A Beginner's Guide to Language and Gender

Allyson Jule

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781783097883
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

In this revised and updated 2nd edition of her pioneering textbook, Allyson Jule offers fresh insights into the study of language and gender for those new to the subject. Students will gain a thorough grounding in theoretical and practical perspectives on gender and language in the workplace, media, school, religion and domestic settings. Updates to the 2ndedition include discussion of: language and rape culture; LGBTQ terminology; language and social media; gaming; eco-feminism;and language, gender and Islam. The book is an ideal introductory text for courses specifically focused on language and gender, as well as those where an understanding of these issues would be helpful. Written in an engaging and reader-friendly style, with study questions, suggestions for further reading and a glossary, this book is the ideal starting point for students wishing to understand how language and gender interact in the modern world.

Part 1

Understanding Gender and Language Use

1

The Emergence and Direction of the Field

I don’t know why people are so reluctant to say they’re feminists.

Could it be any more obvious that we still live in a patriarchal world when
‘feminism’ is a bad word?

Ellen Page

Gender roles and behaviors have interested me my whole life. I grew up with an older brother and sister and, like everyone else, my early life experiences were heavily influenced by the sex I was born with. In my cultural context, this meant that I had a pink bedroom and was absolutely delighted to receive Barbie dolls for Christmas. My mother was a nurse, a good cook and an attentive homemaker; my father ‘went to work’, cut the grass and took care of the car. In short, I grew up with stereotypical gender modeling around me. Until I came to recognize the inequalities embedded within the gender distinctions that these models presented, I saw being a girl as unproblematic. After all, I liked Barbie dolls – as did my sister. We felt no oppression. My life goal to be a language teacher seemed very possible and realistic; Minnie found work in a floral shop. Without extraordinary effort, I qualified as a teacher in due course. In many ways, I am a ‘typical’ woman: I am married to a man, I have children, I like to decorate and read, and I have chosen a profession easily open to women: education. Would these realities have been the same had I been born male or not heterosexual? Perhaps. Likely not.

The lived realities of being female, feminine, male or masculine is central here in relation to language use. There are two reasons why I am writing this handbook on gender and language use. One is that being formed, rehearsed and rewarded by my culture into performances of gender and gendered life choices predicts lives like mine. This universal human reality (that we are deeply connected to our communities through our genderedness) is in and of itself reason enough to consider the complexities and the implications of gender. The second reason is that rehearsals into genderedness are most fascinatingly revealed in language use, language tendencies and language patterns. An interest in the relationship of language use and one’s gender emerged from my experiences as a classroom language teacher. I noticed over the years that the boys and girls in my classrooms were having quite distinct experiences.

One example of gendered tendencies as expressed in language use is the way I have begun to write this book. I have already used a gendered tendency by using personal anecdote. This is the writing ‘voice’ I am most comfortable to use. Why might this be? Apparently, this personal revelation style is something understood by my society as ‘feminine’ because it is viewed as relatable and accessible. (In 1990, Deborah Tannen identified this as ‘relational’ talk.) This relational style might serve my purposes here quite well – to draw you in by making you feel a personal connection; or it might limit my authority by undermining the legitimacy of what I might have to say. In addition, this style interacts with each reader in a unique way. But regardless, my performance of gender and its particular recognition by you, the reader, matters a great deal to my message: how we speak reveals our gendered tendencies, and it also continues to perpetuate these tendencies. Your reaction to this style of relational writing tells us something about you, too. Those with more ‘feminine’ sensibilities may well find this way of communicating rather engaging, whereas those with more experience with ‘masculine’ discourse patterns, particularly when it comes to academic writing, may find this personal touch annoying and distracting. Importantly, these gendered roles have less to do with which sex we were born with and more to do with our surrounding society’s values, norms and expectations.

In this book, I seek to introduce you to the sociolinguistic field of gender; that is to say, this book is an introduction to sociolinguistics as a field of study that is concerned with the use of language (both its powers and its limitations) through and with the lens of gender. My hope is that this beginner’s guide will be accessible as well as engaging for you, and that it will inspire you to continue to explore and reflect on the ways gender identities impact our communication and how our language use impacts our gender performances. Gender is a major part of who we are and why we behave in certain ways, and so it is worthwhile to consider the many places that gender and language intersect. Social scientists have been curious about such things for a very long time. My hope is that the ideas in this book help to orientate you to this dynamic field of research. This first chapter addresses the development of the field known as ‘Gender, Sexuality and Language’ by addressing some key concepts that have propelled past research. What follows is a discussion of key concepts and terminology used in the field.

