A language always reflects the thinking and the level of development of the society using it. In that context, feminine and masculine gender can be used to see what the current general attitudes and/or stereotypes for the roles of men and women and the future trends are. This could be easily observed in one of the most rapidly developing areas of our vocabulary - the slang. In Bulgarian we have a slang word "mutra" which means "brute, ruffian or gangster", who is a big, strong and rich guy, usually criminal and former wrestler. This word in feminine gender is "mutresse", but it has a completely different meaning. The "mutresse" is the girlfriend or the wife of the "mutra", but she doesn't have the same "characteristics" or the same "position" in society without her partner. Thus the different status of men and women in a certai community is shown only through the use of feminine and masculine gender in one pair of corresponding words. |