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SEXISM in Fngush: [MBODIMENT and Language Nilsen, Sexism in English: Embodiment and Language 173 SEXISM IN fNGUSH: [MBODIMENT AND lANGUAGE Aileen Pace Nilsen SPeakers a.re prone to use the division of ~ale and female as a metaphor for many other · ospet;:ts orlife: ·The differences in language describing and attributed to moles and fe­ r.nales iJiustrotes the swirling effects of culture on language and language on culture. As y¢1.1 rood this piece, think of the many ways tbat the language you speak has been · shaped py the fact that virtually all living creatures ore either male or female. 1 During the late 19608, I lived with my husband and three young children in .. Kabul, Afghanistan.:'This was before the Russian invasion, the Afghan civil · war, and the eventual tal9ng over of the country by the Taleban Islamic move- .. ment and 1ts resolve to return the cquntry" to a strict Islamic dynasty, in which females are not allowed to attend school or work outside their homes. 2 But even when we were there and the country was considered moderate rather than extremist, I was shocked to observe how different were the roles assigned to males and females. The Afghan version of the chaderi prescribed for Moslem women was particularly confining. Women in religious families were reqUired to wear it whenever they were outside their family home, with . th.e.result being ~at most of them didn't venture outside~. The household help we hired were made' up' .of men, because women 3 could not be employed by foreigners~ Afghan folk stories and jokes were bla­ tantly sexist, as in this proverb: "If you see an old man, sit down and take a lesson; if you see an old woman, throw a stone." · 4 _· But it wasn't only the native culture that made me question women's ·roles, it was also the American community within Afghanistan. 5 Most of the American women were like myself-wives and mothers whose husbands were either career diplomats, employees of USAID, 9r ·col-: lege professors who had been recruited to work on various contract teams. We were suddenly bereft of our traditional roles. The local economy provided few jobs 'for women and certainly none for foreigners; we were isolated from form~r friends and the social goals we had grown up with. Some of us became alcoholics, others got very good a~ bridge, while still others searched desper­ ately for ways to contribute either to our families or to the Afghans . • 6 When we returned in the fall of 1969 to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, 1 was surprised to find that many other women were also questioning - Aileen Pace Nilsen. Living Language. Needham Heights, Massachusett . Allyn and Bacon. 1999. 17-183.· (ASU English Ed) J1'f : .. · : ·. .. .. --- -· --;-~-. I - - . :•· The: Afghan chaderi is partic·ufarly confining. The fact'that w~meri must put one 0~· whenever they" are outside of their homes dis¢ol,lrog~~-them from ventwing f9rth. , · . :- · te eXpectations they had grown up with. Since I had }?een an _English ·major hen I was in college~ I decided that for my part in the feminist movement I· ottld stq.<;iy the English language and see what it could- t~U me about sex~ m. I started readmg a desk dictio!lary and making note cards on every en- y that seemed to tell something different about male and fem_ale. "I soon had .. dog-eared dictionary, along with a· collection of note cards filling two shoe )Xes. The first thing I learned was that I couldn't study the lan.guage without ~tting involved in socia1 issues. Language. and society ai:e as intertwined as :lUcken and an egg. The language a culture uses· is telltale evidence of the tlues and beliefs of that culture. ~nci b~al.lse ther~ is~ l~g 4\.h.ow fast a -~a,n~ la~e changes-new words can easily be futroduc~d, butit takes along time . r·'old words and usages to disappear;-a careful look at English will reveal·.: e.:~Jtitudes that our ancestors held and that we as.a culture are therefore pre:- · . (7·r· . ~posed to hold:. My nofe carl;ls reveaie~ thr~~-:p:l~in' po~J~? fii~nds have offered the opinion thaJ I didn't need to :re~d ·a Q.i~l;ionary t<,) leain such . obvious facts, the linguistic evidence lends c~edibilit}r :to the sociolog~cal observations. : · · · · . '• 1~ WOMEN A.RE SEXY; MEN ARE SUCCESSFUL. a First, in American culfur~ a wom~n is valued for the· attracti~enes~ and sexi­ nessof her body, while a man is valued' for his physical sn:et}gth and accom- plishments. A woman is sexy: A man is successful. · ·. ' . · . · 9 · A persuasiV~ piece of evidence supporting this view are the eponyms- . words that have come from som:eone's