APPROACHES AND PRACTICES
Sex-Biased Language and the
Technical-Writing Teacher’s
Responsibility
Dean G. Hall
Kansas State
University
Bonnie A. Nelson
Kansas State University
Our survey of women who graduated in engineering from Kansas State University indicates that sexist language persists in the workplace, that women
react to it in various ways, and that such language can engender sexist attitudes which often have deleterious effects on the company and its employees.
We believe technical-writing teachers have some of the responsibility to sensitize students to exclusionary language. We show how that language violates
professional ethical practices, demonstrate that some technical-writing texts
trivialize the issue of sexist language, and suggest methods and resources for
teachers to use in the classroom.
Introduction
Why another article
on sex-biased language? After all, sexual discrimination and sexual harassment are forbidden by law, and, even
though job opportunities and salaries for women typically do not
equal those for men, women are steadily closing these gaps as more
and more of these women move into professional positions. Moreover, some businesses and industries have official guidelines which
mandate that exclusionary language be removed from their communications. What, then, is the problem?
We came to suspect the problem was twofold. First, we believed
that, despite announced guidelines, sex-biased language might still
be found in professional communications. Second, we believed that
the presence of sex-biased language could be deleterious in a work
environment because of the sexist attitudes such language could engender. Sociologists have long known of this relationship between
language and attitudes. Barbara Bate, in &dquo;Generic Man, Invisible
Woman: Language, Thought, and Social Change,&dquo; quotes sociologists Berger and Luckmann, who believe that &dquo;the language used in
everyday life reinforces a ’social construction of reality’ and in this
way affects individuals’ beliefs about their identities and their limits&dquo; (84). As teachers of professional writing, we wanted to explore
these beliefs.
Our Questionnaire
Because we wanted to gather testimony from working professionals,
questionnaire to all (302) of Kansas State University’s
we sent a
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70
engineering graduates. One hundred and eight responses
returned. Of these, 82 were usable for our purposes. Responses
classified as unusable were from women who did not obtain employment after graduation.
Our primary purpose with this questionnaire was to discover if
sex-biased language still exists in professional documents and, if so,
how its presence affects women who encounter it. We would then
weigh these findings and decide whether or not professional-writing
teachers ought to be concerned about this issue. Our questions and
typical responses follow.
women
were
Have you noticed any sexist language in memos, letters, reports,
or
otherdocumentsyou have read on thejob?Ifso, can yousharesome
examples with us?
Sex-biased language is still common in professional documents,
as the following responses indicate:
Letters are addressed to &dquo;Gentlemen.&dquo; Contracts are written &dquo;Gentlemen, know by these parts ...&dquo;; we use the term &dquo;manhours&dquo; in our
reports.
Letters
man,
are
often addressed &dquo;Gentlemen.&dquo; Words like draftsman, worketc. are used quite a bit.
manhours,
Actual construction specifications usually referred to the contractor,
gineer, etc., in masculine terms.
Documents and reports
en-
geared toward men only.
Our &dquo;typical&dquo; customer is female (98%), yet often I hear the customer referred to
as
Exclusive
are
&dquo;he&dquo; and not &dquo;she.&dquo;
use
of he/his
etc.
when she/hers is also
applicable.
Women reacted to the presence of sex-biased language in various
ways. Some were not bothered by it; others were willing to accept sex-
ist language and attitudes rather than risk jeopardizing their positions :
Use of &dquo;he&dquo;
receiving a letter addressed to &dquo;Mr.&dquo; doesn’t bother me.
I don’t think a majority of women would report sexist language unless it
became a serious harassment. This would be viewed in [a] corporate environment as the actions of a troublemaker, and therefore her credibility
would be questioned.
As a woman engineer I do not expect these modes of communication to
change just because the field is [no longer] exclusively male.
Don’t make a big deal of this. Problems are created by having too feminist
an attitude about things.
