Goal: To teach high school students that terms referring to women have undergone significantly more pejoration, taking on not just negative meanings, but particularly negative sexual meanings, than terms referring to men. This pejoration of female terms more than male terms demonstrates that sexism exists in the language that our society uses, and because language is representative of the concepts of society, sexism exists in society.

Opening Activity: Draw a line down the middle of the blackboard, dividing it into two sections. Write the word ‘Sir’ in one half and the word ‘Madam’ in the other half. Ask the class what are all the meanings they can think of for the word ‘Sir,’ and write them on the board. They should say some variations of the meanings: ‘a proper term of address for a man,’ and ‘a knight.’ Ask the class what are all the meanings they can think of for the word ‘Madam,’ and write them on the board. They should say some variations on the meanings: ‘a proper term of address for a woman (that is not used much anymore),’ and ‘a leader of a brothel.’ Repeat this process with the word ‘Master’ for which they should say ‘a person who controls other people and things,’ ‘someone who is very talented at something, such as a master chef,’ and ‘a title for a young man who is not old enough to be called Mr. yet.’ Repeat with the word ‘Mistress’ for which they should say ‘a woman who controls other people or things,’ and ‘a woman who has sexual relations with a man that is married.’ Repeat with the word ‘Patron’ for which they should say ‘a person who donates money to a cause, such a supporter of the arts.’ Repeat with the word ‘Matron’ for which they should say ‘a dignified older woman’ (associated with the adjective ‘matronly’) and ‘the supervisor of a public institution, such as a prison or mental hospital.’ After you have written the meanings for the male and female words on the two different sides of the board, ask the class if they see any patterns. They should see that there are negative meanings for the words referring to females but not for the words referring to males. They may also notice the sexual connotations. Tell the class that each pair of these words began as a relatively neutral distinction between male and female and each word took on other meanings throughout its history. (The first two pairs are relatively clear, but ‘patron’ and ‘matron’ have become far removed from their original meanings of ‘father’ and ‘mother.’) Define the terms pejoration, which is the process of a word taking on negative meanings, and amelioration, which is the process of a word taking on positive meanings.

Partner Activity: Have them work with a partner on the handout (attached in the word document), which lists other pairs of words that were originally neutral distinctions between males and females. The handout asks them to write what each word makes them think of in general and include any meanings that come to mind.

Class Discussion: Talk about the impressions and meanings that they have associated with each of the words on the handout. Ask them: Do you see any patterns? Are they the same patterns as those from the first activity? (They should notice that the female words all have negative and often sexual meanings, while the male terms have neutral, even positive meanings, and few if any negative meanings.) What does it mean if you call a female an ‘old man’? (Generally it is just thought of as a mistake or a joke.) What does it mean if you call a male an ‘old woman’? (Generally it is an insult.) Why do you think it means this?

Short Instruction: Write the words ‘woman,’ ‘girl,’ ‘daughter,’ ‘aunt,’ ‘sister,’ ‘nurse,’ ‘laundress’ on the board. What do all of these words have in common? They may answer that they all refer to females. Tell them that all of these words went through pejoration at some point in their history and became synonyms for ‘prostitute.’ There are over 500 words in the English language that have been used at some point to refer to a prostitute, while there are only 65 words that have used at some point to refer to a whoremonger or pimp. Even when terms that originally were used to refer to either sex go through pejoration they often take on negative sexual meanings referring to women. An example of this is the word ‘whore,’ which originally meant ‘a lover, either male or female,’ but eventually underwent pejoration and referred to a ‘prostitute.’

Class Discussion: Why do you think there are so many English words referring to females that have become debased and taken on sexual meanings, while there are few words referring to males that have done so? What does this say about our society and its view of women? What can we do about this?

Time: This lesson should take approximately one hour to complete, but it could take more or less depending on the amount of discussion.

Before giving this lesson, I would suggest reading the article from which most of this information was derived and adapted:
Schultz, Muriel. The Semantic Derogation of Woman. Rpt. in The Feminist Critique of Language: A Reader. Ed. Deborah Cameron. London: Routledge, 1990. 134-47.