Grammar and Sexism: Why the Little Things Matter

So, I know there are all kinds of things that are more immediately life threatening than sexist language, but this is my space to bitch and this has become one of my top ten pet peeves, so listen up:

Lesson #1

"Woman" is a noun, not an adjective; therefore the phrase "a woman doctor" is ungrammatical.

This particular example of bad grammar is also insulting. Whether you mean for it to be or not, the manner of grammatical error ensures that it is. Like the ungrammatical placement of "boldly" in "To boldly go where no man has gone before" using "woman" rather than "female" places the emphasis on the modifier. She is no longer a doctor who is female, she is now a woman who is a doctor. Plus, it sounds odd (as it should) and makes the basic premise of a female doctor sound odd as well.

So, unless you actually mean to bring people's attention to the fact that a woman is a doctor, rather than simply clarify that the doctor in question is a woman, knock it off.

(Try saying "man doctor" if you don't believe me, and then think about how often that particular phrase isn't used while the other one is used quite often - and why that might be so.)

Lesson #2

The fact that "female " and "females" can be used as nouns as well as adjectives does not makes them the interchangable with "woman" and "women."

"Female(s)" can be used to mean female(s) of any species, but women are always both adult (physiologically if not legally) and human. Using "females" when talking about pick-up lines and dating norms is not exactly ungrammatical, but it's certainly less precise than "women." It's not as if you were going to proposition a cat, a dog, or an insect (or, one would hope, a girl so young "woman" is physically innaccurate). Using "female" when "woman" will work just as well is insulting and dehumanizing.

So, unless "female(s)" is more accurate than "woman(en)" - or unless you mean to convey the idea that women are sub-human - knock it off.

Lesson #3

Language does matter: many sexist arguments reveal a belief that women are not simply different from men, they are less than them - but people often get away with such arguments because they choose their words carefully.

The purpose of South Dakota's recent abortion ban - as written in the law itself - includes "fully protect[ing] the rights, interests, and health of the pregnant mother." Rep. Roger Hunt explains that he supports the ban, however, simply because "the goal is to prohibit the killing and the termination of life of all of those unborn children." "The unlawful killing of one human by another" seems to very much fit pregnant women who abort, according to Hunt's words - but who ever heard of a murder law written to protect murderers?

This is why South Dakota plans to punish doctors who perform abortions, but not the women they claim murder their own unborn children. The only way these different treatments under the law can be anything other than a contradiction is if one believes that women are either children or not quite human - and therefore not subject to legal prosecution. Instead the legal ramifications for performing abortions are structured as though all abortions are a form of criminal malpractice perpetrated on the mother, not the "killing...of unborn children." Digby, of course, says it best: "If fetuses are human and have the same rights as the women in whom they live, then a woman who has an abortion must logically be subject to the full force of the law. It would be a premeditated act of murder no different than if she hired a hit man to kill her five year old. The law will eventually be able to make no logical moral distinction. Is everybody ready for that?"

In this the authors of South Dakota's recent abortion ban have something in common with many murderers: the need to dehumanize the person they are hurting. Unlike pro-choice advocates who are actually quite up front about the belief that they don't consider a fetus to be quite a person (even though such a belief is often beside the point in a society that does not legally compell parents to donate blood to their own children) the South Dakota legislature cannot admit in clear language that they consider women incapable of being moral agents. Instead they abuse language in order to justify treating woman as children without being so blatant as to call for the reppeal of the 19th amendment.

Review

Using "woman" as an adjective is stupid and rude.

Using "female" where "woman" would work just as well is dehumanizing.

Language is purposely abused even in legal settings - so don't tell me what you say doesn't matter. They can get away with the subtle misuse of language because you get away with even the blatant stuff.