Language Helps Create Social Reality, Beginning with the Division of People

question 101

Essay

Language helps create social reality, beginning with the division of people into worlds of "maleness" and "femaleness." Write an essay in which you explain how language involving gender creates different worlds for women and men.Think of specific ways in which everyday language places the two sexes in different and unequal social positions.

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Definitions:

Top-Down Processing

A cognitive process that uses pre-existing knowledge or expectations to interpret and understand sensory information.

Sensory Information

Data received by the senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell) that is processed by the brain.

Past Memory

The recall of information about previous events or experiences from an individual's life; often differentiated by episodic (personal events) and semantic (factual knowledge) memory.

Dissociation

A psychological experience of disconnection between thoughts, identity, consciousness, and memory.