I wrote this article while teaching at NPU in response
to a student’s criticism about the ongoing presence of gender-related
terms in English. At the end of the article, I’ve provided definitions for
the bold vocabulary terms.
Words mean things, but the meaning of a word is a complex reflection of
the history and values of the culturein which the
language evolved. As such, all languages contain terms which, if taken
individually and objectively without a context,
appear overly nationalistic and sexist. For example, the Romans considered anyone
who didn’t speak Greek to be a “barbarian,”
just as the Chinese term for anyone not from China is “outsider” (外国人--lit.
outside the nation person). As
cultures change, their languages also change to reflect the changing
values, but some terms remain—like “outsider”—even though they are
void
of their original derogatorymeaning. As the sexist language in English slowly passes into
retirement, one must be careful about the assumptions one attaches to the
words. Sometimes they tell the listener about a speaker’s worldview, but
often they reveal more about the history of the English language.
While it is true that languages evolve, this evolution is generally slow.
Languages change by importing words from trading partners, or by ceasing
to use words that no longer reflect the values of the culture. For
centuries, the Chinese called the people of other nations “foreign devils”
(鬼子), but educated Chinese people no longer use such terminology since it
no longer reflects China’s values. Similarly, the
antiquated idea
that all doctors or all draftsmen should be males is no longer widely held
in England or America, even though those words (and many other words that
end in “-men”) still conjure up
male images in the minds of many listeners.
English evolved in male-dominated cultures, so this is naturally reflected
in the language. After Germanic “barbarians” settled in Britain (starting
in the fifth century), their languages slowly combined to form English (the
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes dominated the British isles until the eleventh
century). In addition, many English terms (especially legal or government
terms) come from French, reflecting the historical fact that the French
ruled England for two hundred years. The male dominance of these cultures
can even be seen in the term “woman,” which comes from the old English
word wifman meaning the wife of a man. Similarly, for
centuries English-speakers used the masculine “he” to refer to a person
with an unknown gender, instead of insisting on the cumbersomedouble word “he/she.” (Such a designation is common in many
languages including Chinese, which uses a masculine character to refer to
a mixed group of men and women—他们
instead of 她们.)
Another example concerns the pronouns used for God. The Christian Bible
clearly shows that God is neither male nor female (Gen 1:27), but it is
equally clear that God’s nature has more in common with a person
than with an impersonal thing. Wanting to express God’s personhood
(and in deference to Jesus’ example in calling God “Father”), English
translators have traditionally used the masculine pronoun “He”
(capitalized to show reverence) instead of “She” or “It.” Some modern
writers are offended by this supposedly sexist language, which may in fact
reveal the limitations of the English language more than a sinister
mindset in the translators. Interestingly, Chinese translators take
advantage of a fourth choice, using the pronoun 祂, which uses a pictograph
for “God” in place of the male or female pictographs in he/she (祂, 他, 她,
它; pronouns referring to God, he, she, it respectively—all
of which are pronounced “ta”).
Furthermore, the English language reflects the realities of life before
mechanization and coeducational
instruction. Until the industrial
revolution, many jobs required physical strength and thus fell to men
(such as firemen, policemen, and military servicemen,
and thus each term ended with the suffix “-men”). Something similar
is seen in Chinese characters like “male,” which pictures the idea of
“strength in a field” (男=力+田).
Today, both males and females can perform many of these jobs, so the
English language has changed to become more inclusive (e.g., fire fighters, police
officers, and military personnel). Similarly, before the 20th century, obtaining a higher education was a privilege
available primarily to the sons of wealthy people. Since women did not have access
to universities, professional jobs were the domain of males and
professional titles reflected this reality (e.g., Master of Science,
School Headmaster). This educational discrimination also
ensured that only men would be draftsmen, doctors and councilmen,
which in turn ensured that the male pronoun (he) could be used when
talking about such professionals.
As English and Chinese speakers embrace the value of sexual equality many
of these outdated terms will change, but since languages evolve slowly it
is equally unreasonable to expect all “sexist” language
to disappear quickly. Where the alteration is
easy, changes are much more apparent in modern English. For example, we
can easily change policeman to police officer and
chairman to chairperson. It is almost as easy to change
sentences from singular to plural so that you can use the sexually neutral
“they” instead of “he/she.”
For decades, American writing teachers have encouraged students to stay
away from sexist language. In a popular 1989 writing guidebook, DeWitt
Scott says to avoid stereotypes that “put women down” and to remember that
lawyers, officials and business people are less and less exclusively male.
He also points out that “sexism isn’t primarily a question of language,
but of assumptions underlying language.”
In other words, calling someone a “girl”
can simply refer to her gender (especially if she is young), but to refer
to your associate by saying “My girl will fix you a cup of coffee”
reflects an immature or backward assumption about the modern role of
women.
Certainly, sexist terminology exists in the English language (and probably
in every other language in the world), and we should rejoice as a lot of
it passes out of our newspapers and books. Native English speakers can also rejoice
that our forefathers—oops, make that ancestors—gave us a
language without gender (like "le" and "la" to modify French nouns) and without little pictures (like
the Chinese female pictograph 女);
words with gender particles and "female" pictographs
would be much more difficult to make neither masculine nor feminine than
"sexist" endings like "-men."
Contemporary writers should indeed be vigilant to reduce or remove the use
of sexist terminology. But as we wait for the English language to change,
there is no need to expunge
gender-related language from historical records or to impugn the people who wrote that way as being sexist or
chauvinistic. They were simply using the words available to them, and
their writing can reveal a lot about the values of their time. Similarly,
we should not automatically assume that current writers or speakers are
being derogatory simply because they leave “-men” on the end of a word or
refer to an unknown person as “he.”
We are all the children of our time and the product of our educational
opportunities, trying to use words to convey our thoughts to others—which
is never an easy task. In the long run, rash assumptions and name-calling
will always contaminatehe
communication process, while tolerance and patient listening should yield a
clearer understanding.
Vocabulary:
