Why sexist language needs to get the boot
SENSATIONAL news: in yet another exciting development destined to create yet more tensions between men and women, employers are going to start using more “feminine” language when advertising for high-powered and traditionally male jobs. According to some research, women are put off applying for jobs that use words like “ambitious, assertive, decisive, determined and self-reliant” as they are seen as male, whereas “committed, connect, interpersonal, responsible and yield” are said to tick the female box.
Why stop there? Why not advertise chief executive jobs as “fluffy, pink, with lots of cupcake breaks and me time for discussing your interpersonal development issues”. Plenty of time off to go to have a little cry in the loos.
Leadership qualities, ability to think on your feet, strength of character, charisma and enterprise? That’s sexist, innit? Women can’t possibly be expected to have any of that.
It’s tempting to mention the words “Margaret Thatcher” here, so I will, but dear lord, quite how far do they want to infantalise the rest of us? Even those of us who do not quite have the steely qualities of the Iron Lady are capable of making a way for ourselves in what is still very much a man’s world, which is why it is so very odd that people who should know better are still trying to patronise us to within an inch of our lives. I do not want to do a job on the grounds that it is huggable and cuddly.
I want to do it because I’m good at it.And never do I want to be told I got a post that I otherwise wouldn’t because it is “female-friendly”.
And remember all those all-women political shortlists (none memorable because of the quality of the incumbents, incidentally)? Would you really want to be one of those MPs about whom it would always be whispered that they only got to the Commons because they got a bit of extra help?
These attempts at social engineering always blow up in the face. In communist Russia, women were encouraged to become lorry drivers, embrace the careers that had traditionally been male such as medicine, work on an equal field with men.
And what was the net result of all this attempt to breakdown the barriers between men and women?
The son of a female doctor was once asked if he’d like to follow his mother into her profession. He looked down his nose. “That’s women’s work,” he said.
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