Guidelines, Methods But also Shortcuts Needed for LY2157299

If we are to make a claim that gender fair language reforms will be successful, an important task for the present research is to show that time in use is important to include when studying attitudes and frequency of use, together with other potential explanations. Previous research has identified a number of predictors of attitudes to BAY 73-4506 concentration gender-fair language and the following section will provide an overview of these. Sexism in terms of attitudes toward gender equality has been identified as a predictor of negative attitudes toward gender-neutral language use (cf. Sarrasin et al., 2012), together with political orientation in terms of right-wing conservatism (Formanowicz et al., 2013; Norton and Herek, 2013). Also in the ��hen-debate,�� more left-wing than right-wing politicians used hen and promoted that hen should be included in the Swedish Dictionary (Milles, 2013). In Sweden, there are feminist movements both on the left and right of the political map, and in the last election more politicians than ever before openly stated that they considered themselves to be feminists (?hberg and W?ngnerud, 2014). Thus, feminist values would be associated with more positive attitudes, no matter of political orientation. Jacobson and Insko (1985) showed that feminist attitudes were associated with a higher use of gender fair language, such as using more double forms of pronouns. Feminist attitudes also mediated the effect between gender and attitudes toward gender fair language. Hence, even though the literature suggests that political right-orientation would predict negative attitudes, this is not entirely straight-forward, and we suggest that interest in gender issues may be a potent predictor as well. Gender (as coded in a binary system feminine/masculine) as a predictor of attitudes to and use of gender-fair language has been inconclusive so far. Some studies have shown that women are more positive than men to gender-fair language (i.e., Prentice, 1994; Sarrasin et al., 2012) others have shown no differences (i.e., Koeser and Sczesny, 2014). Women tend to use gender-fair language more often than men (Koeser and Sczesny, 2014), and are more easily influenced to adjust to gender-fair language (Koeser et al., 2014). Notably, using a gender-neutral hen is not as clearly beneficial for women, as compared to other forms of gender-fair language (e.g., balancing masculine and feminine form, or avoiding masculine generics). Hence, it is not certain how, or even if, gender will affect attitudes to hen. Since hen challenges the binary gender system that is prevailing in most cultures, it could be argued that some individuals will show stronger resistance than others, depending on how important the gender system is to them. We argue that biological gender is not of greatest importance in this case, but rather the extent to which one identifies as a woman or a man, and how important this identification is.