浅析英语中的性别歧视现象

　　(1) Good morning, boys and girls!

　　(2) They would have allowed males and females to go to schooltogether.

　　Such a language phenomenon seems to appear so unquestionablynatural as to be widely accepted as a language norm.

　　However, there are also cases in which male-female order isreversed, for example bride and groom, and ladies andgentlemen. The former shows that marriage is important towomen and the latter is influenced by the notion that menshould protect women. Putting ladies before gentlemen doesn’tshow that women are more superior to men or ladies first, butindicates that in men’s mind, women, the same as children, arethe weaker ones.[10]

　　3.2 Semantic derogation of womenLanguage has a tendency to neglect women, treat women assubmission and also demean women.[11] The process of wordsthat refer to women acquiring demeaning or sexual connotationshas been widely observed, and has been called semanticderogation.

　　3.2.1 Non-parallel semantic developments of paired termsMany sociolinguists have claimed that words become negativewhen shifted into the female sphere, while male has remainedpure and neutral. For example:

　　(1) King and queenOne is masculine, the other feminine and both mean “ruler ofan independent state”. King has retained its initial meaning,but besides the core meaning of queen, queen is also used as“a disparaging term for a gay or homosexual man”.

　　(2) Master and mistressBoth of them indicate ‘someone who possesses and/or has powerover someone or something else. For example: “ He is mymaster.” usually means “He is my boss.” or “He has more powerthan me.” While “She is my mistress.” is more likely to beinterpreted as meaning ‘She is my illicit lover.’ Mistressoriginally refers to a woman in a position of authority,control, and ownership, as the head of a household like ahousekeeper, but it implies a woman who has a continuingsexual relationship with a usually married man who is not herhusband and from whom she generally receives material support.