Prose and Prejudice

Cecelia Ky-Lan Do
Jun 15, 2025
12 min read

by Anahita Aggarwal

art by Sydney Eze

Let’s see if you can solve this famous riddle: A father and son were involved in a terrible car accident, which instantly killed the father and sent his son to the hospital for surgery. However, upon reaching the hospital, the surgeon sees the boy and says, “I can’t operate, that boy is my son!” How is this possible?

While there could be multiple answers, a fairly simple one is that the surgeon was his mother. If you couldn’t think of that, don’t worry—as a woman in STEM, I couldn’t either. In fact, this riddle has been in use for years across several scientific studies, and a recent iteration revealed that only 30% of the participants identified the boy’s mother as the surgeon. Meanwhile, 67% of the participants still named a father figure in some capacity, guessing an adoptive father, stepfather, or father from a same-sex relationship [1]. Initially, the inability to imagine a female surgeon in response to a riddle may seem harmless, but the underlying assumption exposed by this riddle points to a more general tendency toward bias: here, a gender-neutral word (surgeon) got mentally linked to the male gender on an unconscious level.

While “reading” the riddle, we were really engaging in a translational exercise: we looked at the words before us and used them to create a mental picture. The answers that we arrived at were generated from this process. However, if reading neutral words leads to the anticipation of a specific race, gender, or body type, this process is evidently not linear or incorruptible. For this reason, language as a medium is considered to not only describe the meaning of underlying thoughts, but also prescribe a meaning to direct the recipient's thoughts [2]. Something about our engagement with the language of the riddle had failed to objectively generate thoughts and instead skewed them towards bias: is it possible, then, that language as a medium can contribute to the formation of involuntary biased thoughts? To gain greater agency over the workings of our own minds, it is necessary to explore the limitations of language use in our surroundings and question how it frames our understanding of ourselves and the world.

When neutral words latch onto physical bodies, it is worthwhile to examine the smaller processes that lie between reading and understanding— for instance, which mechanisms contributed to “surgeon” and “man” getting cognitively linked? One crucial force at work is associative plasticity, an adaptive response that helps us navigate our environment [3]. It supports the sensory systems of the brain, which allow for the internalization of one's surroundings through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. Our sensory systems transduce environmental cues into neurological representations so the brain can work out the ideal way to operate within that environment. They help us process physical stimuli (e.g., hot water flowing through a tap) in a way that indicates the appropriate response (withdrawing your hand). The purpose of this response is simply to keep one safe from harm. However, since most environmental cues are more ambiguous than the onslaught of boiling hot water, we rely on “associative learning” for safety. Our associative networks create connections between stimuli that we tend to encounter together, and expedite the rate at which we can determine the appropriate response [3]. The evolutionary significance of associative learning is immense; this process was responsible for mentally linking images, such as that of a tiger to its footprints, and warning our ancestors of danger. Associative learning’s importance to survival and thus evolution could explain the intricate nature of the system in our modern brains, where a tiny red dot on a faucet can prepare us for the sting of hot water.

It’s evident that associative learning had played a role in connecting our idea of a “surgeon” more firmly to that of a man rather than a woman, but how would this really work? As someone who has never undergone major surgery, what led my brain to connect two stimuli that I’ve never actually encountered together? One cause behind assimilation, in the absence of lived experience, would be through literature and media. Though vicarious, the potential for impact held by such experiences should not be underestimated; in fact, neuroimaging reveals that the brain does not distinguish between vicarious and lived experiences as starkly as one may expect [4]. Rather than activating solely the language center of the brain, a study found that reading also engaged the frontal and parietal lobes, which process sensorimotor experiences. The brain learns from literature in a manner that is very similar to reality, and media representations of doctors as overwhelmingly one gender can involuntarily enter our thought process.

