Nihil volitum, nisi praecognitum

An old scholastic aphorism states that nihil volitum, nisi praecognitum, which in plain English means "nothing is willed unless it is first known", in other words, you cannot desire that which you don't know. This is, of course, quite a truism, but it goes a long way to explain certain attitudes.

Whatever your opinion about the video below might be, I believe it doesn’t aim to be representative of the current reality in the United Kingdom. As of this writing, only 13% of British surgeons are women and there is only one female pilot in the Royal Air Force (the one in the video). So, it is perfectly understandable that the kids in that classroom should have drawn men having those jobs. For the same reason, they would have probably depicted men had they been asked to draw a murderer. After all, statistics show that the overwhelming majority of murders are committed by men. That said, the campaign was clearly about representation. After all, girls are only likely to pursue these careers if they can see that the path to them is actually open. In the meantime, little boys should become aware that girls can also have those jobs. In short, the message of the video is: "it is possible", which may be interpreted as an echo of Obama's famous "yes, we can".

So, let’s now turn to the English language. Is it sexist? Of course it is. Kinda, sorta... Don't roll your eyes. Most languages are sexist. Why? Well, the answer is pretty straightforward, isn't it? Languages are sexist because their speakers are (or were) sexist. Simple as that. In other words: the problem lies with the users. Words such as butcher and taxi driver are not marked for gender, but (and this I find uncontroversial) they tend to be "socially marked". Whenever we hear the word butcher we often think of a man. Something analogous happens when we hear the word nurse, which is also a gender-neutral noun even if it usually conjures up the picture of a woman. In fact, that is why many English speakers feel the need to use the job title male nurse when they refer to men in the nursing profession. Think about it: male nurse. Seriously? I personally take issue with that. The way I see it, male nurse is a silly case of redundancy. Like I just said, he term nurse is already gender-neutral. The "male" part is, therefore, completely unnecessary.

The good news for us, language learners, is that neutral words abound in the English language. Just consider nouns like painter, astronaut, secretary, teacher, architect, surgeon, scientist. You may think it is rather irrelevant, but I believe that it help us all make progress in the area of gender equality. Now, isn't that great?

Still, some changes are definitely necessary. In my opinion, "obviously" sexist words such as mankind, manpower or expressions like the man in the street should be avoided because of the simple reason that we have perfectly apt alternatives such as humankind, human resources and the average person. Funnily enough, when it comes to job-related vocabulary, controversy still exists in English. Some actresses, for example, are now partial to the gender-neutral term actor. Thus, the Academy Awards give a prize to the "best actress in a leading role", but the organizers of the Golden Globes favor a different description: "best female actor". One is led to assume that some people feel there is something wrong with the word actress. Is that lexical choice just a fad or is it here to stay? As is usually the case, only time will tell.