Gender and Language

Time for another reader question:

"I've always been curious about the cultural and psychological effects of an overtly "gendered" language, i.e., having to conjugate verbs and decline words specific to the speaker's or subject's gender. (In English, I could write a whole blog in the first person and nobody would know I was a woman, for example. In Russian, I'd have to "lie" with my grammar.) What do you make of this?

Good question. It seems very intuitive that gendered languages would reveal something about how people think about the objects or individuals they apply those grammatical genders to. However, gendered languages don't universally apply grammatical gender based on actual or even symbolic gender. Using Russian as an example, is there anything feminine about a digital camera or masculine about a suitcase? (I've always shied away from symbol-hunting, but I won't stop you if that's your thing.)

But could it work the other way around? What if - instead of us imposing our gender concepts on our languages - our languages are sneakily imposing a point of view on us? The official answer is no. Very few linguists today believe that people's feelings about actual gender are affected by their language's use of grammatical gender. English has practically no grammatical use for gender, while Russian, Spanish and lots of other languages do, but you wouldn't say that Russian and Spanish people are more strongly attached to or bound by their living, breathing, human genders than English speakers are, would you? What about the Finn who calls his son "it" and his daughter "it," as well? I know for a fact that lots of little Finnish girls like Disney princesses, so their language has not hobbled or empowered them. Yet.

And here's a few workarounds for writing a blog in Russian without revealing your gender:

1. Use the plural pronoun "we."

2. Use lots of passive constructions - It seemed to me instead of I thought (since the past tense of the verb would reveal your gender in Russian)

3. Switch maddeningly back and forth between genders