The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – BREAKING THE BIAS OF ENGLISH: How English Disempowers Women and How to Fix It In Only Six Words! by Vivian R Probst

Episode Date: June 7, 2025

BREAKING THE BIAS OF ENGLISH: How English Disempowers Women and How to Fix It In Only Six Words! by Vivian R Probst Vivianprobst.com Amazon.com Linguist Vivian Probst has come out of her Word Closet! In 2008, Vivian Probst discovered a simple but subversive code in English that was so visibly against women, that she spent fifteen years researching how to fix it before releasing her theory in her 2023 book ‘Breaking The Bias of English’. This is her story–a rediscovery of how much English prefers men; of how those of us who aren’t men are disempowered by English, and most importantly, how to reclaim our voices with only six minor word changes: The; She; Her, Woman, Women, and They are the six words. Watch how these change and open doors to words for us! Join Probst as she corrals an entire language, transforming the ‘he’ power of English into ‘we’ power. Welcome to ‘WEnglish for WEquality’.About the author My life work is focused on helping women to grow into their innate power though my fiction and non-fiction works and public speaking. As a trained linguist, I've also created a 'better' English (WEnglish for WEquality) that give 'those of us who aren't men' a few (five) words of our own.

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publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book success. Anyway, guys, we have an amazing young lady on the show. We're going to be talking to her about her new book that she's talking to people about, and it is entitled Breaking the Bias of English, How English Disempowers Women and How to Fix It with Only Six Words. Out February 6, 2024, Vivian Probst joins us on the show. We're going to get into it and find out her data there, and she's a multi-book author too, so we might tease out some of her other books that she's got

In the novels there the novel arena. I don't know what i'm trying to do as a joke there, but uh, the novel arena That's what they call it. Right? I think it's called an all right Vivian is a linguist and she's already she's already giving me f on everything i've said so far she's an award-winning author and she's a researcher as well. She's a national consultant to the affordable housing industry for over 30 years. She is now retired after doing them and spent 15 years studying how to make English a fair language while traveling the country, captivating audience with her unique style of teaching tax regulations, and importantly, sharing her You Make a Difference message.

VIVIAN Absolutely. sites, we have vidianpropes.com, and we have winglishforeequality.com. We'll get more into the we part of English for Equality in just a few minutes. Pete So, give us the 30,000 over you. What's inside your new book? Dr. Edna Friedman Oh, yeah. Well, this new book has been part of my heart and soul probably most of my life. I was raised in a very conservative family. Women were below men in terms of authority. We were to respect men and obey men.

And I love men. Men are wonderful. But I could not buy in to that philosophy, and I had to eventually leave that whole belief system to figure out what my life was about and what I wanted to do. So English, the English language is the most common language now in the world because there are both primary speakers or native speakers and now we have second language speakers. And if you put them all together, English is the language that everybody's learning. So I went through life fascinated with words, but absolutely troubled by the concept that women were not as important as men. And I eventually had to leave that. That's a hard way of life to

lead, to leave. And when you are raised that way, it's hard to get over. I had to go into a second marriage to find my way out because my life was ruled by men. And I don't know if that makes sense, but that happens to a lot of women. And so, in that process, I learned to become equal. And I believe there are a lot of women who have a hard time with equality. I really want us to learn that being equal is possible. One of our big challenges that we don't think about is our use of words. And English is a hugely masculine language, and I have studied it,

and I have come up with a way to make it a fairer language. You cannot read, speak words words, full of masculine bias as a woman and feel equal. So, if we really want to be equal, and I believe we do, what would you say, Chris? Do you think, do women want to be equal? Don't we all just want that in life? I mean, equality, but can I be the devil's advocate here? Oh, absolutely. Wouldn't using the same language be equal? Oh, yeah, English, English, but I want to share how English is so primarily masculine, so we can take six words and make English work for women. For instance, Chris, what are the words we use for women in our language? Women. How

do we spell that? Chris Larkin W-O-N-G You're not required to I might fail it, you know Old age range MEN so you notice You notice That we're attached to men All right now woman singular woman is w o m a n so there again we're attached and there's nothing wrong with that except that in english women don't have words of their own we don't have words so if you want to fix that if you think it's important and I want to ask your audience what does it mean if women

