I was cleaning the litterbox the other day while our kitten sat nearby and supervised. It was, shall we say, a messy job. “Oh my God, Captain Poopypants!” I exclaimed as I filled my scoop. (No, her name isn’t Poopypants, and no, she wasn’t in the least bit ashamed of herself.) Immediately, a thought popped into my mind: But I can’t call her ‘Captain’; she’s a girl!
And then I punched myself in the face.
We all love to say we’re not sexist, but sometimes our unconscious biases spill out in our writing. This was a classic example; me for a second wondering how a female could be captain of anything. Duh.
Here are a few other ways in which our words betray our non-conscious sex and gender biases:
- Calling women ‘girls’, especially if they work for you or perform lower-paying jobs like housekeeping or secretarial work. “I’ll have my girl call your girl”. Um . . . your ‘girl’ is 42 and has grown kids . . . .
- Using a woman’s first name while referring to men by their last. “John Donovan, Miguel Santos, and Charlene were at the meeting.” Surely you mean ‘Ms. Thornhill’!
- Referring to women as ‘females’. “What are all these females so upset about?” ‘Female’ is a biological term. Outside of medical or scientific situations regarding humans, the term is usually applied to animals. Who wants to be defined by their sex organs and chromosomes?
- ‘Lady doctor’ and ‘male nurse’. We often make assumptions about the sex of a person in certain professions, so we feel we have to loudly announce when that person doesn’t belong to the gender we expect. How terribly 80s of us. How ‘bout we stop?
- “Professor’s Wife Murdered”. I’ll never forget that newspaper headline; it actually caused quite an outcry from women’s groups. With all this woman must have achieved in her life, and the tragedy that she’d lost it, why was she reduced to the context of her relationship with a man? Why not “Science Teacher Murdered”? Why not “Runner-up in Art Competition Murdered”? She was more than a wife, no?
I’m not a huge advocate of completely unsexing the English language, and don’t care for newly created terms that disguise or eliminate gender altogether, but I do think we should keep our radar on when we write. The relationship between the genders is already fraught with tension. Why add to it?
Can you think of any more examples? Put them in the comments and let’s talk.
