浅析英语中的性别歧视现象(2)

3.2.1 Non-parallel semantic developments of paired terms
Many sociolinguists have claimed that words become negative when shifted into the female sphere, while male has remained pure and neutral. For example:
(1) King and queen
One is masculine, the other feminine and both mean “ruler of an independent state”. King has retained its initial meaning, but besides the core meaning of queen, queen is also used as “a disparaging term for a gay or homosexual man”.
(2) Master and mistress
Both of them indicate ‘someone who possesses and/or has power over someone or something else. For example: “ He is my master.” usually means “He is my boss.” or “He has more power than me.” While “She is my mistress.” is more likely to be interpreted as meaning ‘She is my illicit lover.’ Mistress originally refers to a woman in a position of authority, control, and ownership, as the head of a household like a housekeeper, but it implies a woman who has a continuing sexual relationship with a usually married man who is not her husband and from whom she generally receives material support.
(3) Wizard and witch
Both of them can be used to refer to people with evil magic powers. Wizard also has a meaning of person with extraordinary abilities, while witch means an ugly old woman.
(4) Sir and madam
Sir and madam both can be used to refer to high status people. Madam is used formerly as a courtesy title before a woman’s given name but now used only before a surname or title indicating rank or office or used as a form of polite address for a woman. Unlike sir, madam is also used to refer to a brothel keeper. There are also many other examples such as lord and lady, governor and governess. The examples cited above demean women rather than men.

3.2.2 Semantic collocation and change
(1) Semantic collocation
In English, a word may have different connotations when it is used to describe different sexes. For example:
① imposing
a. He is imposing.
b. She is imposing.
Sentence a means “He is impressive and admirable.” While sentence b could be interpreted to mean that “She is disgusting and apathetic.” When the sex changes, so does the meaning.

② loose
Loose seems a neutral word for both male and female. But “a loose woman” reminds people of “a woman considered to be sexually promiscuous” whereas “a loose man” just means “a casual man”.[12]
③ tramp
It is defined as “a person with no home or job, who wanders from place to place” or “a woman considered to be sexually immoral (esp. in American English).” In the example, He/She is a tramp. For the male, tramp refers to a vagrant whereas for the female it can mean that she is promiscuous.
From the above, we can see that the same word shifts from being positive to being negative once it has moved from referring to a male to a female.[13]
(2) Semantic change
Besides, words, which begin with either neutral or positive connotations over time, acquire negative implications and finally end up as “sexual slurs”. For example, the term hussy derives from Old English huswif (“housewife”), which means “the female head of the house”. The term gradually deteriorated to “a rustic rude woman” and finally comes to mean “an indecent, impudent woman or prostitute”.[14]

3.2.3 Metaphor
Language exists to allow us to communicate with one another. To this end, language serves two purposes: to communicate what our reality is and also what we wish it to be. So if we identify a trait in a language, such as sexism or other forms of prejudice, this only reveals a prejudice that exists in society. Language, in particular metaphor, helps form social reality. There are many metaphors to describe a female. But often it has a totally different meaning.
(1) food metaphor
Some food words can also be used to refer to females, such as cheese cake (奶酪蛋糕——裸体女画)，cherry (樱桃——处女)，cookie (点心——可爱的女人)，crumpet (松脆饼——性感女人)，tart (果馅饼——妓女)，tomato (西红柿——漂亮女人), honey (蜜糖——宝贝、亲爱的), piece (点心——女人)，peach (桃子——漂亮女人) and so on. Men often use these words to express their appreciation to women. It even includes the meaning that men treat women as dolls.[15]
(2) animal metaphor
There are also many words showing contempt for women. They embody sexual discrimination but still enjoy great popularity. For example: chick (小鸡——少女)，kitten (小猫——活泼年轻的姑娘)，bitch（母狗——泼妇），cat (猫——丑妇、贱妇、讨厌的女人)，dragon (龙——倔强的女人)，hen (母鸡——爱管闲事的女人), cow (奶牛——子女多的女人、妓女)，crone (老母羊——干瘪的丑老太婆) and mare-horse (母马——粗声大气、肥胖固执的女人) and so on. [16] These are all pejorative terms for women, because animals are considered to be inferior to human beings on the earth. So using animals to refer to females indicates that females are inferior.

