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We provide a qualitative analysis of resistance to calls for gender-neutral language. We analyzed more than 900 comments responding to two essays—one on AlterNet and another on Vox posted to the Vox editor’s Facebook page—that critiqued a pervasive male-based generic, “you guys.” Five rhetorics of resistance are discussed: appeals to origins, appeals to linguistic authority, appeals to aesthetics, appeals to intentionality and inclusivity, and appeals to women and feminist authorities. These rhetorics justified “you guys” as a nonsexist term, thereby allowing commenters to continue using it without compromising their moral identities as liberals or feminists. In addition to resisting an analysis that linked their use of “you guys” to social harms, commenters positioned the authors who called for true generics as unreasonable, divisive, and authoritarian. We conclude with suggestions for how feminists can challenge the status quo and promote social change.

TITLE: The Generic Masculine in Educational Communication ABSTRACT: The thesis deals with the use of generic masculine in educational communication. The use of masculine nouns to refer to a group of people of both sexes is a target of frequent criticism from proponents of gender-neutral language. The theoretical part of my paper discusses and explains in general the importance of language for cognitive development of an individual and the principle of gender-sensitive expression. The empirical part of my paper is based on qualitative research that was conducted at a selected secondary school in order to verify the influence of language attributions of the generic masculine form on the mental representation of reality. The main technique of data collection was a survey inspired by the psycholinguistics association experiments. Attitudes and opinions of students on the subject of research were identified during group discussions. The results of my study among respondents points at the generic masculine to be significantly more often associated with mental representation of a male than to be perceived as gender-neutral. These findings thus correspond with some of the current theses of gender linguistics.

This thesis studies Italian journalists' perceptions and experiences of the use of gendered language in the representation of women in the Italian press. Previous research has shown that Italian media misrepresent women by producing gender stereotypes. This is, to a certain extent, related to language: Italian is considered to be a gender language, meaning that every noun, pronoun and adjective have a gender. The research questions that guide this study are: what are the Italian journalists' perceptions and experiences of gender in the articles they write?  What is the place and role of language in the journalists' evaluation of gender equality in news? What are the reasons behind the journalists' use of language when they write a piece about a woman? Using an ethnographic approach, 9 semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed following the journalistic culture perspective proposed by Hanitzsch (2007). The results show that there are many different approaches to gender, from the one suggesting to neglect gender as a category at all in the news production, to the one that sees gender as a category that is newsworthy as such and a starting point for an article. Also the role of language is interpreted in very different ways. On one side there is the idea that, compared to the gender gap being a broader social problem, language is secondary; on the other, language is considered to be able to drive a change in the society. Finally, also the reasons behind the journalists' use of language are diverse: the ethical codes do not apply to all the journalists or reveal a lack of guidelines that oblige journalists to rely on their morality, gender sensitivity, or interest to the topic of gender equality; or on the newspaper's own guidelines. The readers' assumed expectations, as well as the kind of journalism (with its requests in terms of time and space) influence the use of language with regard to gender equality. The results show also that, beside some context-dependent elements, which make Italy a specific case, there are some universal considerations that can be made. In particular, basing on these universal elements, the addition of a linguistic dimension to journalistic cultures (Hanitzsch, 2007) is suggested. In this dimension, it will be proposed to include two levels: the influence of language on social reality and the influence of journalism on language.

As people become aware that society treats women unfairly, they also perceive related shortcomings in the way that Modern English references women. For example, many have objected to the so-called generic he, the third-person masculine pronoun employed to refer to a person of unknown gender, and provided several alternatives, few of which have been widely adopted. Nonetheless, change is evident in the case of they becoming an increasingly common solution to refer to a person of unidentified gender. The intentional reform of the Modern English language, both in the past and present, has been a result of people's reactions to what is often perceived as a bias or a deficiency with what is possible to say given the words at their disposal. The rhetorical significance of reform is profound, and scholars continually broach the subject from the perspective of different disciplines. Explored here are the approaches of three of those fields, feminism, linguistics, and rhetoric; how each reacts to and even influences reform is an important part of the study. What is evident is that, regardless of the particular field, reform remains a force of change, even while it may not be broadly recognized. Further, traditional grammatical rules provide an insufficient means for tackling inequalities in Modern English, and are in part responsible for such imbalance. As such, writers must be aware of the present expectations of their audience and the situation of particular words.

