Gay Sexism Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

“Gay” Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community Sean Mc. Lennan Linguistics / Cognitive Science Indiana University Out. Rights Calgary, Alberta April 3, 2007 "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

Language and Gender gender-based differences in how people speak • differences in how gender is talked about • • not always attached to social-inequality issues • in and of themselves, linguistic observations have nothing to say about discrimination although they can be used to build a case "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

Language and the GLBT Community Interesting fields of inquiry • language used to denigrate women is historically related to that used to denigrate homosexual men • language use within the gay community has distinguishing characteristics – even innovative • language reclamation used to diffuse social power "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

Male-As-Generic Bias in English Man / Woman Again – this is an observable Actor / Actress pattern; not an argument Heir / Heiress for social-inequality Hero / Heroine Man-hours Brotherhood Fellowship Masterpiece Generic “he” Dictionary Examples "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

“Gay” • probably the most widely used, unaddressed Male-As-Generic "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

A Little Study Counts from Outlooks, March 2007 Gay Lesbian Total Occurrences Context 162 27 44 0 Female 0 27 Generic 118 0 Male "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

A Little Study – Phrases Gay Lesbia n null gay 27 and 19 and lesbi an 19 null 4 com muni ty 13 slam 1 men reader 8 s 1 man road trip 6 movie 1 villag Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community e"Gay" Sexism: 4 muffler 1

A Little Study – Other Indicators Word Count Woman 10 Man 45 Boy 11 Girl 11 Queer 26 GLBT 24 Count Photos Female 55 Male Credits Male 176 27 Female 5 "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

“Guys” • Similar on the surface, but quite different syntactically predictable • distribution is not correlated with gender • historical evolution of the words are different • "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

Distribution of “Guy” "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community

Interpretation More questions than answers • is this indicative of social inequality? • why is it unaddressed (or is it indirectly)? • unique case of linguistic bias that is unattached to social power? • GLBT community provides a unique sociological window that is not recognized "Gay" Sexism: Linguistic Sexism in the GLBT Community