Sex bias and language

Abstract

Recent research has suggested that in certain contexts male terms may fail to be gender neutral (Moulton, Robinson, & Elias, 1978). Stricker (1977) has proposed that even explicitly generic terms such as “adult” and “person” may not be gender neutral. The conclusions of the highly controversial and influential Broverman, Vogel, Broverman, Clarkson, and Rosenkrantz (1970) study were based directly on the assumption that “adult” is a gender-neutral term. The present study consisted of a modified replication of the Broverman et al. study followed by an addendum that asked subjects in the “gender-neutral” condition to indicate whether they had thought of a neutral, male, or female stimulus person. As predicted, subjects did not tend to think of a neutral stimulus person. The implications of this finding for sex-role stereotype research as well as for “guidlines for nonsexist language” are discussed.