some ideologies. From this notion, Crawford 2002 adds that a textbook reflects author‟s beliefs and expectations upon the language and learning towards teacher
and learner. Hence, the idea which discerns a textbook as an agent of change is automatically associated with author‟s beliefs. Related to this study, a textbook
can change teacher‟s and learner‟s perspectives in social context. A textbook may strengthen or weaken gender role stereotyping between women and men in
community. Since a textbook may become an agent of change, it may alter the stereotyping towards male and female characters in a textbook.
2.1.2.2 Sexism in English Textbook
Sociolinguistics, the study of language which is associated with culture, depicts that a language can be sexist Holmes, 2001. Sexism related to the use of
language may stereotype men and women in society. Since language reveals attitudes of the society who speak the language, it builds attitudes stereotyping of
women and men in society. As consequence, language discriminates woman and men both oral and written. Thus, it generates social inequalities between men and
women through language. According to Mills 2005, the use of sexist language may generate some
effects. First, women feel alienated since men are frequently addressed in many occasions. Second, sexism may stereotype woman. Third, it may confuse
audiences since an unidentified character is always addressed as „he‟. It can be concluded that sexist language has adverse effects towards women at most.
In line with Mills 2005, Arliss 1991 states that a language which is sexist embodies values and stereotypes between women and men. She suggests that all
audiences should realize that language is not neutral tools in communication. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Regarding to this, she explains that sexism can appear in English language. She classifies the occurrences of sexism in English language in presenting generic
„he‟, occupation, formal terms of address, familial terms, and sexual metaphors. Sexism which appears in presenti
ng generic „he‟ may isolate women. This kind of sexism mostly appears in written form. Arliss 1991 explains that an
author chooses to use pronoun „he‟ in describing a referent pronoun which does not precisely depict male
or female. After that, the possessive word „his‟ is used to describe a noun towards the character of „he‟. Other repercussion is the object of
pronoun „him‟ also tails to describe the pronoun „he‟. In most cases, pronoun „he‟ appears to mention a singular
form of unspecified person. Instead of using „he‟ to mention an unspecified person, Arliss 1991 suggests author to use an alternative
pronoun as „she‟. Although it may prolong a sentence, it can also give a tendency that the author addresses both women and men.
Besides the generic „he‟ pronoun, most sexist cases appear regarding
occupation. The labeling upon occupation is inherited from traditional perspectives towards women and men. Moreover, the language system which has
been used and built for a long time strengthens the occupational label. In linguistic system, suffix
–man and -er or –or are employed to certain root words in order to form a noun which describes someone‟s occupation, for instance, policeman,
legislator, or senator Arliss, 1991. In real world, policeman, legislator, or senator is not only occupied by a man.
Other label upon occupation appears in the assumption of certain jobs, for instance nurse or secretary. People assume that both nurse and secretary are
preferred job for woman. Again, in the real world, nurse or secretary is not only PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
occupied by woman. It shows that language system is influenced by culture. Then, for children, a language system may build the system of their perspectives or
values to what happen in the real world. It cannot be denied that people still stereotype the occupation preferences
for both women and men because of the assumption of this linguistics‟ system.
Related to this issue, Arliss 1991 suggests that the use of gender-neutral language in occupation should be adjusted. Some occupational vocabularies have
already been neutral, such as judge, law officer, and chairperson. Besides, some vocabularies also have female and male forms to indicate female and male
occupations, such as actoractresses and hero heroine Holmes, 2001. Other sexism in English language performs in addressing formal terms for
men and women. Arliss 1991 explains that Mr. is employed to address a man in a formal way. Meanwhile, to address a woman, there are two terms used to show
respect, namely Miss or Mrs. In tradition, Miss is used to address a single woman, while Mrs. indicates that the woman has already married. Both terms show her
marital status. On the other hand, Mr. is addressed to both a single or married man.
This linguistic tradition discriminates a woman. The term Mrs. is used along with the surname of a women‟s husband. Meanwhile, Miss is followed with her
maiden name. Beyond the term Miss, it connotes a woman as youth. When a woman has a title Miss in her adulthood, she is usually labeled as an old maid
since maiden is only assumed for a young woman. To avoid this discrimination, the recent edition of The American Heritage Dictionary 1969, in Arlis, 1991
lists Ms. as well as Mr. which does not reflect the marital status. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Sexism does not only happen within community, but also in family. Arliss 1991 classifies it as familial terms. As mentioned before, the term
„old maid‟ is used to show an unmarried woman. Another name for her is spinster. This term is
“to denote an elderly never-married woman and to connote an undesirable woman who failed to find someone to marry her”. In real life, there is also a man
classified in this type called as bachelor. This term is to connote “a more favorable image of an individual who chooses to remain single and could be
married in the future if he wishes”. In fact, a woman also has many reasons to remain single. She is not merely single because of failing to find a man.
