Gendering

Language
 Meet our team

Harrish Dalle Dulay Anna Diane Pamularco Verte Mae Quintanilla Phelim Paul Pada
Gendering Language and
Gendering Language and Defining Gender and Understanding Gendering
its Possible Study
its Real Life Manifestations Language Language
Ventures

Presentation title 2
 Agenda
• Defining Gender and Language

• Understanding Gendering
Language

• Gendering Language and its

Real Life Manifestations

• Gendering Language and its

Possible Study Ventures

Gendering Language 3
 What is Gender?
Gender is a sociocultural expression of particular
characteristics and roles that are associated with certain
groups of people with reference to their sex and
sexuality.

Defining Gender 4
 What is Gender?
● Gender identity refers to an individual's internal
sense of their gender, whether they identify as male,
female, or non-binary.
● Gender expression refers to the way people express
their gender through their appearance, behavior, and
other social cues.

Defining Gender 5
 What is Gender?
● Gender roles are the expectations and norms assigned
to individuals based on their gender identity.

Defining Gender 6
 What is Gender?
There are many problems that occur within the topic of
gender, including:
Gender inequality - Women and individuals who identify as
non-binary often face discrimination, harassment, and
limited opportunities based on their gender identity.

Defining Gender 7
 What is Gender?
Gender-based violence - This includes sexual assault, domestic
violence, and other forms of violence that disproportionately
affect women.
Transphobia - Individuals who identify as transgender may face
discrimination, harassment, and violence due to their gender
identity.

Defining Gender 8
 What is Gender?
Gender stereotypes - These stereotypes are often reinforced by
media, education systems, religious institutions, and can limit
individuals' opportunities and restrict them to traditional gender
roles.
Lack of representation - Women, and individuals from other
marginalized gender identities are often underrepresented in
leadership positions, media representation, and other influential
areas of society.

Defining Gender 9
 What is Gender?
Lack of access to healthcare - Individuals who identify as non-
binary or transgender can experience barriers and discrimination
when accessing healthcare, including basic reproductive and
sexual health services.
Marginalization of LGBTQ+ individuals - Individuals who identify
as LGBTQ+ may experience rejection, violence, and a lack of
legal protections based on their gender and sexual identity.

Defining Gender 10
 What is Gender?
GENDER EQUALITY:
Gender equality is since long established as the
preferred wording for equal rights, life prospects,
opportunities and power for women and men, girls and
boys.

Defining Gender 11
 What is Language?
Language is a system of traditional spoken, manual (signed), or written
symbols through which humans express themselves as members of a
social group and participants in its culture. Language functions include
communication, identity expression, play, imaginative expression, and
emotional release.

Defining Language 12
 What is Gendering Language?
“Language and gender” refers to the relationship between the language
of male and female. Language and Gender are interrelated with each
other because men and women use different interactional patterns.

Understanding Gendering Language 13

 What is Gendering Language?
Gender manifests itself in language in forms of:
-Using gendered pronouns.
-Adding irrelevant information about gender in a description of an individual.
-Assigning gender to inanimate objects.
-Using gender stereotypes to describe objects or events.
-Describing people of different genders using different adjectives (descriptive words).
-Perpetuating stereotypes in non-verbal communication such as images and symbol.

Understanding Gendering Language 14

 What is Gendered Language?
Gendered language is commonly defined as language that favors one sex
or social gender over another. This would include using gender-specific
terms to refer to professions or people in English

Understanding Gendering Language 15

 What is Natural Gender?
The occurrences in a language that appear to be grammatical gender but
are not The use of the pronoun she in the sentence the girl may do as
she pleases is an example of natural gender, because the choice of the
pronoun she is determined by the actual sex of the person to whom the
noun girl refers rather than by the noun girl.

Understanding Gendering Language 16

 What is Genderless
Language?
There is no grammatical or pronominal gender. Except in very specific
cases discussed in the specific guidelines for those languages, those
languages do not require a specific strategy to be gender-inclusive.

Understanding Gendering Language 17

 Real Life Gender Specific Problems
and its Relation to Language
1. Women and non-binary people frequently face discrimination,
harassment, and limited opportunities because of their gender identity.

2. Gender stereotypes are frequently reinforced by the media, education

systems, and religious institutions, and they can limit individuals'
opportunities and confine them to traditional gender roles.

Understanding Gendering Language 18

 Real Life Gender Specific Problems
and its Relation to Language
3. Women and people of other marginalized gender identities are
frequently underrepresented in leadership positions, media
representation, and other influential areas of society.

Understanding Gendering Language 19

Researches Concerning Gendering Language
 The language—gender interface: challenging co-optation
By Deborah Cameron

1996
Language is a personal characteristic of a man or woman.
Language and gender research, like other forms of gender
discourse, has had an impact outside of academia. As academic
research findings are taken up in popular media and applied
institutionally for practical purposes, oversimplified notions of the
relationship between language and gender are increasingly having
an impact on women's lives.

