Growing up I never thought about how much English favors men and masculinity. It wasn’t until my time in the military as a “policeman” that I really started noticing how sexist the English language is. If you listen to the everyday person speak, most the time you will hear the words “him,” “he,” “his,” to describe someone representing a whole group, or when talking about any single individual you don’t know the sex of.

There are many examples of women being left out of language. For instance, when describing the human race, many people use the word “mankind.” I remember sitting in a class one day when my professor started talking about the human race. He said something like, “All of mankind is connected in some way.” A girl in my class raised her hand and asked, “And what about the women?” The professor stopped for a moment and told everyone she was right. He shouldn’t use words that leave out women.

I think it’s natural for all of us to not think about the words we use. They flow from our mouths easily based on what we were taught growing up. We live in a strongly patriarchal society, and I think using “masculine language” is a big part of that.  We say words like waiter, actor, “all men are created equal.” What we need to do is really think about the English language. It’s extremely sexist. And not just in the words we use, but the words we relate to women over men. These words are not the obvious misogynistic insults. There are double standards for women’s behavior over men’s. There are words that punish women for behavior that is acceptable for men.

When I was in the military, I worked with mostly men. I remember being called so many different words for doing my job. If I was assertive, I was called “bossy.” If I didn’t smile at work, I was called “bitchy.” I was called into my supervisor’s office, where I was told I needed to smile more because I came off as “conceited” and “too good for everyone else.” I missed the part where any man was ever told these things.

Certain jobs are stereotyped as either being “for men,” or “for women.” A 2014 study for Fortune.com by Kieran Snyder examined 248 reviews from 180 people, (105 men and 75 women). The reviews came from 28 different companies, all in the tech sector. In the study, “One word appeared 17 times in reviews of women, and never in any of the reviews of men: ‘abrasive’. Other words were disproportionately applied to women, including bossy, aggressive, strident, emotional and irrational. Aggressive did appear in two reviews of men, in the context of them being urged to be more aggressive. Reviews of women only ever used aggressive as a criticism. The gender of the person writing the review didn’t affect the results of the study.”

There are many studies like this. Language for women and language for men is very different in our world. Words like nag, cold, shrew, ditzy, dramatic, feisty, working mother, etc. I could go on and on. The truth is English has its sexist ways, but we have also learned from society which words are for women and which are for men. And the words that are “for” women have many negative side-effects. I don’t think most people mean to be sexist when they speak, but I also believe it’s something we should all start noticing. If a woman is being assertive, notice she is doing her job and taking it seriously, because if a guy was doing the same thing, would you think the same way towards him?