The idea that language a person speaks can influence their thoughts, behaviour and perception of the world is popularly referred to as the Saphir Whorf hypothesis or linguistic Relativity. This theory is assumed to play a role in gender perception as many languages tend to assign gender class to nouns as seen in French, German, Polish etc. Few studies have tried to replicate this finding to confirm that more often, masculine (strong, sturdy, manly) and feminine (beautiful, gentle, soft) features are ascribed to objects that is in congruence with it’s grammatical gender although there are exceptions to this.

However, it is to be noted that the relation between language and thought is not simple and cultural notions can exacerbate gender stereotypes. Besides grammar, the words themselves like caring, gentle or feminine gives the impression that they cannot be masculine as well. While adult perception is subject to change, a child who learns from the people around them, their academic materials, is creating, reinforcing and conditioned to believe the idea of strength being associated with masculine gender alone and image of “women” being associated with words like nurse, kitchen.

While linguistic changes alone cannot change gender stereotypes, it could be a step forward to positive gender perception. It was recently that Google updated it’s feminine synonym from demeaning words like curvy, luscious, voluptuous to gentle, tender following an online outrage. I think that in itself speaks volumes about gender perception and how it can be changed through small but impactful steps.