Introduction

Judith Butler in ‘Gender Trouble: Feminism and Subversion of Identity’ argues that gender is not an innate identity but a socially constructed concept that becomes normal through the performance of repeated acts. Another important aspect of gender is that it is not static. The notion of gender differs from one culture to another and also from time to time. Simone de Beauvoir’s statement “One is not born, but rather becomes a woman” is a manifestation of these ideas. This idea of performing acts following social norms leads to the phenomenon of gendered speech.

The Language of Women

These gendered speech acts also affect the style of talking between different genders. The act of speaking is the result of the power relations in society regulating norms. As the construct of our society is patriarchal, women have less power compared to men. Thus, resulting in the silencing of their voice. The male-dominated social structure makes women so powerless that all the discourse carried out by women is rendered meaningless. The idea of women being talkative and yearning for gossip is a discourse carried out by the patriarchal society. There are many proverbs across cultures which put forth these ideas.

“Three women make a market (Sudan).

Women are nine times more talkative than men (Hebrew).

A woman’s tongue spreads gossip fast (China)” (Sunderland 2).

Coming from different cultures from various parts of the world, all these proverbs carry very similar ideas. “The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence [so that] any talk in which a woman engages can be too much” (Sunderland 2). Women have been rendered speechless by the performative aspect of gender.

The expressions on how language was used by women also found their way into works of fiction. The utterances made by the characters of Shakespeare, Sophocles and others act as a reminder of the long-running, traditional discursive practice of disparaging women’s talk, and constitutes a recycling of this discourse.

“She has brown hair and speaks small like a woman (Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, I.i.48)

Her voice was ever soft, /gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman (Shakespeare, King Lear, V.iii.2740).

Silence gives the proper grace to women (Sophocles, Ajax)” (Sunderland 3).

These ideas were not just part of fiction and proverbs but also found their way through scholarly works. Otto Jespersen in his 1922 monograph "Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin a chapter called ‘The Woman’ made various claims about gender differences or tendencies in the talk: that women have smaller vocabularies, show extensive use of certain adjectives and adverbs, ‘more often than men break off without finishing their sentences because they start talking without having thought out what they are going to say’, and produce less complex sentences” (Sunderland 5). These works showed the specific nature of language when used by a particular sex. Robin Lakoff’s influential study Language and Woman’s Place (1973) also claims that men and women tend to speak differently. Lakoff states that women’s language is weak and unassertive when compared to men’s language. Lakoff explains: 

“Woman’s language’ has as a foundation the attitude that women are marginal to the serious concerns of life, which are pre-empted by men. The marginality and powerlessness of women are reflected in both the ways women are expected to speak and the ways in which women are spoken of” (Arimbi 169). 

In the above examples, we can see men speaking of women as objects. The gendered positioning of women in language is subservient to that of men. The disempowered language of women hinders them from getting others to think or do what they want them to. Thus, language becomes a medium of oppression used by men to keep women in their place.

Gender as a Linguistic Construct

When we talk about ‘gender and language’, people naturally think of gender as a social category. Gender is a social category but it is also a grammatical category. People think of gender as a human trait, when it is an arbitrary linguistic category. Gender is a socially and culturally constructed variable that is embedded in language.

The gender of a noun is arbitrary, there is no system through which the gender is distributed. Mark Twain in ‘The Awful German Language’, critiques this arbitrary concept of gender in the German language. Twain gives the example of a turnip and a girl to further his point.

“Gretchen. – Wilhelm, where is the turnip?

Wilhelm. – She is gone to the kitchen.

Gretchen. – Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?

Wilhelm. – It has gone to the opera” (Curzan 34).

Turnip uses the female personal pronoun of ‘She’, while the girl uses the personal pronoun ‘It’. This shows that in the German language, turnip is of the female sex, a girl has no sex. Twain’s criticism of gender in the German language does not stop here. Twain argues that in the German language... 

“a person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it – for in Germany all the women wear either male heads or sexless ones; a person’s nose, lips, shoulder, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven’t any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay” (Curzan 35).

This arbitrary nature of gender is found in the Hindi language also. The words ending with the sound [a] in the Hindi language are associated with the male gender, while words ending with the sound [i] are associated with the female gender. But there are many exceptions to this rule, the Hindi word for man is ‘aadmi’ which ends with the sound [i]. Similarly, the Hindi word for mother is ‘maata’ which ends with the sound [a]. So, there is no systematic way in which gender is distributed in different languages.

The Gendered Construction of Language

Global languages fall into three different categories concerning gender. There are gendered languages like Hindi, Arabic, German, Spanish etc. In gendered languages, the nouns and pronouns have a gender. There also exists gender-less languages like Bengali, Mandarin, Bhojpuri etc, where nouns and pronouns do not have a marked gender. The third category is the gender-neutral languages like English where the pronouns are gendered but the nouns do not have a gender.

