Language is a powerful weapon. When used thoughtfully, it can be as sweet as sugarcane; when used harshly, it can taste as bitter as bitter gourd.
Gender-discriminatory language
Colour plays vital role for gender-discriminaory language like Pink for girls and Blue for boys.
How gender leads to gender bias in science?
If we speak a language with a high gender bias, we are more likely to associate men with career and women with family. To know more about how language leads to gender bias in science click on this link Language leads to gender biasfor further more Information.
Gender-discriminatory language is the opposite of gender-sensitive language. It includes words, phrases and/or other linguistic features that foster stereotypes, or demean or ignore women or men. At its most extreme it fails to treat the genders as equal in value, dignity, integrity and respect.
Language is an important part of how we and society shape our views. If I say: that person is so beautiful, yet hysterical, who do you think of? If I say: they are strong, aggressive and cocky, who comes to mind? I bet you thought of a woman first and then of a man. We tend to use different adjectives to describe people of different genders. Often, these adjectives have negative connotations for women. A woman is bossy while a man is confident. Gender bias and stereotypical gender roles are a big part of many languages and fuel discrimination, sometimes unintentionally, but also occasionally intentionally.
What we say matters is not just grammatically gendered languages influence gender inequality, also the words we use have an impact. For example: In english we call a man Mr., but for a woman we use either Ms. or Mrs. depending on her marital status.Doesn’t that suggest that the status of a woman changes depending on whether she is married or not? It doesn’t do that for man, so why do we have to differentiate for women?
Job descriptions have gotten a lot better, but many jobs still use gendered wording in their advertisements. This leads to underrepresentation of women in traditionally male-dominated fields as they do not see themselves represented in the respective field. Further, once a woman holds a leadership position she is held to a different standard and her style of leadership is dissected differently than that of a man. Taking it back to the intro: A woman is bossy, a man is confident. We tend to use communal terms for women and power terms for men which consequently leads to people assuming men are more capable of holding a position of power in the first place.
For example in this picture we can see the man calling chairman have we ever heard the word chairwoman .
Language plays a crucial role in shaping societal attitudes. The words we choose—whether addressing someone or describing something—carry weight. By being mindful of our language, we can challenge stereotypes and foster a more inclusive world.
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. For detailed information click here Postcolonialism.
Both the articles are taken from Ania Loomba's 2nd and 3rd edition.
Introduction about Ania Loomba
Ania Loomba is an Indian literary scholar who works as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work focuses on colonialism and postcolonial studies, race and feminist theory, contemporary Indian literature and culture, and early modern literature.She studied at the University of Delhi, where she received her BA, MA and MPhil degrees, before moving to England to study at the University of Sussex, where she received her PhD. For more information click on the link Ania Loomba
Summary of Article Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies
The events of 11 September 2001, the so-called global war on terror, and the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, it is harder than ever to see our world as simply ‘postcolonial’.
“ In contrast to imperialism, Empire established no territorial center of power and does not rely on fixed boundaries or barries. It is a decentered and deterritorializing apparatus of rules that progressively incorporates the entire global reals within its open, expanding frontiers, Empire manages through modulating networks of command. The distinct blended in the imperial global rainbow.”
Hardt and Negrt suggest that the new Empire is better compared to the Roman Empire rather than to European colonialism, since imperial Rome also loosely incorporated its subject states rather than controlling them directly.
Next we turn toward ‘Cultural crisis’ and we have seen an example of ‘Modernity at Large’ by Arjun Appadurai . Simon Gikandi astutely observes that despite the fact that globalization is so often seen to have made redundant the term of postcolonial critique, newness of globalization, key terms of post colonial studies: hybridity and difference’.
One of the interesting things connected with it is ‘Market Fundamentalism.’ P. Sainath observes, far from fostering ideological openness, has resulted in its own fundamentalism, which then catalyzes other in reaction:
“ Market Fundamentalism destroys more human lives than any other simply because it cuts across all national, cultural, geographic, religious and other boundaries. It’s as much at home in Moscow as in Mumbai or Minnesota. South Africa- whose advances in the early 1990s thrilled the world- moved swiftly from apartheid to neoliberalism. It sits in early Hindu, Islamic or Christian societies. And its fundamentalisms. Based on the premise that the market is the solution to all the problems of the human race, it is, too, a very religious fundamentalism. It has its own Gospel: The Gospel of St. Growth of St. Choice…” (2001:n.p.)
While discussing market fundamentalism we have also discussed Movie ‘ Reluctant Fundamentalism’. What is ‘Reluctant Fundamentalism’, so it is a Combo of Religious and market fundamentalism.
