浅析英语中的性别歧视现象

　　Along with the women’s liberation movement, people began torealize the importance of the language reform and desexismbecomes necessary. Then, should sexist language be changed oravoided? The answer is definitely positive, but how? The mainstrategies here to achieve this goal are avoiding the use ofgeneric masculine, changing some naming and addressing terms,coining new words and advocating some neutral words.

　　4.1 Avoiding using generic masculine pronounsLinguists engaged in study of sexism in the English languageare not satisfied with merely pointing out the problem. As asolution to the problems that the generic masculine cancreate, a number of proposals have been made. A major categoryamong these solutions is to avoid using generic masculine.

　　Some alternatives to avoid generic masculine are offered asfollows:

　　(1) The generic masculine he, his, him should be replaced withhe or she, his or her, him or her, and the like, whichexpressly indicate that women are included in the antecedentof the pronouns. This strategy can be illustrated with thefollowing sentence: Every good citizen should love his or hercountry more than him or herself; he or she should be ready todie for it if the need arises.

　　(2) The gender-neutral third person pronoun they and itsvariants should be used with a singular meaning. The proposalmakes it possible to say: Every good citizen should love theircountry more than themselves; they should be ready to die forit if the need arises.

　　(3) Changing the whole sentence into plural form can also helpto avoid sexism. Look at the sentence: Anyone can take part inthe picnic if he is interested. It is discriminatory. So wecan change it into a nonsexist one: All people can take partin the picnic if they are interested.