More human rights for women: a linguistic perspective

The key concept of the current essay is sexist language usage as a form of unequal linguistic representation of women and men. The paper proceeds from the assumption that sexist language can be viewed not only as a socio-linguistic category, but also a socio-economic factor, which may affect position of women in society and their status in the labour market. Hence, linguistic sexism is regarded here as a public policy issue. The main aim of the paper is twofold: on the one hand, to offer a rights-based approach to the problem of linguistic inequality of the sexes, and on the other hand, to develop a gender-based approach to the concept of linguistic human rights. Current work testifies that the theory of linguistic human rights will gain more accuracy and validity if it is further developed from gender perspective and in terms of women’s linguistic empowerment. It introduces the notion of gender-sensitive (or gender-based) linguistic rights as fundamental human rights for women and men, and accentuates the need to identify women’s linguistic rights as a separate category of linguistic legislation.

Human Rights ,

Labour Market ,

Linguistic ,

Women ,