Besides, the familial term also includes the term „housewife‟. Indeed, it sounds like one of the occupational terms. In the familial terms, the term
„housewife‟ is related to how a woman describes in the family. She is usually described as a housewife. This term depicts that a woman “does not work outside
of the home” Arliss, 1991: 37. Indirectly, a woman is always positioned as a housewife who has to do all of the homework‟s jobs. Although a woman works
outside home, making sure all of the homework‟s jobs becomes her responsibility. In fact, a man also does similar job as a housewife in the late days but there is no
such term called as „househusband‟. It shows that a woman is insisted to be responsible of homework‟s job because of this stereotyping.
Then, Arliss also mentions about sexual metaphors. In this case, Arliss 1991 explains that “metaphorical expression come and go in the form of slang
names, but the general trend toward describing females as edible objects an soft, cuddly animals remains a sharp contrast to male metaphors” Arliss, 1991: 40. It
means that a woman and man are even differentiated in the language system. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Particular metaphors are used for certain sex type. As food metaphors appear, they aim at describing a woman, for instance, „cupcakes‟ or „cookie‟, „dish‟ or „a feast
for the eyes‟, and „good enough to eat‟. Then, a man is described through animal names which are considered bigger, stronger, and more sexually mature, for
example, lions, rams, bulls, and bears. When Arliss 1991 explains sexist language in general, Porreca 1984 has
already investigated sexism used in the ESL materials, specifically in ESL textbooks. She analyzes sexism which appears in text and illustration of the
textbooks. Based on her research, she categorizes sexism language which appears in the ESL textbooks into omission, firstness, occupations, nouns, masculine
generic constructions, and adjectives. In the omission, the ratio between female and male is counted before and
after subtracting the apparent number of amounts of masculine generic constructions. The aim is to have a real depiction of the ratio since the masculine
generic constructions‟ case appears afterwards. Thus, it can become an initiated picture to determine a textbook is sexist or not.
After knowing the ratio of female to male in general, firstness is done to know which character comes first in exercises, examples, or sentences. It is to see
whether female or male comes first. The information form the firstness can indicate the author‟s beliefs upon gender. However, Porreca 1984 insists that
this category cannot be the only gauge to judge. It means that a context is also considered.
Regarding occupations, Arliss 1991 seems to adapt Porreca‟s 1984 term in analyzing sexism as Porreca‟s 1984 research comes first before Arliss. In this
case, the occasion of occupational roles which are portrayed both for women and men are counted. Still, the quantity is only to present the differences. The most
important thing is how both woman and man are depicted or stereotyped in the textbook.
Then, sexism appears in the textbook can abe detected through the use of noun which designs the character of a woman or man. Porreca 1984 analyzes
which noun used to depict a woman and man at most. Thus, she can determine whether the noun is stereotyping the character or not.
Next, a masculine generic construction category decides the final ratio of woman and man in the omission category. A masculine generic construction
category in Porreca 1984 is similar to Arliss‟ 1991 category in presenting generic „he‟. A traditional linguistic system uses masculine generic construction
in describing unidentified character. Indeed, it may refer to a woman, man, or mix group. It shows that masculine generic construction are confusing, to whom a
pronoun refers to. Moreover, it alienates a woman‟s existence since audiences
may directly refer a character as a man. The last category is related to adjective. It is not the same as noun. In
adjective category, the sexism problem is more complex. For this reason, this category is classified into some types Porreca, 1984. The first type is physical
appearance such as tall and beautiful. The second type is intellectual or education such as bright and stupid. The third type is emotionality or state of mind such as
sad and calm. The fourth type is physical state or condition such as strong and tired. The fifth type is personality traits such as friendly and disagreeable. The
sixth type is age such as old and young. The seventh type is environmentally PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
descriptive such as rich and poor. The eighth type is rapport or reputation such as great and unpopular. The ninth type is normality or deviance such as normal and
strange. The tenth type is ability such as capable and incapable. The last type is environmentally induced such as lucky and restricted.
