Study Suggests Sexism Still Prominent in Writing
March 13th, 2010
In much of modern society, a retreat from sexist ideologies and practices in the past has been cause for celebration for several years. Many people from all walks of life are likely to have noticed a greater sense of equality in the workplace and in their private lives. Yet a study recently produced at the University of Surrey has found that sexism still exists in the arrangement of male and female names in writing. The researchers designed a series of tests aimed at investigating how people ordered names, as well as how such ordering might reflect their ideas about gender and power. After data collection, the team found that in around seventy percent of cases, male names were placed first, and this placement indicated an association with stronger attributes.
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Comments
Really is this sexism when looked at alone? I always address couples as Mr and Mrs whatever, and write the man’s name first. And I am a female! This is just being nitpicky!
Sexism is around and the only way to address the problem is to acknowledge it and to work toward a greater understanding of one another and focus on overcoming it. I don’t think that a lot of people are being overtly sexist, but it is simply that for many especially the older generations old habits die hard and make it more difficult to keep up with current times. I am not offended by these things half as much as I used to be but that does not mean that I find it acceptable or something that I want other women to have to deal with. It is that as I have grown a little older and wiser I have learned to choose my battles wisely and hold my tongue when I know that how I act is going to speak much louder volumes than what I say.
If you look around on forums and anything in general,you will see that there are more of male members than females…this is one reason why people tend to write male names more often than female ones…it has nothing to do with descrimination,just following what people see happen in real…
I’m not convinced sexism is at work here. I was taught that the proper way to sign something personal was with the name of the person that had the closest relationship with the recipient first. Example: if you send a Christmas card to your husband’s family, you sign it with his name then yours. If it’s to your own family, it would be vice versa. This could be more about etiquette than sexism.
What a lot of nonsense! How much time and money did they waste on this “study”??
While I can see how some people would be offended I agree with most of the other posts here. I was taught to write the male names first, that this was the proper way to address people and I still do that today. If people really are truly in a snit about this then they have way too much time on their hands to be worrying about this issue! Yes I think that of course there are works out there which display sexist authors and maybe even the author is too. But do I think that most of it is done to deliberately hurt or provoke ries of sexism? NO.
This really is making a mountain out of a molehill if you catch my drift.
“If you look around on forums and anything in general,you will see that there are more of male members than females…this is one reason why people tend to write male names more often than female ones…it has nothing to do with descrimination,just following what people see happen in real…”
That was a sweeping statement! Obviously you don’t go to parenting and pregnancy forums much, Richard. The male/female ratio depends more on the subject matter than anything. You won’t see many guys at stay at home mom forums nor many women at automotive ones.
Next they’ll be telling us we can’t add the kids’ names on the Christmas cards from the oldest to the youngest because it’s ageist LOL. I can’t take that seriously at all.
I think whoever writes it tends to put their name first if it’s to a friend, and their spouse comes after that. Mine doesn’t deserve that at all anyway! He never keeps track of or sends letters or cards. It’s all left to me and I have days when I resent that. One year no Christmas cards went out because I refused to do them all again for another year on top of all the shopping and he decided that suddenly it wasn’t that important a job since it was now in his lap!
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