Sexism in Language

  I found the section of Chapter 10 regarding Language and Gender to be quite interesting and informative.  As someone who doesn't consider themself to be at all sexist, I would never have thought that certain specific things can be construed so differently when heard by women versus men, or when spoken by a woman as opposed to a man.  I was not all that surprised, but I would not have expected that the tag question of "don't you think?" would be interpreted so differently based upon the gender of the speaker or audience.  It said that men interpret that phrase as uncertainty while women interpret it as an invitation for others to give their opinion.  If I were to hear that phrase in a speech I think that my most likely reaction to it would be to think that the speaker was trying to engage the audience and subtly make them think a little bit more about what they had just said.  It also said that when a woman speaker uses hedges or tag questions it causes listeners to view them as less competent, whereas if a male counterpart did the same it would have little effect on how their audience perceived their competence.

  In a way I think these inequalities in how men and women are judged when speaking have less to do with language and more to do with the continuing sexism and sexual bias perpetuated in our society.  Kelly Oxford, a comedian I follow on Twitter, once made the joke that "If men could get pregnant their would be an abortion clinic in every Starbucks."  On the same topic my wife recently commented that whenever she drives by the Planned Parenthood near our house and their are picketers protesting abortion they are always old men.  I am not trying to take a stance on abortion, I just think that it is interesting that the sex who is less impacted by abortion (men) seems to be the one who has the most outspoken opinions about it.  Maybe I have gotten off topic, but I think that it relates in that many men seem to have a subconcious belief that they have a right to dominantly impress their opinions and feelings on to women.

  I also liked the part where it said if you refer to a "female doctor" it is sexist because you are implying that a doctor would be more likely to be a man so it is necesarry to say the doctor was female.  I think that a lot of people do the same thing with race, which has always bothered me.  When describing someone a lot of people will say they are black, Indian, Asian, etc. but will not usually describe someone as white.  I don't actually think they should describe someone as white, rather I would think that race could be left out of someone's description unless it is for a police sketch or something of that nature where it is actually relevant/necessary to identify them.