Avoiding ‘Her’!

When a teacher in one college asked students to write a letter to the editor of a local newspaper complaining about the growing incidence of crime, 95 per cent of the students began the letter with the address followed by the salutation Dear Sir. Only the more perceptive, a mere 5 per cent gave consideration to the other sex by addressing Dear Sir/Madam. The majority still imagined a man only occupies such important positions. This may be true in Tanzania where one barely comes across a newspaper or publication with a woman Editor but assuming that children in our schools are not aware of this, are our educational institutions producing students with a gender bias?

Neil Armstrong has been blamed for conveniently overlooking half of humanity when he proclaimed on reaching the moon, "That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." This is now quoted as a historical moment when an important public figure threw linguistic sensitivity to wind. Instead of mankind he could have said human beings, society, humankind, humans, humanity or people instead of using man and mankind as if there are no womenfolk in the world.

If one peruses the English language one finds a spate of words where politically correct gender is often not used. For example instead of using chairperson one often uses chairman or instead of bellman or bellboy why does one avoid using bellhop? When defining the ordinary person in the street one often uses the terminology man in the street instead of average or ordinary person. When talking of synthetic material why does one use the term man-made instead of artificial or synthetic?

In advertised vacancies, linguistic sexism is exposed when one sees adverts saying things like, each candidate should include three copies of his resume with the application. Such adverts pre-suppose or make it appear that the potential candidate will be a man.

This just brings to mind as to how certain language features, including its grammar and structure, help to reinforce the idea of male superiority and female inferiority. What is now termed "sexist" language gives a faulty perception of male dominance and superiority through language. So whether it is a candidate who is asked through written instructions to be careful about his identity card or a prospective manager who is always thought of to be a man or a reference to our museum with Olduvai Gorge, as one depicting the Evolution of Man — all these instances and innumerable more go on to prove how chauvinist our language is.

One wonders if certain language features cause sexism or if sexism causes these language features. Linguistics and psychology students are aware of what is famously called the Whorf-Sapir Hypothesis, which invalidates the assumption that language is merely a set of symbols for the communication of our thoughts. The theory argues that thinking requires language and the characteristics of a particular language actually shape the specific manner in which users of a language think about things.

In other words it says that the particular language used determines how people see the world. The hypothesis is controversial and some thinkers believe in the precedence of thinking over language rather than other way round as the Whorf-Wapir hypothesis suggests. However many critics see the relationship between language and perception as being circular or dialectical. We can say that thinking initially precedes language as a cause for its evolution, however language ultimately takes over and then fashions our thought.

To the cause of studying sexism in language this view is appropriate because the present language structure can be ascribed to the patriarchal superiority that society has held for a long time. However, the conscious effort to make our language gender neutral can be espoused more fervently by the logic that if we are not proactive and do the needful today, language might strongly inject the prejudice that it carries with it and continue to affect our thinking.

Many people speaking or writing English wish to avoid using language, which supports biased attitude to a particular sex, usually women. This consciousness is important because sexist language is being increasingly regarded as a defect in writing. We have already ignored it long enough while society has commonly declared God a man by often addressing supplications to the Almighty as He rather than Thou. Its time that newspaper Editors and our school teachers seriously consider discontinuing gender bias in our daily written and spoken language.