don't have words? I know you know is that important and so I have taken the English language apart, it, and come up with some words that women can use, that we can use that bring us equalness, that level the playing field. Because, Chris, this might not be your life calling, but my life calling has been to study English. Did you know that English has over 20,000 words that invoke man words? He, him, his, sir, guy, all these words. And we can't help when we read English, when we see English, we can't help it that our minds pick up the inner workings of these words and they're planted in our psyches. This is not commonly known and most people are stunned when I talk about this because we've never really thought about it. when I talk about this because we've never really thought about it. We never have, but I have, and equality is only possible if we can be equal,

and it's hard to be equal when our whole language is oriented toward men. So we want to fix that. Pete There you go. Pete And so, sorry, go ahead. Pete No, you go ahead. Pete What I wanted to just clarify for everyone, there's also another example you were probably getting to of the she, the he, she, her on top of that, and then I think those are the six words the she her woman woman and

Those are six one two three four five Brains I got a big camera on my screen to hear so I'm working that so you you want to you want to make words for? Women that don't have what do you call this when there's like a core or primary thing in a word that, I think there's a word for this, isn't there? KS. A root, I don't know, a root? Yeah, there you go, root. There you go. A rootness, a root. There you go. Not to be confused with Groot, the guy from the movie. Yeah, so there's like a root, what you're talking about is there's a root thing that specifies men, women, her, she, thee, so thee has a he in it, she has a he in it, her, her, or

he is, okay, I see it now. I was getting used to seeing it at the front and at the back. So her, woman, man. It does, I do see, if I can play devil's advocate again, it is interesting that in most of these, the female additive to it, I think there's some of this in Spanish, isn't there? Don't they just use different words or various, and for female and masculine? But it's interesting to me, they come at the beginning masculine. But it's interesting to me, they come at the beginning of the words, women,

uh, the, and woman, which is interesting because it kind of puts the first as a priority in the word. I don't know. Well, that, that's a new focus for me. That is interesting. Yeah. Here's, except for her. Except for her. He is at the beginning. Edna Yeah. Pete Yeah. Pete The interesting thing is that wherever man or men or he or his or Serga, wherever they show up in a word, they draw our attention. And so, my work has been to free that up to loosen that up. I want to focus if I can for a moment on the word the because as you've already observed the word that he is in

the you know, Charlemagne the god, you've heard of Charlemagne the god. Yeah, he's got the breakfast club anyway, he spells the th a and the importance of that is The is our most common word in English by far if it is the most common word. So it means that the orientation toward key words is so prevalent and we don't even know it. We don't even recognize it. And my work is to help

women and men, but I want women to understand that if you want to be equal, you've got to have some words that don't attach you to men. That's just got to happen. And so that's my work and you've picked up the words. So if the is the most common word in English, well, why do we always spell it T-H-E? Now, I don't want to turn this into a grammar lesson at all, because, but- But it kind of is one, it's a fun, it's a fun little wordplay. Well, it is.

Think of our words, A and Anne. A and Anne, we use them specifically for different reasons. That's the same meaning, the same word, but we say, for instance, in my book, I talk about a chicken and egg. We just say it that way, because saying a chicken and chicken or egg doesn't sound right. So we use a and an interchangeably. And so I would like to propose that we do the same thing with the because we most often say the, we don't say the unless the next word starts with a vowel. Now, that might be a metal dance that people don't want to take, but the point is, we say the so much that wouldn't it be nice if we would treat the

the same way as we do a and n? So, if we say the, spell it t-h-e. If it's the, spell it T-H-E, if it's the, spell it T-H-A. And I use Charlemagne the God because he's the one who has taken the and made T-H-A a spelling that we can accept. And it's awesome because the T-H-E in the is now subdued and we're able to use two spellings and that neutralizes English with just one word. Do you think I'm in a little deep? I'm in really deep in this. I've been doing this for 15 years and you're able to take this out to hundreds of thousands of people. And so, that's word one. Pete Hey, can I expand on that a little bit? I was giggling a little bit because I realized from what you were saying, you know, when you say the as the, T-H-E, you're really spelling

T-H-E-E, the, you know, I'm thinking a biblical sense, I think, of some words from the Bible. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's okay. Yeah. It is kind of weird how we pronounce stuff in this language, and it varies. It's a weird language. I just want women to have some words of their own.

