About the Author

Kamalini Karthik is a law student and an aspiring judge. However, at her heart she is a story teller with a deep love for words and their ability to capture the human experience. She believes that words are the most powerful form of human expression, capable of changing the way we see the world. 

A woman speaks firmly in a meeting. Is she decisive, difficult or demanding? The answer often depends not only on what she said, but on the words chosen to describe her. From workplace feedback and news headlines to family conversations and social media, those choices can shape how ambition, authority and independence are understood.

Why this conversation matters

That is where this discussion begins: not by policing vocabulary, but by asking what familiar labels communicate and whether a more precise description would serve us better.

Context matters. A difference in wording does not automatically reveal bias, and people may use the same term in different ways. Yet when certain descriptions appear repeatedly, they are worth examining.

This article traces a few of those patterns through research, history and present-day examples, then turns them into practical choices for clearer communication.

Three questions guide the journey: What has research observed? How did familiar words acquire their associations? What can we do differently in everyday conversations?

What the research actually says

In her influential 1973 article Language and Woman’s Place, linguist Robin Lakoff proposed examining women’s social position through both the speech expected of them and the words used about them. She described social norms that could encourage women to sound less forceful and more accommodating. Her essay helped open an important field of study, although it is best read as an early theoretical account rather than a description of how all women speak.

Later scholarship added more context. Jennifer Coates’s Women, Men and Language reviews research on conversation, compliments, swearing, dominance and the ways children learn gender-related speech patterns. It also treats gender as something shaped through social interaction rather than as a fixed speaking style.

The key point is not that women and men have fixed speaking styles. Speech varies across cultures, generations, situations and personalities. The value of this research lies elsewhere: it helps us recognise assumptions before they become labels.

Assertive or bossy? Why labels matter

Confident speech does not sound the same to every listener. Culture, setting and personal experience all play a part. In some situations, a woman who speaks firmly may be described as “aggressive” or “bossy”, while similar behaviour from a man may be called “assertive”. No single word proves bias, but the contrast invites a useful question: what did the person actually say or do?

One large study on organisational language found that appointing women to senior leadership positions was associated with company language becoming more likely to connect women with qualities such as decisiveness and assertiveness. The study does not prove a single cause, but it offers an encouraging possibility: greater representation may broaden the examples people associate with leadership.

When similar words take different paths

Take Lakoff’s historical example: “He is a professional” and “She is a professional.” In some settings at the time, she observed, the sentences could prompt different associations. Contemporary usage is far more varied. The example matters not because it dictates meaning today, but because it shows how connotations can shift.

Bachelor and spinster tell a similar story. Both can refer to an unmarried adult, yet they have carried strikingly different tones. Many people rarely use “spinster” today, which itself shows that vocabulary changes when social attitudes and habits change.

The contrast between master and mistress can be read in the same careful way. “Master” may refer to expertise or authority, while “mistress” has developed several meanings, including a well-known relationship-related meaning. Lakoff discussed such word pairs in Language and Woman’s Place to illustrate how terms that appear parallel can develop along different historical paths.

What a title can reveal

Titles do more than identify people. Traditionally, Miss and Mrs indicated a woman’s marital status, while Mr did not do the same for a man. The adoption of Ms provided an option that did not refer to marriage. Preferences differ across people and communities, so the most respectful approach is also the simplest: when possible, use the title a person chooses for herself.

History also shows that the language of equality may develop before equality is fully realised. In her 1791 Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, Olympe de Gouges used the vocabulary of citizenship to argue for women’s voting rights, equal access to public roles and equality before the law.

The example captures both the promise and the limit of language. Words can make a fairer future easier to name and discuss; laws, institutions and daily practice must help turn that possibility into reality.

Changing the word is only the first step

A euphemism is a milder or more indirect expression used in place of language considered blunt or uncomfortable. Lakoff discussed “lady” as a substitute for “woman” in some contexts where speakers considered “woman” too direct.

That does not make “lady” an inappropriate word. Tone, context and personal preference determine how it lands. The larger lesson is that respectful communication means understanding why a term is preferred, not simply exchanging one label for another.

Language becomes most helpful when it accompanies wider respect and inclusion. Instead of asking only, “Which word should I avoid?”, we can ask, “Which description is accurate, relevant and respectful in this situation?”

What millions of job applications reveal

A 2025 peer-reviewed study, Gendered Language in Job Ads and Applicant Behavior: Evidence from India examined 157,888 advertisements on an Indian online job portal and the 6.45 million applications they received. About 8% of the advertisements in the dataset stated an explicit gender preference. The researchers also analysed wording associated with those stated preferences.

The researchers reported that advertisements associated with a preference for women offered lower advertised wages on average and attracted a larger share of women applicants. Their estimates suggested that explicit gender requests accounted for 7% of the gender wage gap in the jobs applied for by otherwise comparable women and men; when implicit language associations were included, the estimate was 17%. These figures describe patterns in this particular dataset. They do not establish that a specific word will influence every applicant or that wording alone explains workplace inequality.

Another study reached a different result. A North American field experiment on gender-neutral wording in job postings found little practical effect on applicant behaviour. The contrast is important: wording deserves attention, but so do pay, flexibility, job design, opportunity, representation and workplace culture.

Five choices worth carrying into everyday life

• Pause before accepting the first label. Ask whether the word describes the behaviour accurately or merely reflects a familiar expectation.
• Describe conduct rather than character. “She rejected the proposal and explained why” is clearer and fairer than “She was difficult”.
• Respect self-identification. Use the name, title and terms a person prefers.
• Look beyond the sentence. Inclusive wording matters, and so do fair pay, flexibility, opportunity and representation.
• Stay curious about context. Meanings vary across generations, cultures and communities, so careful listening is often more useful than rigid rules.

Notice more. Judge less. Describe better. Language is not the sole cause of gender inequality, and vocabulary alone cannot resolve it. The aim is not to criticise every imperfect phrase. It is to make description more accurate and conversation more useful.

The next time a confident woman is described as “bossy”, “difficult” or “intimidating”, pause over the label. Does it identify a specific action? Is it relevant to the situation? Would a more exact phrase help the listener understand what happened?

That is the purpose of paying attention to words: not to create anger or assign blame, but to replace vague judgement with informed choice. A more precise description may seem like a small change, yet it can make a conversation clearer, fairer and more useful.

Editorial note: This article presents linguistic and social research for educational purposes. It does not suggest that every person, workplace or culture uses language in the same way. Meanings vary by period, setting and community, and individual preferences should always be respected.

• Public Spaces Are Not for Women? The Question India Still Hasn’t Answered
• Feminism, Reconsidered: Somewhere Between What It Was and What It Has Become
• Good Girl Syndrome: Why Women Are Praised for Adjusting and How to Begin Choosing for Yourself
• The Power of Words: How Language Shapes the Way We See Women
• The People Pleasing Trap: How ‘Being Nice’ Can Be Self-Betrayal