# Are languages with gender more sexist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 15, 2012, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971 "2012-02-15T21:59:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/41 "2012-02-17T15:12:49Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > speakers of gendered language do not associate grammatical with natural gender nearly as much as speakers of English imagine. Right! and you expressed it clearly. Native speakers don’t even notice the sexiness of their languages. English speakers \* who learn a foreign language as adults, always act amazed and confused by the concept of masculine and feminine inanimate objects.(If it doesn’t have a dick or tits, how can if be masculine or feminine?).Sex is confusing… . I’ve found that a good way to explain it to the poor suffering English-speaker, is to invent my own grammatical terms. Instead of teaching him abut masculine or feminine nouns, I tell them to just imagine that some nouns are “blue” and some are “red”. It makes things less confusing for the novice. So in French, “bridge” is a red word and “Table” is a blue one. Blue words get an extra “E”. A small bridge is “petit” and small table is petite". So , even though english speakers know the word “petite” as a feminine dress size, there is really nothing sexy about it. \*(esp. those dumb Americans, who think that speaking 2 languages is an amazing feat 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/42 "2012-02-17T16:36:03Z")
> [@](#): > > …gender is dictated by the general sound > patterns of a language, and that it goes > beyond suffixes or word endings. Experimental > results on German and Romanian > nouns show strong support for this hypothesis, > as gender prediction can be done with > high accuracy based on the form of the > words. That’s always been my feeling, as someone who grew up with Polish as his first language. I didn’t even realize Polish had grammatical gender (or even a case system) until well into high school, even though my own speech reflected appropriate use of the masculine, feminine, and neuter. I really don’t think native speakers notice the grammatical gender of what they’re discussing. It’s always struck me as something more related to euphony (at least in Polish) than any sort of biological gender parallels. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/43 "2012-02-17T16:38:59Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Persian has absolutely no gender at all. Not even gendered pronouns like in English. The Persian third-person singular pronoun _u_ means he, she, or it. > > This is the language spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. Where women living under the Islamic Revolution or the Taliban would have a thing or two to tell you about sexism in society. And their language’s freedom from gender didn’t do them a bit of good. You only get your rights when you _organize_. Admittedly, the Taliban are Pashtun-based, and the Pashto language has 2 genders: masculine and feminine. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/44 "2012-02-17T17:20:19Z")
1. Semantically, a language can’t be sexist, only a society can. A society can be quite sexist even if their language is gender-neutral. Society A can also be perceived as sexist depening on how it is visible in language by Society B and vice versa. For example, American women took/take the full name of their husband - Alice Miller becomes Mrs. John Smith when she marries. To Europeans, despite having gendered languages, this is terribly sexist - loosing their whole identity upon marriage. American women don’t seem to mind. This is not related to the genders dropped from the English language over centuries. On the other hand, in slavian languages, woman always take -ova or similar endings to their names to identify them as females from the start. Is this sexist, or just information about who they are? 1. The current hypothesis (After modified Safir-Worf) about language and thinking is that a) language shapes how we think, esp. words that describe a difference mean that we recognize a difference; if people lack words that describe a difference, it will be harder for them to recognize the difference. > [@](#): > > Experiments have found that whether or not you can register a color depends on whether or not you have a name for it in your language. You can see the color, it just doesn’t register in your mind. > > One study compared some young children from England with kids from a tribe in Nambia. In the English language, young kids usually learn 11 basic colors (black, white, gray, red, green, blue, yellow, pink, orange, purple and brown) but in Himba it’s only five. For instance, they lump red, orange and pink together and call it “serandu.” > > If you showed the Himba toddler a pink card and then later showed him a red one and ask if they’re the same card, the kid would often mistakenly say yes – because they’re both “serandu.” Same as if you showed you “Eggshell” and an hour later showed you “Bone” and asked if it was the same card from before. Now, again, they can see the colors; if you hold up a pink card and a red card next to each other, the English kid and Himba kid both would say they’re different. But not when they see them one at a time. > > But if you teach him the new names for the colors, that one is “pink” and the other is “red,” from then on he can identify them when seen by themselves, without the other one for comparison. Same as the girl or interior decorator who can immediately identify “eggshell” as distinct from “ivory” the moment she sees it on a wall, while her boyfriend couldn’t do it with a gun to his head. The ability to recognize the color comes with having a name for it. > > Read more: 5 Insane Ways Words Can Control Your Mind | [Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com) [5 Insane Ways Words Can Control Your Mind | Cracked.com](http://www.cracked.com/article_18823_5-insane-ways-words-can-control-your-mind.html#ixzz1meweN7N1) b) but society also changes language. An example: In both German (and Romantic languages) and English, male adults get one honorofic (Mr./ Herr), while female adults get two depending on their marital status (Mrs. and Miss / Frau und Fräulein). During the women’s lib movement in the 60s, feminists pointed out how unfair that was. In American English, a new honorifc was introduced, Ms. So now people show by their form of address whether they are married, single or feminist / old-fashioned or modern. In Germany, the use of Fräulein was dropped instead, except for old-fashioned people when addressing waitresses, or when talking to under-age females (often ironically: Mein liebes Fräulein! - Listen young lady!) So now the honorific Frau just tells people that this is an adult female, and nothing about her marital status. 