name--:;found iri. Englisb.l had·a t;.vo- . and~a-half-inch. stack of cards t~ken from men's riames but less U\an ·a half-inch stack fiom: women's names, arid ·most of those came from Cree)<· mythology. In the words that ca~e into American Eriglish'since,we separab~d . from Britain, there are m·any eponyms based on the name~ of famous Amer- . ican men: Bartlett: pear, boysenberry, Franklin stove; ferriS wheel,·.Gatling· gim, mason jar, sideburns, soQsaphone, Schick t~t, an,d WmChestenifle: The only common eponyms that I found taken from Americ;in women's names . are Alice blue (afte~ Alice R~sevelt Longworth)~ bloomers (a.fterAmelia Jenks ·· Bloomer), and Mae West jacket {after the buxom actress), JWpout of the three feminine eponyms relate closely to a woman's physical. anatomy, while' the masculine eponYJils {except for' ''sidebum5" after General 'BJ.ltilsides) have . noiliing to do 'With the namesake's body, but, instead; hpripr<~e 'man for ~ . accomplislurient. of some kfud. : ' . .. ' . .·' . 1Q. · · ·In Greek mythology .women played a bigger role thaJ1 :th~Y i;J;iQ. .ipthe l:?ib'- lical stories.:ofthe Judeo~Christian cultures; and so the. J,l~~e5'ofgp((de$s~s. are .accepted parts. of the language in such place names as:P:oJl\ona, froin the god­ P.ess· of fruit; ana Athens, from Athena, and in such comn:i.Qn ·words as ce,real .from Ceres,·psythology from Psyche, ~d arachnoid from Arachl).~:Howevet, there is the same, tendency to think of wom~n in'relatiori.to 5exuality as shown· through the eponyms '~aphrodisiac" from Aphrodite, the:Greel<;'namefo~'.the . goddess of love and beauty, and "venereal disease" from.·.yenus, ,the Roman· name for Aphrodite. · · .· . · . ··.. .. 11 Another mteresting word from Greek mythology is Atnazo.n: Accor<;li.t'l;g to Greek folk etymology, the a- m~ans "without," as in atypicaldr amoral, while -mazon comes from "mazos," meaning "breast," as stiRs~~ri)nm.~tectomy. In 'the Greek legend, Amazon women cut off ~eir right breasts:~o they could be~­ ter shoot their bows. Apparently, the storytellers had a feeling that 'for women to play the active, "masculine" role the Amazori.s adopted for themselve·s, · they had to trade in part oftheir femininity. 12 · 1his preoccupation with worri.en' s breasts is nqt limited to the Greeks; it's what inspired the definition and the name for "mcunmals" {from Indo-Euro- pean "maminae" for "breasts'~): As a volunteer for the University of WIScon-.. sin's Dictionary-of American Regional English (DARE), I read a western ~pper's diaJ:y from the 18305. I was to ma).<e notes of any unusual usage$ ot language patterns. My most interestingJinding wa8 that ~e ~ppei re_ferred·to-~. range of monntains as 'The Teats," a metaphor based on the sim:ilarity between ~e shapes of themountains and women's breasts. Because t()day we use the French wording ''The Grand Tetons," the metaphor isn'·t as _obvious, but I wrote to mapmakers and.fotmd the following listings: Nipple Top· and Little Nipple Top near Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks; Nipple Mountain· in Archuleta County, Colorado; Nipple Peak in Coke County, Texas; Nipple Butte in Pennington, South Dakota; Squaw PeakinPlacer County, California (and many other locations); Maiden's Peak and Squaw Tit (they're the same mountain) in the Cas~ade Range in Oregon; Mary.s Nipple near Salt Lake City, Utah; and Jane Russell Peaks-near Stark, New Hampshire. 13 Except for the mpvie star Jane Russell, the women being referred to are anonymou~it' s only a sexual part of their body that is mentioned. When topographical features are named after men, it's probably·not-going to be to draw a~ention to a sexual part of their bodies but instead ~0 honor i.r:tdividu- als f'?r ap. accomplishm~t. u Going back to what I learned from my dictionary can.\s, I was surprised to realize how many· pairs ofwords we have in which the: fenUnine word h~ acquired sexual connotations while the ma~cullne wo.r;d retainS a serious bu5i­ _nessfil.<e aura. FpN~xample, a ¢allboyis the person who calls actors when it is time for them to go on stage;. but a caUgirl is a prostitute. Comp~re sir and madam. Sir is a term of respect, while· madam has acq~d the :specia1ized meaning of a brothel manager. Something sirhilar has happened to ma~ter . and mistress. Would you rather have a painting ."by an old mast~r" or "hy an old mistress"?. ts It's because the word woman had sexual connotations, as in "She's his woman,'' that people-began avoiding its use, hence such terminology _as ladies' room, lady of th~·house, and girl's sChool or sChool ~or yOlmg ladies.
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