Gender and Language

Home > Psychology > Gender psychology > Gender and Language

The ways in which language reflects and reinforces gender roles and stereotypes.

Gender identity: The subjective sense of oneself as male, female, or something else.
Sex: The biological categorization of individuals as male, female, or intersex based on anatomical, chromosomal, and hormonal characteristics.
Gender roles: The socially constructed expectations about how men and women should behave, think, and feel.
Stereotypes: Widely held beliefs about the characteristics and behaviors of men and women based on their sex/gender.
Language and power: How language use can reflect and perpetuate power imbalances between men and women.
Sexism: Prejudice, discrimination, or stereotyping based on sex/gender, often resulting in unequal treatment of men and women.
Androgyny: The combining of traditionally masculine and feminine qualities in individuals.
Intersectionality: The way multiple identities, such as race, class, and gender, interact to create unique experiences of marginalization and privilege.
Gendered language: The ways in which language use reinforces or challenges gender roles and stereotypes.
Non-binary genders: Gender identities that exist outside of the binary of male and female.
LGBTQ+ language: The unique language used by members of the LGBTQ+ community to describe their identities and experiences.
Pronouns: The words used to refer to individuals, including traditional pronouns (he/him, she/her) and newer gender-neutral pronouns (they/them, ze/hir).
Gender-neutral language: Language that avoids reinforcing traditional gender roles and stereotypes.
Feminist linguistics: The study of language use through a feminist lens, examining how language can both reflect and perpetuate gender inequality.
Gender in the workplace: The ways in which gender impacts communication, leadership, and decision making in professional settings.
Biological sex: This refers to the physical and physiological characteristics that define males and females, such as genitalia, hormones, chromosomes, and secondary sex traits. Some scholars argue that biological sex shapes language use and perception, in terms of pitch, intonation, vocabulary, and syntax. For instance, studies have shown that males tend to use more assertive, competitive, and coarse language than females, who use more polite, empathetic, and communal language.
Gender identity: This refers to a person's internal sense of being male, female, neither, or both, regardless of their biological sex. Gender identity can influence language use and perception, as certain words, phrases, and expressions may be perceived as more or less congruent with one's self-identified gender. For example, transgender individuals may prefer to use pronouns, nouns, and verbs that match their gender identity, even if they don't align with their biological sex or societal norms.
Gender stereotypes: This refers to the social and cultural expectations, beliefs, and attitudes associated with gender roles and norms, such as "masculine" and "feminine". Gender stereotypes can influence language and communication by shaping the way people express themselves and interpret others' messages. For instance, women may be expected to use more emotional, indirect, and deferential language than men, who may be expected to use more factual, direct, and assertive language.
Language ideology: This refers to the cultural and ideological beliefs and values that shape the way people think about language and its relationship to gender, power, and identity. Language ideology can influence how people perceive and evaluate different language varieties, accents, and styles, as well as how they perceive and evaluate different speakers based on their gender, race, ethnicity, class, and other factors. For instance, some language ideologies may privilege "standard" or "prestigious" dialects and penalize non-standard or vernacular dialects, which can have gendered implications.
Intersectionality: This refers to the idea that different aspects of human identity and experience, such as gender, race, class, sexuality, and ability, intersect and interact in complex ways that shape language and communication. Intersectionality can help to challenge simplistic and static notions of gender and language by highlighting the diverse and dynamic ways that people use language to express their identities, experiences, and social positions. For example, a black queer woman may use language in different ways than a white straight man or a disabled non-binary person, depending on their unique intersectional identities and contexts.
"Research into the many possible relationships, intersections and tensions between language and gender is diverse...could be said to encompass work notionally housed within applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, conversation analysis, cultural studies, feminist media studies, feminist psychology, gender studies, interactional sociolinguistics, linguistics, mediated stylistics, sociolinguistics, and feminist language reform and media studies."
"...there is no single approach that could be said to 'hold the field'. Discursive, poststructural, ethnomethodological, ethnographic, phenomenological, positivist and experimental approaches can all be seen in action during the study of language and gender..."
"...a broad and sustained interest in the varieties of speech associated with a particular gender... and a related interest in the social norms and conventions that (re)produce gendered language use... and studies that focus on ways language can produce and maintain sexism and gender bias, and studies that focus on the contextually specific and locally situated ways in which gender is constructed and operationalized."
"The study of gender and language in sociolinguistics and gender studies is often said to have begun with Robin Lakoff's 1975 book, Language and Woman's Place..."
"Prominent scholars include Deborah Tannen, Penelope Eckert, Janet Holmes, Mary Bucholtz, Kira Hall, Deborah Cameron, Jane Sunderland and others."
"As a result, research in this area can perhaps most usefully be divided into two main areas of study."
"different, and often competing, theoretical and political assumptions about the way discourse, ideology and gender identity should be conceived and understood."
"...related interest in the social norms and conventions that (re)produce gendered language use..."
"...studies that focus on ways language can produce and maintain sexism and gender bias..."
"...researchers try to understand how language affects the gender binary in society."
"Discursive, poststructural, ethnomethodological, ethnographic, phenomenological, positivist and experimental approaches can all be seen in action during the study of language and gender..."
"Research into the many possible relationships, intersections and tensions between language and gender is diverse..."
"...different, and often competing, theoretical and political assumptions about the way discourse, ideology and gender identity should be conceived and understood."
"...a broad and sustained interest in the varieties of speech associated with a particular gender..."
"...applied linguistics, linguistic anthropology, conversation analysis, cultural studies, feminist media studies, feminist psychology, gender studies, interactional sociolinguistics, linguistics, mediated stylistics, sociolinguistics, and feminist language reform and media studies."
"...contextually specific and locally situated ways in which gender is constructed and operationalized."
"...feminist media studies, feminist psychology, gender studies, feminist language reform and media studies."
"...phenomenological, positivist and experimental approaches can all be seen in action during the study of language and gender..."
"The study of language and gender has developed greatly since the 1970s."
"The 1995 edited volume Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self is often referred to as a central text on language and gender."