The semantic derogation of women helps to construct female inferiority and because women are confined to negative terms, women continue to be devalued.

4. Signs of the fading of sexism in the English Language
Language is not only used to exchange ideas, convey information, but also used to set up and maintain the harmonious relationship between human beings, create and keep the effective communication environment among social members and groups. Any form of sexist language, whether on purpose or not, will probably stand off or offend some social member or group. Language and language use mirror social attitudes and stereotypes and bias.
Along with the women’s liberation movement, people began to realize the importance of the language reform and desexism becomes necessary. Then, should sexist language be changed or avoided? The answer is definitely positive, but how? The main strategies here to achieve this goal are avoiding the use of generic masculine, changing some naming and addressing terms, coining new words and advocating some neutral words.

4.1 Avoiding using generic masculine pronouns
Linguists engaged in study of sexism in the English language are not satisfied with merely pointing out the problem. As a solution to the problems that the generic masculine can create, a number of proposals have been made. A major category among these solutions is to avoid using generic masculine. Some alternatives to avoid generic masculine are offered as follows:
(1) The generic masculine he, his, him should be replaced with he or she, his or her, him or her, and the like, which expressly indicate that women are included in the antecedent of the pronouns. This strategy can be illustrated with the following sentence: Every good citizen should love his or her country more than him or herself; he or she should be ready to die for it if the need arises.
(2) The gender-neutral third person pronoun they and its variants should be used with a singular meaning. The proposal makes it possible to say: Every good citizen should love their country more than themselves; they should be ready to die for it if the need arises.

(3) Changing the whole sentence into plural form can also help to avoid sexism. Look at the sentence: Anyone can take part in the picnic if he is interested. It is discriminatory. So we can change it into a nonsexist one: All people can take part in the picnic if they are interested.
(4) Sometimes the first and second pronouns are used to replace he. List an example: One has to be careful when he crosses the road. Obviously, it use he to refer to a person whose sex is unknown. We can change it into “You have to be careful when you cross the road.” to avoid the discrimination.
(5) If permitted, the sentence can be changed into passive voice to be nonsexist. Instead of saying “One should not lose heart when he is beaten in a match.”, one would be able to say “One should not lose heart when beaten in a match.”
(6) Dropping the masculine pronoun can also be seen as a useful way to escape from gender bias.[17] The following sentence can help to know the strategy better. Anybody can attend the meeting if interested in it. Being discriminatory, it is written into “Anybody can attend the meeting if he is interested in it.”
Feminists regard masculine pronouns as being ambiguous and discriminatory against women because they can be interpreted as being masculine-specific or neutral and thus, in some cases, be interpreted as not referring to women at all. So it is time that masculine pronouns were changed. The above are some strategies used to avoid generic masculine. These strategies are so useful that they can help the improvement of sexism in language in some extent. And sexism in language is closely linked with sexism in society. So it is good to the elimination of sexism in society in the final analysis.

4.2 Lexical neutralization
Lexical neutralization is also regarded as the major category among solutions to sexist language. Above I have cited some examples that some professions are used to refer to men. When they are used to refer to woman, female or woman or lady is often used. In fact, people do not need to designate the sex of an occupation, for example, woman psychologist or male nurse. If you are quoting a qualified psychologist or nurse, should it make a difference if the information is coming from a man or woman? Generally, I sum up five solutions of lexical neutralization.

