Language and reality beyond gender
From the pronouns we use to describe our friends, to the masculinization or feminization of abstract nouns, gender is undoubtedly a concept buried deep in the structure of many languages. Yet some languages have evolved to incorporate it more than others. In this article, Tamar Kricheli Katz and Tali Regev demonstrate the pernicious effects of gendered languages and how a move towards gender neutrality could alleviate some of these issues.
Many are aware that the languages spoken around the world vary in how speakers are required to grammatically indicate gender. In gendered languages such as French, Spanish, German and Hebrew, parts of speech (pronouns, nouns, adjectives and/or verbs) have feminine and masculine forms. These forms of speech, which refer exclusively to one gender, are more frequently used in gendered languages than in non-gendered languages.
With most gendered languages, the grammatical rule is to use the masculine form of the language as a generic reference for both women and men together. For example, if a mixed group of women and men is addressed jointly, the grammatical rule is to address the masculine collectively, as if the group were exclusively male.
Even the English language, although relatively gender neutral, uses gendered pronouns (he/him/her, she/her) and gendered nouns (like widow or widower). Recent calls to modify gendered languages by changing the pronouns used, thus making them genderless, have sparked heated debates around the world. This begs the question: what would be the implications of such changes for how we understand and perform gender?
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A growing body of research suggests that the gender of languages affects – and does not simply reflect – the attitudes people have towards gender and the way they behave.
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Social science studies show that the linguistic characteristics and grammatical structures of languages tend to correlate with the attitudes, preferences, and behaviors of the people who speak them. For example, speakers of languages with different structures and characteristics vary accordingly in their color processing, time-related behaviors and above alltheir sexual attitudes.
Along the same lines, research suggests that gendered languages are associated with gender inequality. Countries in which gendered languages are spoken tend to exhibit higher levels of gender inequality with respect to work, credit, board composition, division of household labor, and education than countries whose languages are governed by gender-neutral grammatical conventions.
A growing body of research on gendered languages suggests that the genesis of languages affects – and does not simply reflect – the attitudes people have towards gender and the way they behave.
In one study, the responses of bilingual people (who were fluent in French and English or Spanish and English) to a survey on sexist attitudes were more likely to exhibit the expression of sexist attitudes when the questions were asked in a gendered language (French or Spanish). ) than responses to the same survey when the questions were asked in English.
In another experimental study, addressing women in the masculine form in an academic motivation questionnaire generated lower reports of task value and intrinsic goal orientation, compared to addressing women in the formal form. non-sexist language. Finally, it has been shown that addressing women in the masculine, as opposed to the feminine, can negatively affect their performance in math-related tasks.
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Gender stereotypes are so prevalent that people tend to use them to make sense of and coordinate socially, even when they know those stereotypes are inaccurate or wrong.
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One of the reasons why the gender of language in everyday use can affect people’s attitudes and behaviors has to do with the important cultural role that gender plays in the organization of our society. Research shows that in interactions, people subconsciously categorize others based on their perceived sex and gender; and that they use gender stereotypes to make sense of the people they interact with.
In other words, gender categories, and the stereotypes associated with them, “help” people anticipate how others will behave in social interactions and adopt their own behavioral cues accordingly. In fact, because gender stereotypes are so prevalent, people tend to use them to make sense of and coordinate socially, even when they know those stereotypes are inaccurate or wrong, simply because they assume others would too.
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When languages are structured around gender categories, gender distinctions are always salient in interactions, as are the stereotypes associated with these distinctions.
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Stereotypes also tend to affect people’s behavior, including how they evaluate the performance of others. When women are reminded of the stereotype that men do better in math (or even just reminded that they are female), they tend to perform worse on math-related tasks. Similarly, when raters are told that a math test was taken by a woman, they tend to rate performance lower than if the same test had been taken by a man.
When languages are structured around gender categories, gender distinctions are always salient in interactions, as are the stereotypes associated with these distinctions. Thus, gendered languages regularly play a role in the establishment and maintenance of gender schemas. Each time the language is spoken, the gender stereotypes embedded in it are further reinforced, and attitudes and behaviors follow accordingly.
An immediate implication of making pronouns genderless would be to make gender less salient in our social lives. This could mean that gender and gender stereotypes would be brought up less immediately and consistently as a way to frame interactions and behaviors. As a result, the tendency to rely on gender stereotypes in general may decline, as well as reliance on their accuracy to predict the behaviors of others.
Similarly, as gendered languages tend to be structured around the masculine-feminine binary, the use of genderless pronouns would also make the masculine-feminine binary less salient. This could have the added effect of amplifying the voices of those whose gender identity is not male-female. Nevertheless, the central role of gender in our meaning and social coordination means that making pronouns genderless cannot (in itself) eliminate the social power of gender. However, making pronouns genderless could introduce a shift in how we understand and perform gender – presumably a first step in working to reduce gender inequality.