Gender: a synonym for sex; most often classified as male, female, or neither
Gender: a grammatical category; referred to as feminine or masculine nouns and adjectives
Formed by the same letters and pronounced in identical manners, these two types of “gender” have come to reveal aspects of our gender-divided society. For English speakers trying to learn different languages, the idea of words being given a specific gender is vexing! In fact, this often presents a large hurdle placed in the way of individuals attempting to master alternative languages such as Spanish. Most languages across the world divide nouns up by “gender,” often in quite arbitrary ways. Grammatical gender is a way of categorizing nouns; it does not necessarily match up with the “natural gender” of the person or object being described.
Certain languages assign gender based on the ending of a word. For example, Spanish words that often end in “-a” are considered to be “feminine.” Words like “mesa” would be preceded by the title “la” to distinguish this word as feminine, making it “la mesa.” Other languages are influenced by mythology and cultural views on gender. For example, in the Alamblak language of Papua New Guinea, the masculine gender “includes things which are tall or long and slender, or narrow, such as fish, snakes, and arrows” (K-International).
Yet, this ultimately begs the question: why do gendered languages exist? Why do Romance languages (Spanish, Italian, Latin) categorize terms as “feminine” or “masculine?” After all, English does perfectly well without assigning gender characteristics to objects which lack any male or female sexual characteristics.
It turns out that English used to be a gendered languages as well. In fact, English speakers in Europe stopped classifying most nouns by gender during the Middle East Period. Gender seems to just be a way of breaking nouns up into classes. The manner in which cultures and groups decide to utilize these gendered classifications can shed light on the values which they support and uphold.
Both Spanish and French gender nouns. There is no gender-neutral plural such as “they.” One critical facet of this phenomenon is how they describe groups of people. For example, if there is a group of 25 women, they are classified in the plural feminine way (“ellas or elles”). Yet, if even one man enters into this group, you must shift over to using masculine pronouns (“ellos or ils”). Although this is simply a grammatical concept, it does send the message that males are dominant over females. This grammatical rule ignores the females that are a part of the group and actively present, revealing how deeply a patriarchal perspective is rooted in our history and culture—and continues to be perpetuated to this day with the common usage of gendered language.
Although the English language does not currently use gendered nouns, it does propagate sexism in ways different from other languages—slang. Phrases that show a preference for males are used everyday. Common statements like “you guys” or “dudes” when referring to females reproduces the issue of Latin and Spanish languages gendering groups as male, even with a majority of females. Moreover, expressions like “oh, boy!” or “oh, man” favor males despite the presence of females. This has become a natural aspect of our thoughts, conversations, and discussions.
Automatically gendering groups of people with expressions seems normal to the ear (why not say “hey, guys!” to a group of ladies?). But, let’s try it the other way. Let’s call a group of men “ladies” — “girls” even. It just doesn’t seem to work. Males perceive this to be insulting. The narrative encouraged by these sexist expressions is that it is less favorable to be feminine, but more acceptable to be masculine. Although gendered language has become so embedded in our vernacular that we don’t feel offended or hurt by the usage of male-favoring language, I urge you to think about how this affects not only your perception, but society’s perception of gender dynamics.