Understanding Gendering Language 21

 The language—gender interface: challenging co-optation
By Deborah Cameron

1996
Verbal hygiene refers to a diverse set of normative metalinguistic
practices based on the belief that certain ways of using language
are functionally, aesthetically, or morally superior to others. It's
worth noting that the popular preference for difference models
over dominance models parallels developments in language and
gender studies.

Understanding Gendering Language 22

 The Feminist Foundations of Language, Gender, and
Sexuality Research
By Mary Bucholtz
2014
There are deep feminist roots in the study of language, sexuality,
and gender. Feminist linguistics has been shaped by many different
schools of thought and political movements over the last several
decades, and this article examines these influences. It begins with
difference feminisms, which are theories that view the sexes as
fundamentally different from one another and include liberal,
radical, and cultural feminisms; critical feminisms,

Understanding Gendering Language 23

 The Feminist Foundations of Language, Gender, and
Sexuality Research
By Mary Bucholtz
2014
which have introduced perspectives overlooked in difference
approaches and are primarily concerned with class, race, and
masculinities; and queer feminisms, which pay systematic attention
to the relationship between gender and sexuality and include LGBT
approaches, sex-positivism, and other related theories. Finally, it
proposes that feminist linguistics may add to feminist theory by
bridging the gap between discursive and material approaches to
gender and sexuality.

Understanding Gendering Language 24

The Gendering of Language: A Comparison of Gender
Equality in Countries with Gendered, Natural Gender,
and Genderless Languages
Caswell et. Al.
 Introduction
There are no languages today that do not make any distinction between
genders, leading linguists and psychologists believe that gender is "so
fundamental to social organization and social structure that linguistic
means to refer to this category are indispensable for speech
communities" (Stahlberg et al. 2007, p. 163).

Understanding Gendering Language 26

 Introduction
However, references to gender grammatical conventions in language
have sparked contemporary concerns about language's ability to shape
social stereotypes about gender and, ultimately, status distinctions
between men and women. Language, according to the feminist language
critique, is overwhelmingly androcentric, putting girls and women at a
disadvantage in personal and professional relationships (Stahlberg et al.
2007)

Understanding Gendering Language 27

 Introduction
Gendering Language has the ability to influence our perceptions. For
example, researchers discovered that the grammatical gender of a term
for an inanimate object can influence people's perceptions of the object's
masculine or feminine characteristics, and this cannot be attributed solely
to the object's properties because the researchers used terms that were
grammatically masculine in one language and feminine in another.

Understanding Gendering Language 28

 Introduction
In this paper, they investigated the possible links between gendered
language systems and gender inequality by first reviewing the literature
on the many ways gendering occurs in language beyond grammatical
gender conventions and how such gendering in language has been shown
to impact status relevant social decision-making and behavior.

Understanding Gendering Language 29

 Statement of the Problem:
1. Identify and categorize the countries that are using the following in their language:
a) Gendered;
b) Natural Gendered; and
c) Genderless Orientation

2. What is the average level of gender equality in terms of gendered, natural gendered,
and genderless orientation countries?
3. What is the relationship between countries’ grammatical language systems and indices
of gender equality?

Understanding Gendering Language 30

Results and Discussions
Caswell et. Al.
 To identify countries with gendered, natural gendered, and
genderless language, the researchers utilized a pre-existing matrix
called Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index by Hausmann, et. Al.,
2009.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation 32

 Gendered
Mailman/mailwoman- postal carrier
Janitor/janitress- custodian
Doctor/nurse- healthcare provider
Crewman/crewwoman- crew member
Congressman/congresswoman- representative
Actor/actress- performer
Salesman/saleswoman- salesperson

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

33
 Feminine Masculine Male pronouns Female pronouns
-beautiful
-elegant -handsome He She
-strong His Her
-delicate
-resilient Him Herself
-tender
-daring Himself
-graceful -tenacious

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

34
 • Norway, have actively reformed their languages to reflect a more
genderless outlook (Gabriel and Gygax 2008).

• Generally, gendered languages belong to the following linguistic

families: Slavic (Russian), Germanic (German), Romance (Spanish),
Indo-Aryan (Hindi), or Semitic (Hebrew), with some exceptions.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

35
 • English (a West Germanic language), and Northern Germanic (or
Scandinavian) languages, belong to what are called natural gender
languages. While these natural gender languages distinguish gender
through pronouns (such as he or she), most nouns have no
grammatical marking of gender, unlike the gendered languages.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

36
 • Finally, some languages, called genderless languages, are
characterized by their complete lack of grammatical gender
distinction in the noun system. In Finnish, for example, hän refers to
both he and she and so has no gender. Genderless languages
generally belong to the Uralic (Finnish), Turkic (Turkish), Iranian
(Persian), Sinitic (Chinese), and Bantu (Swahili) language families,
along with some others.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

37
 1. In Scandinavian languages, such as Swedish and Norwegian, there
is a natural gender distinction between masculine and feminine
nouns.

