What is it about?
This study examines how two common Mexican Spanish slang phrases — “no mames” (no shit) and “no manches” (no way) — are related to gender. We use Twitter and surveys. We find that both men and women mostly use “no mames” on Twitter, but women use “no manches” more frequently than men. In surveys, speakers provide evidence that many might be unaware of the gendered nature of these phrases. This study contributes to our understanding of slang and gender in everyday social life, showing that gender is relevant in slang online despite speakers being seemingly unaware of how gender affects slang usage in everyday social interactions.
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Why is it important?
- This work supports observations about the gendered use of vulgar language, but also shows how those are only part of the picture -- that both gendered users use the vulgar variant more often than the non-vulgar variant, it's just that accounts that present themselves as women are more likely to use the non-vulgar variant. - Survey results show that most speakers are unaware of the gendered nature of the usage, though there are some interesting perspectives in their responses.
Perspectives
One of unexpected result that emerged in our analysis was that accounts that don't display location information are significantly more likely to use the vulgar variant as well. This is unsurprising -- anonymity correlating with more vulgarity -- but also was something we weren't looking for at the outset.
Dan Simonson
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Gendered variation in Mexican slang, Spanish in Context, August 2026, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/sic.23011.sie.
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