Linguistics and Gender Bias

The issue of gender equity is a relatively recent concern in the field of education. The legal foundation of this concern was the Title IX of the Education Amendment Act, passed in 1972. This Act prohibited sex discrimination in federally-funded education programs and activities. Although the legislation has successfully addressed blatant acts of gender discrimination, only limited progress has been made in eliminating the repressive attitudes that lead to gender bias. Gender bias, defined as "the underlying network of assumptions and beliefs held by a person that males and females differ in systematic ways other than physically," is pervasive in American education (Streitmatter, 1994, p. 2). Teachers unwittingly perpetuate gender bias when they refuse to actively participate in achieving gender equity as a goal in their classrooms. The elimination of gender bias requires sensitivity to the ways in which the use of language encourages g

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s sometimes referred to as "girl stain" or "girl touch," and that girls might be labelled "cootie queens," but that such terminology was never used in reference to boys (p. 74). In other words, "girls as a group are treated as an ultimate source of contamination" (p. 74). In targeting girls, these pollution rituals reflect the devaluation of females in society. This devaluation is also apparent in the incidences of disruption of girls' play by boys, which occurs on a much more frequent basis than girls' invasion of boys' play. According to Thorne (1993), "gendered language ('Let's spy on the girls'; 'Those boys are messing up our jump rope game') accompanies invasions, as do stylized interactions that highlight a sense of gender as an antagonistic social division" (p. 76). Teachers unwarily contribute to antagonism between the sexes by promoting gender-specific activities in the classroom. Thorne (1993) cites an example of an elementary school instructor who habitually organized her classroom into opposing teams of boys and girls for math and spelling competitions (p. 67). To heighten the competitive spirit, the teacher encouraged the use of derogatory sex-based labelling for the groups. For example, the girl team was des
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Approximate Word count = 2201
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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