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Feminism originated in the XNUMXth century, but it has only recently begun to be talked about en masse. Now his influence extends to all spheres of life – even the Russian language. “Blogger”, “deputy”, “screenwriter” and other feminists are already familiar to someone, but some still do not accept them in speech. What psychology says about feminists, says the psychotherapist.
Reply to a patriarchal society
In a patriarchal society, almost all spheres of social life were closed to women, which is why the names of most professions and positions are masculine.
Feminitives, in turn, are a way to emphasize gender equality. The idea of such vocabulary is that thanks to it, society begins to notice the presence of women in various professions more often.
Some experts believe that the structure of the language affects the worldview and, if you use feminitives, sexist prejudice will soon disappear. Nevertheless, it must be admitted: the patriarchal structure is many hundreds of years old. We can introduce new words into everyday life, but in order to change not only the linguistic structure, but also the worldview, more than one generation must change.
Even in the most advanced countries, the process of equalizing women’s and men’s rights lasts only a few decades. It is not very reasonable to expect significant changes in such a short period of time. Although the modern pace of life and the speed of technology development inspire hope.
Tell me a feminist and I’ll tell you who you are
By how, why and in what context a person uses feminitives, you can understand a lot about him. So, he can use feminitives in his speech, but do it for sexist reasons: “Of course, you lost the court, you should have taken a normal lawyer, not a lawyer” or “Clearly, an accident, there was a driver behind the wheel.”
A negative, neutral or positive attitude towards feminitives depends on what exactly we hear in their use, what subtext is laid down. In addition, the use of feminitives and reactions to them is also a good tool for socio-political influence.
People are easily divided into groups “according to interests” and turn out to be opposed to each other. Feeling belonging to a community (and this is one of our basic needs) is easiest through the opposition: there are our own and there are strangers.
In a situation of infringement, restrictions on rights, as in the case of gender inequality, the group and its size become especially important. The larger the community, the clearer its contours, the more protected the participants feel. This is an unconscious mechanism.
Equality is not limited to language
The use of feminitives is, as we have already found out, in most cases a question of gender equality in a career. But let’s take psychologists as an example. Today in the world it is predominantly a female profession.
For example, in the US, 58% of psychologists are women. Obviously, feminitives are not needed here in order to emphasize gender equality in this area. 58% – a clear superiority of women in this profession. However, feminitives are still used, and there must be some explanation for this:
- The first possible explanation is conformism.
- The second is a way to show support for a particular group. It is important to broadcast: “Yes, there are no problems in my profession, but there are others, I am with you.”
- Thirdly, it is important for a person to feel belonging to a certain community.
Feminitives are not necessarily used only by feminists or are used with good intentions. Sometimes such words are invested with openly sexist meaning. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why among the participants of feminist movements there are those who oppose feminists.
So, it’s not worth getting too hung up only on language issues. To solve the problem of gender inequality, you will have to think much bigger.
About the Author:
Natalia Slovesnikova – psychotherapist, coach Her .