Blog #3 "Sheldon on Language and Socialization"

This article, while interesting, appeared to be a slight overreaction to the subject of gender and language. I'm guessing that what Sheldon was trying to get at was that there are negative views of women which is due to language. When referring to a mixed group of males and females, we usually use "he." Personally, I no longer like to do that because in the back of my mind, I always think " there are women in the group, he isn't really accurate" so instead I use "they." I might have someone like a professor who wants to change it, but I will stick by using "they" no matter what.

So back to the topic. Do I agree with Sheldon? Somewhat. Though there is a part of me that feels bad for only agreeing partially. Why? As a women, my partial agreement makes it feel as if I am holding back any progression that is to be made in regards to women. But when I agree completely, I feel as if I am overreacting. I would like to stay in my nice place in the middle on this topic. As influential as language is, I still feel as if there are other external factors that are contributing to the negative views on women. There are images in magazines, TV shows, movies etc that show what society apparently wants their women to be like. Now if you have a young girl who is relatively bright or at least has some common sense, they should know that what pop culture shows isn't always what should be. Pop culture continually changes, so what's big now won't be big later (or if anything it will recycle itself). Any sensible girl should realize this and hopefully, they won't depend on those images. Sure you do have those girls who don't have positive female role models to look up to and it really is a shame. They need them.

So we could try changing language to make it more gender-neutral, but that will be a long time coming or at least a difficult process. Honestly, we are taught a lot of things during elementary school that has some sort of bias and only when you get to an institution of higher learning or research that topic yourself do you actually get the full story. Every teacher is different. Some are going to be rigid about what they teach because it has worked for them so far and others like to infuse some of the new school ways of thinking. I guess Sheldon will just have to hope for more of the new school or someone taking it upon themselves to make a change in language.