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Language that Silences
Sometimes the very lack of language is
most offensive
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"That's an excellent suggestion, Ms. Triggs.
Perhaps one of the men here would like to
make it."
(from Punch
magazine) |
How many women have been at this
table?! I certainly have - in my doctoral studies
and in my job here at York University. But I don't
put up with it. I point out the error, sometimes
politely, sometimes by banging my fist on the table,
once, in despair over the lack of any real
progress in the acceptance of women as a norm in
academia, I banged my head on the table.
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Exercise
Ms Triggs |
Describe
a work related situation where you have been or seen someone silenced,
including how it made you feel and how you think it made
others feel. What could a good manager have done to help
the situation?
Post your answer in the
Moodle
Discussion Group. |
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Language That Sets Up Separate
Expectations In a section of this course, a student emailed me
to ask me to reappraise her paper, something which I don't do and which
I explain very carefully why I don't do in my course kit. When I told
her that I would not do this, she wrote me back, saying, "I'm sure
you're a very nice person, but when you refuse to [do what a student
asks], you're not being very nice." "Being Nice" has nothing to do with a professor's
professional life. This is an accusation that is regularly hurled at
female professors whenever we try to enforce the same standards of
student behaviour that our male colleagues expect from their students.
As it is described by one
woman in the film, The Chilly Climate, made in Ontario about
discrimination against women, minorities, and the disabled in universities and colleges, if we refuse
to do things for students that none of our male colleagues do we are
accused of being not nice women. If we do those things, we are so
overwhelmed with the work that we don't have time to research and
publish and we don't get tenure. Don't say things to female professors that you would
not also say to male professors; we have the same jobs and the same
expectations of our performance in those jobs. Don't expect your
professor to be extra "nice" just because she's a woman.
One of the frequent complaints of women in positions of authority in
middle or upper management is the tendency of men to greet them with
compliments on their appearance. A male manager, meeting a fellow male
manager will say something like, "Hey, how about those Jays last night,
eh?" But on meeting a female fellow manager, is much more likely to say
something like, "that's a great colour on you," or "Your hair sure looks
nice today."
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Exercise
Pretty Hair |
What is
actually wrong with a male manager greeting a female colleague
or subordinate with a comment about her dress or hair? Stop and think
before you answer. If you're going to say, "There's
nothing wrong with it," the majority of women in
management will disagree with you. Given that it may be a
problem, what is the problem here with this kind of
greeting?
Post your answer in the
Moodle
Discussion Group. |
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Language That
Excludes
"Men" and "Man" or "Mankind" are NOT inclusive terms. Don't use
them if you
really mean to say "all people" or "everyone."
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A memo to 17
male managers and 1 female manager reads, "Each
supervisor must have his reports in on time." That
one female manager is effectively excluded.
A man greets
a woman at work, "Hello Janet, I'm Mr. Smith;
we'll be working together on this project." What he's just said is "You'll be working for
me."
Someone refers to one of the most
important things a woman does as her
"night out with the girls."
| Shelagh
Wilkinson who helped found the York Women's
Studies programme was approached by a
student worried about graduation. Not to
worry, Shelagh said, you've got an A
average. "That's not it," replied the
student. "It's that when I first went back
to school, my husband really objected, so
all these years that I've been coming to
night classes, I've told him I've been
bowling. Now it's time for graduation and
I'd really like him to be there, but I don't
know what to tell him. |
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A
pharmaceutical company writes in its
annual report about the great strides man
has made in medicine; a woman complains
and someone says, "Oh don't get so upset;
the word 'man' includes women as well."
The
only place I heard about women in my MBA
programme was in statements like, "We've
got a pretty good distribution network,
but the weak sister in the chain is Joe's
warehouse." This has changed somewhat, but
you'll still find it.
American colleagues boast that, "When
Thomas Jefferson wrote 'All men are
created equal,' of course that great
Democrat meant women as well" but you
would do well to remember that in the
United States of Jefferson's day, not only
could women not vote, but neither could
men of colour....hardly inclusive.
