The leaders of Women’s Aid and the Women’s Equality party are among the signatories to an open letter calling on Oxford University Press (OUP) to change its dictionaries’ “sexist” definitions of the word “woman.”
The letter points out that some Oxford Dictionaries’ definitions of the word include synonyms such as “bitch” and “maid,” and says that derogatory and sexist examples of usage include: “God, woman. Will you just listen?”
The definitions for “man,” meanwhile, include “a person with the qualities associated with males, such as bravery, spirit or toughness.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Bitch is not a synonym for woman. It is dehumanizing to call a woman a bitch. It is but one sad, albeit extremely damaging, example of everyday sexism. And that should be explained clearly in the dictionary entry used to describe us,” says the letter, which is asking OUP, which publishes the Oxford Dictionary of English, as well as the online Oxford Dictionaries, to change their entries.
The letter, published in time for International Women’s Day on March 8, is the latest move in a campaign that was launched last year by Maria Beatrice Giovanardi. Giovanardi’s petition calling for a change to the dictionary’s definition of woman has now been signed by more than 30,000 people. On Tuesday, she said that she hoped having the backing of women’s rights campaigners and linguists would strengthen the message.
The Oxford Dictionary of English is the source licensed by Apple and Google, meaning that when users search for the definition of woman on either, they are given a list of “similar” words including chick, bint, popsy, wifie, besom, wench and maid. Terms such as piece, bit, mare, baggage and bitch are labelled derogatory and offensive by the dictionary, but words including bint and wench are not.
“It might not end everyday sexism or the patriarchy but it’s a good start,” says the letter, which is also signed by linguists and academics as well as Mandu Reid, leader of the Women’s Equality party, Deborah Cameron, professor of language and communication at Oxford and Nicki Norman, acting chief executive of the Women’s Aid Federation of England.
“Synonyms and examples, such as these, when offered without context, reinforce negative stereotypes about women and centre men. That’s dangerous because language has real world implications, it shapes perceptions and influences the way women are treated,” the letter continues.
A spokeswoman for OUP said the company had finished reviewing the dictionary and thesaurus entries for terms for women and girls, and that changes, including more labels that show certain terms are offensive or dated, would be “visible across various platforms in the next few weeks.”
“Our dictionaries reflect rather than dictate how language is used. This is driven solely by evidence of how real people use English in their daily lives. This independent editorial approach means that our dictionaries provide an accurate representation of language, even where it means recording senses and example uses of words that are offensive or derogatory, and which we wouldn’t necessarily employ ourselves. In cases where words and uses may be considered offensive, they are clearly labelled as such. This helps our readers to understand the connotations of terms when looking them up and also acts as a lasting record of the way in which language evolves,” the spokeswoman said.
The canonical shot of an East Asian city is a night skyline studded with towering apartment and office buildings, bright with neon and plastic signage, a landscape of energy and modernity. Another classic image is the same city seen from above, in which identical apartment towers march across the city, spilling out over nearby geography, like stylized soldiers colonizing new territory in a board game. Densely populated dynamic conurbations of money, technological innovation and convenience, it is hard to see the cities of East Asia as what they truly are: necropolises. Why is this? The East Asian development model, with
June 16 to June 22 The following flyer appeared on the streets of Hsinchu on June 12, 1895: “Taipei has already fallen to the Japanese barbarians, who have brought great misery to our land and people. We heard that the Japanese occupiers will tax our gardens, our houses, our bodies, and even our chickens, dogs, cows and pigs. They wear their hair wild, carve their teeth, tattoo their foreheads, wear strange clothes and speak a strange language. How can we be ruled by such people?” Posted by civilian militia leader Wu Tang-hsing (吳湯興), it was a call to arms to retake
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
RSS