For example,
Teacher- "lärare" and it is a common gender noun, meaning it can be
used for both male and female teachers.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

38
 However, the word "father" in Swedish is "pappa" and it is a
masculine gender noun, meaning it is only used for male fathers.
Similarly, the word "mother" in Swedish is "mamma" and it is a
feminine gender noun, meaning it is only used for female mothers.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

39
 2. Russian is a gendered language, where nouns, adjectives,
pronouns, and verbs change their forms depending on the gender of
the noun they refer to.
For example,
Teacher- "учитель" (uchitel’) Doctor-"врач" (vrach)
male teacher- "учитель" (uchitel’) male doctor-"врач" (vrach)
female teacher- "учительница" female doctor-"врачиха"
(uchitelnitsa). (vrachiha).

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40
 This gender distinction is also present in pronouns and adjectives.
For example, the masculine pronoun "он" (on) means "he," while the
feminine pronoun "она" (ona) means "she." And the adjective
"хороший" (horoshiy) means "good" in the masculine form, while
the feminine form "хорошая" (horoshaya) means "good" in
reference to a feminine noun.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

41
 3. Finnish is an example of a genderless language, which means that it
does not have grammatical gender. In Finnish, all nouns are treated
the same way, regardless of their gender.

For example, “teacher” in Finnish means "opettaja." This word is

gender-neutral and can be used for both male and female teachers
without any changes to the word itself. Similarly, the word for
"doctor" in Finnish is "lääkäri," which is also gender-neutral.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

42
 In Finnish, the third-person pronoun "hän" refers to a person
regardless of gender.

For example, "hän on opettaja" means "they are a teacher," but it

could refer to either a male or female teacher.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

43
 Additionally, Finnish does not have grammatical gender in its
adjectives or verbs. Adjectives and verbs are not modified based on
the gender of the noun they describe or refer to.

For example, "hyvä opettaja" means "good teacher," and it can be

used to describe both male and female teachers without any
modifications.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

44
 Average level of Gender
Equality:
It has been found that gendered countries scored the lowest in terms of gender
equality (M= .67, SE= .004), than countries with a naturally gendered language (M = .72,
SE= .011) and a genderless language (M= .70, SE=.008). These statistical data were
analyzed using MANCOVA (Multivariate analysis of covariance) and ANOVA (Analysis of
Variance)

Legend:
M = Mean
SE = Standard Error

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

45
 Average level of Gender
Equality:
Furthermore, the current findings suggest that countries that speak
natural gender languages are more likely to exhibit gender equality—
particularly in terms of women's greater access to political
empowerment—than countries that speak gendered or genderless
languages, as countries that speak genderless languages appear to fall in
between countries that speak gendered and natural gender languages on
the various indicators of gender equality.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

46
 Average level of Gender
Equality:
As Stahlberg and colleagues have noted, despite the
assumption that genderless languages are gender fair or
neutral, research has shown that a seemingly gender neutral
term can be interpreted in a gender biased way.

Gendering Language and its Real Life Manifestation

47
 The Relationship between countries’
grammatical language systems and
indices of gender equality
Previous research has shown how grammatical gender in language can
influence people's perceptions (e.g., Boroditsky et al. 2003), as well as
how minor changes in the gendering of everyday language can influence
an individual's judgments, decisions, and behavior in ways that can
influence the relative status and treatment of men and women at an
interpersonal level (e.g., Bem and Bem 1973; Hamilton et al. 1992).

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48
 Conclusion
Future research could look into other factors that predict gender
equality across cultures, as well as different ways of operationally defining
the variables to include in the model. In the current study, for example,
we used the continent to define the various geographic locations. Smaller
regional differences, on the other hand, may be more appropriate for
disentangling geographic influences on gender equality.

Presentation title 49
 Conclusion
Researchers will eventually need to draw connections between large-
scale cross-cultural trends, cognitive process models, and experimental
research on interpersonal behavior to truly understand the intersection
of gender in language, cognition, and culture.

Presentation title 50
 REFERENCES
• Gender analysis toolkit for health systems. (2016, March 21). Retrieved from
https://gender.jhpiego.org/analysistoolkit/gender-concepts-and-definitions/

• “Gender and Language: The Relationship between Language And... | Ipl.org.” Www.ipl.org,
www.ipl.org/essay/Gender-And-Language-The-Relationship-Between-Language-P3W6RQ7EACPR.

• Language. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/language

• Caswell, Laakso, & Freilino. (2011). The gendering of language: A comparison of gender equality in
countries
...https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257663669_The_Gendering_of_Language_A_Comparison_of_G
ender_Equality_in_Countries_with_Gendered_Natural_Gender_and_Genderless_Languages

Presentation title 51
 REFERENCES
• Cameron. (1996). The language—gender interface: challenging co-optation. Retrieved from
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315842745-2/language%E2%80%94gender-
interface-challenging-co-optation-deborah-cameron?context=ubx

● Bucholtz. (2014, March 21). The Feminist Foundations of Language, Gender, and Sexuality Research.
Retrieved from
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118584248.ch1?fbclid=IwAR1dbYuOCqsonjfoKECFKa
JFv25WmI42ulsbzldgWKJJC1mE3fmwWaLRSvo

Presentation title 52
Thank
Group 3
you