Sexism
Man accidentally signs emails with female coworker's name
This is a collection of man's tweets about his experience accidentally signing emails with his female colleague's name, followed by a deliberate week of swapping names with her to observe their relative productivity at serving their clients. [Published on 03-10-2017]
Melissa Lozada-Oliva - "Like Totally Whatever" (NPS 2015)
Play videoA response to the video where the white man had a stick in his butt about how younger people speak.
Vocal Fry
Play videoThis video over emphasizes the difference of women with and without vocal fry. Vocal fry is becoming more and more common in young women, this small clip just explains the difference of vocal fry.
Masculinity and Femininity in Disney's Mulan
Play videoThe song “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” from the 1998 classic Mulan shows gender stereotypes and battling them. Mulan is a Disney classic that confronts battling feminine stereotypes head on and throughout the movie the protagonist Mulan shows that she can do anything a man can do. In this song specifically, the gender stereotypes of being a man in the war and what a man should be able to do and be is explained to a very catchy rhythm. Along with this throughout the song, Mulan shows how she is strong and she can fight just the same as them, but because of the laws, she must do this all while dressed as a man to blend in.
Sexiest Languages: Men Respond
Play videoUncomfortable video in which blindfolded men listen to women speaking different languages (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Greek, etc.) and are both to predict which language they will find the "sexiest," and then are asked again at the end to reflect on the languages they heard. This relates to section in the reading on linguistic profiling that discusses "linguistic adoration" (Baugh, John, Linguistic Profiling. 2003).
Disney Rejection Letter, 1938
Photo of a rejection letter sent by Disney in 1938, stating that: "women do not do any of the creative work in connection with preparing the cartoons for the screen, as that work is performed entirely by young men. For this reason girls are not considered for the training school." This aligns with Lippi-Green's (2012) findings that Disney presents a clear, firm division between genders in lifestyle and life choices, and is a salient example of this ideology of division found in the real world.
Women Aren't Ruining Food
This article by Jaya Saxena talks about the gender encoded words used to describe foods associated with either men or women, and how that affects perception of the foods in society. [Published on 10-30-2017]
Things Not to Say to Women at Work
Play videoThis video challenges language used in ways that specifically applies to women. This video produced by the BBC discusses common phrases, words and topics that specifically target and apply to women in the workplace that portray sexist ideologies. The women in the video confront these, explain why they are inappropriate, and in some cases offer alternate ways to frame these discussions.
Talking While Female
Play videoThis video shows how there are different ideologies according to women's voices. There is the not-so popular vocal fry, which in this video, says is considered less trustworthy. There are also other examples, like; the uptalk, the high voice, the low voice, etc. It is unbelievable that women have to consider changing their voices, so they don't fall into the ideology of their original voice.
Vin Diesel Vocal Fry
Play videoVocal fry is popular with female celebrities. It's assumption toward young women that this linguistic form of speaking is incorrect; this raspy, low tone represents weakness. But why is it more acceptable for a male to use a form of vocal fry? Vin Diesel is a prime example. His character is strong, smart and courageous.
Ellen DeGeneres' coming out episode
Play videoIn a televised talk show this year host Ellen DeGeneres celebrated the twentieth anniversary of her revelation on national prime time television that she was a lesbian. Forty-two million viewers tuned in to watch Ellen’s sitcom character declare “I am gay”, and this challenging and controversial decision made television history. A media frenzy followed with heated debates on gay rights and lifestyles. Ellen’s difficult and personal decision to reveal her lesbianism led to her sitcom show being cancelled in 1997. By 2004 she returned to television as a talk show host, and since then has earned ten Emmys for excellence in television. By making it acceptable for a public figure to declare a sexual preference, social change has occurred, and since then, gay marriage has become legal in the United States.
9 Non-Threatening Leadership Strategies For Women
I found this while scrolling along my Facebook feed. I believe the comics do a good job of describing the absurdity women have to deal with in order to be seen as a valid worker in the workplace, and they way in which their language reflects upon that identity.
Bic Pens for Women
Play videoThis is Ellen talking about when BIC came out with a pen for women and poking fun at how silly it is to have a pen specifically for women.
Alice Walker: Fear of Being Feminine
Play videoAlice Walker is an American novelist, poet, and civil and women’s rights activist. She is best known for her critically acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple. In this video, she talks about the negative repercussions of referring to women as ‘guys’. The type of situation she is referencing are when someone, say a server at a restaurant, walks up to a group of women and addresses them by saying “Hi guys, how are you doing today?” Men and women both do this in America and it only perpetuates the fear of being feminine, or a female in general. With so many women still fighting for equal rights, it is crucial to be proud of being a woman and for women to not label themselves or other women as ‘guys’. This way of speaking stems from the fact that the English language is a “masculine default” language. This means that masculinity, along with masculine terms, are the default in English and other feminine terms have been unnecessarily created in order to differentiate between a male and female performing the same role. A good example of this sociolinguistic model is actor vs. actress and waiter vs. waitress. The original words are changed when talking about a woman when really, the word itself is just supposed to describe the job someone is doing. Although feminine words are added, many people still use the masculine terms by default, creating an alienation and feeling of unimportance or lack of superiority for women. Unfortunately, the aforementioned linguistic features, along with calling a group of women “guys”, are innate in most people’s vocabulary and using them can be a very difficult habit to break. Walker suggests women coming together to change the way that they label themselves and other women in order to first separate women from men and then empower those women. Although it may seem like a small step on the way to equality, it is an extremely vital one.
