It is a fact that Language makes communication conveniently possible, right? And one is ceased to imagine a life without language, like how would one be able to express the emotions, ideas, desires, superiority, and authority, without language…Oh! Rather would look fine if the last two words are not included. How can one establish his superiority or authority through language, right? Of course, the colonialism is ended a long time ago, and more than half of the countries are democratic in the world. Let’s try to understand this with the very word ‘authority’ by searching the meaning of it in chrome. And the result would be:
| authority /ɔːˈθɒrɪti/ noun The power or right to give orders, make decisions and enforce obedience. “he had absolute authority over his subordinates” A person or organization having political or administrative power and control. “health authorities issued a worldwide alert” |
How amazingly the word’s meaning and the usage of that word in a sentence is mentioned! Try to search for any random word like superiority, speech, etc. Majorly, the result that would be available in any dictionary would have ‘he’, ‘his’, and ‘him’ as a pronoun that illustrates the word in a sentence. Or we generally find words like mankind, businessman, salesman, and the common man (layman) used in our speech on a daily basis. We will hardly encounter a woman being addressed as a businessman or salesman.
A language should be flawless and equal for people but when it comes to gender, it is partial or perhaps we use it in a partial way. And that is why most of the time, we unconsciously gender certain words and actions as feminine and some as masculine. For example, we associate speech with masculinity and silence with femininity. This gendering of words and emotions is an issue, isn’t it? It is…It is… Because it is commonly said that language is patriarchal!
Language is a whole system which runs images and symbols and generates meaning on the basis of that. And these meaning indirectly controls us in one or the other way.
Catherine Belsey, in her work on post structuralism, clarifies the appropriateness of Language that it demands the users’ subscription to the meanings already given in it which she believes always precedes the users’ familiarity with it.
To use the English language appropriately and in an unbiased manner, it seems we must inquire whether this language has a neutral singular pronoun.
If inquired in dictionary or encyclopedia, it says: “His superior intelligence has enabled man to achieve things impossible for other animals.”
We also say often ‘man’ and its associated generic myth excludes woman from it. Even, if closely observed, the colours pink and yellow are associated with girls and blue and red with boys, making strict binaries in gender. This way language becomes conservatively social. Coming back to the prime objective of establishing superiority through language, it can be assumed that the social meaning which this kind of dominated language generates makes some allergic distinctions into gender. As a result, certain words will be used for and by certain gender and hence the later gender will always be privileged. All that matters here is gender equality of language.
In finding out certain words in the dictionary, children generally tend to grasp the meanings and contexts with which the use of the word is associated politically. This language rather has masculine imagery of words which is needed to be modified by replacing certain words. And the way this language is taught lefts a deep impression in young minds. It nurtures their thought process and their roles of performance in future. Some of the words can be replaced by using some neutral words like ‘entrepreneur or representative’, ‘humankind’, ‘salesperson’, ‘ordinary person’, etc. There has been a release of Gender-neutral vocabulary but the query is that why is it not found in regular writings? For example, the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’ can be referred to as ‘zhe’ (a gender-neutral pronoun) then why is it not in use. It is assumed that linguistic authority is hegemonic in nature. Can it be because it will decrease the patriarchal domain of the language? What force is stopping the reconstruction? Some of the critics find it inconvenient to use such language for regular usage. They argue it will make the sense more general.
If the gender-neutral language begins to be used on a regular basis, then it will reduce the gender partiality and will also make a difference in the native tongue of human. This will lead us to think more about other languages that are all languages phallocentric in nature. As mentioned above that language seems to have a patriarchal construction, the scope of improving it will become a necessary force. The UNESDOC Digital Library has released guidelines on gender-neutral language but it is a matter of concern to observe whether it will remain applicable only on the theoretical level.
Should we let the language be phallocentric?
Happy thinking!
References-
Belsey, Catherine. Poststructuralism: A very short introduction. OUP Oxford, 2002.
Cameron, Deborah. Language and Gender: Mainstreaming and the Persistence of Patriarchy. 5 March 2019. 5 July 2020 <https://items.ssrc.org/sociolinguistic-frontiers/language-and-gender-mainstreaming-and-the-persistence-of-patriarchy/>.
Kavisha Dilip Alagiya
Email- kavishaalagiya@gmail.com
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