Jessie Robey Dr.

Weaver ENG 520 31 October 2013 Blurred Lines: A Study of Sexist Language Let me tell you a story. It is about the prompt that led me to investigate sexist language for my study of writing. My original topic was going to be the effects of social media on writing; in a way, I suppose social media has convinced me to write this paper, but more on that later. Shortly before this assignment was given, Robin Thickes song Blurred Lines had become very popular (For a video of Thickes song with lyrics, please visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA01pdI0jng). The song disgusted me by implying there were blurred lines between consensual sex and rape, so I avoided it as much as possible. One day, I was surprised to overhear a girl calling Thickes song her jam. I decided to post my thoughts on the song in a Missouri State group on Facebook. My purpose was to try to understand how a song that degrades half the population of the human race could be so popular. I received perhaps more insight than I bargained for. The majority of my peers, both male and female, did not see anything wrong with the song. I started to wonder what was wrong that educated people could not see the offensiveness of Thickes song. So, I decided to investigate one of the most powerful abilities we have at our disposal as human beingslanguage. The way we talk and write about things has great influence on how we think about things and vice versa. Our society spends a lot of time excluding groups that appear inferior and/or weak, i.e. anyone that is not a white male. Because this happens every day, many people do not even realize it is occurring. I believe this ignorance is the heart of the problem with sexist

Robey 2 language. People do not recognize sexist language when they hear it, they have not been told why sexist language is bad, and they have not been taught how to avoid it. In order to investigate my theory about ignorance, I created the following survey: 1. Has a teacher or professor ever talked to you about sexist language? If so, briefly describe what was discussed. 2. Do you avoid sexist language in your own writing? If so, how and if not, why? 3. Do you recognize sexist language when you read or hear it? If so, what brings your attention to it? 4. Fill in the blank with the pronoun(s) you would use in the following sentence: If a person wants to become a doctor, _______________ must apply to medical school. What made you chose the pronoun(s) you used? 5. Do you use the universal he? Explain your answer. If you do not use the universal he, include what you use instead. I wanted to see if college major or class standing made a difference in the responses. Therefore, I gave the survey to three different groups of people: Group 1. Friends 2. Peers Major Not English Standing Sophomore through senior and nontraditional* Seniors and nontraditional

English Variety, including 3. Honors ENG 110 students Freshman undeclared *I define a nontraditional student as someone above the average age of college students.

Ten of my non-English major friends responded to the survey, twenty peers, and twenty ENG 110 students. It is not surprising that these groups, each with their various backgrounds, responded differently to my survey.

Robey 3 Group ones answers were all across the board: about 30% had been taught about sexist language while the remaining 70% had been taught very little or nothing at all. However, 90% of these respondents knew they should avoid the universal he. Instead of he, they reported using a he or she construction, they, or more general terms such as human beings and one in their own writing. I did receive a rather amusing answer to question four; the respondent wrote he/she in the blank and explained, this survey made me realize I should [use he/she]. This answer in particular supported my ignorance theory: the respondent gave the correct answer but his/her explanation implies s/he was complying without really knowing why. Carol Carpenter writes in her article Exercises to Combat Sexist Reading and Writing, if confronted directly with this sexism, many students acquiesce by using Ms. and by revising all he pronouns to read he/she (293), but getting people to change their writing is not enough. Teachers need to tell students why they are being asked to change their language, otherwise they will view such practices as arbitrary, senseless, and bothersome (Carpenter 293). This is exemplified in the respondents answer to question four. S/he knew he was not the correct answer based on the content of the survey and changed his/her answer to reflect this, but the change is meaningless without the rationale behind it. What is this rationale? Carolie Coffey states in Language: a transformative key, for hundreds of years man has been creating a social reality that ignores one half of the human race (511). This is a problem because male and female students alike told [Coffey] that references to man, himself, and his left them feeling detached, even alienated (Coffey 512). In simpler terms, statements excluding either gender make both genders uncomfortable because such statements do not represent the reality of the world. Group two provided some interesting feedback as well. About half of these upper level English majors had been taught about sexist language and half had not. I discovered a thought-

Robey 4 provoking trend in this group: the respondents who had been taught about sexist language used he or she constructions, while those who had not used they. Both are gender neutral, however they presents another problemit is a plural pronoun. Thus, according to traditional grammar, the sentence If a person wants to become a doctor, they must apply to medical school is incorrect because they does not agree with a person in number. However, they, them, and their are expanding to become neutral in both gender and number. According to the New York Times, Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) already finds the singular they acceptable even in literary and formal contexts, but the Usage Panel of The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) isnt there yet (OConner and Kellerman MM14). The article continues, For centuries the universal pronoun was they. Writers as far back as Chaucer used it for singular and plural, masculine and feminine (MM14). Anne Fisher, a British schoolmistress and grammarian in the 18th century, was the first to suggest he as the universal pronoun, and the idea has stuck (OConner and Kellerman MM14). Nevertheless, many great writers Byron, Austen, Thackeray, Eliot, Dickens, Trollope and more continued to use they and company as singulars, never mind the grammarians (OConner and Kellerman MM14). A universal they would be useful in teaching gender neutral language since many people, students and teachers alike, baulk at the seeming wordiness of he or she constructions. My third group of respondents is rather exceptional: they are taking Honors English 110 with Dr. Margaret Weaver. Therefore, I knew she had probably talked to them about sexist language because she had done so with my English 520 class. The responses reflected this, and many students also commented that Dr. Weaver was the first teacher or professor to bring it up. Yet, I noticed something both in my own class and in the responses to my survey: Dr. Weaver