Aft er some decades, Porreca‟s 1984 research inspires and is replicated by
many researchers. One of them is Dominguez 2003. She evaluates gender representation in Jack C. Richards‟ book entitle New Interchange Intro Student
Book which is published by Cambridge University. She finds that the male and
female ratio is equal. What makes her research different with Porreca 1984, she categorizes the „amount of male and female talk‟. In this case, she focuses on the
issue whether a woman talks more than a man or not. Moreover, she wants to see some interactions among female-female, male-female, female-male, and male-
male. Besides, she also evaluates gender representation in the illustration in the textbook. She categorizes it as „male and female in illustration‟. She analyzes
through investigating the contemporary fashion appears in the illustration. Then, the leading roles are also analyzed since it may give some information whether
both sexes are equal or one sex is dominating another sex. Still, occupational role is also considered in this category. Moreover, the context of conversation is
investigated to see what topic and the background settings are. Besides, Rifkin 1998 also employs Porreca‟s research as one of the driven
theory. However, his research is more influenced by other researchers from the linguistics field. Therefore, his research does not analyze more about some
categories which have been previously mentioned. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
Lee and Collins 2008 adapt some theories of sexism from Porreca 1984. However, they do not directly categorize their results
into Porreca‟s category. Instead, they use their own classification. Yet, the content of classification is
almost the same. Their research is similar to Dominguez 2003, but more complete. In addition, they also include theory of sexism which is similar to Arliss
1991. It appears when they are discussing female and male social and domestic roles. It seems like they analyze the occupational and familial terms. They also
investigate the title uses to certain character. The title, in this case, is the same as the „formal terms of address‟ category in Arliss 1991.
The new category which has not been mentioned in the other previous research is „the female and male semantic roles‟. They adapt the theory proposed
by Lock 1996 and Halliday 2004, in Lee and Collins, 2008 regarding systemic- functional concept of transitivity. In the categorization, they focus on semantic
categories of „participant‟ and „process‟. Lee and Collins 2008 explain that “participants the people and things involved in the situation are expressed
grammatically by nouns and noun phrases” p. 13. Meanwhile, “processes the actions and states in which the participants engage are expressed by verbs and
verb phrases” Lee and Collins, 2008: 14. Wu and Liu 2015 also conduct a similar research as the other researchers
have done. Yet, their research also counts on the activities illustrated in the subjected textbook. It appears when they present their results and discussion
section. They differentiate some activities into domestic activities of adults and school activities of children. Based on their research, there are some activities
which are labeled for certain sex. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
The domestic activities of adults include the ratio and number of domestic activities executed by women and men. The context of the activities is in the
family. Based on their research, a woman performs activities which stereotype her, such as receiving visitors, ironing, and serving drink. Some activities which
are performed by a man are watching television, coming home after work, and taking daughter to zoo. Both women and men perform some activities such as
drinking water, phoning, and visiting a teacher. Meanwhile, the school activities of children include the ratio and number of
school activities performed by boys and girls. The setting of the activities happens at school. For boys, the activities‟ examples are playing football, coming late to
the school, and fighting in the library. For girls, the activities are rope skipping, making blackboard newspaper, and secretly eating snack in class. Some activities
which are both performed by boys and girls are studying, playing hide and seek, and drawing.
In line with the previous theories, Stockwell 2003 also agrees that stereotyping in both sexes should be avoided. In his book, Stockwell 2003
provides information which is derived from the guideline to write ESL materials by considering gender representation. To apply this idea, there are some
categories used to consider such as avoiding stereotype and false generic „man‟.
To avoid stereotyping, Stockwell 2003 suggests that an author should consider characters presented in the text, dialogue, recordings, and illustrations.
An author of EFL materials can put some considerations by asking herhimself some questions related to the characters such as,
Are both women and men shown in the texts, dialogues, recordings and illustrations: being bold and assertive?; being weak, vulnerable or scared?,
instructing, leading, and rescuing?; being instructed, led, and rescued?; displaying self-control?; responding emotionally?; being string, capable and
logical?; being uncertain and in need of reassurance?; being powerful and able to deal with problems?; being inept and defeated by problems?;
belonging to arrange of emotional types?; starting dialogues?; and making arrangements? Stockwell, 2003: 85.
Meanwhile, related to generic „man‟, the issue is similar to other experts. Stockwell 2003 argues that the generic „man‟ use does not represent the mental
images of both sexes. Otherwise, it depicts the mental image of a man first since the context may come afterwards. To avoid false generic „man‟, an author can
change the generic „man‟ into more neutral words. It means that a word can represent both sexes such as people for mankind, work force for manpower,
person-to-person for man-to-man, artificial for man-made, executive for businessman, chairperson for chairman, fire fighter for fireman, and leader for
statesman.
2.1.3 Author’s Belief
