Language can validate sexism

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/vanessa-whiteside/gender-equality-tech-industry_b_8654390.html

Although this article is not primarily about language and gender, some points made are very much applicable.

A caption which recently appeared on a New Yorker cartoon which depicted a group of men working on their laptops and playing ping-pong said "I'll do what everybody else does - sell this start-up just before we have to hire a female employee". This is an example of how 'banter' and 'humour' can validate sexism and reinforce sexist attitudes in a wider society.

The article also discusses how stereotypes associated with words can affect people in a more significant way than perhaps many people notice. For example, Sapna Cheryan - a psychology professor at the University of Washtington - discovered girls are usually less likely to take up tech-related subjects in school because they had pre-conceived ideas that tech was for geeks, a word often bounded around negatively. By not taking tech-related subjects in school, they are then unlikely, or unable, to take up careers in this field - their whole lives could have, perhaps, been affected by the language they were exposed to during their time at school.