Robey 5 only talked to us about inclusive pronouns. There are other ways language can be sexist besides using exclusive pronouns. In Exercises to Combat Sexist Reading and Writing, Carpenter demonstrates this with an activity in which students compared the words used to describe Fredric Henry and Catherine Barkley in an excerpt from Hemmingways A Farewell to Arms (294). Below is Carpenters example of the table students might create: Verbs Fredric Henry master took stopped kissed lied held pretend play, go Catherine would (not) Barkley come walking looked love were shut Nouns Adjectives Adverbs Pronouns gunman masculine sharply game nice well place stakes mask pistol shame darling eyes night face you night garden (not) tall crazy tired awfully very suddenly

Carpenter goes on to explain: These words, even when taken out of the context of the story, seem to suggest maleness and femaleness. Notice how there are more action verbs associated with Henry, verbs that suggest power, dominance, and deception. The nouns complement this notion because of their association with violence and games. The adjectives and adverbs suggest, perhaps, an ambivalence. In contrast, besides the verbs of being, Catherine Barkley is associated with verbs which reflect a reaction and nouns that emphasize appearance and romance. Even the adjectives and adverbs reinforce her submissive stance, her need for a caretaker. (295)

Robey 6 Carpenters students did not notice the sexist language before creating the table just as most of us do not recognize everyday sexism that does not relate to pronouns. When answering question three, Do you recognize sexist language when you read or hear it? If so, what brings your attention to it?, respondents from all three groups replied they either did not notice sexist language or noticed it only in certain situations. Some of these situations include use of the universal he, derogatory language towards a specific gender, and when the respondents gender is left out. We need to teach people that there is more to sexist language than just pronouns; otherwise we will continue to be blithely unaware of sexism, even in our own writing! Readers may be curious to know more about the Facebook conversation I had about Blurred Lines which was the inspiration for this paper. First, let me say that what I tell you now is coming from memory: the administrators of the page deleted my post and its comments about a day after I started it. As the comments were not nearly as rude as I was expecting, I was surprised that they decided to remove the post. I cannot help thinking it is because our society does not want to admit its sexismthis was clearly evident in the comments. I was shocked by the reasoning my colleagues used to justify Thickes song. There were three main reasons behind their opinions: 1. The girl in the song was flirting with Thickes speaker which is implied by the lines the way you grab me / must wanna get nasty. The male speaker could not help thinking she must want to have sex. 2. Thicke has explained in interviews the song has been misinterpreted: it was meant to empower women. 3. Other music, particularly rap, is worse than Thickes song.

Robey 7 I could spend another paper tearing these arguments to pieces, but I will try to be brief here. As to number one, just because someone flirts does not mean s/he wants to have sex: that is a hasty generalization. The second argument may be refuted on the grounds of authorial intent. Many critical theories have asserted this is unimportantwhat matters is how the audience responds. Thicke obviously did not state his message well enough in the song if much of his audience is offended. Finally, the third argument is simply bad logic: just because someone else is doing something worse does not make it ok. These arguments are reflective of a sexist culture that does not even know it is sexist. So what is the solution to the problem of sexist language? Well, it is not entirely clear; I would even venture to say it is blurred. In Feminist meanings and the (de)politicization of the lexicon, Susan Ehrlich and Ruth King explain that, sexist language clearly reflects sexist social practices, [and] the continuing existence of such practices throws into question the possibility of successful language reform (59). This is indicative of what I wrote before about the ways we think influencing the ways we write. Ehrlich and Kings statement creates an endless cycle: we cannot change language without changing society, but we cannot change society without changing language. My suggestions lie in education; ask teachers to spend some time in a high school freshman English class discussing sexism and sexist language. College may be too late. Place ideas of inclusiveness into students heads as soon as possible. This may not change society any time soon, but we have to start somewhere. If we continue to tolerate the worldview implied in Robin Thickes Blurred Lines, women will never be treated as equal to men. Carolie Coffey sums it up nicely, we are attempting to create a new sense of our interrelationships with each other and thereby overcome social alienation (513).

Robey 8 Works Cited Carpenter, Carol. "Exercises to Combat Sexist Reading and Writing." College English. 43.1 (1981): 293-295. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. Coffey, Carolie. "Language: A Trans formative Key."Language in Society. 13.4 (1984): 511513. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. Ehrlich, Susan, and Ruth King. "Feminist meanings and the (de)politicization of the lexicon." Language in Society. 23.1 (1994): 59. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. O'Conner, Patricia T., and Stewart Kellerman. "All-Purpose Pronoun." New York Times 26 July 2006, MM14. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html?_r=0>. Thicke, Robin, perf. "Blurred Lines." Star Trak, 21 Mar 2013. Web. 18 Oct 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA01pdI0jng>.