Sexism In Language

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How does bias happen in terms of sexism in language? Give examples. Political correctness came into prominence in the late 1980’s. It is the description of using speech that conforms to liberal or radical opinion by avoiding language which might cause offence or disadvantage social minorities. The dictionary definition of sexism is the discriminatory or abusive behaviour towards members of the opposite sex. Sexism is a term that was coined in the mid-20th century. It is the belief or attitude that one gender or sex is inferior to, less competent, or less valuable than the other. This area of ‘politically correct language’ is introduced by the avoidance of such words like ‘mankind’ and ‘chairman’. The arguments over words and language which, is said to denigrate women or ‘make them invisible’ has been going on for a long time, and from the feminist point of view some progress has been made in the widespread acceptance of, for example, chair or chair person, instead of chairman and in the accepted use of Ms instead of Mrs or Miss. This example is because women do not want to be labelled as married or not married and the use of Ms shows that they do not want people to know which one they are. The question which must be asked is how does bias happen? It happens when language excludes women. The words man, he, his and him are often used in referring to human beings of either sex. Examples of this are given in the booklet produced by NALGO (National Association of Local Government Officers) in 1987. The word manpower should be replaced with workforce or staff. The work manning should be changed to staffing or running. The words man-made should be replaced with artificial and the word man-hours should be changed to work hours. An example of this happening in a more modern time is with the Liverpool tunnels. Above the booth is used to say manned when there was a
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