(1) Try to avoid using man/men or mankind to refer to people in the world and replace it with person, people, humanity, human, human being, the human race, and the human species. The generic term man has been used in two ways: to refer to an adult male human being and as a synonym for "human being". Obviously, when you use man and related words to refer to both women and men, you are being sexist. For example:
① Man is the most intelligent of all species. (sexist)
Humankind/human being is the most intelligent of all species. (nonsexist)
② All men should maintain the ecological balance. (sexist)
All people should maintain the ecological balance. (nonsexist)
Or: Everyone should maintain the ecological balance.
③ The project is one of the greatest man's achievements. (sexist)
The project is one of the greatest human achievements. (nonsexist)
(2) Try to avoid using compound words that consist of man to refer to both genders. If a compound word is for specific use, we can use a word+man to refer to man and a word+woman to refer to woman, for example, businesswoman, chairwoman, policewoman, saleswoman, spokeswoman, etc. If it is for generic use or the gender is unknown, we can create new words or compounds involving the word person or word people leading to nouns, or shorten the word by cutting of the -man suffix, or replacing it with existing gender-neutral synonyms. For example,
Avoid Prefer
businessman businessperson, businesspeople
chairman chairperson, chair, president, head
foreman supervisor, superintendent
manmade artificial, synthetic
congressman representative, legislator
councilman council member
policeman police officer, law enforcement officer
(3) Try to avoid using gender-suffixes which reflect women's lower rank and avoid using prepositional attributes like woman, lady, madam when there is no necessity to show their sex and use one form to designate a person in all three contexts, i.e., in reference to a male, to a female or to a person whose sex is not specific. For example:

actress actor
aviatrix aviator
usherette usher
poetess poet
woman engineer engineer
girl athlete athlete
If it is important to mark the sex of the person, this could be done lexically, for example, we can use the adjectives male or female.
It was a woman driver who sent me home. (sexist)
It was a female driver who sent me home. Or
The driver who sent me home was a woman. (nonsexist)
(4) Gender-free words are words including both sexes, such as teacher, officer, people, worker, immigrant, coach, church member, leader, grandparent, evening student, employee, testee, engineer, customers, dealer, clerk, civilians, scientist, operator, patriot, person, planner, politician, producer, tutor, writer, chief executive, expert, everybody and so on. Making the most use of gender-free words can help people reduce sexism in the daily life and in the language.
(5) Try to avoid giving examples that are traditionally regarded as of male or female. For example, usually when referring to a lawyer, a statesman or an officer, we use a male name or he as the subject. When referring to a secretary, a nurse or a teacher, we use a female name or she as the subject. In other words, boxing or football player must be male, while dishwasher or assistant must be female. We can tackle such problems by using plural forms or other adaptations. [18] For example,
① the lawyer...he -------- lawyers... they
the assistant...she --------- assistants...they
② It is a party that held by the officers and their wives. (sexist)
It is a party that held by the officers and their spouses.(nonsexist)

4.3 Coining new corresponding words
The gender bias can also be seen in the way that women are addressed through their social relations to men. The terms Miss and Mrs. indicate the sex and marital status of the woman while the term Mr. indicates the sex only. It is unbalanced and unnecessary to specify the marital status of women but not of men.
Since the 1960s,feminists had coined a new word “Ms” to de-emphasize the improper perception of marital status as a definitive feature of a woman's identity and personality. The new term Ms, which is a combination of Miss and Mrs., functions as an exact counterpart of the term Mr.. Women who object to having a title that is marked for marital status have adopted “Ms”. There are also some other examples, such as salesman and saleslady, housewife and househusband, bride and bridegroom and so on. [19]

But there are some aspects of language that are more resistant to change. For example, the word history comes from Greek root for such concepts as inquiring, knowing and learning. Women have pointed out the irony of the word history. They say, it has told only “his story". So they created the word “herstory” (a word not recognized by standard dictionaries) to emphasize that women' s lives, deeds and participation in human affairs have been neglected or undervalued in standard histories. However, both linguists and common speakers find it absurd to change ‘history’ into “herstory”.

4.4 Alternatives to Addressing Terms
Addressing terms are very important in our daily communication, and gender discrimination certainly has some influence on them. In English, there are many addresses used to look down upon the females. In order to solve the problem, there are some strategies that may help:
Firstly, don’t introduce some female through her husband, e.g. Jim Green and his wife Helen; Chairman's wife Daisy Brown.
Secondly, don’t use terms which belittle women as wives or otherwise, e.g. the better half, the little woman, the weaker sex, the fair sex, dumb blondes, (woman's) libber, and so on. And the traditional expressions with prejudice such as ambitious men and aggressive women, cautious men and timid women should try to be avoided.
Thirdly, try not to use the traditional form of address such as Dear Sir, Dear Gentleman, Dear Madam when writing to someone of unknown sex. The following may be useful.
Dear friends of the library Dear Madams and Sirs
Dear Personnel Officer Dear Committee Member
Dear Citizen Dear Customer
Dear Councilor Dear Agent

4.5 The social change of attitude toward women
As I have said, language is something that society creates and can also be seen as a mirror of society. If women and men are still unequal in society then just changing the language will not really grant equality or make things much better. Language is not in and of itself a sexist thing. The users of a language grant it practical meaning depending on how they view society and according to their values and beliefs.

