When speech has gender: what does language say about who we are?
Do we speak differently depending on our gender? And more importantly, are we heard equally? From ancient Sumeria to today's meetings, language has reflected social inequalities. But it can also help challenge them.
PalmEven if we speak the same way, we aren't always heard the same way. Tone, words, and attitude can change how we are perceived, and gender plays a significant role. Although we are often unaware of it, the way we speak—and how what we say is interpreted—is not neutral. Social norms, expectations, and even prejudices also influence what we say.
Sociolinguistics has been studying how gender influences communication for decades and has shown that the differences in how women and men speak are not biological, but social and cultural. It's not that women "find more," "are more indirect," or "apologize too much" by nature. It's that they have learned—perhaps unconsciously—that to be heard, they must adapt. Some say that speaking is only a way to transmit information. But that's not true: it's also about building relationships, demonstrating authority, expressing emotions, negotiating, resisting… And all of this is conditioned by how others see us. Ultimately, language reflects the society that uses it, and if that society is unequal, so will the language be.
Interruptions
An example of this can be found in perceptual biases toward women and men. Sometimes, a woman who expresses herself with confidence and determination may be perceived as "too aggressive" or "lacking empathy." Conversely, a man who uses the exact same words and tone may be seen as "clear" or "decisive." Similarly, studies have shown that in mixed-gender meetings, women are interrupted more frequently and their contributions receive less recognition, even when they are of higher quality than those of their male colleagues. This relationship between gender and language is not new. In fact, ways of speaking associated with a specific gender have been recognized for millennia. In ancient Mesopotamia, for example, we find a very interesting case: the emesal. In the third millennium BC, in the region of Sumer, a language we know as Sumerian was spoken. Within this language, there was a main variety, e-gir, which was used for administrative, legal, and narrative texts. Alongside it, however, there was another, emital, which could be translated as 'soft language' or 'fine language'. This variety wasn't strictly another language, but it did have some grammatical and lexical differences. For example, while in e-gir the word for 'lady' was 'nin', in e-gir it was 'gašán', and 'tum', which meant 'to carry', became 'go'.
What was the use of the emite, however? It was used, above all, to give voice to goddesses in ritual texts and also for priestesses to recite in religious ceremonies—in some cases, even by men who adopted female liturgical roles. We have no evidence that women used it in their daily lives, but the mere fact that a specific linguistic variety existed to represent what women said in a religious context already shows a clear awareness: gender was also expressed through language.
Knowledge about these differences has been refined over time thanks to scientific research. From the 1970s onward, with studies such as those by linguist Robin Lakoff, distinct communicative patterns according to gender began to be described. Lakoff claimed that women tended to use a more indirect style, with more polite expressions, more rhetorical questions, and modalizers like 'perhaps' or 'it seems to me'. Although these initial theories have been much nuanced and superseded, they opened up a field of study.
Today we know that these differences have little to do with gender as a biological category, and much to do with the roles that society assigns to women and men. As Elisa Rosado, Estrella Montolio, and Irene Yúfera state in the book Who speaks and who remains silentMuch of communication is filtered through perception. It's not just how we speak that matters, but how we are heard: some voices are amplified, while others are minimized or simply ignored. Now, although they have sometimes been silenced or made invisible, women are also agents of linguistic change. Several studies have shown that, in many communities, they are the first to adopt new forms. For example, sociolinguist Joan Pujolar observed, in interviews with young bilinguals in Catalan and Spanish, that girls tend to experiment with more flexible grammatical structures and mix languages more frequently (with hybrid forms between Catalan and Spanish) than boys, especially in colloquial contexts. Linguistic references
Furthermore, women play a central role in transmitting language to new generations. During childhood, it is no surprise that they are the primary linguistic role models, making them key figures in both preserving and transforming language.
Ultimately, what both modern research and the example of the Mesopotamian eminent teach us is that awareness of gender differences in communication is not new. For millennia, language has adapted—and imposed itself—according to who is speaking, how they are speaking, and to whom. Understanding these dynamics should not serve to reinforce stereotypes but to challenge them. Perhaps, if we understand where the forms we use come from, we can also decide where we want to go.
