SEXism and LanguAGE: The Power of Profanity

Are you a writer? If Yes, what pronoun do you usually use – Masculine or Feminine Pronoun? Raising this question, I am beginning to exert conscious effort to be fair and neutral. Is it really trivial for me to worry about such matters?

Some would say no. But for the others, they would say that Language is Exclusionary. There are women here in our society who does not want them to be considered included in the term man. They say no to fall part in that Linguistic pit. They would hate the fact that they are being identified as a matching part of the male species and forced to link their gender identity with ours. When one says man, they say it does not include women. However, Women have no way of describing their person without including men, but men can continually describe themselves without including women. Women are expected to identify themselves with men, while men have the license to have their own identity. And they say that it is totally inequitable. Thus, we must commence to do away with this practice and conception of women identification. Using of man to include woman is no longer up to standard in a society where we are attempting to promote the idea that people are equal like in the Philippines.

That was an example of a Sexist Language. As defined, Sexist language is often found to be offensive and prejudicial, by both men and women. At its crudest and most hurtful, sexist language is a tool used to damage someone. I would make a clean breast that I am guilty of such crime, if you may consider it as one. I do use terms such as like 'bitch' and 'slut', which had been historically used as sexist remarks against females. These are used to refer to a "strong, independent, unattached female" and a "sexually liberal, hypersexual female. Moreover, without awareness, I am also using the term 'dude' which I never thought is also a sexist remark. It is being applied to males.

Thus, I am now making a conscious effort toward lessening the occurrence of sexist language. As the saying goes, do not do to others what you do not want to be done unto you. I would never want to see myself living in this world and struggling against people are really sensitively and psychologically harming me by targeting me with sexist comments. Thus, we must all be cautious of what words break away from our lips

Thus, we really have to be careful of what we say. As someone would say, Words are not Mathematical Equations that balance out. Words are carriers of thought, culture and systems.