Genderlects and How They Control Us

Mr. Robertson’s presentation on genderlects made me more conscious of the underlying connotations that may be associated with words and phrases that we mesh into our speech on a daily basis. The thesis of Monday evening’s discussion was the following: “This training through the use of conditioning denies girls the means to speak strongly. They learn that they must contain their wills and personal identities.” As a female in today’s society, I feel that certain aspects of this statement do fall in line with my personal experiences; however, in a particularly unconscious fashion. For instance, Louisa made a fantastic point that many adolescent girls in this day and age say “im sorry” or “just” all the time to lessen their “ask” or an assertion, likely without even realizing it. I personally believe that as a woman, I am not afraid to speak up and seek a position of leadership, especially in the tight-knit Govs community; however, I do occasionally catch myself overusing phrases like “I’m sorry” or “I don’t really know but…” in order to curtail the importance of what I may be trying to say. I am unsure of whether or not to attribute this to my shy, more introverted personality or to connect it to this sexist stereotype. On the contrary, I do feel that although women are stereotypically perceived to be more emotional, weak, and less assertive, more and more women are challenging this overgeneralization. For instance, more women are earning leadership roles and running for positions in office. We can even see this shift in our own Byfield bubble at the Governor’s Academy with Adeliza as our Academy President. According to the Business Insider article, “Women’s evaluations contain nearly twice as much language about their communal or nurturing style — e.g., "helpful" or "dedicated."” I do feel that sometimes this does hold true; for instance, many of the comments on my report cards are filled with words like “collaborative,” “helpful,” and “driven.” 

Mr. Robertson also took the time to read brief, second grade student essays to us. Our job was to guess which stories were written by boys and which were written by girls. Without even taking into account the manifest content of the story and the plot itself, the tone of voice that Mr. Robertson had employed while reading each essay immediately revealed the gender of the writer. For instance, as he read a story about a baseball game that a young boy had written, he employed a more self-assured, boastful tone of voice. On the other hand, he used a rather soothing, pleasant tone as he read some of the girls’ stories. He admittedly remarked that he had no idea that he was changing the tone of his voice, yet because he had seen the name of the writer, he inadvertently applied a tone to suit that of a second grade boy or girl. I was very surprised by how easily we were able to pick up on the gender of the student simply by paying attention to Mr. Roberton’s tone and the plot.