And I'm a linguist, so let's do it phonetically, okay? Let's spell it like it sounds. So women, W-I-M-I-N. Okay? Women, okay? And woman, W-O-M-U-N. All right? And this unhinges women from having men and man and male attached

to how these words are spelled and gives women some of their own words. It's amazing. Pete So, is that – Julie How liberating it is, yes. Pete So, is that, is that, give me the corrected spelling that you want to utilize for all these words. I think the one was W-I-M-I-N? Debra You got it. Women. W-I-M-I-N, woman, W-O-M-U-N. And this is all in my book. She, S-H-I, her, H-E-R, they, T-H-A-Y. These are so simple and so normal. Putting H-E in these words are M-A-N, M-E-N.

It is old. You talk about old English. This is really old. Do you know that Old English had six spellings for the? Too much. Masculine, feminine, neutral. Now we have one and it's just everything's, you know, we just want to fix that. What do you think? Pete I think it's an interesting idea. I mean, if you want to do it, I mean, I'm one of those people that, hey man, as long as you want to do something, you don't hurt anybody with it, you're fine. And they're in its age appropriate, like, you know, don't bother people under 18,

sort of thing. But, you know, hey, it's a free country, man. I mean, we've had plenty of people on the show that have pronouns. And you know, sometimes that gets a little confusing. I remember we had, you know, I'm not even sure, I think we had a they on the show. KS And one of the challenges was when we did the research for the show, all the news outlets had referred to her as a she because she hadn't chosen to become they yet. And so, her bio on everything, well no, it was the bio that gave away. You know, I read all this background on this information and you know, she, it's a female name, blah, blah, blah. And so when she came on the show, I didn't know she'd

become a they. And so I was reading the bio and the theys came up and I went, oh shit. And I introduced her as a wonderful young lady, cause that's one of the tricks we do with, with all the people come on the show. We make everyone feel good and young. So, uh, you know, it was a wonderful young lady. We have in the show. And then I got to the bio and it's like, they, you know, but I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm open, you know, if you want to be called they, them, a, hey, him, a sheep dog, whatever. I mean, to be called they, them, hey, him, sheepdog, whatever. I mean, I'm all cool with it. You know, as long as it, as long as, you know, I don't know, it's getting hurt, you know, it's language, you know, I think that's one of the biggest problems we have is, you know,

we see this in comedy where comedians are just getting killed now because, you know, no one can take a joke and, and, and, you know, they're usually some of the best wordsmiths. And, you know, so many people tone police and can't take a joke and can't, you know, the inability to laugh at the human condition is the last vestiges of hope for us because we can't laugh at how silly we are sometimes, you know, whatever. No, English is silly. Yeah, right English My work my work is more serious, but English is Such a strange language. I'll give you a couple of words like the word blame You know if you take that word apart, it's be lame It's hilarious

because really It's hilarious because really blame makes us lame. Lame. And that's how I like to see it. So when we split words apart, you can get great humor and that's what the comedians are doing. And that's what I've done with words for years. I split them into their smallest segment. My focus is on, is this a nice, a good word, an empowering word, a word that is freeing or is it not? And that's where I spend my time. So I'm

serious about English, but I also get how hilarious it is. Yeah. Or like, sometimes insulting, like one of the things that people do is they'll assume something about me. And they'll write me in a bit like, you know, you do this. And I'm like, where in the world did you get that impression? Well, I assumed it based upon what, this, that, and the other. And you're like, do you understand that with assume, you break it down, you make an ass out of you and me. Assume. Yes. I usually throw that as, and that's my favorite thing. You break it down, you make an ass out of you and me. Assume. I usually throw that as, and that's my favorite thing.

