Gender Neutrality

The main focus of this article is to critically analyse the associations between crime against women, gender neutrality and attainment of SDG 5 within the multicultural complex context of India. The article argues that to achieve gender equality and neutrality, changes must be made at the level of policy that empowers not only women but also the other genders. This has to be mainstreamed within policy making, by institutions and someday as a part of CSR through the creation of a shared value approach. The article argues that gender equality is not just about women's empowerment but also about empowering all other genders. For making its case, this article gives a detailed analysis of women's empowerment laws and goes on to make a case for the gender equality and neutrality by challenging the binary of man versus woman. The article makes a narrative about the imperative need of pushing gender neutrality in order to attain SDG-5 and sustainability in the middle of the unequal power relationship within every segment and sector of societies with complex cultural, class, caste divide and other inequities.

GENDER NEUTRALITY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: TEACHER TALK AND COURSEBOOKS

Постановка проблемы. В статье рассматривается феномен гендерной нейтральности при обучении английскому языку и представлены результаты анализа речи учителей и содержания учебников. Целью данного исследования является выявление степени осведомленности учителей английского языка в России о гендерной нейтральности в английском языке и существующих стратегиях гендерно нейтрального речевого поведения на занятиях по английскому языку, а также выявление того, насколько содержание учебников по английскому языку соответствует принципам гендерной нейтральности. Результаты. Результаты исследования демонстрируют, что многие учителя и авторы учебников используют гендерно нейтральные лексические и грамматические стратегии, но при этом им не удается избегать гендерных стереотипов и неравной репрезентации персонажей, персоналий и прецедентных имен. Таким образом, предположение, что учителя английского языка используют в своей речи гендерно окрашенные лексические и грамматические средства, а также гендерные стереотипы на занятиях по английскому языку, частично подтвердилось: более 60% учителей не владеют гендерно нейтральным речевым поведением в достаточной степени. В отношении содержания учебников гипотеза также частично подтвердилась: 60% учебников содержат гендерные стереотипы, а в 90% проанализированных учебников встретился дисбаланс мужских и женских персонажей, персоналий и прецедентных имен (в сторону мужских). Выводы. Представляется целесообразной разработка особых рекомендаций по гендерно нейтральному речевому поведению на занятиях по английскому языку для учителей английского языка в России, в которых были бы учтены некоторые аспекты гендерной нейтральности в английском языке. Данные рекомендации должны соотноситься с российским социокультурным контекстом и включать в себя все необходимые объяснения о специфике гендерной нейтральности и ее важности в англоязычном контексте. State of the problem. The article explores the phenomenon of gender neutrality in language education and presents the results of classroom discourse analysis and coursebook content analysis. The purpose of the study is to reveal to what extent teachers of English as a foreign language (L2 teachers) in Russia use gender-neutral language and gender-neutral behaviour strategies in the classroom and how gender neutrality is presented in the English coursebooks (created both by Russian and international authors). The novelty is determined by the fact that this is the first attempt to analyse teacher talk and English coursebook contents in terms of their gender neutrality in the Russian socio-cultural context. Results. Results show that many lessons and coursebooks analysed use some gender-neutral vocabulary and grammar strategies, but contain gender-stereotyping and unequal representation of personalia and case names. The proposed hypothesis that English teachers in Russia use gendered lexical and grammatical means, as well as gender stereotypes in the classroom was validated to a certain extent. The overall result demonstrates that more than 60% of teachers are not gender-neutral. As for the coursebooks, most of them seem to be gender-neutral in terms of grammar, and half of them seem to be gender-neutral in terms of vocabulary. At the same time, 60% of coursebooks contain gender stereotypes and 90% do not represent males and females equally (with male superiority in number). Conclusion. Special guidelines on gender-neutral English in the classroom for English teachers in Russia should be created to provide some recommendations on the use of gender-neutral language and the use of coursebooks. These guidelines should refer to the Russian socio-cultural context and contain all the necessary footnotes for teachers to explain to them the importance of gender neutrality in the English language and to help them to explain the phenomenon to the students, who might experience certain challenges while acquiring the concept of gender neutrality that is only minimally represented in the Russian language.

