ABSTRACT
The distinction between sex and gender has important political implications, in that traditionally and historically, socially constructed differences between men and women have been given biological explanations, thereby justifying practices that discriminate against the sexes, particularly women. There has been intense interest in the relationship between language, gender and power, as both an academic and a popular subject. Importantly for gender theorists, these traits are not immutable but assigned by a culture, socially determined and learned, and therefore not beyond change. The ‘biological determinism’ has been severely criticized by gender theorists and feminist linguists for perpetuating gender stereotypes about men’s and women’s behaviour, including their linguistic behaviour. Sex specification can be found in gendered terms such as ‘actress’, or in the use of ‘she’ to refer to countries, ships and cars, while gratuitous modifiers draw attention to sex as difference, as in constructions such as ‘lady driver’, ‘woman doctor’, ‘male nurse’ or ‘male prostitute’.