The sexist attitudes and language I encounter on the job are best handled
by &dquo;not noticing them.&dquo;
I think the most important thing at work is to do your job well and people
or
will overlook your sex.
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71
Others felt that the use of sexist language was an important issue
and took upon themselves the responsibility for confronting the
matter:
I would like to address a practice in the professional literature that I find
offensive ... using scantily clad women to sell equipment. I have found
this type of advertisement in Pollution Engineering and Chemical Engineering postcard packets .... I have written the advertiser in the past
when I encountered such tactics.
A male employee expressed his view that professional jobs should be left
He feels there is too much pressure and stress involved for women
to pursue worthwhile careers in the professional fields. He is newly married to a woman who finds satisfaction in keeping a home for them .... I
had to point out to him that all people are different. There are men and
to men.
who are satisfied to maintain low career profiles. That doesn’t
that women wanting careers in professional fields are not as qualified as men .... If a woman has talent and ambition she should not waste
it .... If a woman is given a chance to express her opinion to a man with a
sexist view, she should. It might open his eyes to progress.
women
mean
I don’t let sexist remarks, joking or serious, go without a reply,
the individual that they are acting in a sexist manner.
informing
Something that is very normal in industry is the referral of women as
&dquo;girls.&dquo; Now that I am in a managerial position, I will correct someone
when they use that term inappropriately.
The only sexist language I can remember was in vendor literature. Since I
was in a position of recommending equipment purchases, I received a lot
of equipment literature. About one in six began &dquo;Dear Sir,&dquo; or &dquo;Dear Mr.
Cynthia .&dquo; These I pitched into the wastebasket without reading.
Sometimes people will call me &dquo;honey,&dquo; or &dquo;sweetheart.&dquo; I tell them that I
don’t appreciate it and ask them how they’d feel if I called them &dquo;honey.&dquo;
Usually they apologize.
Can you share with us any personal experiences in which sexist
language or attitudes were revealed and how you handled the situa-
tion ?
Respondents clearly felt extra pressure in their professional lives
simply because they were women. One female engineer reported:
I have one supervisor who believes talking about my body and looks is his
duty. I, so far, have been able to joke it off.... I feel that the best way to
handle him is to give him the feeling he has won, yet get the remarks to
cease .... I may have to swallow some pride myself, but, if it makes a
smooth working environment and I know the truth, it will be well worth it.
Other women responded that they had not been
their professional roles because they were female:
fully accepted
in
[My] previous job supervisor could not accept that a woman was an engiand expected to receive work assignments identical to those given to
the men. [I] therefore was told to type, run errands, etc. [He] even monineer
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72
tored my phone calls. [My] supervisor gave me the feeling that I wasn’t
wanted or needed in the area. [In my] present job [I] have experienced instances in meetings where I was the only woman present. Information
that I presented was receiving questions and they were directed to my supervisor as if I wasn’t there ....
This response was especially significant to us because we believe
teachers should be concerned with nonverbal as well as with verbal
communication, for, as Bobbye Sorrels points out, &dquo;Oral and nonverbal communication are two categories that reflect deepset attitudes
more readily than written communication&dquo; (99). Furthermore, &dquo;research shows that 65% or more of the meaning of an oral exchange
comes from the nonverbal (wordless) symbols&dquo; (105). An experience
such as the one described above surely affects negatively the confidence and professional growth of the woman involved.
Another vivid example of invisibility was an award sent to a
woman engineer from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Asthe
tronautics : &dquo;In recognition of his interest and qualifications
Institute declares that has been admitted to the grade of Associate Member&dquo; (emphasis ours).
Especially important to us also were the responses which urged
our participation as teachers of technical communication. We took
to heart one woman’s admonition that
...
it is a fine thing to make students aware of possible sexism they may face
the job but please don’t neglect the possible damage that may be inflicted on students before they begin their careers.
on
Another told
us:
Inform students that this sort of [sexist] behavior will be encountered and
prepare them to handle it. Also let them know it is not their fault if others
are rude. Don’t let the remarks of others interfere with their own selfesteem.
Given the continued presence of sexist language and its negative
effects, technical-writing teachers do have some responsibility to
alert students to this language as they prepare students to enter the
workplace. However, the texts available to teachers of technical writing do not consider the use of sex-biased language to be an important
issue.
Survey of Technical-Writing Textbooks
We surveyed the following most widely used and newer technicalwriting texts:
Components of Technical Writing, Susan Feinberg
Effective Professional Writing, Michael L. Keene
Essentials of Technical Writing, William D. Conway
Fundamentals of Technical Writing, Patricia Robinson
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73
Guide to Technical and Scientific Communication, Donald E.
Zimmerman and David G. Clark
Reporting Technical Information, Kenneth W. Houp and Thomas
E. Pearsall
Strategies for Technical Communication, Nancy Roundy
with
David Mair
Technical Writing, Frances B. Emerson
Technical Writing, John Lannon
Technical Writing, Gordon H. Mills and John A. Walter
Technical Writing: A Reader-Centered Approach, Paul V.
Anderson
Technical Writing: Purpose, Process and Form, Thomas L.
Warren
None of the texts we looked at exhibit sex-biased language, and
of them conspicuously use examples written by women and
create scenarios in which women are in authoritative positions. Yet,
though the authors of these texts have learned to avoid sex-biased
language themselves, they give little help to students who may not
have done so. Robinson and Warren, for example, do not mention
sexist language at all. Conway defines sexist language, offers some alternatives, and includes one short exercise (272-76). Zimmerman
and Clark reprint useful guidelines from the American Institutes for
Research on &dquo;Eliminating Gender Bias in Language&dquo; ( 190-91 ), but
none of the sentences students are to revise at the chapter’s end deal
with sexist language. Lannon and Emerson each briefly describe sexist language and offer a short list of alternatives. Emerson saves the
list for the very last page of the second appendix. Feinberg paraphrases Be a Better Writer, a publication of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency, saying &dquo;some people believe that forms like
chairman ... subtly bias our thinking against women-that masculine gender encourages us to think first about placing men in these
positions&dquo; ( 1 O 1 ). Her advice is &dquo;to avoid sex-linked nouns and titles&dquo;
and &dquo;to avoid the problem,&dquo; by which, though she does not say so, she
means to substitute plurals for singulars whenever possible ( 101,
103). Unfortunately, none of the exercises she supplies for students
have them address the problem of sex-biased language. The other
books on this list offer only a few lines on the undesirability of using
&dquo;Dear Gentlemen&dquo; or &dquo;Dear Sir,&dquo; in the correspondence sections of
their texts, or, when discussing pronoun/antecedent agreement, caution students against the exclusive use of &dquo;he&dquo; (Anderson; Keene;
some
Roundy).
What we find
on
disturbing is not only a woeful lack of information
exclusionary language and the damage it can cause but also the
mixed messages students
can
get from these textbooks. Instead of
treating sexist language as the important issue it is, authors not only
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74
downplay or avoid the topic, but sometimes attempt to circumvent
the problem. Lannon, for example, advises students, &dquo;Your best bet
here is to eliminate the salutation completely by using an attention
line&dquo; (346), though later he claims that an attention line is used
&dquo;when you want a specific person (whose name you don’t know)&dquo;
(348). Sometimes the concern over equal treatment in the language is
trivialized. Houp and Pearsall give the example &dquo;Each of the students had his or her assignment ready,&dquo; saying that this sentence is
&dquo;grammatically correct&dquo; but a &dquo;bit awkward&dquo; (501 ). They fail, however, to explain exactly what is awkward about the sentence. A directive in the most recent edition of Mills and Walter states, &dquo;You can
write ’Dear Sir or Madam’ and avoid sexist assumptions by being
cumbersome, but... if you know the person’s title, or can approximate it, use it rather than a term that would indicate gender&dquo; (300).
