Just Not Sorry App: a Very Bad (and Sexist) Idea
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You may remember in January 2016 when Chrome announced a smart new feature that would save women from demeaning themselves in their e-mails. You may remember hearing about how the new extension would highlight certain words in red and provide the option to change to a more suitable alternative. You may remember how the new app was targeted at women who write important e-mails. And you may remember the outrage it caused.
If you don’t, worry not – part of my call to write this article is to inform. And how informed you will be by the end…
Google Chrome decided it knows best about language. (It doesn’t, by the way: none of the people involved in Just Not Sorry’s creation have any qualifications linked to language.) Its feature highlights ‘weak’ language, also known as ‘powerless’ language or ‘women’s’ language. Yes, this is a real thing. And it’s been happening for years.
The idea that women use language differently and in a more demeaning way than men was pointed out way back in 1922 by a man named Otto. Otto Jespersen. He said women don’t have as good a vocabulary as men, talk too much and use words like ‘really’ and ‘so’ (known as intensifiers but since I’m a woman, I probably shouldn’t have access to that word). This theory has been popularised for years and Chrome has monopolised on it too.
Since women are always in the wrong, it’s us who have to change our language. We have to stop saying ‘sorry’ and using ‘just’ (which, according to the Just Not Sorry extension for Gmail “shrinks your power”) because we appear weak and unfit for leadership. Cheers for that one, Chrome. I didn’t realise being polite was a sin. And something only women do. (And do it wrongly at that.)
The Just Not Sorry App is an inherently bad idea. It creates a problem that is not even there in the first place. As Oxford Linguistic professor Deborah Cameron aptly points out in her kick-ass take-down of the app, there is literally no evidence for women using this ‘powerless’ language disproportionately.
It is another way to capitalise on pressuring women into thinking they’re wrong. And it’s effective. When I first read about this in my English Language class the other day, it did make me wonder. I started to question if I was demeaning myself by taking a tentative approach to speaking with people – even when they’re in the wrong.
But I’m not wrong – and neither are you. Using these words to modify the intensity of what we’re saying is much more of a politeness practice than a gender dysfunction. What a shame almost 33,000 people downloaded this piece of utter nonsensical trash.