Address terms in New Zealand English: Tracking changes to the social indexicality of gendered terms of address

<p>Recent research has suggested that some conventionally masculine address terms are becoming more gender neutral in English speaking countries. This study examines the four most prominent gendered address forms in New Zealand English: mate, bro, man and guys in order to gain insight into the terms’ social indexicalities, and track any shifts towards gender neutrality. The study takes a mixed-methods approach to analysing two distinct data sets: four corpora of spoken New Zealand English and a data set collected from a range of current media sources. Results from this study suggest that mate is in retreat in younger New Zealanders’ speech, while bro may be increasing in usage as an unmarked form. Results also suggest that both man and guys have a largely gender free status and are being used frequently in New Zealand. These findings contribute to the growing interest sociolinguists are taking in informal address terms by providing an analysis of the interactional and social functions of address forms in New Zealand English.</p>

Address terms in New Zealand English: Tracking changes to the social indexicality of gendered terms of address

<p>Recent research has suggested that some conventionally masculine address terms are becoming more gender neutral in English speaking countries. This study examines the four most prominent gendered address forms in New Zealand English: mate, bro, man and guys in order to gain insight into the terms’ social indexicalities, and track any shifts towards gender neutrality. The study takes a mixed-methods approach to analysing two distinct data sets: four corpora of spoken New Zealand English and a data set collected from a range of current media sources. Results from this study suggest that mate is in retreat in younger New Zealanders’ speech, while bro may be increasing in usage as an unmarked form. Results also suggest that both man and guys have a largely gender free status and are being used frequently in New Zealand. These findings contribute to the growing interest sociolinguists are taking in informal address terms by providing an analysis of the interactional and social functions of address forms in New Zealand English.</p>

‘Gentlemen of the Press’ and Media Gender Neutrality: A ReEvaluation

Media gender neutrality is one of the key tenets or pillars of journalism. Such tenets include but not limited to the gender-sensitive and non-biased language of reporting. Based on the symbolic interactionism theory and drawing on the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) method, it is argued that the traditional greeting for journalists “gentlemen of the press”, which is still in use internationally, is too gender-biased, promotes hegemonic masculinity that disproportionately disadvantages and hurts women. This article concludes that, based on current trends in gender neutrality and gender sensitivity in language, the original meaning inputted into the generic word “men” in “gentlemen” where the term “men” is applied inclusively to and refers to both “men and women” is no longer justified and tenable and recommends that the usage be stopped and be replaced with a new proposed, more gender-neutral greeting, namely: “Distinguished members of the press”.

Disputed Conceptions of Motherhood

This article examines feminist efforts to disentangle womanhood, biological motherhood, and social motherhood in order to promote equality in the law. It argues that this approach has produced important feminist influence and results in some areas of law but has led to a lack of feminist influence in areas where biological and social motherhood overlap, such as parental rights, reproductive technology, and surrogacy. Just as the law needed a theoretical boost that went beyond gender neutrality to see the gendered harm of sexual harassment at work, it needs a feminist account of pregnancy and birth that recognizes that these biological processes have social, relational dimensions.

Verstärkung (m/w/d) gesucht. Zur Geschlechtsneutralität in den gegenwärtigen deutschen Stellenanzeigen

The goal of this article is to examine the issue of gender neutrality of job classifieds in contemporary German language using the results of empirical analysis of a research corpus. In light of the General Act on Equal Treatment (Allgemeines Gleichbehandlungsgesetz – AGG) adopted by German Bundestag on the 14th of August, 2006, as well as the Act Modifying the Information to be Entered into the Birth Register (Gesetz zur Änderung der in das Geburtenregister einzutragenden Angaben) of the 18th of December, 2018, there is an obligation in Germany to edit job classified in accordance with gender neutrality. The implementation of linguistic equality of the sexes in job ads in such a way that they meet the guidelines of the AGG often leads to linguistic chaos and wrong and/or confusing phrasing: a fact confirmed by the examples from the above mentioned corpus. These phenomena have a considerable impact on the readability and the aesthetic qualities of the ads, and on the possibility of understanding them both in the written form and as audio files. To some extent, they also determine the degree of success of the recruitment process. Gender neutrality in language consists in expressing both male and female genders as well as other gender-related identities. However, this has to be done in accordance with grammatical, syntactic and stylistic norms. In order to prevent the “job classified” genre of texts from being misunderstood, unclearly phrased names of jobs must be eliminated.

Finns det kvinnliga astronauter?

Are There Any Female Astronauts? On Gender-Inclusive Translation of Non-Fiction Books for Children This article deals with gender-inclusive translation of information books for children. Translation solutions drawn from three non-fiction books translated from French to Swedish by different translators are discussed in terms of gender neutrality and inclusion. Analysis reveals that, although the Swedish translations are comparatively free in relation to the original texts, the translators differ in their tendency to make use of gender-inclusive translation strategies, such as employing gender-neutral occupational terms, avoiding masculine generic forms, reformulating gender-biased passages, representing parenthood as more equal and making women visible in the translation by the explicit mention of female experiences and characters. While emphasizing the importance of being attentive to gender issues in information books for young children, it is argued that gender-neutralising interventions can be made in translations of this text type without putting the overall purpose of the book at risk.