Both historically and presently marriage status is more important to women than to men because marriage virtually determines how well a woman could live. In the past, women had little opportunities to work outside the home. Furthermore, working out of the home was often considered inappropriate or presented poor options. As they were unable to support themselves, their marriage basically determined how well they would live. This was demonstrated in Jane Austin’s novel Pride and Prejudice where women dressed up and learned to sing and dance in order to impress a man and find an eligible husband. These women were in some sense subordinate to their husbands, as their positions and careers took precedence in their relationship. As marriage was so important to a woman it is really necessary to differentiate between Mrs. and Miss. Even today, in most families men continue to play a more important role. Although many women work outside they still make a lower salary on average.
Although women today have taken all kinds of careers and have proven that they can do anything men can do, positions of a high rank are still rarely held by women. Therefore it is not strange that one may think of a man when they hear the word "chairman". This indicates that the main reason behind sexist language is not the language form itself, but our thought that comes from social experience. In other words eliminating linguistic sexism must happen simultaneously with social change. Women must be given the same opportunities as men.
The above are some suggestions on how to avoid sexist language in English. To some people, especially the male, it seems quite unnecessary. They take it for granted that the so-called sexist language is some kind of habit or for the seek of convenience but not looks down upon or discriminates against the female on purpose. Anyhow, the topic of how to avoid sexist language has become more and more popular among the language and social workers abroad.
5. Conclusion
Since human being appeared on the earth, there have been existing two different genders-----male and female. On account of the differences between their physiological features and the superiority and inferiority in social activities, men and women are differentiated from each other in inpiduality, value, image and status, which give rise to variations in their language styles and language uses.

Sexism is the systematic mistreatment of women as enforced by the cultures and the institutions of society. Sexism has diminished the societal rights of (mostly) women to exercise economic, political, and personal power. Sexism denies inpidual power, even over your own body. Sexism says that one gender is superior to another gender in intelligence, strength, and leadership abilities. Sexism, along with other forms of oppression, is hurtful to every woman no matter what age, nationality, ethnic group or class she belongs to. It conditions every woman to be submissive and forces them, by whatever means necessary, to perform and accept the roles assigned to inpiduals in society.
Feminism has been one of the main social movements since the 1960s, and there is no doubt that this movement will continue in this century. Its impact is felt in many societies around the world and in many spheres of life. Language was and is seen by many feminists as a powerful instrument of patriarchy. It is therefore not surprising that language is subject to feminist scrutiny, which leads to elaborate and detailed description of sexist practice affecting language use.
In the previous paragraphs, sexist language use in vocabulary has been pointed out. However, it is not enough to just point out the problem. A desire to change the patriarchal and sexist nature of language has been expressed and therefore we should be engaged in various types of linguistic reform or language planning. The feminist’s demand for linguistic reform, if we are to be careful in our attempt to understand it, cannot be interpreted as a demand for purging of certain words, sentences, or statements from the English language. It is rather to be interpreted as a demand for halting the use of such words, sentences or statements, either because the use is itself objectionable, or because what the use implies is morally objectionable. One of the important reasons for feminist language reform is that linguistic change is seem to lag behind social change, effectively hindering the linguistic reflection of social change.

So, the key to better sexist language in English is lexical neutralization, eliminating generic pronouns, coining new words and striving for balanced naming and addressing system. But the elimination of linguistic sexism lies in social change. Only by changing the social structure till one day when women and men own really equal status can language equality be truly achieved. Therefore, linguistic action and social action should be taken simultaneously for the purpose of eliminating sexism in language.

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