Blog #6 "This New Species That Seeks a New Language: On Sexism in Langauge and Language Change"

Nancy Henley's article about sexism in the English language and language change was difficult for me to read without getting upset. I feel very strongly that in my life time women have drawn equal with men in everyday life. Even in the case of language, sexism is not what it once was. I feel it is sexist men who think they are inherently more important than women that use sexist language and not the language that makes people sexist. Men are not all aligned against feminist reform. English is not set in stone. There are alternatives and we all have a choice whether we want to use sexist language or not.

Henley says that "a women's sex is commonly treated as if it is the most salient characteristic of her being, but this is not the case for males" (4). I disagree with Henley. Again, a women's sex is her most relevant characteristic if you happen to be a stupid, hard headed, sexist man, but I am able to choose to focus on more than her gender if I want to. As a man, my experience has been that the characteristic other people, women and men, notice most is that I am a man. I think Henley's statement can be equally true for either sex.

This article made me mad because it had me feeling like the progress towards non-sexist language that has been made is being ignored in favor of more extreme changes that may be possible. I am all in favor of changing the world for the better, and eliminating sexist language would help, but progress is slow and painful. How about we celebrate the positive changes instead of complaining about what is still left to do. I may be wrong, but it seems that sexism in language has already changed for the better since 1987.