Gender equality?
Whats with the fuss over gender equality and is our language changing to accommodate this? The following post is a small summary of gender equality and language use.
In summary a gender neutral pronoun is a pronoun which everyone can be referred to using, the same way she/her or he/him would be used however it is not gender specific. This could be extremely useful in the future as our language evolves with the growing amount of gender fluid individuals in society.
As suggested in this guardian article as humans we are cautious of anything that does not fit into a strict category; eg male/ female, gay/straight. This could be one of the major contributing factors of why we do not yet have any strictly set gender neutral pronouns. However in reality many people do not view themselves as one gender or another they are gender fluid or non binary. For people who view gender as a construct this is not too difficult to understand however written and spoken language fails to display a term for these members of society. Although there is no finalised term for people who are bigender there have been several options discussed, including:
- sie/ hir (sie laughed, I kissed hir)
- ze/ hir (ze laughed, I kissed hir)
- xe (xe laughed, I kissed xem)
Although these didn't stick the most common gender neutral term used is they/them, this has been determined as not the best word choice but it seems to be the most popular as it is commonly used within society.
If our language is to evolve to be less discerning we will need more than just a noun to call people who are non-binary. A large percentage of women experience casual sexism everyday, this is because we were brought up in a society which sees it as acceptable to slander women as a way to make men feel more powerful. Some phrases which are used often are 'she must be on her period', 'she's pretty and smart', 'swearing is so unlady like' . This does not mean men don't experience sexism, just that the majority of sexist actions/ comments are made towards women.
John Grey's popular book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' links to this closely, covering the way men and women diverge when communicating, the book has a patronising tone towards men suggesting that they are emotionless bullies.The theorist Mary Beard's ideas about women's voices not being valued also links into this, she suggests that women aren't perceived to be as powerful as men because of the way we have always valued men's opinions more through previous generations. Despite this women do have more power than ever before, could things become equal after all?
If our language is to evolve to be less discerning we will need more than just a noun to call people who are non-binary. A large percentage of women experience casual sexism everyday, this is because we were brought up in a society which sees it as acceptable to slander women as a way to make men feel more powerful. Some phrases which are used often are 'she must be on her period', 'she's pretty and smart', 'swearing is so unlady like' . This does not mean men don't experience sexism, just that the majority of sexist actions/ comments are made towards women.
John Grey's popular book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' links to this closely, covering the way men and women diverge when communicating, the book has a patronising tone towards men suggesting that they are emotionless bullies.The theorist Mary Beard's ideas about women's voices not being valued also links into this, she suggests that women aren't perceived to be as powerful as men because of the way we have always valued men's opinions more through previous generations. Despite this women do have more power than ever before, could things become equal after all?
You've got a clear written voice and you deal with some sophisticated ideas but there's little gender theory here and it needs to be an opinion piece with an argument (you must break down opposing ideas for the A). Watch out for comma splicing and think about what high-level, in-depth theory you could include - then I can see how well you transform it. Choose a more specific audience by choosing an appropriate blog-hosting site e.g. Huffington Post. How can you make those Mary Beard comments a bit more powerful/telling by using more emotive lanugage? Nicely rounded off.
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