Language & Gender

    Beginning from the point in which children can first comprehend language, gender roles and expectations, unbeknownst to said children, are being incorporated into their lives. As Mr.Robertson stated in his lecture, children learn not only how to use the language, but also how that same language treats them. While all children learn to use language, there are aspects of this learning which differ, depending on whether each child is male or female. Beginning at early childhood, little girls are often encouraged to be, “ladylike” in their use of language. This includes discouraging swear words, being over assertive, and being overly boastful. While little girls are conditioned to believe that using language in this way is not proper for them, little boys are conditioned in the opposite way. Boastful and assertive language is generally more accepted from little boys,even expected, as well as swear words and crass talk. This conditioning might start small, but it’s impact is immense. To quote Mr.Robertson, “language is power”, and the way individuals are conditioned and expected to use their language at a young age holds fast to those individuals throughout the rest of their lives. On a smaller scale, this can be seen by the use of more “softening” words by females in settings like a high school classroom. On a larger scale, it can be seen in the language used by females in their congressional speeches, as seen in Bei Yu and Syracuse’s study, Language and Gender in Congressional Speech. After analyzing all House floor debates from the 101st to the 110th Congress, separating male from female speakers, there were clear differences in the language used by each. Males used more articles, swear words, and pronouns. Females used more emotion words, social words, and long words. Women using more emotion words can perhaps be connected to the way in which little boys and girls are conditioned to behave. Girls are generally given more of an allowance to be emotional, and therefore may grow up more comfortable in the use of emotion words. Boys are oftentimes discouraged from being emotional, or at least showing it. Therefore, it makes sense that men may use less emotion words, since they may not have been raised to be as comfortable with emotions and the words that go with them, leading to a decreased use.In addition, male’s increased use of swear words compared to females in the speeches aligned with what was discussed in the lecture from Mr.Robertson, where we discussed that young boys are generally discouraged less from using swear words than girls are. This type of conditioning could very possibly lead to a differing amount of the use of swear words in men and women, just like the one that was observed in the congressional speech study.
    Although it is unknown how these speakers in the study were taught to use their language, it is very likely that some if not all of them were subject to the conditioning discussed in Mr.Robertson’s lecture. Discouraging girls from being boastful and assertive, while giving the opposite gender more leeway with the very same thing only perpetuates harmful gender roles and expectations, as girls grow up to be women who don’t even realize that they use their language to avoid being too assertive or too boastful. Boys who were allowed to be this way grow up more comfortable in asserting themselves, since may not have been discouraged from speaking that way like many girls are. While not everybody will give a congressional speech, everybody uses language. Language is power, and giving one gender the power to use it to assert themselves while discouraging the other gender from doing the same, gives males more power in their language.