ABSTRACT
This chapter examines patterns of language use which, though diverse in form, fulfil the shared function of enacting and normalising a “banal” form of everyday sexism – the assumption that women are not entitled to the same level of respect that is routinely shown to men of comparable status in the same social setting, which produces what is here labelled “the gender respect gap”, a systematic withholding of supposedly normative respect tokens from women. The discussion focuses on two main settings in which this gendered disrespect is commonly observed: professional/workplace settings, where women’s status may be downgraded through silencing, interruption, and the withholding of professional titles and address forms; and encounters between strangers in public space, where the norm of non-intrusion on unacquainted others is persistently violated by men addressing women. It is noted that different groups of women (e.g. Black and white, or young and old) may experience the gender respect gap in different ways, and the conclusion calls for more research examining this important but recently neglected form of sexist linguistic practice across a wider range of contexts and languages.
