Language shapes attitudes

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The kind of language used to describe our experience is very powerful in shaping how we view the world. At the same time that words express our values and ideas, words reinforce our attitudes and shape our behaviour. So when somebody describes a child as a weakling, or stupid, or ugly, the child is likely to start believing it and behaving as though he or she is weak, ugly and stupid. It sounds really obvious, but words are powerful, and words can hurt just as much as being physically hit or sexually abused.

The following exercise is about the kind of word used to describe women in our society. Learning to use these words is a sort of training, rather like training ordinary men to become soldiers. In wartime, when men go out to fight, who are they fighting against? The answer of course, is the enemy. If the soldiers thought, 'I'm killing a man called so and so, the same age as my younger brother back home...' could they do it? Soldiers are trained to see 'the enemy' rather than human beings. They were gooks or slopes in Vietnam, krauts and jerries in WWII. In the same way, when women are seen as sluts, bitches, slags and so on, men do not see them as human beings. In an American study where 600 rapists were asked what they thought of the women and girls they had raped, most of them used words like: 'She was nothing ... just a bit of meat...' Seeing women in this way made it okay for these men to rape them.

Take a sheet of paper.

Divide it into 3 columns.

Call the first Insulting words for girls, the second Flattering words for girls, and the third, Words for older women.

Now fill in each column, thinking of words that you often hear boys use to describe girls and women. You're allowed to use slang and swear words in this exercise.

1. Circle the words which in some way refer to sex or sexiness.
2. What are the words which refer to animals and things.
3. Are there any flattering or sexy words in your list for older women?
4. Underline words which refer to women as human beings.

Let's look now at the words men and boys use to insult each other SISSY, girl, old woman, homo, wimp, poofter, son-of-a-bitch etc.

Many of these words actually refer to females. The words homo, wimp, poofter refer to men who are considered feminine in some way.

How come so many insulting words refer to women or homosexuals?

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Disclaimer Copyright Updated: 13 Aug 2009