To claim that phrases which accommodate both men and women are
&dquo;awkward&dquo; and/or &dquo;cumbersome&dquo; conveys an attitude that using
such phrases is a hassle. Such a diminishing of the issue sends the
message to students that the presence of sexist language is no more
serious than infelicitous phrasing. Clearly, if technical-writing teachers want to discuss this issue fully, they will have to provide their own
supplementary materials for classroom use.
Classroom Activities
In order to warn students about the harmful effects of sexist language, technical-writing instructors might incorporate the following
guidelines in their courses.
Sensitize Students to the Presence of Sex-Biased
Language
The results of our survey reveal that sex-biased language is prevalent
in the workplace. However, many students do not recognize this language in what they write and what they hear. Alice F. Freed, in &dquo;Hearing Is Believing: The Effect of Sexist Language on Language Skills,&dquo;
identifies our first priority:
In order to correct inequity in writing (or speaking), people must first be
able to identify such features in what they read or in what they hear ....
In order to write with an eye to fairness, students must first be sensitized
to the lack of fairness in the language they read and the language they hear
around them. (82)
particular, the argument that the exclusive use of &dquo;he&dquo; is acceptaefficiency’s sake must be refuted. The Association of American Colleges has pointed out that
In
ble for
routinely using male nouns and pronouns to refer to all people excludes
more than half of the population. There have been many studies that
show that when generic &dquo;he&dquo; is used, people, in fact, think it refers to men,
rather than men and women. (Project on the Status and Education of
Women 1 )
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75
Discuss
Negative Effects of Sex-Biased Language
Sex-Biased
Language Violates Professional Ethical
Responsibility
Just as teachers should insist upon their students knowing and applying the codes of ethics that prevail in professional-communication
situations, teachers should instruct students that the use of sexbiased language is unprofessional as well. The formalized codes of
ethics provide directions for professionals, stress the honesty and integrity of the individual, and emphasize throughout the principles of
fair treatment. To cite just one example, the IEEE Code of Ethics for
Engineers specifically states that &dquo;engineers shall, in their work ...
treat fairly all colleagues and co-workers, regardless of race, religion,
sex, age or national origin&dquo; (&dquo;IEEE Code of Ethics&dquo; 65). As teachers
of writing, we would be violating our own professionalism if we ignore sex-biased language; the NCTE’s special committee on sexist
language has concluded that &dquo;as with racism, so with sexism; we all
lose when another is diminished and belittled. We all have much to
gain from ’fair and equitable treatment under the language&dquo;’
(DeStefano ix).
Sex-Biased
Language Has Negative Effects on the Working
Environment
Sex-biased language engenders and reinforces sexist attitudes, and
such attitudes can keep women from reaching their full potentials as
professionals. Respondents to our survey complained of being ignored or overlooked; we now know that sex-biased language can contribute to such invisibility. Barbara Bate clearly demonstrates that
&dquo;ambiguities and inconsistencies in the use of the term ’man’ place
women at a disadvantage for understanding themselves as persons
and for determining their actions in current social circumstances&dquo;
(83). That is why we should all be concerned about the use of &dquo;man&dquo;
as a generic word. Only women
have the task of making sense of the fact that they are both &dquo;man&dquo; and
&dquo;not man&dquo; at the same time .... Sheer exposure to the presence of a word
or image can reinforce and solidify that word or image in memory. The
male image becomes increasingly clear, forceful, and appealing; the female image meanwhile blurs, shifts, and takes on negative connotations.
(Bate 84, 87)
Survey responses from practicing women engineers confirm the
truth of Bate’s statement that &dquo;the attitudes and actions of women, as
well as those displayed toward women, are less likely to change in
positive directions if the language... continues to treat women as invisible&dquo; (91 ). If some members of an engineering team feel invisible
or are only partial participants in the engineering process, the process is not as good as it could and should be. The perpetuation of sexist
attitudes in the workplace not only demeans some of an engineering
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76
team’s members, but this perpetuation can, then, lead directly to inferior engineering products and services. The most efficient engineering offices depend upon the innovation and creativity of all their
employees.