That is so fabulous. So my life oriented me toward a belief system that diminished women, and I came out of that, and I look for how can we be equal? Because it's a big deal. Because women just don't feel equal. I think it's getting better, don't you? I think we're more conscious anyway. Pete Slauson Pretty good on the equal thing. I've been on, there's some edging that women have that, you know, they can get, you know, one of my gal pals was

telling me about how she gets a, she's got a business thing with the government where she gets some advantages for business deals. I forget what it's called, women-based business or something like that. Okay, sure. You know, I'm not a fan of what's going on in our politics right now, but you've seen some of the disabling of some of the stuff that was leaning heavily on the plates of... It really didn't make things equal, I think. So there's some of that. Now, one thing I want to also clarify for listeners about your book, you need to buy it folks though first, is in the cover you say, welcome to Winglish for Wee quality. Wee, Winglish for Wee Uh, and so there's a W at the beginning of there and it's more of a we than, uh,

than what it was before. Uh, is that part of the language change you want us to make? Or is that- Yeah, that is the, that's the website name. That is my mission. I want equality and I like we as a word. So we are taking we English for we quality because English is too biased and we can balance it and neutralize it very easily but we have to consciously do that. So, Winglish for Wee Quality

is the name of the website,.com, if you're interested in that. I'm just very passionate about learning how women feel, about having a few words that focus on them because we are just drowned. We are drowned in he words. And I believe I have seen women after the shock wears off because you and I are talking for a few minutes, but it takes a while to wrap your head around this. But I have seen women soften and smile and get that, oh, wow, wouldn't it be nice to have some words of our own? And that's what English, our language is so deep inside of us that we don't get how pervasive and how subtly it affects us. And so, on the serious side of English, I want to fix that for women. W-I-M-I-N.

So, why did you become a linguist? What drove you into that arena? Oh, yeah, I skipped over that part. My family was very evangelical Christian, and by the way, if you want a word split that's interesting, take Eve-angelical apart. You don't have to do it, but yes. Yeah, it's anyway, I was, we were very, very good Christians and I love God and I was raised that way, but our family had an emphasis on missions. And so, we all went into missionary training and part of my training was linguistics because the emphasis of the organization I belonged to was to write down previously unwritten languages. So you had to learn word sounds so that you could write the word sounds down so you could

form a written language. And that was my early life. And I left that because I could not stand how women were treated in that society because women were less than. And I didn't believe that. So you can see that equality has been a thread through my whole life. this getting this dealing with English, I just want us to be aware of what we can do about it. It's very simple. Pete You mentioned you grew up in religion. What was your childhood like? Mary Ann Right and wrong. You know, there was, I would say it was a good childhood as long as you didn't step outside the boundaries. Yeah, it was good.

I just, as I grew up, I just couldn't... I mean, I went with my first husband to Africa, and we were going to live there and we were going to convert these Africans and I fell apart because that's when I got that I could not be who they wanted me to be. And if you're going to be yourself, you know, you have to give up. The things that you don't agree with, you have to say, I don't agree. And so I had to leave all of that behind. And yeah, but it was, I love my family, I love so much about my life, and my life has just expanded in ways that I could not have imagined. And you're right, I do have other books and they're mostly novels. Pete Yeah. Yeah. I like the titles of them too. I was like, you know, I've,

we've had a lot of romance novels on the, uh, on the, uh, on the show. And they always have really cool titles. It's kind of funny. Yeah. Yeah. So I like the word play in that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have, uh, I have a four book series, the woman who forgot who she was. I hope you'll, you'll show it somewhere because I can't possibly say these in a way that people will be able to figure them out or remember them. But if they go to VivianPropes.com, it's all there. It's very easy. I write what I call intention fiction and that is I've been writing for 25 years. And typically, life gives me something

to work on that I will write fiction about. And I write to understand what the story is. I don't know the story, but it takes me several years, usually, to write a book. And by the end of that story story I get this wonderful message, this treasure. Yeah, I've been doing that for most of my adult life and it's just awesome. I am working on hopefully getting interest in a movie for my award-winning book, which is Death by Roses, which is hilarious and tragic and everything in between.

