We learn quickly that language is gendered. We
learn words associated with boys (dominant, blue, strong, independent, leader,
fearless) and those with girls (fun, pink, shopping, dancing, smiles, pretty).
This gendered division of language grows only further and affects a variety of fields that
shape the interactions between the sexes.
Religion – still a common part of our lives, is predominantly neglectful of a written female presence. Even if we try to
disassociate ourselves from the physical male stronghold over religious
institutions – we cannot help but read
that God’s maleness is the overarching source of divinity in most, if not all,
global religious texts. Can a woman see herself in the divine if she has not
been written in it? Where, in the
holy books, has she been aptly portrayed? Is she worth anything more than her
tightly constrained roles as either virgin or whore?
Gendered language can motivate our actions and alter our perceptions of self and of others. We take for granted that our social interactions, governed partly through common language, are the only way we can interact with each other, and we blindly use terms that cement negative gender roles and engender unequal distributions of power.