Sex-Biased Language Can Have
Documents Are Perceived
a
Negative impact on
How
Our survey not only demonstrates that sex-biased communications
are still common, but it also shows that such communications are
treated with disdain by at least part of the audience. Though some
women remarked that they report back to the authors of offensive
communications, some women exercise immediate and silent control by making negative decisions regarding the communications; in
such instances, the authors of the sex-biased communications may
never know why they lost the contract or why they received no purchase orders from a particular company. For example, the engineer
whose job responsibility included equipment purchases simply
threw sex-biased advertising materials into her wastebasket. Because
many readers, including many males, consider sex-biased communications to signal an unprofessional attitude, this negative opinion
can color reactions to those who continue to use such language. Sexbiased communications could well be a decisive factor in professional failures.
Provide
Revising and Editing Exercises Where
Eliminating Sex-Biased Language Is Primary
At least one exercise a term should be devoted to having students revise a sex-biased communication by substituting acceptable alternatives. This exercise will make students aware that alternatives exist,
and will help students discover where to find these alternatives (either in a text or supplementary class materials) and how to use them.
A communications teacher in need of supplementary material
can refer to several resources that provide alternatives to sex-biased
usage. Two of the best are Casey Miller’s and Kate Swift’s The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing and Bobbye Sorrels’ The Nonsexist
Communicator.
Make Eliminating Sex-Biased Language
Editing Procedure
a
Standard
We believe that
providing a list of alternative words is not enough.
recognize sex-biased usage just as they learn
to recognize camouflaged verbs or redundant phrasing. By training
students to check for and eliminate sex-biased language in all the
documents they produce for a course, writing teachers add another
feature to students’ professional preparedness and accept the important responsibility of helping to eliminate such language and
Students must learn to
attitudes.
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77
Train Students to
Recognize Sexism
in Oral
Communication
As Sorrels
explains, students need
to realize that
stereotypes ordinarily expose themselves [even]
and
in oral comA unit on the job
&dquo;prejudices
more
munication than in written communication&dquo; (100).
search-which involves learning how to write an effective resume
and job-application letter, as well as learning strategies for interviewing with a company-is often included in a technical-writing course.
This unit affords students the opportunity to consider not only the
actions of the interviewee but also the appropriate actions and behavior of the interviewer.
Sexist methods of conducting job interviews would include asking
female applicants questions &dquo;related to marital status or plans, childbearing plans, birth-control methods, and how much her husband
earns&dquo; (Sorrels 102). Sexist conclusions made by an interviewer
might include that the female applicant
does not want to travel, that hers is a second income, that she wants a job
not a career, that she will not be stable because she will follow her husband, that she will act more emotional than a man, that she will be absent
more than a man, and so on. (Sorrels 103)
In addition to the focus on oral communication in this unit, students should always be held accountable for sexism in their oral as
well as their written presentations. Students need to be reminded to
avoid &dquo;mankind&dquo; language and the generic &dquo;he&dquo; in speaking as well
as in writing.
Teach Students to Be Aware of the Damaging Effects of
Sexist Nonverbal Communication
The woman engineer who presented a report at a meeting and was invisible to those present illustrates this point. Bobbye Sorrels’ The
Nonsexist Communicator can be very helpful to students here. Sorrels discusses fully the impact of the nonverbal by exploring the fol-
lowing areas:
· space and territory (105-06)
· touch ( 106)
. movement (106-07)
· time (107-09)
. face ( 109-10)
. voice ( 110-11 )
. environment ( 111-12)
. dress and appearance (112-13)
· silence (113-14)
She also includes exercises to help
students
recognize
and correct
sexist nonverbal communication.