It's
not only men who do this. I once listened
to a female professor on a York Senate curriculum
committee vehemently argue that when
people in Biology talk about "man" they
mean "humankind." My response
was simple: Academics is an
area grounded in precision, especially in
the sciences; if you mean to say 'humankind' then say
it."
That
little room with the picture on the door
of a person in pants? It used to be
labelled "Men" and York Professor Penelope
Doob used to challenge the assumption of
inclusivity. Once a year she would walk
into one of those rooms labelled "Men" to
see just how included she felt.
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It is not hard to degenderize
language. You don't have to get into silly
overdone awkward "he-and-she" routines. Try this
replacement:
|
Original |
NOT this convoluted revision |
But this one |
| Each
supervisor must submit his report on time. |
Each
supervisor must submit his or her report on
time. |
All
supervisors must submit their reports on
time. |
 |
 |
| I'll have my
girl look into it |
I'll ask my
secretary to look into it |
| Hello Janet,
I'm Mr. Smith... |
Hello Janet,
I'm Joe, or
Hello Ms. Jones, I'm Mr. Smith |
| night out
with the girls |
evening class |
| strides man
has made in medicine |
...strides we
have made in medicine |
| All men are
created equal |
All people
are created equal |
Where necessary, change wording
to avoid awkwardness; about 99% of the time you
can say it simply AND degenderize. Where you can't
do both, opt for inclusive language
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Exercise
Correcting Language |
Listen
around you in your day-to-day life and find one or two
specific examples of gendered language; rewrite it to be
non-gendered (as is done above in the wrong/right columns)
Post your answer in the
Moodle
Discussion Group. |
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Language that Infantilizes
For too many men, it's easier to see a
female colleague as a little girl rather
than (in the words of the title of my first
novel), A Grownup Woman of Considerable
Presence and this shows in their
language. They'll say things like, "I'll
have my girl look into it," when they mean
they'll ask their 35-year old secretary to
deal with it. |
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| Don't refer to women over 18 as
"girls." Women are sometimes worse offenders in this than men. I
regularly hear female supervisors in my own Faculty refer to fully
grown women who work for them as "the girls." What image does that
convey?
The use of the term "girl" can be difficult
for men of a certain age; Tom Lehrer,
one of my favourite comedians from my youth, was quoted recently
as saying, "In my youth, there were words you couldn't say in
front of a girl; now you can't say 'girl'," but the skill CAN be learned.
It can be okay in certain colloquial phrases
said woman to woman, such as "You go, girl!"
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| Don't call your female professors
"Miss." Don't excuse it because that's what you were taught to do
in elementary school - a university is not an elementary school.
Students sometimes argue that this is cultural (I say respect
the culture of the person you are addressing), or that it is what
they were taught as children (one student actually argued that she
found "Miss" acceptable because she had been taught to call male
teachers "Sir" and female teachers "Miss" - look at the sexism
inherent in that statement).
You are in university now and your professors,
male or female, automatically have one title which is
appropriate to use: Professor. They most likely, especially at
York where we have the highest percentage of PhD's in Canada,
will also be eligible for the title "Doctor." Unless, like many professors including me, they ask you to call them by
their first name, use "Professor" or "Doctor." For
most professors,. the title of "Doctor" or "Professor" came
through many years of post-secondary education. Most of us invite you to call us by our first names, but if we don't or if
you can't do that, then honour the time, energy, and spirit
devoted to becoming a Doctor or Professor and address a female
professor by the title of "Professor" or "Doctor" and never by
"Miss."
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Exercise
Hey
Miss! |
Are you
guilty of this? Think about how you address your male
and female professors. If one has not told you to use
her first name, as I do, how do you address your female
professors?
Post your answer in
the
Moodle
Discussion Group.
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If this all seems overly fussy to you, you
need to go read about the importance of names and how we label
ourselves. First Nations people know the importance of a name;
you are given one and told to go find out what it means for you.