In English the personal pronouns are morphologically marked for grammatical number, whilst the third-person singular pronouns are also obligatorily marked for gender. As a result, the use of any singular animate antecedent coindexed with a third-person pronoun forces a choice between he and she, whether or not the biological sex of the intended referent is known. This forced choice of gender, and the corresponding lack of a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun where gender is not formally marked, is the primary focus of this thesis. I compare and contrast the use of the two main candidates for epicene status, singular they and generic he, which are found consistently opposed in the wider literature. Using corpus-based methods I analyse current epicene usage in written British English, and investigate which epicene pronouns are given to language-acquiring children in their L1 input. I also consider current prescriptions on epicene usage in grammar texts published post-2000 and investigate whether there is any evidence that language-external factors impact upon epicene choice. The synthesis of my findings with the wider literature on epicene pronouns leads me to the conclusion that, despite the restrictions imposed on the written pronoun paradigm evident in grammatical prescriptivism, singular they is the epicene pronoun of British English.

The purpose of this study has been to analyze the language of the popular lyrics of the seventies to determine if sexism is used to communicate in various musical genres. Three manifestations of sexist language developed by the Sexism in Textbooks Committee of Women at Scott, Foresman have been used in this study. The lyrics analyzed include 100 lyrics selected from songwriter-singers noted as articulate musical artists of the seventies, 90 songs reaching the "Top Ten" charts (1970-1978), and the top 100 songs of 1978. Chapter I defines sexism and explains three manifestations of sexist language. Chapter II includes examples from seven talented lyricists which illustrate sexism. Chapter III presents an evaluation of sexism in the "Top Ten" lyrics (1970-1978). Chapter IV reveals changes in stereotypic language appearing in the 1978 top 100 lyrics. Chapter V offers summaries and reasons for the findings.

The purpose of this essay was to investigate and highlight the strengths and shortcomings of Critical Discourse Analysis and Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis when used as an analytical tool. By comparing the representation of women and men in print advertisements, and how there may be a difference in language being used to describe both genders, including the use of sexist language, a critique of CDA and FCDA could be established. In order to establish this all areas of the advertisements had to be taken into account, including layout and images used. The ads were read and interpreted through CDA and FCDA in order to investigate and identify the strengths, and any shortcomings, of the theories. The investigation shows that, although CDA and FCDA scholars could argue that women tended to be described in a more sexist manner overall, a counterargument could also be made on most accounts. The argument which supported sexism was especially observable through how women’s bodies were more often fragmented in images and positioned in more sexual positions, but also how the advertisements not only reinforced stereotypes as well as using distinctly negative language in their descriptions. However, gender stereotyping against men in the ads was also prevalent, which allowed an argument against CDA and FCDA’s theories about existing power struggles. Although the investigation did manage to substantiate the critique regarding how CDA and FCDA view the differences in gender representations, therefore fulfilling its aim, perhaps a more accurate result would have been possible to achieve if more print advertisements had been used in the investigation. However, this was not possible due to the qualitative nature of the investigation.

Language and culture are deeply intertwined. Language reflects and influences the attitudes, perceptions and behaviors of its users. Therefore, the use of non-sexist language can contribute to achieving gender equality in society. This study focuses on the perceptions of a group of Mexican teenagers towards inclusive language. In particular, their acceptance degree towards various gender morphemes are studied and compared to the generic use of the masculine gender. The results of the survey show a clear preference for the alternatives that are easy to pronounce, so called, normative gender morphemes, including the generic use of the masculine compared to new, non-normative gender morphemes that are inclusive but difficult to pronounce. Women prefer the splitting strategy (“desdoblamiento”) to a larger degree than men do. Men have a more conservative posture and prefer the generic use of the masculine and reject non-normative gender morphemes. The differences among informants of different socioeconomic levels are smaller. Still, it seems that informants of a higher socioeconomic level have a more conservative attitude towards inclusive language than informants of a lower socioeconomic level.

This paper investigated the use of sexist language in English vocabulary by examininggender asymmetry and sexism in contemporary written discourse. The traditional sexistlanguage often reinforces gender stereotypes and inequalities. In English, the masculineterms are considered the unmarked form (the norm) while the feminine terms are marked.This paper discussed different types of gender asymmetry in languages in relation to themarkedness theory, and introduced the gender-inclusive alternatives to traditional sexistlanguage, such as using gender-neutral pronoun, using gender-neutral title Ms., usinggender-neutral working titles such as Police officer, Firefighter and Spokesman. In orderto evaluate how gender-inclusive language is actually used in the US, this paperconducted a diachronic research of sexist and gender-neutral terms in news articles fromthe New York Times (NYT) from 1965 to 2015, uncovering a gradual increase in the useof gender-inclusive language over time. The findings are compared with two prior studiesof sexist language in British written discourse. The results indicated that masculinepronouns and social titles continue to be prevalent in the NYT, along with the UK.However, the feminine title Ms. is more commonly used in the US as opposed to the UK.Additionally, certain gender-neutral working titles such as police officer and firefighterhave become the most frequently used terms. In contrast, terms such as spokesman arestill very unpopular in the UK and the US. This paper concluded with a future vision ofthe application of gender-neutral vocabulary in written discourse.