It’s been difficult to witness America fall prey to vicious capitalism over the past two years, electing a man with a blatant disregard for individuality. Misogynist, racist, pig- a few of our favourite slurs used by you guys in the comments.
Are we justified in our judgement? Are we, Britain, any better?
Why don’t we begin with one of the first things we are taught to do, speak. Have you ever said Mrs and Mr? Does this sound strange to you? That’s what we thought. Standard English has opted to place males above females in order of precedence. Following this men are usually placed before women in text. For example The Sun implements address terms such as the widow, the wife, the daughter, weakening their involvement or power in the article. However this may be due to the significantly lower crime rates within females, with women only accounting for 19.6% of arrests in violent crime.
The possessive ‘my’ is frequently used by males to refer to the women in their lives. Undermining their purpose and value, even if they have higher status than their ‘husband’. The term ‘man’ is persistently used to refer to both men and women, eg mankind.
Linguists Zimmerman & West have extensively researched mixed sex conversation and came to the conclusion it’s there that lies the evidence for male linguistic domination. Boys have the balls to interrupt and less inclined to worry about conflict in conversation, using direct orders “do this…” “I want…” “I need you to…”
Further research suggests this difference in language use is because of the gender separation between children at such a young age. Girls interact with girls and boys with boys- therefore develop their language amongst themselves, adopting similar features.
After assessing the issue we believe it may be more probable that context is everything. Men have historically had more power, wealth and influence and this is reflected in the words we use.