Back when the Unitarian Universalist church was degenderizing
all its materials, my favourite UU minister, The Rev. Dr. Christopher Raible, had a snappy reply
to anyone who asked, "But does it really matter whether we say
HE or SHE?" "Fine," he'd say, "if it doesn't matter, then use
SHE."
Too often the
language even of well-meaning campaigns such as those to reduce
consumption of cigarettes or alcohol ends up exhibiting gender or
race bias. My good friend and colleague, Herb
Rotfeld, professor of Marketing at Auburn University in Alabama
recently wrote a book called Adventures in Misplaced Marketing
(2001, Westport, Connecticut: Quorum Books). In it he
discusses issues of social conscience in the targeting of products
to specific groups. Herb writes:
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It is strange how targeting almost any group for these
products [cigarettes, alcohol, gambling, etc.] other than high-income
white males is criticized. A new cigarette brand aimed at office
secretaries and other low-level clerical working women is condemned for
targeting a "vulnerable" audience, as is another brand of menthols for
urban-dwelling African-Americans. A new beer appealing to low-income
black consumers generates accusations that the corporations are
attempting to commit genocide, since the beer contained a higher alcohol
content that these consumers preferred.
Of course, children should not be the targets of these
adult products. That is why people below a certain age or elderly people
with impaired judgment are called "vulnerable groups." But critics of
marketing practices also refer to adult women, African-Americans,
Hispanics and other minorities as "vulnerable groups," as if they
were children needing protection. It is odd that only possessors of pale
penises are perceived to also possess the potential to personally resist
the persuasive power of marketing promotions. Adult women should resent
someone else saying they are incapable of deciding to smoke or buy guns.
No one has ever suggested that African-Americans should be banned from
purchasing cigarettes or alcohol. ( p. 157)
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Body Language that
Contradicts Watch yourself and/or other women in meetings. Is
your body language undermining all the power you are aiming for with
your sophisticated words? How often do women shrug our shoulders, tilt
our head, and giggle? How often do you see men do these things? Not
often.
Watch what your body language says about you.
Remember what your mother told you about standing up straight and
sitting up straight; she was right. Learn how to carry yourself. Learn
how to "take up more room". Men do it all the time. If you want to be
taken seriously, carry yourself as if you were to be taken seriously.
A student in Gender Issues in Management, Tatiani Jaku, sent this link
to a talk by Amy Cuddy on TED. It's all about how your body
language can determine how you succeed. It's about 20 minutes so
give yourself some time to watch it, but do watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks-_Mh1QhMc |
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Sports Language
Adam Lind, Louise's Favourite Toronto Blue
Jay |
"How about those Jays, eh?" is
not just idle chatter. Sports contributes a huge
amount to the vocabulary of business. It is
one
area of common interest for most men, something men bond
with, something to talk about at the water
cooler and in the elevator and in those
awkward moments before a meeting starts.
Sports terminology provides linguistic
short-cuts, allowing the speaker to have
understood his exact meaning with just a
quick phrase. Sports language also serves to
cut out of the inner circle those who aren't
part of the in-crowd. Nothing serves so
quickly to identify you as someone out of
the loop having to ask what a guy meant by
one of these phrases:
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We
pitch
an advertising campaign. We refer to someone
who is well informed as
on the ball.
We ask for a
ball-park figure to estimate
how much a project will cost. Even when we
think there's no chance of closing a deal,
we give it the
old school try,
going beyond just ordinary effort. When
someone proposes an addition to the report
that has nothing to do with the central
point, we accuse her of being
out in left field,
or way off the
mark. When there's fierce
opposition to an idea in a central planning
committee and someone gets it approved by
going through a more open-minded VP's
office, he's doing an
end run.