The publication, The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for
Women? published by the Project on the Status and Education of
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78
Women, of the Association of American Colleges, is also very helpful
(Hall and Sandler). This publication includes an excellent discussion
on both oral and &dquo;silent language&dquo; which can &dquo;shape classroom climate&dquo; (6) and impede the intellectual development of women. For
example, faculty may inadvertently be guilty of &dquo;making eye contact
more often with men than with women&dquo;; &dquo;nodding and gesturing
more often in response to men’s questions and comments than to
women’s&dquo;; &dquo;assuming a posture of attentiveness ... when men
speak, but the opposite (such as looking at the clock) when women
make comments&dquo;; &dquo;favoring men in choosing student assistants&dquo; (7);
&dquo;addressing the class as if no women were present&dquo; (&dquo;Suppose your
wife ...&dquo;; &dquo;When you were a boy...&dquo;) (8); &dquo;interrupting women students (or allowing them to be disproportionately interrupted by
peers)&dquo; (9). The Chilly Climate publication offers a wealth of information that is appropriate for discussion in a technical-writing class.
Conclusion
The important responsibilities of technical-writing instructors include sensitizing students to exclusionary language and the damage
it can cause: &dquo;Only through direct revision and correction of sexist
communication patterns can men and women begin to realize the
greater potential that all people share&dquo; (Sorrels ix). Training students
to eliminate sex-biased language from their communications will
make them more effective as writers, more professional as employees, and more fair-minded as citizens.
References
Anderson, Paul V. Technical Writing: A Reader-Centered Approach. New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987.
Bate, Barbara. "Generic Man, Invisible Woman: Language, Thought and Social Change." Papers in Women’s Studies 2.1 (1975): 83-95.
Conway, William D. Essentials of Technical Writing. New York: Macmillan,
1987.
DeStefano, Johanna S. Introduction. Sexism and Language. Ed. Alleen Pace
et al. Urbana: NCTE, 1977. viii-ix.
Nilsen,
Emerson, Frances B. Technical Writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
Feinberg, Susan. Components of Technical Writing. New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1989.
Freed, Alice F. "Hearing Is Believing: The Effect of Sexist Language on Language Skills." Teaching Writing: Pedagogy, Gender, and Equity. Ed.
Cynthia L. Caywood and Gillian R. Overing. Albany: State U of New York
Press, 1987. 81-89.
Hall, Roberta M., and Bernice R. Sandler. The Classroom Climate: A Chilly
One For Women? Washington: Project on the Status and Education of
Women, Assn. of American Colleges, 1982.
Houp, Kenneth W., and Thomas E. Pearsall. Reporting Technical Information. New York: Macmillan, 1988.
"IEEE Code of Ethics." IEEE Spectrum 12.2 (1975): 65.
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Keene, Michael
L.
Effective Professional Writing. Lexington:
D. C.
Heath,
1987.
Lannon, John. Technical Writing. Glenview: Scott, Foresman, 1988.
Miller, Casey, and Kate Swift. The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing. New
York: Harper and Row, 1980.
Mills, Gordon H., and John A. Walter. Technical Writing. New York: Holt,
Rinehart, and Winston, 1986.
Project
on
the Status and Education of Women. Guide to Nonsexist Lan-
Washington: Assn. of American Colleges, 1986.
Robinson, Patricia. Fundamentals of Technical Writing. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 1985.
Roundy, Nancy, with David Mair. Strategies for Technical Communication.
Boston: Little, Brown, 1985.
Sorrels, Bobbye. The Nonsexist Communicator. Englewood Cliffs: Prenticeguage.
Hall, 1983.
Warren, Thomas L. Technical Writing: Purpose, Process, and Form.
Belmont: Wadsworth, 1985.
Zimmerman, Donald E., and David G. Clark. Guide to Technical and Scientific Communication. New York: Random House, 1987.
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