A language is said to be gendered when it shows to have a bias towards a particular sex or social gender. Language too, is a part of male dominated social structure, so we see a bias towards women in the structure of language. The male gender is considered a default and used throughout the language. This bias towards the male gender tends to make women invisible. The use of the word ‘mankind’ for the whole of the human race is one such example of making the other gender invisible. Moreover, words like chairman, policeman, and man-made tend to reinforce the idea that women are not capable of holding any position of importance. But more importantly, it is enforcing the idea that all the important positions, discoveries and inventions can be done by man alone and no other gender. This is not restricted to the words associated with power or position but also to words representing the general public. Words like ‘common man’ show that the male-dominated social structure has forgotten about the existence of women. 

“In her book ‘Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men’, Caroline Criado Perez writes that: Seeing men as the human default is fundamental to the structure of human society. Our culture and language follow a generic masculine framework where, she explains, male bias is so firmly embedded in our psyche that even genuinely gender-neutral words [like doctor or actor] are read as male” (The Subtle Ways Language Shapes Us). 

We can find many instances of this generic masculine framework. The United States Declaration of Independence reads ‘All men are created equal’, the generic masculine framework is evident in this sentence. The use of the word ‘men’ instead of human again shows the invisibility of women, all the while making them inferior to men. There are many words in the English language which have positive and negative connotations when used with men and women respectively.

He is the master of ….

She is the mistress of….

The first sentence has a positive connotation while the second one has a negative. There is no difference in the structure of sentences in the above example. The only difference lies in the words ‘master’ associated with the male sex and ‘mistress’ associated with the female sex. Mistress for a woman is not merely a feminine form of master for a man. Mistress semantically connotes a sexualized female while master semantically refers to positivity and power. This example illustrates that in language men are usually described as better than women. 

“The very semantics of the language reflects [women’s] condition. We do not even have our names, but bear that of the father until we exchange it for that of a husband” (Arimbi 168).

The gendered aspect of language is not limited to English only. Hindi too, is gendered in its construct. The Hindi language uses different pronouns and verbs according to the gender of the person. The nouns are also gendered in this language. There are three genders in the Hindi language: masculine, feminine and neutral. We can see the male-dominant social structure reflected in the Hindi language too. The use of the term ‘aap’ (formal you) for the male gender and ‘tum’ (informal you) for the female gender. The formal you is an honorific plural which shows more respect than the informal you. Females are generally addressed with ‘tum’, but with men, we use the honorific plural (Aap kya kar rahe hain? over Tu kya kar raha hai? to ask ‘What are you doing?’), but could only show respect to women using feminine endings (Aap kya kar rahi hain? over Tu kya kar rahi hai?). The difference in the construction of the two sentences for two different genders shows that the language is gendered. It is important to note here that there exists a different verb form for the honorific plural in the male gender but no such verb form exists for the female gender. This shows that the honorific plural was not expected to be used for the female gender. Thus, making the male gender demand more respect than the female gender. Another example of this is the use of the formal you (aap) by wives for their husbands, but the husbands use the informal you (tum) for their wives.

Non-Gendered Languages

Gender, although a common feature in languages throughout the world, is not essential to language; many languages have never had gender systems and others have lost them with no lethal repercussions. We can find many non-gendered languages in India. Bengali, Odia, and Maithili are some of the languages that do not have gender distinctions. The verbs and pronouns in these languages do not change with gender. In modern Maithili, distinctions of gender are determined solely by the sex of the animate noun.

When the native speakers of these non-gendered languages speak the gendered language, we can see the workings of the male-dominated social structure. For example, a person who has Bengali as their mother tongue, when speaking Hindi, can see that they use only masculine verb forms irrespective of its gender. Here again, we see the masculine gender become the default.

The Generic ‘He’ and the Masculine Default

The history of English literature shows the use of the pronoun ‘he’ as generic. It was used by writers as a pronoun representing all genders. In Old English, the masculine gender was used as the ‘unmarked’ default. "The masculine Person answers to the general Name, which comprehends both Male and Female; as, Any Person, who knows what he says” (Zuber 519). In 1850 an Act of Parliament made it legal to use ‘he’ for singular unmarked gender. Thomas Harvey in his book 1878 ‘A Practical Grammar of the English Language’, illustrates the use of generic ‘he’. Harvey says that people must not say,

Each pupil should learn his or her lesson.

Harvey says that because there is no pronoun for the third person singular which is common to both sexes, therefore the masculine forms of pronouns should be used. Thus, in the above sentence, her should not be used. The sentence should say,

Each pupil should learn his lesson.

