Sexism in the English Language

In a time of war and also in a time when we really needs to unite and help rebuild cities and states from disasters, certain civil right groups continue to introduce and push us to "think in new ways" creating "the possibility of a new reality" (Kleinman 396). The claim is that sexism in the English language has harmed women. Is the claim true? I think not! As Americans, we study our history to hopefully we do not repeat mistakes done in the past. Perhaps in the past, "man" has harmed women, denied women certain human rights that every person should receive, and set them back years in the social ladder, but words alone these days do not have the same setbacks. The claim was a claim of the past. The words in Kleinman's essay, Why Sexist Language Matters, did concentrated on potentially sexist words, but very little credit was given to the evolution from the past, where words possibly prevented women from succeeding, to the present, where women are now women with power with more modern titles. Again, I disagree with Kleinman that sexism in the English language still harms females till this day.

English is a living language, just like Latin and many other languages. Consider the history of the word "man." Old English scholars wrote in a way the word man meant "a human being" and the prefixes wyf and wer (when put together, woepman and wifman) for male and female. A few generations later, Middle English dropped the woep prefix so the male and female was considered to be part of what later was known as so-called generic "man." "Man" stood for "all people" and at the same time "a male human being." Wyfman became "a female human being" and then later woman came about.

Yes, later on in English as the language evolves further when compounding word came about, we had terms such as chairman, policeman, fireman, lineman, and others. Many assumed the generic "man" term to include all. According to Old English as stated earlier, "man" meant to include both genders. Later in the 1990s, fellow women have challenged these existing terms. The trend in the 1990s was where many women became successful some of which became CEOs, presidents of companies, and many other higher positions in the social ladder.