Many writers are aware of the power that language can have over cognition and incorporate it into their work. Virginia Woolf, through her character Mrs. Ramsay, provides a fictional account of how deeply cultural associations can impact our thought process. In her novel To the Lighthouse, she describes a scene where Mrs. Ramsay is in a reflective state and thinks to herself, “We are in the hands of the Lord” [5]. This thought comes as a shock to her, despite being produced by her own mind: “But instantly she was annoyed with herself for saying that. Who had said it? not she; she had been trapped into saying something she did not mean” [5]. The predicament of Mrs. Ramsay involves the associative plasticity of our memory systems—somehow, the thought “We are in the hands of the Lord” had been linked to the thoughts that came before it, through a process that she herself was unaware of. My personal answer to the riddle at the beginning of this article had also been that the boy had two fathers; had I also been “trapped” into thinking that? And if so, how would that work? Woolf provides a non-fictional perspective on this subject in “Three Guineas”, when discussing how stimuli are processed: “The eye is connected with the brain; the brain with the nervous system. That system sends its messages in a flash through every memory and present feeling” [6]. Though the “eye” is considered to be an objective witness, she reinforces the fact that one's “memory” is integral to making meaning out of what the eye sees. In the case of hot water and the red dot, most people would have inferred the association between them since most people have been to restrooms before (not a unique experience). However, the riddle required the visualization of a surgeon from many respondents (including me) who have never actually undergone major surgery; so, what basis did our associations stem from? Could it be through literary representations, where the word “doctor” is often followed by the description of a male character? Or maybe real conversations in which someone uses “he” as the default pronoun for doctors? The consequences of these unintentional associations extend beyond the visual system, bleeding into our thoughts themselves. We often think of the “self” as something greater than our physical bodies, something that has to do with our private thoughts. However, when thoughts such as the above rise unbidden in our minds, we too can end up losing the ability to discern “who had [really] said it”.

Besides literature, another vehicle for assimilation could be the way in which language is used by people in our immediate surroundings. A study concerning the language acquisition of children highlighted the contextual nature of words [7]. Since language is intended for communication, children tend to prioritize the conventional meaning of words over what they may have learned in class. This is a natural instinct that enhances understanding, but can have unfortunate consequences when children inherit biased ways

of speaking from their cultural contexts. After growing up while communicating in a certain way, it is possible for us to lose track of where some of our thoughts and beliefs actually come from.

A deeper inspection of associative learning is necessary if we are to untangle culturally absorbed biases from our thoughts and separate our true beliefs. Fundamentally, associative learning allows us to organize the abundance of information that we come across and helps in creating a framework to access the knowledge in our brains. The clusters of knowledge connected through associative learning are considered to be “categories,” which are notably cultural inheritances [8]. This implies that categories form through the association of stimuli that we encounter together in our cultures and do not necessitate an objective truth value. A child who has only encountered mice through Disney Channel may have developed a category characterized by big ears and an admittedly catchy theme song, but of course, that is not actually reflective of the species.

Categories are expressed using two devices: labels (names such as “surgeon”) and generics (generalizations about those named categories) [8]. Generic language can be deceptive; in academic settings, we are often advised to avoid generic language that lacks evidence (you’ll have to excuse the generic construction of this sentence), but studies show that it can be very effective when communicating categories in everyday life. In the early stages of language acquisition, children consume more generalized sentences as building blocks to form concepts, with specific sentences fitting around the generalizations [9]. They are also more likely to expect that generalized information that is presented to them is common knowledge [10]. Generalizations are not just conveyed by sentences like, “Surgeons must always necessarily be men.” In fact, the use of predominantly masculine pronouns while discussing surgeons, or of a gendered language where the word for surgeon itself is masculine, could produce a similar effect [11].

The danger inherent in this manner of assimilating and spreading generalizations is reflected in the language used to discuss women in professional settings. A study investigated the possible implications of this gendered difference in language in the scientific field, presenting subjects with identical information about scientists but randomly assigning either a male or female name to the descriptions [12]. Participants were over four times more likely to refer to the male scientists by their surname, in both formal and casual contexts. Surnames are attached to important milestones in a scientific career, be it patents, awards, or the names of bodily organs, and the underrepresentation of women in the field may be reflected by these linguistic decisions. This tendency is not limited to science, as the same study observed this pattern repeated in literature, politics, and other fields [12]. Another study that focused on the perception of politicians found that while there was an equal interest in male and female politicians, it was the manner of discussion that made a difference [13]. The professional standards for discussions of female politicians were much lower—they often utilized their first names and included descriptions of their bodies, clothing, or family, creating a contrast with the more occupation-based evaluations of male politicians. In 2025, it is often heard that gender-based oppression is a concern of the past since women now have the ability to work. However, the evidence for continued discrimination is in the language that is still in use today, both intentionally and unintentionally.

