Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Gendered Slang-Language
We live in a world dictated by gender. The world we live in is comparable to a middle school dance. Boys on one side- eating, talking about sports while girls on the other side- gossiping, hoping a boy will approach her. THIS IS A PROBLEM! There is no reason that we need to live our entire lives as middle school students that cannot grow up. There is no reason that women need to be approached by a man in order to feel accepted or 'allowed' to do something. There is no reason that men need to all be lumped under a category of baboons. Our language is gendered- so gendered that the word firewoman is not considered a word (as it is underlined red as I type this).
Colloquialisms are words or phrases that are stated in society and influence the way people speak and act. Growing up as a female I have been taught from an early age that there are 'boy things' and 'girl things', 'boy colors' and 'girl colors'. This differentiation of boy to girl roles has gone as far as 'boy jobs' and 'girl jobs'. Think of a doctor, a construction worker, the police, a sports player, a member of the military, the president, a boss of a company. All of these occupations have been taught to be a 'man's job'. Think of a nurse, a teacher, a caregiver, a secretary, a flight attendant. All of these occupations have been taught to be a 'woman's job'.
Our language is divided to male words and female words. Male words are powerful and female words are objects.Woman are stuck in a world that is gendered so far to the point that even the words feMALE and woMAN are influenced by the presence of male or man. Woman are unable to escape these gendered words and are taught at an early age through typically taunts that there are things for men and things for women. For example, "you throw/run/kick/punch like a girl" is a bad thing. This means you're a 'wimp' and not good enough. However, for girls we are simply being ourselves, and as usual, in our gendered society, being ourselves is not enough. We need to "act tough" and "man up" making man the highest form of power.
This needs to change, we need to grow up from taking sides at that middle school dance and meet in the middle. This can start by teaching those middle schoolers that the middle of the dance floor is a good thing. Maybe then the next generation will be able to demonstrate respect and progress- eliminating this gendered language world.
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It is very interesting that you point out how influenced women are by men, even by the little things like firewoman not being a word. Like you stated before, we learn at a young age that there are "boy things" and "girl things," and this definitely continues to have an impact on all generations. In order to stop this gendered society, society needs to stop constructing categories for us. Luckily, I think that we are slowly but surely making improvements because more and more awareness is being raised about this issue, so hopefully we see some real change in the next few years.
ReplyDeleteI like how you bring up that female and woman have a male root word. By labeling the female gender as a derivative of the base gender (male), we are already deeming women as inferior--they don't have their own root word! It's interesting to think about how girl words are generally seen as more delicate and boy words imply more power and strength (same with the jobs). However, things are certainly taking a turn for the better. The first step is discussing this problem to begin with. Now, personally I see myself using words previously reserved for one gender with both genders, such as saying "what's up dude?".
ReplyDeleteI really like how you were able to correlate gendered language to a middle school dance. It is really true that in society are language is separated. Both men and women feel that they are only able to approach certain subjects; this limits language and makes it gendered. You did a really nice job with carrying out the middle school dance metaphor. It made a lot of sense to me and I agree with each of the steps you approached in comparing the dance to gendered language.
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