Stop Sexist Remarks

Colleges and universities are the seat of adult learning in this country and play a critical role in encouraging people to use appropriate language about women.

In their academic role, colleges and universities set a tone for how people communicate with and about each other. In their research role, they explore what is happening in the culture and help to define the changes necessary to create healthier communities. Universities also determine how new research findings will be integrated into educational curriculums.

Moreover, college and universities’ access to large numbers of students provides myriad opportunities to stimulate critical thinking about how sexist remarks are used to invalidate women. They also can engage students in developing strategies for eliminating such remarks and their negative consequences from the campus and the broader culture.

College and university personnel and students might use the following strategies—and create others—to contribute to efforts to eliminate the use of sexist remarks about women.

College and University Administrators
Women’s Studies Program Administrators
Women’s Studies, Sociology, or Language Professors/Instructors
Other College and University Professors/Instructors
Students

Do you have other ideas about how colleges and universities, professors/instructors, and students can contribute to ending sexist remarks?

Are you currently involved in a college or university effort to end sexist remarks on campus?

Are you currently conducting research in this area?

If so, please post at the bottom of this page your ideas and/or a description of your efforts or research, and when the results/findings will be available.

College and University Administrators might consider doing the following:

1. Inviting the women’s studies or sociology departments to explore the impact of sexist remarks about women on campus.
2. Facilitating discussions with faculty and students about how to end sexist remarks about women on campus.
3. Establishing policies that prohibit the use of sexist comments in the classroom and during college/university trainings or meetings.
4. Developing strategies for eliminating the use of sexist remarks on campus, such as providing training to professors and students on the effects of sexist comments on both women and men.
5. Ensuring that the personnel (including students) managing college/university-run radio and television stations are not using sexist remarks about women (or racist or homophobic language) on the air.
6. Exploring how the university might contribute to efforts to eliminate sexist remarks about women in the broader culture.

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Women’s Studies Program Administrators might consider doing the following:

1. Working with college/university administrators to establish a process for developing training for college/university personnel on how the use of sexist remarks on campus and in the classroom affects students; they might engage personnel from the women’s studies program and the sociology, linguistics/language, or communication departments in promoting the concept of and then developing the training.
2. Seeking funding for studies to examine the effect of sexist remarks on both young women and men, including how their responses to such comments mitigate or exacerbate the impact.
3. Developing and offering training for students on effective ways to respond to sexist remarks on campus, in the community, with their families, and in the workplace.

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Women’s Studies, Sociology, or Language Professors/Instructors might consider doing the following:

1. Facilitating discussions about how students can more effectively respond to sexist remarks and educate others about the effects of such comments on women and society.
2. Assigning students to conduct a study of sexist remarks on campus. This might include a class or group of students tracking the use of/and response to such remarks during a semester, jointly analyzing their findings, and presenting those to the college/university administrators, as appropriate.
3. Engaging students in monitoring sexist remarks by the media and reporting those to the women’s organizations that are attempting to create change in how women are covered by news outlets. (See Taking Action: National Organizations.)

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Other College and University Professors/Instructors might consider doing the following:

1. Monitoring their own language during lectures, meetings, and interactions with students.
2. Intervening effectively when students make sexist remarks during class or other college/university-sanctioned activities, and using those as teaching moments to make students more aware of the impact of their words.
3. Encouraging students to avoid sexist language in their writing and analysis and in the examples they use in support of their proposals or arguments.

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Students might consider doing the following:

1. Asking their college/university to provide an environment in which sexist remarks about women are not tolerated.
2. Raising awareness among the student body that language matters, including organizing events on campus to promote an end to the use and tolerance of sexist, racist, and homophobic language.
3. Serving on committees established by their college/university to explore how to end the use of sexist remarks on campus.
4. Choosing to focus a paper or research project on an issue related to sexist remarks. This might include, for example, assessing which responses to sexist remarks appear effective—from the perspective of both empowering women and educating others about the impact of the remarks.

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