There you go. Well, I mean, that's the rom-com, right? Or is it a rom-com? Yep, yep. There you go. There you go. So now do we want to plug, I see some notes here about a can if fund. Oh, yes.

Do you have work? Yeah, that's my charitable organization. After I left Africa, I came back, I live in Wisconsin, came to Wisconsin. I found a women's group to help women who were going through major life changes. And after they helped me find a job, and within a few years, I was making lots of money and I was able to travel the country. I was teaching these tax regulations. And yeah, I decided to endow that women's center with proceeds from the sales of my book. So CANIF, C-A-N hyphen I-IF. See, I love to play with words, I can't help it. But the message of

CANIF is we can if our children have childcare while we mothers are getting back into the work world, which is where I was at that time. And so, yeah, that's how I give back and say thank you to the Women's Center for helping me. Pete Slauson Now, is that on the same website that we have for you? Or is it on a separate website? Julie I don't think it's on a website, shame on me. Oh, shame. Oh, there's a good word. You don't need to shame anyone.

No, no, no, no. What's in shame? Yeah, but this is just another example of what happens with words. SH, M, me, shame. Shame is so much a part of life if we refuse to be who we are, to talk. Women tend to shush themselves, and that's my word split on shame. Throw that in. Pete Okay. And then, you, let me offer one thing because there's a note here that I have in the, in our notes about, I think you blame English for being so patriarchal.

I think we figured that out or established that. Let me ask you this as a linguist, because does most of our sort of language derive from the Bible? And you'd probably have to do a lot of changing the Bible, right? To, you know, does our language come from the Bible, right? Does our language come from the Bible? I don't know. EG No, no, it comes from Old English, but English comes from so many different languages. Open a dictionary or get online and etymology, as you mentioned earlier, is the meaning of words and how language, the history of words and how it developed. And you will see all the old languages that English is a composite of. And that's why English is so challenging because it's a smattering of many older languages.

And so English came into existence after these other languages, and that's why it's kind of a melting pot of words. And it's not that English is biblical, it's that the people who worked on language over the years, patriarchy has permeated our society for so long that these words naturally gravitated toward patriarchal words, and that's where this all comes from. And so all I want to do is help women get out of a sense of inequality, become equal, and English has to come along for the ride. It has to come along. It has to give us some words. Damn it. Pete Slauson There you go. Well, you have written the book and you're touring around, you speak to, right?

Debra Larson Yeah, all the time. Pete Slauson So, if anybody's hearing this, they can bring you on board to do it. So, anything more we want to plug my email address, which is vivian at vivianpropes.com, and use nice words, okay? And just, I would like to know how particularly women feel about having some words of their own. I mean, laughter, shock, I've had weeping because it's so freeing, whatever it is, I'd like to hear from your world. Pete Slauson Mm hmm. There you go. So, well, it's been wonderful to have you on the show, insightful, and we've done some great wordplay and you know,

people, this is why we love the show, different paradigms, different ways of thinking, different ways of looking outside of the box. And you know, there's always sometimes, there's always a way to improve everything, as we like to say. Well, that's so true. There you go. So, you know, everybody, put your heads together and, and decide if you like it or not and fix it or whatever. I mean, like I said, I think, I think, I think, I think wordplay is interesting in, you know, comedy and in life. And, in life. And people of course know a lot of words. Women seem to know more words than men. That's for sure. I've heard that. Too many, too many words, uh, uh,

that men use for women are so derogatory. I don't want to go out on that, but it's also true that there's a lot more words like that for women than there are for men, and that's another way that women can become more equal, is to give themselves words that are not so unflattering or attached to men. Pete There you go. Vivian Love men. Just know that.

Love men. Pete There you go. Well, Vivian, it's been wonderful and insightful to have you on the show. Thank you very much for coming on. Vivian Thank you. Pete And give us your dot coms one last time. Vivian Yeah. VivianPropes.com and WeEnglish for WeQuality. If you just get on VivianPropes.com, you'll find it and you can link through that.

Pete Mm hmm. There you go. Thank you very much for coming on. Thanks, Ron, for tuning in. Order the book wherever fine books are sold. It's entitled Breaking the Bias of link through that.