1. The problem of nouns being gendered esp. with regards to professions has been a topic for several decades for feminist in Germany, and attempts to change the language in order to change the thinking have been used some time now, with more or less success and of course some backlash from people making fun of “slash-writing” - not that slash, but writing eine/n neue/r Lehrer/in - one new teacher (m/f); other forms include the big i form LehrerInnen or the double Lehrer und Lehrerinnen, which eats up space and quickly becomes cumbersome. Some people just ignore or forget it (showing how deeply entrenched the belief is that the male form “means to include also women”), some use the Big I as easiest form, some at least put a statement at the beginning “for ease of writing, only the male form was used in this document, but is not meant to exclude the women”. That this is a problem in English also because it reflects also society’s attitude and clichees is mentioned not only in Cecils column on [personal pronouns](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/750/is-there-a-gender-neutral-substitute-for-his-or-her), but easily with a thought experiment: take 10 or 15 nouns that describe professions or activities: teacher (kindergarden, primary, university); flower shop seller; hair cutter; librarian (low-level); boss; Senator/ politican; medical doctor; etc. and assign genders to them. You’ll get a clicheed list usually based on majority percentages (90% of kindergarden teachers are female, 90% of librarians are female, 80% of bosses are male, most medical doctors are male in general, though in some special fields like psychology, it turns around again…) There might be some differences between societies, but in general, even if English the language doesn’t have two seperate words for a male doctor and a female doctor (Arzt - Ärtzin), you will still think of doctors in a stereotypical = sexist way. ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/45 "2012-02-17T19:28:22Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > In other languages, the connection between grammatical and natural gender is much weaker. The relative overlap between the two has got to have some effect: if 95% of your masculine nouns actively sport a penis, the other 5% might sound pretty male, while if fewer than one percent refer to beings with Y chromosomes you might not perceive the connection so strongly. In some it is reversed. Wrap your mind around French where the most common words for penis (pine) is feminine and the word for vagina (vagin) is masculine. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/46 "2012-02-18T05:09:08Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > 1. Semantically, a language can’t be sexist, only a society can. > > A society can be quite sexist even if their language is gender-neutral. As in the Persian-speaking world: Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan. And Turkic too. > [@](#): > > For example, American women took/take the full name of their husband - Alice Miller becomes Mrs. John Smith when she marries. To Europeans, despite having gendered languages, this is terribly sexist - loosing their whole identity upon marriage. American women don’t seem to mind. This is not related to the genders dropped from the English language over centuries. In America today, that practice has been almost obsolete for decades. From my earliest memories in childhood in the 1960s of seeing that practice, it made me instinctively wonder why can’t women keep their own first names, at least. Since at least the 1980s, if not the 1970s, it’s gone out of the national customs except for maybe a few holdouts. Old people. I was surprised the other day (I’m on various Democratic party mailing lists) when I received a letter from Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy. Surprised because it’s been years since I’ve seen anyone still doing that. My Mom switched to using her own name forty years ago. Ethel’s letter asking me to send money to some Democratic campaign fund was like opening your grandmother’s wardrobe from which wafts a hint of scent (maybe her closet was built of cedarwood, or she put up her clothes in lavender) that instantly triggers your vivid memories of the days when Kennedys ruled the land, women went by their husbands’ first names, and all ladies had to wear white gloves to be properly attired. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/47 "2012-02-18T14:54:48Z")
I don’t think I’ve ever met an American woman who described herself as “Mrs. Husband’s Fullname”. Nowadays there’s a melange of women who trade in lastnames, women who keep their original lastname, women who are in their nth marriage where n\>1 and who use the lastname of an ex-husband, women who add their husband’s name to theirs… OTOH, the US isn’t the only country where trading your birth-lastname for your husband’s upon marriage used to be standard. Angela Merkel uses the lastname of her first husband, and I don’t think she’s anybody’s idea of a weak little woman. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/48 "2012-02-18T14:59:19Z")