Regarding a sentence which has two antecedents, Harvey replaces the two antecedents with a general term and then goes on to use the generic masculine pronoun. So, a sentence like ‘No boy or girl should whisper to his or her neighbour’ is grammatically incorrect for Harvey. This sentence should be said as ‘No pupil should whisper to his neighbour.’ The generic masculine pronoun used in the above sentences are grammatically correct but they lack inclusivity to all the other genders. The generic ‘he’ is a representation of language depicting the male-dominated social structure.

For example, “Spanish follows a generic masculine when it’s unclear if a subject is male or female; a male friend is an amigo and a female friend is amiga, but a group of friends is amigos. The male default also applies to mixed-gender groups, like amigos, which use masculine endings. The same goes for adjectives: a group of good female friends are buenas amigas, but as soon as there is one male in the group, they’ll be buenos amigos. It’s also clear that masculine is the standard gender in Spanish since it’s the default form used in dictionaries” (The Subtle Ways Language Shapes Us).

As the politics of feminism came into prominence, scholars started to recognise the problems behind its generic use. In 1875, one anonymous writer, who can’t avoid sounding paternalistic, manages to realize that generic he may be good grammar, but it’s also sexist. In contrast, the singular they may be ungrammatical, but at least it’s not unfair to women.

Jane Austen was one of the first authors to use the generic ‘they’ in her works. We find many examples of this in her novels. Austen used this generic they not only for her characters but also in narration. “The whole of what Elizabeth had already heard, his [Wickham's] claims on Mr Darcy, and all that he had suffered from him, was now openly acknowledged and publicly canvassed; and everybody was pleased to think how much they had always disliked Mr Darcy before they had known anything of the matter” (Pride and Prejudice 60). Here, as the gender remains unmarked, so in Old English the generic ‘he’ would have been used as a representative of the masculine gender. But Austen’s use of ‘they’ acts as an inclusive pronoun for all genders. This is not the only use of they as a generic pronoun in Austen’s novel.

“All Meryton seemed to strive to blacken the man, who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light. ... Everybody declared that he [Wickham] was the wickedest young man in the world, and everybody began to find out that they had always distrusted the appearance of his goodness” (Pride and Prejudice 108).

Scholars and grammarians saw the masculine default in languages as a feature of grammar. Many opposed the idea to remove this masculine default and the generic use of ‘he’. One such incident occurred in Harvard in 1971 when “the head of the Linguistics department described the generic masculine as simply a feature of grammar (and a “natural” one at that) and dismissed protesting female students as having pronoun envy” (Curzan 58). Modern grammarians have now acknowledged the use of generic ‘he’ and masculine default as sexist and one which should be avoided.

Gender Inclusivity in Language

Language is a constantly evolving process. This aspect of language is true for gender as well. There is a need for gender inclusivity in language. We can see that English has started to become more gender inclusive in recent times. The use of ‘they’ as a singular pronoun is an attempt at inclusivity. ‘They’ is generally used in the English language as a plural antecedent, but now ‘they’ is starting to be used as a singular antecedent. Though it is yet to become a part of formal writing, it is used quite frequently in speech. This is where Jane Austen was remarkably ahead of her time. She uses ‘they’ as a singular 75 times in Pride and Prejudice. Another example of this is the use of the pronoun ‘Y’all,’ this expression is used as a second-person pronoun to include all genders. In the Hindi language, people have started to use ‘hum’ (we) as a gender-neutral alternative. The Hindi word ‘hum’ does not require a gendered ending, thus allowing its users the freedom to not reveal their gendered identities.

Conclusion

Language is sexist and gendered. The way men and women speak reflects not only the gender gap between the two sexes but also produces social orders in which men’s social position is higher than women’s. The inherent sexism leads to the creation of gender stereotypes, which in turn leads to gender inequality. But as stated earlier language is a constantly evolving process and it is starting to become more gender-neutral and inclusive. It is important for the languages we speak to become gender-neutral and inclusive because language influences how we construct society, and can even set the precedent for gender equality in our social systems.

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Works Cited:

• Arimbi, Diah A. and Deny A. Kwary. “Linguistic Turn and Gendering Language in the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.” English Language Teaching 9.10 (2016): 166-174. Web. 13th Aug 2021.
• Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Penguin Classics. Digital File.
• Curzan, Anne. Gender Shifts in the History of English. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2003. Digital File.
• Dutta, Nayantara. “The Subtle Ways Language Shapes Us.” BBC Culture, (n.d), www.bbc.com/culture. 13th Aug 2021.
• Sunderland, Jane. Language and Gender: An Advanced Resource Book. New York: Routledge, 2006. Digital File.
• Zuber, Sharon and Ann M. Reed. “The Politics of Grammar Handbooks: Generic He and Singular They.” College English 55.5 (1993): 515-530. Jstor. 13th Aug 2021.