Abstract:

Language, as a product of society and a mirror of culture, reflects people’s attitudes towards life, concepts of value, ways of thinking and all other social phenomena; sexism is embodied as well. This paper attempts to investigate the hidden sexism in English idioms by means of classifying and analyzing the phenomena of discrimination against female. In idioms, it is common to see such phenomena as projecting women’s low status in society, belittling women as lacking in intelligence, reflecting women as a kind of commodity in marriage, reflecting the weakness and caprice of women’s temper, reflecting women as being evil and troublemakers and so on. Meanwhile, sexism in English idioms is deep-rooted. From analysis, it can be concluded that religious influence, cultural perspective and social reality all contribute to it. What’s more, language is developing, so the phenomenon of sexism in English idioms develops as well.

Key words: sexism; English idioms; roots

摘要：

语言作为社会的产物，文化的镜子，展示了人们对生活的态度、价值的概念、思维的方式等其他所有的社会方面，性别歧视自然也包含其中。本文旨在通过对英语习语中所体现的对女性歧视的现象进行归类分析，探究英语习语中隐藏的性别歧视现象。在习语中，突出女性社会地位低下，贬低女性才智，反映女性是婚姻的商品、是邪恶的化身和祸端的根源，强调女性性格脆弱并反复无常，这些都是常见现象。同时，习语中存在性别歧视现象由来已久，可以从宗教影响、文化观念、社会现实角度分析其产生的根源。此外，语言是不断发展着的，所以英语习语中的性别歧视现象也会随之发展。

关键词：性别歧视; 英语习语; 根源

1. Introduction
What is sexism? Sexism, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is “the assumption that one sex is superior to the other and the resultant discrimination practiced against members of the supposed inferior sex, especially by men against women; also conformity with the traditional stereotyping of social roles on the basis of sex.” The word “sexism” was not widely known until the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s. At that time, feminist theorists claimed that oppression of women was widespread nearly in all human society, and they began to speak of sexism instead of male chauvinism. Male chauvinists were usually individual men who expressed the belief that they were superior to women, while sexism referred to collective behavior.
Sexism is a universally hot problem, reflected not only in social life, but in language, and has remained a heated topic among linguists for a long time.