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Sexism in the English Language

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Is the English language sexist? There is a ton of evidence to support this claim. The scientific name for both genders of our species is from the word Homo, which means “man” in Latin. Sometimes, we are also called humans, which originates from homo. While referring to the whole body, mankind is also used. All these words highlight only one sex while making women invisible.1 If a woman is swept off a ship, one cries, “Man overboard.” If a perpetrator kills a woman, the charge is “manslaughter.” If a woman is injured on the job, the coverage is “workmen’s compensation.”2_The very fact that the word woman contains the word man in it shows the bias of the English language. Intentionally or unintentionally, in writing, while speaking or while conveying a message, one is always sexist towards the female race. In humanity, men are considered at the upper level and their thoughts represent those of all humans. This is exactly why in most countries men are given positions of importance rather than women. Women’s linguistic status is mostly if not always dependent of or develops from men, which is represented as self-sufficient or sovereign.3_By downgrading women to a subordinate position, language does not allow men and women to be depicted as equal. Sexism in language is also shown in that the noun of feminine gender can only be obtained by adding a certain bound morpheme to the noun. Sexism is shown in the fact that a feminine noun is derived by adding an additional few letters to the male noun.4 Lets take for instance a few words like hero, poet, prince or god. All the female versions of the words are heroine, poetess, princess and goddess. The male part of the word still stands out. The English language does not possess a third person pronoun, which is gender neutral. So, the common norm is that we use the masculine pronouns ‘he’, ‘him’ and ‘his’ to refer to both men and women. This is very inaccurate and o

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