#laurelrichardson

English, as described by the author Laurel Richardson, is “the language of the dominant culture”. In this case, in the English language, men are the dominate culture. Even when we say woman, we have the word “man” in it. Technically speaking, women wouldn’t be existent without men. The author later further elaborates that “women are part of man; they do not exist autonomously.” Often times, when someone is describing something we used the word “man” not specifically meaning the gender but rather a human in general. However, despite the meaning, research suggests that when the word “man” is used in order to appeal to either gender, people tend to visualize a man and not a woman. As the author explains, “Man, then, suggests not humanity but rather male images.” Another thing mentioned in the article is the fact that when higher status occupations are mentioned, speakers tend to use “he”, however when lower status occupations are mentioned, speakers tend to use “she”. The problem with this is the power that is given to men just because of their gender as well as the fact that language can affect ones actions toward others. If in our language women are described differently than men, then they will be treated differently as well.

Patriarchy is even embedded in the use of language, for example, the definition of the word virgin in today’s society is someone who is heterosexually inexperienced and thus incomplete, but if you define it without a patriarchal influence on it, the word virgin can be defined as a woman who is unattached, unclaimed, and unowned by any man and therefore independent and autonomous. Not only does patriarchy affect the definition of certain words that are usually used to describe aspects of women, patriarchy also influences the way the English vocabulary uses words to describe women, as Laurel Richardson states in her article “Gender Stereotyping in the English Language”; “in terms of grammatical and semantic structure, women do not have a fully autonomous, independent existence; they are part of the man. The language is not divided into male and female with distinct conjugations and declensions”, instead whenever the word man is used as an indefinite pronoun it refers to both men and women. Although women have obviously been around as long as men, mankind is the word used to describe men and women. This decision to use man to describe two genders is fuel to what patriarchy stands for, it’s as if someone said: “Men are obviously better than women in every way so when we want to include men and women in one word we’ll use the name of the better one among the two.”