A Monday
morning quarterback
is the guy who's always ready to
criticize what was done, without having made
any effort to actually help with the
project. We ask someone to
tackle
the job. And of course, we want everyone
these days to be a
team player.
| More
Sports Idioms and their
explanations, originally prepared for
students whose native tongue is not
English |
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In addition
to providing much of the language of
business, sports, and the playing of it or
attending of it or watching of it, is often
where the important business of an
organization is played out. In many
cases, women lose out on important notice of
promotions coming up and other important
information about the day-to-day running of
the company because they are not there on
the golf course or the squash court to hear
about it. |
Sally Forth from the comics
recently started to read the sports pages. In one
cartoon, we see this dialogue as she sits reading
the newspaper at the
breakfast table with her husband Ted:
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"You've
been reading the sports page and I
didn't know about it?" |
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| "A
lot of the guys I work with like
to talk sports. I keep up." |
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"This
is great. We can talk sports at
the breakfast table." |
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| Sally:
"I do it because I have to,
Ted. Career enhancement." |
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"What
about marriage enhancement?" |
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| "How
about those Dodgers?" |
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In another one, Sally's
co-worker Alice suggests that maybe we should try
other analogies, like cooking:
| "This
casserole's been in the oven long
enough.
Try that at the next department
meeting." |
and Sally responds
| "You
try it; I'll stay on the bench until I see
whether you can punch it into the end
zone." |
Some male writers do use the occasional "female"
image. Norbert Wiener writing about Cybernetics
in 1954 said this: "The historian of science
looks in vain for a single line of development.
Gibbs' work, while well cut out, was badly
sewed, and it remained for others to complete
the job that he began." (Wiener, Norbert 1954
The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and
Society. New York: Da Capo Press.
Listening to Jerry
Howarth of The Fan 590, as he called a Blue Jays game in August of 2013,
I heard him refer to the pitcher J.A Happ's good pitching as, "hot knife
through buttering his way through the inning.
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Exercise
Cooking |
With
more than 40% of middle management being women these
days, why DON'T we have more business analogies from
more traditionally female domains?
What might an office discussion sound
like if we did?
Post your answer in
the
Moodle
Discussion Group. |
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Military
Language
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The military
provides just as much to business language
as does sports. We spent perhaps too much time in the
1970's telling women they had to become like men in order
to succeed in the corporate world, including learning
sports and the language of the military. You don't have to
go join the Marines, but it is still worth knowing what it
is that men learn from the military because the world of
business is still filled with its imagery and is likely to
be for some time to come. Ponder these terms from the
field of Marketing, in which I did my doctorate.
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As product
managers, we respect the chain
of command and
taking our
orders from above, plan a marketing
strategy and
detail the
tactics for the ad
campaign,
remembering that the battle
for position is
waged in the mind of the consumer.
Gathering intelligence
about our competition, we
marshal our resources,
draft new
staff recruits,
exhort them to
conquest, while
containing the one
guy in our ranks
who is a loose cannon.
If the enemy is
solidly entrenched
and we’re outflanked
by bigger advertising budgets in a
strategic manoeuvre,
we enlist help
from our superiors,
and bring in the really big
guns before we are
broad-sided. If a
full frontal attack
on the market fails, we resort to
guerrilla warfare and
blast the
competition where he least expects it, or we
wage a
sniper attack on his
position where
his defenses
are weakest. If we execute
this campaign
well, we will progress through
the ranks, achieve our well-merited
promotion, and take
our place with the other
high-ranking officers of the firm. |
For another example of the use of
sports/military language, read the explanation of
the difference between reliability and validity in
the Introductory Marketing unit on Research
And sometimes we find sports and military comingled, here in
this quote from the Globe and Mail sports section at the start
of baseball season in 2009, using military imagery when writing
about sports:
| "Both teams are spending less money
on payroll this year than they did last year. And Boston
general manager Theo Epstein has already said publicly
that he decided to keep some of his powder dry
because he believes the economy is going to force teams
into distress sales". |
Sheryl Sandberg's Book Lean
In
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Exercise
Sandberg Language |
How does
Sheryl Sandbert's book Lean In help you further
understand the topic of this unit?
Post your answer in the
Moodle Discussion
Group. |
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