Article published In:
Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Online-First Articles

“You look like my 14-year-old daughter”

A corpus-based study of sexist language in everyday sexism Twitter stories

ORCID logo | The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
ORCID logo | Hong Kong Metropolitan University

The main purpose of this corpus-based study is to examine the different types of sexist language women are subjected to in their daily interactions with men, together with their hidden ideologies. To this end, we analysed a total of 1,118 English tweets posted on the hashtag #everydaysexism on Twitter over a year. Results indicate that women experience both overt and indirect verbal aggression in different domains of life, expressed through a range of sexist linguistic markers, and that such aggressions often reflect the users’ beliefs and values about men and women. By using a category-based model to examine a feminist narrative hashtag where women’s experiences of sexism are shared, our study offers a robust and principled approach to conducting a corpus-based, cross-domain discourse analysis of sexism in daily communication.

Keywords: sexist language, sexist markers, overt sexism, indirect sexism, stereotype, hashtag feminism
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Hashtag feminism
    • 2.2Gendered verbal aggression
      • 2.2.1Overt sexist language
      • 2.2.2Indirect sexist language
  • 3.Data and methodology
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Data analysis
      • 3.2.1Extraction of verbal aggression
      • 3.2.2Identification of linguistic markers of overt and indirect verbal aggression
      • 3.2.3Identification of prevalent domains
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1Distribution of sexist markers in the #everydaySexism Twitter corpus
    • 4.2Sexist markers used as forms of verbal aggression against women in the public sphere
    • 4.3Sexist markers used as forms of verbal aggression against women in street harassment
    • 4.4Sexist markers used as forms of verbal aggression against women in the private sphere
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 22 December 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00090.wan
References
Agyepong, Dorothy Pokua, and Grace Diabah
2021 “ ‘Next Time Stay in your War Room and Pray for your Boys’ or Return to your Kitchen: Sexist Discourses in Ghana’s 2019 National Science and Math Quiz.” Discourse and Society 32(3): 267–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anthony, Laurence
2022 AntConc. Version 4.2.0. Tokyo: Waseda University. [URL]
Asr, Fatemeh Torabi, Mohammad Mazraeh, Alexandre Lopes, Vasundhara Gautam, Junette Gonzales, Prashanth Rao, Maite Taboada, and Andrew Kehler
2021 “The Gender Gap Tracker: Using Natural Language Processing to Measure Gender Bias in Media.” PLoS ONE 16(1): 1–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Attenborough, Frederick
2014 “Jokes, Pranks, Blondes and Banter: Recontextualising Sexism in the British Print Press.” Journal of Gender Studies 23(2): 137–154. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bailey, Benjamin
2017 “Greetings and Compliments or Street Harassment? Competing Evaluations of Street Remarks in a Recorded Collection.” Discourse and Society 28(4): 353–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blevins, Katie
2018 “Bell Hooks and Consciousness-Raising: Argument for a Fourth Wave of Feminism.” In Mediating Misogyny, edited by Jacqueline Ryan Vickery, and Tracy Everbach, 91–108. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bridges, Judith
2017 “Gendering Metapragmatics in Online Discourse: ‘Mansplaining Man Gonna Mansplain….’” Discourse, Context & Media 201: 94–102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carli, Linda L., Laila Alawa, YoonAh Lee, Bei Zhao, and Elaine Kim
2016 “Stereotypes about Gender and Science”. Psychology of Women Quarterly 40(2): 244–260. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Rosemary
2016 “ ‘Hope in a Hashtag’: The Discursive Activism of #WhyIStayed.” Feminist Media Studies 16(5): 788–804. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark-Parsons, Rosemary
2021 “I SEE YOU, I BELIEVE YOU, I STAND WITH YOU: #MeToo and the Performance of Networked Feminist Visibility.” Feminist Media Studies 21(3): 362–380. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diabah, Grace
2023 “Gendered Discourses and Pejorative Language Use: An Analysis of YouTube Comments on We Should All Be Feminists .” Discourse, Context & Media 511 (ahead-of-print). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dickel, Valerie, and Giulia Evolvi
2022 “ ‘Victims of Feminism’: Exploring Networked Misogyny and #MeToo in the Manosphere.” Feminist Media Studies 23(4): 1392–1408. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Douglas, Susan J.
2010 Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message That Feminism’s Work Is Done. New York: Times Books.Google Scholar
Fisher, Sophie, Danielle Lindner, and Christopher J. Ferguson
2019 “The Effects of Exposure to Catcalling on Women’s State Self-Objectification and Body Image.” Current Psychology 38(6): 1495–1502. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foster, Mindi D., Adrianna Tassone, and Kimberly Matheson
2021 “Tweeting about Sexism Motivates Further Activism: A Social Identity Perspective.” British Journal of Social Psychology 60(3): 741–764. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Tomi-Ann Roberts
1997 “Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 21(2): 173–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glick, Elisa
2000 “Sex Positive: Feminism, Queer Theory, and the Politics of Transgression.” Feminist Review 64(1): 19–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Glick, Peter, and Susan T. Fiske
1996 “The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory: Differentiating Hostile and Benevolent Sexism.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70(3): 491–512. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
González-Pérez, Susana, Ruth Mateos de Cabo, and Milagros Sáinz
