Why can't I be a heroine??

Opinion article on Is Women’s language weaker than Men?

While growing up, we were socialised that heroes were mainly man – therefore have embedded the patriarchal ideology within our innocent mind, Think about it, we have all grown up with many images and from novels to movies of what constitute a hero and this cultivates culture expectation, Let us look at some in detail? Shall we?

Look at Cinderella, her blue gown, fine blonde hair and a skinny woman however living in such extreme environment treated badly by her stepmother which is actually a bad thing, what could she do to get herself out of the tragic zone? Well you’re throwing me a question so let me tell you it’s that there’s always a hero will solve this issue which is – Prince Charming with his muscular muscles. He saves Cinderella by running around the town and chose her to become his wife, but as most people will not be aware of the way how she didn’t choose Prince Charming to become her prince? In this context it’s a way of how society is indicating a women has no control of her life, seen as a possession and they often need someone to rely on , like mice’s, magic and men!

The point I’m trying to bring out is that all the ideologies has started to embed since we were little, just like how they portrayal women as a weaker sex therefore it’s language is weaker, well it is surely not the case because in most recent researches women are seen to be using language differently in contrast to men, Deborah Tannen has said ‘Different sex aim for different things in a conversation’ which means we aren’t people from different planet, it’s just that we live in the same planet speaking the same language but not the same dialect. It’s like women has to speak in a certain way to be seen as more feminine, which absolutely makes no sense because there aren’t such definition for how a women should be acting in order to become more feminine, but certainly a high pitched squeaky voice sometimes do make you look like an idiot.

I think Lakoff’s theory is a bit too extreme in terms saying Women’s language is weaker, the use of tentative language will lead to some disadvantages, like preventing themselves getting a promotion but that isn’t the case though, I can’t challenge her theory as in some features were very true however look at the world! More and more women are working in leadership positions which is absolutely fantastic, you can find heroines in workplaces, there are 2 female Politian working within the G9 group however the ratio is still small compare to Men, but it is a great massive improvement in our society, we aren’t preventing ourselves getting a promotion, it’s because the way how we use language differently, us, women tended to aim for Overt prestige which we rather make someone feel orientated or nice instead of being competitive or often challenges the other – the phenomenon has been named as Rapport talk, To be honest if a women started to have such challenging conversation she will be seen as rude so that’s probably why we add so many politeness strategies into our sentence and this may make us look even weaker due to we literally add endless of politeness strategies! But Janet Holmes has indicated the fact about this is a way of how women helps and keeps the conversation going on – but lakoff’s theory is a bit too simplest in terms of just seeing women’s language in a one way, she has to think wiser and outside the box!

I guess one of the reasons could be the way how the patriarchal society often do not give a chance for women to expose their strengths in terms of not giving them a particular job roles which is frustrating from my point of view, like adding the suffix ‘ess’ to indicate a specific job role should led by a men but not a women because she can’t work properly. Absolutely none sense! But that doesn’t stop women can’t be heroine in their own rights, we are living in 21^st century!

Even though our culture tends to celebrate masculinity when it comes to being a hero, we can still look at all the great quantities of heroines and appreciate them – we have many examples in our lives such as our grandma, mum or aunties!

Remember both heroines and heroes do compliment with each other so don’t be too fussy about it, we’re just different, the same coin with different sides and patterns.

Kelsey <3

English is not sexist, it has been altered to become sexist by stereotyping

PLEASE NOTE: JUST A MADE UP ESSAY

It’s hard to discuss whether a language is sexist or not, as our language is undergoing gender neutrality in terms of more gender-neutral alternatives has been created within the past 20 years. Which shows a big improvement on how the power in discourse is shifting within our society embedded with the patriarchal ideology. Recently I have been watching an interview with the BBC, interviewing a female engineer about her daily life – marked form is used positively within this context. 

How shocking and strongly how the patriarchal ideology has been embedded in my 6-year-old son’s mind as he has questioned me ‘Mummy why could this woman become an engineer, she is a woman though’. My first reaction was to freeze and unsure how to answer his question. But it was absolutely normal having this kind of thought, as we all know living in the UK means you have to accept the fact this is a country which speaks a language with an inequality. Even the EU has strongly emphasized banning the use of marked forms, but why do we still use it, though? Is it still valuable in a society moving towards gender neutrality? 

Well, blame the English teachers in primary school. English teacher has always taught us the vocabs about jobs, food or even just normal words we use in our daily basis, but reinforcing what has been discussed, the educational system is responsible for the use of marked forms and ideology. Because the teachers tended to teach us words such as ‘Policemen’ ‘firemen’ ‘surgeon’ and quite unfamiliar to see words that associates with women gender being taught unless it is a nurse or ‘mid-wife’. A reflection on a feminist theory published by linguist Dale Spender, he said adding the suffix ‘men’ or ‘ess’ strengthens the perceptions that the male category is the norm and that it corresponds the female category is derivation and therefore less important. 

Or maybe because women are seen to be ‘weaker’ sex as linguist Robin Lakoff published her deficit theory in the 70s about the fact women uses weaker language, may have illustrated an imagery to the others where woman are not strong enough to catch thieves or save the day. Indeed you may have noticed that the ideology has started embedding since we were young but we have not been aware of it, furthermore to bring out a concept on jobs which some jobs can only be carried out by a specific gender. I am sure you are very aware that no one uses these terms anymore and are becoming more obsolete as there is more gender neutral phrases are being created within the past years. 

Therefore I do not see the point why do we have to judge people what work should they be doing depending on their sex. 

Just like how women has to identified their marital status, for example attending my son’s parent evening, the school he goes to would ask me to fill in a slip with a title ‘Mr/ Mrs’ has already been filled in by the school itself automatically by computer, they were the only 2 options. Like do I have to be married to become a mother? Since when does the title ‘Mrs’ has been used as one size fits all? The Swedes has recently introduced a new gender-neutral title ‘Hens', I’d be so much happier if they have used that instead of being stereotyped as a married woman. 

Our language is changing anyways but it takes a bit of time – nowadays the use of a male pronoun to refer to both men and women. Using ‘he’ or ‘his’ to refer to humans in general (known as ‘male as norm’) is actually still fairly common, probably because no-one is actually completely sure what the grammatically correct alternative is. 

Using the plural ‘they’ or ‘their’ never sounds quite right when we are actually referring to the singular. Another option is to change the focus of whatever is being said by the second person, using ‘you’ and ‘your’ – but, of course, this can completely change the register of the sentence. It’s difficult to determine whether or not language is sexist or not, it may have been like this all the time. I realized the way how I greet my friends using a word that looks like gender neutral but actually has the implication of manpower, such as calling my female friends ‘Hey guys’ or the utterance ‘oh, man’, our language is littered with expressions refers to men as the powerful collective. it is unbearable in the English language as men have the power and the authority in charge within our society. Until we have equality in our language, it’s difficult to argue for equality in language elsewhere, which is why it’s so important that change is encouraged. And we can quite easily encourage it by giving a little more time and thought to the words we use, like use more gender neutral alternatives. Surely this will take a while in our lifetime, probably 20 years? 30? 40? – all we can do now is that simply make little changes and live happily. Eventually one day we will have equalities within our language or in every language. 

*Please note this is based on my personal views, no offense 

Kelsey