‘Sexist thinking’ still seen in writing, say psychologists

By John von Radowitz

Monday, March 15, 2010

LETTERS that begin "Dear Sir/Madam" and references to "Mr and Mrs" are both remnants of "sexist thinking", according to psychologists.

In the written word at least, men still come first – just as they did centuries ago, say researchers.

The claim is supported by the results of scientific studies, they argue.

Dr Peter Hegarty, who led a team from the University of Surrey, said: "In the 16th century, naming men before women became the acceptable word order to use because of the thinking that men were the worthier sex.

"This grammar has continued with ‘Mr and Mrs’, ‘his and hers’ and the names of romantic couples like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

"While the original sexist ideas behind this grammar are no longer accepted, we wanted to investigate whether the sexist habit of male names coming before female names still holds true and the psychological reasons why this might be," said Dr Hegarty.

The psychologists first conducted an investigation on the internet using 20 popular British and American boys’ and girls’ names.

The researchers searched for cross-gender name pairings which placed either the male or female name first, for instance "David and Sarah" or "Sarah and David".

For British name pairs, male-first pairings accounted for 79% of the mentions and female-first 21%.

In the case of American names, 70% of mentions were male-first and 30% female-first.

"These results were found to be statistically significant, and support the idea that gender stereotypes still affect the written language," said Dr Hegarty.

The research is published today in the British Journal of Social Psychology.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, March 15, 2010