problem. As asolution to the problems that the generic masculine cancreate, a number of proposals have been made. A major categoryamong these solutions is to avoid using generic masculine.
Some alternatives to avoid generic masculine are offered asfollows:
(1) The generic masculine he, his, him should be replaced withhe or she, his or her, him or her, and the like, whichexpressly indicate that women are included in the antecedentof the pronouns. This strategy can be illustrated with thefollowing sentence: Every good citizen should love his or hercountry more than him or herself; he or she should be ready todie for it if the need arises.
(2) The gender-neutral third person pronoun they and itsvariants should be used with a singular meaning. The proposalmakes it possible to say: Every good citizen should love theircountry more than themselves; they should be ready to die forit if the need arises.
(3) Changing the whole sentence into plural form can also helpto avoid sexism. Look at the sentence: Anyone can take part inthe picnic if he is interested. It is discriminatory. So wecan change it into a nonsexist one: All people can take partin the picnic if they are interested.
(4) Sometimes the first and second pronouns are used toreplace he. List an example: One has to be careful when hecrosses the road. Obviously, it use he to refer to a personwhose sex is unknown. We can change it into “You have to becareful when you cross the road.” to avoid the discrimination.
(5) If permitted, the sentence can be changed into passivevoice to be nonsexist. Instead of saying “One should not loseheart when he is beaten in a match.”, one would be able to say“One should not lose heart when beaten in a match.”
(6) Dropping the masculine pronoun can also be seen as auseful way to escape from gender bias.[17] The followingsentence can help to know the strategy better. Anybody canattend the meeting if interested in it. Being discriminatory,it is written into “Anybody can attend the meeting if he isinterested in it.”
Feminists regard masculine pronouns as being ambiguous anddiscriminatory against women because they can be interpretedas being masculine-specific or neutral and thus, in somecases, be interpreted as not referring to women at all. So itis time that masculine pronouns were changed. The above aresome strategies used to avoid generic masculine. Thesestrategies are so useful that they can help the improvement ofsexism in language in some extent. And sexism in language isclosely linked with sexism in society. So it is good to theelimination of sexism in society in the final analysis.
4.2 Lexical neutralizationLexical neutralization is also regarded as the major categoryamong solutions to sexist language. Above I have cited someexamples that some professions are used to refer to men. Whenthey are used to refer to woman, female or woman or lady isoften used. In fact, people do not need to designate the sexof an occupation, for example, woman psychologist or malenurse. If you are quoting a qualified psychologist or nurse,should it make a difference if the information is coming froma man or woman? Generally, I sum up five solutions of lexicalneutralization.
(1) Try to avoid using man/men or mankind to refer to peoplein the world and replace it with person, people, humanity,human, human being, the human race, and the human species. Thegeneric term man has been used in two ways: to refer to anadult male human being and as a synonym for "human being".
Obviously, when you use man and related words to refer to bothwomen and men, you are being sexist. For example:
① Man is the most intelligent of all species. (sexist)Humankind/human being is the most intelligent of all species.
(nonsexist)② All men should maintain the ecological balance. (sexist)All people should maintain the ecological balance. (nonsexist)Or: Everyone should maintain the ecological balance.
③ The project is one of the greatest man's achievements.
(sexist)The project is one of the greatest human achievements.
(nonsexist)(2) Try to avoid using compound words that consist of man torefer to both genders. If a compound word is for specific use,we can use a word+man to refer to man and a word+woman torefer to woman, for example, businesswoman, chairwoman,policewoman, saleswoman, spokeswoman, etc. If it is forgeneric use or the gender is unknown, we can create new wordsor compounds involving the word person or word people leadingto nouns, or shorten the word by cutting of the -man suffix,or replacing it with existing gender-neutral synonyms. Forexample,Avoid Preferbusinessman businessperson, businesspeoplechairman chairperson, chair, president, headforeman supervisor, superintendentmanmade artificial, syntheticcongressman representative, legislatorcouncilman council memberpoliceman police officer, law enforcement officer(3) Try to avoid using gender-suffixes which reflect women'slower rank and avoid using prepositional attributes likewoman, lady, madam when there is no necessity to show theirsex and use one form to designate a person in all threecontexts, i.e., in reference to a male, to a female or to aperson whose
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