Who swears more, Males or Females?

Taboo language is the use of words that regarded as shocking by a society. For example religious words (Christ, God), Words relating to sexual activity (Fuck, balls) and words associated with the elimination of bodily waste (piss, shit) are all examples of taboo language or, more commonly, swear words. These 'swears' are generally used as an expression of a strong emotion. However modern language is being increasingly ameliorated to accept taboo words that may have been scowled upon in the past. General stereotyping suggests that females are less inclined to use 'expletive' or taboo language when compared to males, but due to the development of modern English, this could be up for debate.

Differences in taboo language can often originate from 'lexical sexism.' For example, men are stereotypically looked upon as the stronger sex, with power not only physically but also in a lexical sense which suggests their ability to use more expletives such as the four lettered "C word" more comfortably.

This 'higher power' in a male's ability to use more expletives can be explained by Deborah Tannen's gender theory, which suggests that in a situation where a female seeks 'support', a male would demonstrate his 'status' (higher status) and the ease of dropping in intensifiers such as "Fucking" can show power in a conversation and consequentially demonstrating a higher status.

In research carried out by Rayson, Leech and Hodges, it was found that males use the word "Fucking" approximately 8 times more often than females and "Fuck" approximately 3 times more often. However, Jennifer Coates, a theorist who developed on Deborah Tannen's ideas, looked into 'gossip' and categorised the results she found. One category named 'Bitching' suggests more taboo language than would be expected of a 'respectable female.' Coates described bitching as "the overt expression of anger at their restricted role and inferior status. They express this in private and to other women only… they want only to make their complaints in an environment where their anger will be understood." In this situation, words such as 'bitch,' 'whore,' and 'bastard' may be used to refer to the person in question. These nouns are chosen to express a strong emotion such as anger, envy or hatred and are not commonly used in front of people in higher conversational power than the speaker, which may support the idea of male authority over females.

So, it is difficult to produce a final answer to this question, as different situations call for different language both from males and females, so amongst friends, females may use taboo language more than males, but in at home a male might decide to use more taboo language than a female would with the aim of not 'shocking' family members.

Within all the research that has been done in recent years on the topic of gender vs. taboo language, it is made clear that gender specific stereotyping is changing, and hearing a female refer to someone else as a four letter "C word" may not be as shocking as, say, 20 years ago.

'Women are now talking seriously dirty' – Rosalind coward.

 

Jennifer Adams