Talk “Like a Man”: The Linguistic Styles of Hillary Clinton, 1992-2013
This article examines the changes in Hillary Clinton's linguistic style from the years of 1992-2013. Many people have claimed that she talks "like a man," and this article examines that theory. In the article Jennifer J. Jones proves how Hillary went to more of a masculine linguistic approach to a more feministic approach in 2007. There are many reasons for these changes that are reflected in this article. [Published on 08-17-2016]
Men more likely to gossip than women - survey Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-83255/Men-likely-gossip-women--survey.html#ixzz44FDmpzhr Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
Article coincides with the observations in Cameron, Deborah (1997), men's gossip surveyed as greater than women, with further specification concerning subject matter as non-objective and largely emotional in nature. The assigned reading felt pretty straw-man-esque in presentation, so further correlation is not in the least bit surprising. [Published on 03-01-2016]
Gender Has/Has Not Been Hijacked by White MiddleClass
Play videoPortion of a very interesting debate at the Oxford Union regarding whether feminism has been hijacked by "white middle class" women. Engages so many topics,including race, poverty, feminism/gender politics.
Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism by FCKH8.com
Play videoThis video uses young girl cussing to show that there are more problems in society than little girls cussing. The fact that they are talking the way they are is shocking, which is done to make people actually listen to the bigger point.
Sapir-Worf
This video displays an example of the Sapir-Worf hypothesis by giving the example of a male nurse versus a female nurse. The video is only a sample.
Family Guy Stereotypes
Play videoThis video is a combination of stereotypes that have aired on family guy over the years. Many of these stereotypes have to do with race and language in society today.
CNN Election Center
Play videoIn this video there are many different types of sociolinguistic artifacts, and in any kind of SNL skit they have to make it more dramatic to bring out the commentary. Yet, within this clip you see many types of tags used within the first few minutes. For example, Donald Trump is the first person to be impersonated, but within the short clip that he is in he shows tags of "Race/Ethnicity, Sexism, Gender, Politics and Policy". And for Hillary Clinton she is showing many of the same character traits as well. Within all of these impersonators they are all trying to benefit themselves in some way that looks appealing to the audience.
Should dictionaries do more to confront sexism?
A New Yorker article about the recent criticism of the Oxford English Dictionary for sexist examples entires for words like "rabid" and "bossy," touching on issues of prescriptivism and descriptivism. [Published on 02-24-2016]
who talks more men or women
Play videoEllen takes a poke at women talking more than men 20K vs 7K whereas a recent study shows it is about even at 16K a piece but a good piece showing the first points of men not talking as much as women.
"The Day Beyonce Turned Black"
Play videoWithin this SNL skit, there are many different forms of language used. For this skit, it is explaining how caucasian people tend to look at the world in a over dramatic way. Throughout the skit, there are race, gender, & sexualities between white people and Black people. This skit has a comical view on different political problems that we have in this country today, and what the children of our culture are growing up in.
what language barrier
A brief excerpt from Deborah Cameron's book, The Myth of Mars and Venus.
My Sexuality
Play videoThis video entails a character on a TV show, who insists that a women's "sexuality" can get them in or out of any situation. Some may feel that this is demoralizing for women in todays society, because women have worked so hard over the past century to ear the same rights as men. And this is showing that all women have to do is flaunt there sexuality and everything will come to them on a silver platter. Which in fact is not true for all women.
Freshwoman
This article has an interesting perspective on Language and sexism. How our language is still objectifying woman. It's speaks to the power of the words we use. [Published on 03-20-2012]
Emmanual and Philip Hudson- Asking all of them questions
Play videoDo men and women engage in conversation differently? This video by Emmanual and Phillp Hudson discredit the thought that men are straight forward with information rather that emotion or gossip. He is displaying the ability to understand gender language in the community that he is mocking, exploring ultra feminism and masculinity.
Do Women REALLY Talk More Than Men?
Play videoThis video is a great example of ideology and how it can be generally accepted; even with evidence to the contrary.
The Onion & Women's Speech
The Onion takes a shot at joking about some features commonly criticized about women's speech in this piece. Some things that jump out are the descriptors, "high-pitched, kind of childish-sounding voice", "slower-than-average delivery and tendency to trail off at the end of long sentences" and "inflection that makes it hard to tell if she’s making a statement or asking a question".
Another part that struck me was the similarity between the end and Mendoza-Denton's point about silence and gender in the Anita Hill proceedings, "When reached for comment, Kushnick told reporters she was considering going back to her old habit of stoically saying nothing throughout the school day when she was simply judged by others to be a stuck-up bitch". [Published on 10-05-2015]
99% Invisible Autoreply
The main reason I'm sharing this article is the auto-reply from the podcast 99% Invisible, near the top: it's set up for when people send in complaints about women's voices. I especially love that it mentions that they never get complaints about men's voices on the show. Also that they'll "consider the complaints within, well, never". So good.
Americans aren't the only ones convinced women speak differently
Building on the momentum of the recent surge in discussions over young women's voices in American English, this article points out that, cross-culturally, women's voices are seen as different. [Published on 07-24-2015]
Naomi Wolf misses the point about vocal fry: It's just an excuse not to listen to women
A response to Naomi Wolf's article suggesting young women should stop using vocal fry because it makes them sound less authoritative. [Published on 07-27-2015]
High School asks female student to pledge to stop cursing
A Catholic High School in New Jersey asks female but not male students to pledge to stop cursing.
Using Unbiased language
This site offers suggestions for avoiding gender bias and sexism in the English language.
Harvard Sailing Team: Boys will be Girls
Play videoA sketch from the Harvard Sailing Team displaying male actors using "women's language."
The Mindy Kaling Backlash
A 2012 Jezebel article discussing the negative reaction to Indian American writer/producer/director/actress Mindy Kaling, who has been characterized as "brash" and cocky for speaking confidently about her career.