Many biases persist in our language use as artifacts of a culture that has passed, and without removal, they continue to create culture in the present. Language’s ability to create culture is examined in a study about the use of second-person pronouns, which begins with the following quote from President Trump: “I fight like Hell to pay as little [in taxes] as possible… I’m a businessman. And that’s the way you’re supposed to do it.” [14]. The experimenters distinguished between “you” as a second-person pronoun that addresses another person and “generic-you,” which they suggest allows people to make meaning out of their own experiences by extending their behaviors beyond the self. This would apply to the last sentence from the quote, where a potentially subjective, internal thought is used to create norms through speech. They found that the “generic-you” was used by 56.1% of participants writing about negative autobiographical experiences, and only 6.3% of the participants writing about neutral ones. They also found that the “generic-you” helps create psychological distance from negative experiences, with participants feeling more detached from their own experiences by using it instead of “I”. They argue that this technique propagates bias by generalizing negative experiences [14].

Generalized statements, in turn, are processed to be instructive; another study found that people tend to infer how things “ought” to be from what they learn “is” the way that things are [15]. Thus, it is an inherent tendency for us to use descriptive judgments of what is to prescriptively decide what should be [16]. When acquiring language, children use the “generic-you” to understand norms and treat norms as prescriptive suggestions, evaluating non-conformity more negatively than conformity. This implies a certain ethics to normativity. Thus, we are especially vulnerable to internalizing generics during childhood, and they function prescriptively in attaching meaning to words.

So, what are some of the things that may have been prescribed to us through language? One study found gender stereotypes in the distributional structure of not only English but also the 24 other languages that they tested for [17]. It was perhaps these stereotypes that were at work in our translational process while making sense of the riddle, leading to the mental image of a man. There are reasons for the presence of gender stereotypes in the English language, which may not actually have malicious intentions behind them. One example is the “like me” bias in human language production [18]. Language production is based largely on what we recall first and rather than a sorting process that selects the most applicable word. So, researchers found that participants, when listing names, would usually call out names that were closest to their own identity first. This is likely just because those names were the most accessible. However, since Caucasian men have produced the majority of English literature in the past, the “like me” bias could suggest that their culturally-situated perspective has become ingrained into the language itself. There are also cases where the creation of a gendered perspective in language as a medium was more intentional—It has been argued that prescriptive grammarians pushed against the use of “they” as a personal pronoun in response to the rise of feminism, with the intention of making the english language more androcentric [19].

One of the most concerning consequences of the internalization of biased speech is “genetic essentialism” [20]. This is the belief that the (biased) categories we have absorbed, partly due to the structure of language and its spread through generics, have some genetic “core” intrinsic to them. Similarly to the “like me” bias, it is a manner of perception that

comes naturally to us. We have often heard that certain groups of people are genetically predisposed to certain things; that is an essentialist belief. When abstract thoughts come together to form essentialist conceptions of people in general, biased language is translated into a belief or even subsequent actions. On the other hand, challenging flawed language use can also decrease biased beliefs: this was demonstrated by a study where an institutional policy was set in place for more inclusive language and found that it decreased the gender biases of participants [21]. Encouraging participants to use gender-fair language led to a change in the workplace environment and the actions of those within it. Even modulating one’s own language use is effective when changes cannot be made at the higher level. Simply changing the linguistic cues in sentences related to science encouraged a larger number of young girls to feel undaunted by science and express an interest in it. Whether or not we want to, something as quotidian as speaking will inevitably impact the culture that is created around us; it is important, then, to practice intentionality and consciously choose the parts of conventional speech we want to accept or reject.

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Prose and Prejudice

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