Petition to ‘eliminate sexist definitions’ from Oxford English Dictionary receives 29k signatures

A new petition approaching 30,000 signatures is calling for the Oxford University Press to remove “sexist” synonyms and example sentences from its storied Oxford English Dictionary publication.

But an official with OUP says the petition is somewhat misleading and that the organization prefers to make note of a term’s offensiveness, rather than ensure it is “excluded from the dictionary.” 

Maria Beatrice Giovanardi — who created the petition — ripped the dictionary for classifying women with synonyms including: “B——, besom, piece, bit, mare, baggage, wench, petticoat, frail, bird, bint, biddy, filly” and for using example sentences like “Ms September will embody the professional, intelligent yet sexy career woman” and ’If that does not work, they can become women of the streets.”

“Over a third of young women aged between 18 to 24 have been targeted by online abuse. We can take a serious step towards reducing the harm this is causing our young women and girls by looking at our language - and this starts with the dictionary,” Ms. Giovanardi said.

“This sexist dictionary must change, she added. “These examples show women as sex objects, subordinate, and/or an irritation to men.”

Ms. Giovanardi also notes there are 25 different examples in the dictionary for the “men” entry while there are only five for the “women” one.

The petition calls for OUP to “Eliminate all phrases and definitions that discriminate against and patronise women and/or connote men’s ownership of women; Enlarge the dictionary’s entry for ’woman’; Include examples representative of minorities, for example, a transgender woman, a lesbian woman, etc.”

Katherine Connor Martin, OUP’s head of lexical content strategy, said in a statement editors are investigating “whether there are senses of woman which are not currently covered but should be added in a future update,” but added that the examples in the petition come from the Oxford’s Thesaurus of English and the Oxford dictionary of English, not the scholarly Oxford English Dictionary.

“If there is evidence of an offensive or derogatory word or meaning being widely used in English, it will not be excluded from the dictionary solely on the grounds that it is offensive or derogatory,” Ms. Martin said.

“Nonetheless, part of the descriptive process is to make a word’s offensive status clear in the dictionary’s treatment. For instance, the phrase the little woman is defined as ’a condescending way of referring to one’s wife’, and the use of ’bit’ as a synonym for woman is labelled as ’derogatory’ in the thesaurus,” she said.

However, Ms. Martin said “sensibilities regarding language are constantly changing” and she appreciates feedback for updates on classifying words considered derogatory,” she added. 

“The current cultural moment has seen an increasing acknowledgment of the real-life impact that words can have on individuals and groups. As this awareness leads to changes in linguistic behaviour, the dictionary will seek to record them,” she said.

The OUP also confirmed they are “taking the points raised in the petition very seriously … As ever, our dictionaries strive to reflect, rather than dictate, language so any changes will be made on that basis.”