Your book (Gender: Crossing Boundaries) describes how language is applied differently to both genders, as well as differences in how men and women communicate and display emotion within Chapter 7 (attached). In the TED talk below, the speaker discusses how biases in language as well as other situations are found in both men and women. Generally, we associated biases primarily towards males and not females. However, the literature discussed in your book as well as the speaker in talk suggest otherwise. In fact, the speaker suggests that our brains learn to scan our surroundings for patterns and that we do not take into account the fairness or equality of these patterns. As such, we ALL are thought to develop gender bias.
The Neuroscience of Gender Bias
(Links to an external site.)
Given what you have seen in the TED talk and read in your chapter, answer the following questions below.
1. Pick a example in your book that describes how men or women may communicate differently (language or emotion). Try and relate that behavior back to a gender stereotype and examples of the stereotype in the environment (in other words, how might we be learning this stereotype?; you can use examples from the video).
-ex. men in the US report that it is better to display emotion minimally; this corresponds to the stereotype that men don’t have emotion. We may be learning this from the environment when we tell a young child “boys don’t cry” or “be tough”. We also see examples of men with lack of emotions other than stereotypical aggression in tv and other cartoons.
2. Turn to page 153 in your book and look at box 7.2. In this box, you will note language differences in how we describe individuals etc. These may seem silly at first, but then consider the speaker describing the Yale study about job applicants for a police chief position. Relate the two and discuss how language may have influenced that study’s result and how it may impact the future of any individual.
3. Finally, consider the exercise in box 7.2. How might you change the following descriptors to a nonsexist alternative?
-mankind
-congressman
-firemen
-military men
How important do you think it is to change these terms into a more gender neutral terms for future generations?
