Is English sexist? I'm serious! Look, take the phrase 'man up'. This is a phrasal verb
that we use to tell someone to be brave, to get over the difficulty that's in front of
them. To man up. It's not to woman up, it's to man up. But why can't it be to woman up? Women
are brave, there's as brave as men are, so why don't we use to woman up. So this got
me thinking how sexist is the English language? We're going to find out right after this.
These days there is a lot in the media about gender equality and how male and female roles
are being represented. Certainly you look at the #MeToo movement and the film industry
to see that it's a big issue right now. And that got me thinking about English and the
language we use and have we updated the vocabulary that we use to accurately represent who we
are and the society that we live in. Now we have talked about the phrase man up, let's
look at other examples. Take the word 'to nag' or 'nagging'. It means to criticise or
complain in an annoying way. Now I had a look at the definitions in three dictionaries.
Cambridge, Oxford and Collins and in all three it was the female that was doing the nagging.
Now in their defence I'm sure they would say that they are just representing how the word
is used in real life. So maybe this is a societal problem rather than an English language problem
but it is interesting to see these patterns. Because this is true of other words with negative
connotations as well. Ok, let's take the words spinster and bachelor. They both mean someone
that is unmarried. A spinster is a female that's unmarried and a bachelor is a male
that's unmarried. Now the word bachelor, if you put it into the dictionary, an immediate
collocation you'll find it 'eligible bachelor' someone that's available, that is attractive.
There are top hundred lists of the most eligible bachelors. It's a desirable person. Do the
same thing with spinster and you get a much more negative connotation. You could be a
forty year old man and a forty year old female unmarried, one is a bachelor, one is a spinster.
One has positive connotation, one has a negative connotation. So is this language being influenced
by society or society being influenced by language? Now I may be wrong with the connotations
there but I have yet to see a hundred eligible spinsters in Vogue magazine. That's all I'm
saying, I've seen eligible bachelors I haven't seen eligible spinsters yet. You also only
have to look at the rudest words in English which I'm not going to say on Eat Sleep Dream
English. But the rudest words you can think of in English are slang words for female body
parts. It's not male body parts, it's female body parts. What does that tell you about
how society sees the different genders? Now it's not all doom and gloom, don't get me
wrong. There have been lots of changes to the English language because English is a
fluid ever changing and evolving thing and a lot of these words have changed in my life.
When I was growing up there were a lot of words we used that we don't use now. I think
something really important for you guys to know now is that we often use gender neutral
words. In the past we'd use gender phrases. So for example 'air hostess'. We now don't
use the term air hostess, we prefer to use flight attendant. And a flight attendant could
be a male or a female. Take male nurse, male nurse suggests that it's a man that's a nurse
but in actual fact nurse can be male or female so that's the term we use now. We just say
nurse and that could be male or female. When I was at school it was the headmaster and
a headmistress that is now gone. We just say head teacher. So it could be male or female.
Same with chairman, it's now chairperson. Policeman, we don't say policeman anymore,
we say police officer. Again that's taking the gender out of the word, so it could be
male or female. Police officer. Fireman is now fire fighter. We used to say mankind,
talking about all humans now we'd say human kind. Perhaps the biggest difference from
when I was growing up was actress, that's now much more rarely used and the preferred
term is actor So whether it's male or female you are much more likely now to hear the word
an actor rather than actress. So actor could be male or female. Now you'll notice there
the -ess suffix on the end of those words, that shows you that it's a female word. Some
still exist so for example princess, we still use that word. Alright another example was
instead of barman, it's bar tender or bar staff. I remember growing up we had weather
girls, that seems so old fashioned now. So it would be a weather presenter. Now sometimes
we are not sure about the gender of somebody and we don't want to say he or she. 'Did you
go to the doctor, what did (mmm) say?' Now mmm what's there? Now I don't know if the
doctor is male or female. So I can't say 'what did he say?' because it might not be a man.
I can't say 'what did she say?' because I don't know if she's a woman so what can I
say? Well, options are you could say 'what did he or she say?' Or you could use the neutral
'what did they say?' Now I know it sounds like it's more than one person but we actually
use it in a singular way to talk about a gender neutral person. So 'what did they say?' He
or she, we don't know. Another example, 'How's your new housemate. What's he or she like?'
'How's your new flatmate, what are they like?' So we are using they, sounds like a plural
but actually we are talking about a singular thing. So what are they like? So Eat Sleep
Dreamers it's really important for you guys to update your English. Make sure you are
using the words that are now much more common and accepted in English. I know this is a
very cultural thing but it's something you need to be aware of when you are learning
English and particularly British English. Alright guys I hope you enjoyed that one,
I think it's a really interesting topic and it's one for a lot of discussion. Obviously
it's a very sensitive topic and one that we must treat very carefully. So I hope it's
got you thinking about what kind of vocabulary you use in your English and the choices you
make to express your ideas. Let me know in the comments below what you think and of course
give me a big thumbs up if you have enjoyed it, if you found it useful in any way. Remember
I've got new videos every Tuesday and every Friday helping you take your English to the
next level. Check me out on Instagram, check me out on Instagram stories where I post daily
updates for your English and of course on Facebook as well. But until next time guys,
this is Tom the Chief Dreamer, saying goodbye.