Gender awareness and vocabulary

A House Husband

Word Building 1

Fill in each space with an appropriate word from the list, forming a compound noun. The first (0) is given as an example.

word table worker washing piece meal time wife book up electrical washer computer sitter house

My wife is a social worker (0) and she works for the local council and has a very busy time ____________ (1) every day. She obviously can’t be in full-____________ (2) work and be a house____________ (3) at the same time. This means I’ve been a ____________ (4) husband for many years now, because my job as a text ____________ (5) writer for students of English can be done home working on a personal ____________ (6). As we can’t afford a baby-____________ (7) I’m in charge of the baby as well as having to do all the cooking and washing-____________ (8). My job is made much easier by the variety of ____________ (9) goods available – I just put all the dirty plates in the dish____________ (10) and the baby’s clothes in the ____________ (11) machine and away I go. I’m free to produce yet another master ____________ (12) for students on my ____________ (13) processor. When my wife comes home at three she has a ready-made ____________ (14) to look forward to. Not bad, eh?

Reading & Speaking Language and gender

A number of vocabulary changes are being introduced as a result of the feminist movement and heightened awareness of the sexist nature of some English vocabulary. David Crystal in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language writes:

Attention has been focused on the replace­ment of `male' words with a generic meaning by neutral items - chairman, for example, becoming chair or chairperson (though not without controversy) or salesman becoming sales assistant. In certain cases, such as job descriptions, use of sexually neutral language has become a legal require­ment. There is continuing debate between extremists and moderates as to how far such revisions should go - whether they should affect traditional idioms such as man in the street (a typical person; could be replaced by person in the street)and Neanderthal Man (primitive people who lived in Europe and Asia 2.5 to 3 million years ago), or apply to parts of words where the male meaning of man is no longer dominant such as manhandle (handle roughly, using force) and woman. The vocabulary of marital status has also been affected with the introduction of ­ Ms as a neutral alternative to Miss or Mrs.

Ex.4.10. Answer these questions about the text.

1) Why do you think there have been attempts to introduce non-sexist language of the kind described by David Crystal?

2) How would you explain this expression: male words with a generic meaning?

3) Why do you think there might have been controversy about attempts to change the word chairman?

4) What do more extreme advocates of making English sexually neutral want to do that is unacceptable to the moderates?

5) Why was Ms introduced and why is it useful?

Here are some examples of non-sexist variations of vocabulary:

Older usage	Current usage	Older usage	Current usage
- spokesman	- spokesperson	- air hostess	- flight attenndant
- fireman	- firefighter	- cleaning lady	- cleaner
- male nurse	- nurse	- foreman	- supervisor
- to man	- to staff	- manpower	- human resources
- man-hours	- working hours	- mankind	- human race

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