There’s a confusion between actually taking on the name of the husband, vs how one might be addressed in formal settings, like a wedding invitation. Alice Miller never became Mr. John Smith, but she might be called in certain situations. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/49 "2012-02-18T16:42:38Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > As in the Persian-speaking world: Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan. And Turkic too. > > In America today, that practice has been almost obsolete for decades. From my earliest memories in childhood in the 1960s of seeing that practice, it made me instinctively wonder why can’t women keep their own first names, at least. > > Since at least the 1980s, if not the 1970s, it’s gone out of the national customs except for maybe a few holdouts. Old people. I was surprised the other day (I’m on various Democratic party mailing lists) when I received a letter from Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy. Surprised because it’s been years since I’ve seen anyone still doing that. My Mom switched to using her own name forty years ago. Ethel’s letter asking me to send money to some Democratic campaign fund was like opening your grandmother’s wardrobe from which wafts a hint of scent (maybe her closet was built of cedarwood, or she put up her clothes in lavender) that instantly triggers your vivid memories of the days when Kennedys ruled the land, women went by their husbands’ first names, and all ladies had to wear white gloves to be properly attired. Ooh, I got the same letter, and had the same reaction. (I didn’t actually open or read the letter; the return address was noticeable enough.) So…quaint. So…old-fashioned. So…_silly_. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/50 "2012-02-18T16:52:25Z")
> [@muttrox](#): > > There’s a confusion between actually taking on the name of the husband, vs how one might be addressed in formal settings, like a wedding invitation. Alice Miller never became Mr. John Smith, but she might be called in certain situations. Not sure what this means. (And you meant _Mrs._ John Smith, correct?) I think “Mr. and Mrs. John Smith” is still used in wedding invitations and the like, at least sometimes, though I don’t think I would use it. But it certainly used to be that in even semi-formal-ish settings women would often be identified as “Mrs. John Smith,” even without the “Mr.” being anywhere nearby. I recall a booklet that I read in high school that was typed up by “Mrs. James E. Shoreland, Jr.” --that was about 1975, and I remember wondering why the hell they couldn’t say it was typed up by plain ol’ Maisie Shoreland, or whatever her name actually was. And I remember being involved in a community theater group a year or so later and seeing the names of fundraising committee members (all women, virtually all married) listed in the program as “Mrs. Thomas Easton III, Mrs. Peter Froehlich, Mrs. Benjamin Gates,” etc., and wondering why anybody thought this was a good idea. Anyway, “certain situations” were “many situations,” in my recollection at least. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/51 "2012-02-18T17:07:28Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > OTOH, the US isn’t the only country where trading your birth-lastname for your husband’s upon marriage used to be standard. Angela Merkel uses the lastname of her first husband, and I don’t think she’s anybody’s idea of a weak little woman. Precisly because Alice Miller becoming Alice Smith after marrying John Smith is standard in most of the Western World (and probably the Far and Near Eastern societies, too) that custom itself would not be remarkable. It’s the additional, unusual practise of calling Alice Smith Mrs. John Smith that strikes non-USians as weird. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/52 "2012-02-18T17:44:13Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > It’s the additional, unusual practise of calling Alice Smith Mrs. John Smith that strikes non-USians as weird. Speak for yourself. That practice is perfectly common in some European cultures, such as Hungarian. ---
**Author:** ![FloatyGimpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/floatygimpy/32/7750_2.png) [@FloatyGimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FloatyGimpy)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/53 "2012-02-18T17:58:17Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > “Witnesses reported a male person leaving the scene and crossing the street. She was then observed driving away in a dark car.” I have no idea if the person in question is male or female or if there are two people, a male and a female. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/54 "2012-02-18T18:19:09Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Precisly because Alice Miller becoming Alice Smith after marrying John Smith is standard in most of the Western World (and probably the Far and Near Eastern societies, too) that custom itself would not be remarkable. > > It’s the additional, unusual practise of calling Alice Smith Mrs. John Smith that strikes non-USians as weird. Psst! See posts 48 and 49, perhaps among several others. An awful lot of USians find it weird, too, and it’s very unusual to hear it nowadays, has been for several decades now. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/55 "2012-02-18T18:27:17Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > It’s the additional, unusual practise of calling Alice Smith Mrs. John Smith that strikes non-USians as weird. It’s only used in the most formal of contexts, and not even there a lot of the times. At least in my area of the US. I personally have only encountered it in the form of “Mr. & Mrs.” on invitations. I’ve never had a woman introduced to me as “Mrs. John Smith,” nor have I ever seen a letter singly addressed to “Mrs. John Smith.” I’m sure it happens, but it’s a bit odd. As mentioned above, Hungarian do it, too, with the _né_ suffix, so somebody married to John Smith would be Kovacs Janosné. However, this also tends to be limited to a formal register. That said, I’ve heard this form spoken and written with relative regularity. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2012, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971/56 "2012-02-18T18:36:09Z")
> [@muttrox](#): > > Alice Miller never became Mr. John Smith, but she might be called in certain situations. Well, wouldn’t that depend on whether he lives in a place that recognizes sex changes? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-languages-with-gender-more-sexist/612971.md?page=2)