2020 “Girls in STEM: Is it a Female Role-Model Thing?” Frontiers in Psychology 111: 1–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hansson, Karin, Malin Sveningsson, Hillevi Ganetz, and Maria Sandgren
2020 “Legitimising a Feminist Agenda: The #MeToo Petitions in Sweden 2017–2018.” Nordic Journal of Media Studies 2(1): 121–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jaworska, Sylvia, and Ramesh Krishnamurthy
2012 “On the F Word: A Corpus-Based Analysis of the Media Representation of Feminism in British and German Press Discourse, 1990–2009.” Discourse and Society 23(4): 401–431. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jing-Schmidt, Zhou, and Xinjia Peng
2018 “The Sluttified Sex: Verbal Misogyny Reflects and Reinforces Gender Order in Wireless China.” Language in Society 47(3): 385–408. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Allan G.
2014 The Gender Knot Unravelling Our Patriarchal Legacy. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Johnson, Sally
1994 “A Game of Two Halves? On Men, Football and Gossip.” Journal of Gender Studies 3(2): 145–154. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kettrey, Heather Hensman, Alyssa J. Davis, and Jessica Liberman
2021 “ ‘Consent Is F#@ king Required’: Hashtag Feminism Surrounding Sexual Consent in a Culture of Postfeminist Contradictions.” Social Media+ Society 7(4): 1–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kirkpatrick, Graeme
2017 “How Gaming Became Sexist: A Study of UK Gaming Magazines 1981–1995.” Media, Culture and Society 39(4): 453–468. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kleinman, Sherryl, Martha Copp, and Kalah B. Wilson
2021 “We’ve Come a Long Way, Guys! Rhetorics of Resistance to the Feminist Critique of Sexist Language.” Gender & Society 35(1): 61–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, Robin
1973 “Language and Woman’s Place.” Language in Society 2(1): 45–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Linabary, Jasmine R., Danielle J. Corple, and Cheryl Cooky
2020 “Feminist Activism in Digital Space: Postfeminist Contradictions In# WhyIStayed.” New Media & Society 22(10): 1827–1848. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Manne, Kate
2017 Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McMinn, Mark R., Paul E. Williams, and Lisa Graham McMinn
1994 “Assessing Recognition of Sexist Language: Development and Use of the Gender-Specific Language Scale.” Sex Roles 311: 741–755. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Melville, Sophie, Kathryn Eccles, and Taha Yasseri
2019 “Topic Modeling of Everyday Sexism Project Entries.” Frontiers in Digital Humanities 5(28): 1–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mendes, Kaitlynn, Jessica Ringrose, and Jessalynn Keller
2018 “#MeToo and the Promise and Pitfalls of Challenging Rape Culture through Digital Feminist Activism.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 25(2): 236–246. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary
2023 “Emotionalism.” Last accessed July 3. [URL]
Miller, Casey, and Kate Swift
1989 The Handbook of Non-Sexist Writing for Writers, Editors, and Speakers. London: The Women’s Press.Google Scholar
Mills, Sara
2005 “Gender and Impoliteness.” Journal of Politeness Research 1(2): 263–280. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 Language and Sexism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Munro, Ealasaid
2013 “Feminism: A Fourth Wave?” Political Insight 4(2): 22–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Murray, Rainbow
1979/2010 Cracking the Highest Glass Ceiling: A Global Comparison of Women’s Campaigns for Executive Office. Calif: Praeger.Google Scholar
Parker, Patsy
2015 “The Historical Role of Women in Higher Education.” Administrative Issues Journal: Education, Practice, and Research 5(1): 3–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Puchner, Laurel, and Linda Markowitz
2022 “Sexism in Facebook Discourse about Clergy Misconduct.” Discourse and Society 33(1): 74–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schwarz, Juliane
2003 “Quantifying Non-sexist Language: The Case of Ms.” In Applied Linguistics & Communities of Practice: BAAL, edited by Srikant Sarangi, and Theo van Leeuwen, 169–183. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Sczesny, Sabine, Franziska Moser, and Wendy Wood
2015 “Beyond Sexist Beliefs: How do People Decide to Use Gender-Inclusive Language?” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 41(7): 943–954. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shrikant, Natasha, and Dana Marshall
2019 “I Went to Debutante School: Using Southern Femininity as a Resource to Negotiate Authority in a Texan Workplace Interaction.” Gender and Language 13(3): 396–417. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spracklen, Karl
2020 Metal Music and the Re-Imagining of Masculinity, Place, Race and Nation. Bingley, England: Emerald. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stokoe, Elizabeth H., and Janet Smithson
2001 “Making Gender Relevant: Conversation Analysis and Gender Categories in Interaction.” Discourse and Society 12(2): 217–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talbot, Mary M.
1998/2020 Language and Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah
2008 “The Double Bind: The Damned-if-You-Do, Damned-if-You-Don’t Paradox Facing Women Leaders.” In Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Reflections by Women Writers, edited by Susan Morrison, 126–139. New York: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Turley, Emma, and Jenny Fisher
2018 “Tweeting Back While Shouting Back: Social Media and Feminist Activism.” Feminism and Psychology 28(1): 128–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, Yilei, and Dezheng (William) Feng
2022 “Identity Performance and Self-Branding in Social Commerce: A Multimodal Content Analysis of Chinese Wanghong Women’s Video-Sharing Practice on TikTok.” Discourse, Context & Media 501: 1–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yu, Yating
2021 “Metaphorical Representations of ‘Leftover Women’: Between Traditional Patriarchy and Modern Egalitarianism.” Social Semiotics 31(2): 248–265. DOI logoGoogle Scholar