The word women have so many sexual connotations that people began using lady instead. It was feminists who wanted the women used over lady. That was successful because now it is commonly used without implying sexuality.Another discovery of Nilsen was the 200 pairs of words with masculine and feminine forms nearly all the pairs had the masculine word as the base and the feminine word as the suffix, which was added. (Example heir-heiress, hero-heroine) Nilsen research showed that the only time the base of a word is not masculine is when it is dealing with sex and marriage. The examples that she gives are bride, bridal attendant, bridal gown, and so on. This is so because marriage is so on. This is so even when a marriage ends in death the woman gets the title of widow. Nilsen revisits her studies twenty years later and has acknowledged that the feminist’s movement has caused the differences between the sexes to be down played. The second point Nilsen makes is that Women Are Passive and Men Are Active and that point are illustrated by the wording of the wedding ceremony. In the ceremony Nilsen points out that the women is expected to play a passive role and the men play a strong role. The question is asked; “Who gives this bride away?” was implying that the bride is something to be handed over. This goes back to the times when the women and children were considered property and everyone knew it because they had the man’s last name. Also you see that the male plays the active role in sexual relationships such as a man deflowers a woman, he performs, he scores, or he takes away her virginity. Nilsen explains the term Ms. and how women tried to bring this term to replace Miss and Mrs.. It was a way for women to not be see as property but yet as individuals who deserved their proper recognition. Another example of passive and active is in relation to the differences in food metaphors. Food, of course, is a ...