Feminism: A Quick Review

The Oxford English Dictionary defines feminism as ‘the policy, practice, or advocacy of the political, economic and social equality for women’. This definition is helpful enough but there are strong connotations around the word ‘feminism’ that a dictionary definition cannot adequately explore. Today’s feminism is a diverse phenomenon with a very long history. The current field includes three main camps.

1.Liberal feminism, which seeks primarily to watch and comment on society’s portrayal of women as indicative of society’s patriarchal attitudes and values;

2.Socialist feminism, which sees patriarchy alongside social class issues of dominance and power and in need of challenge; and

3.Radical feminism, which views women as oppressed by society and seeks to challenge power relations between women and men.

This book comes from a liberal feminist position because of its main aim to comment on society’s portrayal of gender. Other variations include, among many others, psychoanalytic feminism, queer feminism, post-modern feminism, Islamic feminism, Jewish feminism, Christian feminism and post-structural feminism.

Feminism is a bedrock in Women’s Studies or Gender Studies within academia, but it is also a specialty area within other academic disciplines such as Education, the Humanities, Fine Arts, Health Sciences and within all the Social Sciences, including Anthropology, Linguistics, Communications and Psychology. Some feminist scholars explore gendered ways of speaking, learning, thinking, writing, creating, performing and counseling as well as investigate gender-specific health or medical concerns, family and domestic realities, and legal rights and access to representation. There are also those focused on the rewriting of history to include women as well as those searching out new female stories and novel ways to write them. Some examine literary theory and the way women and women’s lives are seen in literature and art, as well as the ways women have used literature and language to shed light on their experiences as women. There are a multitude of ways feminism intersects with a host of academic discussions.

Because of the various strands and understandings of feminism, the word is extremely difficult to define. It is better to refer to it as plural: feminisms. We can only try to pick out some common characteristics of the varieties of feminism. Most are, at least sometimes, critiques of patriarchy/hegemony (the hierarchy of the male) or critiques of misogyny (the hatred of the female). It may be safe to say that all feminisms are a disenchantment of some sort with an androcentric society, one which sees the male experience as the central point of reference of ‘the norm’, whereas the female experience is what is ‘marked’, what is different, what is not ‘norm’ and what is seen as ‘other’.

There are many examples of how patriarchy is revealed in language use. For example, the word ‘waiter’ is perceived as the ‘norm’ or the ‘unmarked’ word used in our everyday language, whereas ‘waitress’ is the marked variation – it is a change from the ‘norm’. The use of the word ‘waitress’ highlights the server as different from a waiter; this is what is meant by ‘marked’. In educational theory, Swiss theorist Jean Piaget based his theory of social development on boys thus privileging the male experience as the ‘norm’, or, that which is presented and understood as universal: there were no girls in Piaget’s research. Feminisms are concerned with the ways these kinds of assumptions in society exist and search for ways they can be interrupted and interrogated for the sake of those born – or who identify as – female. Feminisms explore the effects of assumed privilege, examine and expose these outcomes in a quest for reasonable accountability, and pursue basic social justice and human rights. Feminisms seek out which voices and stories get heard in society and which do not, including in the realms of politics, academia, classrooms, churches and families. Feminisms concern themselves with the perceived inferiority of women and the discrimination women encounter because of their sex and because of assumptions about femininity, while some women themselves collude in the perpetuation of these attitudes.

Especially in the latter half of the 20th century, feminisms have also been characterized by major American movements such as the Equal Rights Amendment and the National Organization of Women. These mid-century American incarnations of feminisms (and other similar efforts in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and around the world) insisted that women be free to pursue careers and economic independence as well as to have freedom from any male-based oppression in their personal or workplace relationships. This particular wave of feminism in the West (the second wave) followed closely on the heels of the 1950s post-war era, a decade with a heavy domestic emphasis. The 1960s was a uniquely potent period for the realignment of established attitudes, including (but not limited to) those surrounding gender roles. Indeed, the period hosted a plethora of anti-establishment movements. The entire era in the United States was framed by the anti-Vietnam war protests and the challenges to civil rights. Feminism as experienced in the 1960s was inspired by consciousness raising groups where women gathered together to question and reject their restrictive role in society. These white and privileged baby boomers (those born between 1945 and 1964) propelled an unprecedented revolution regarding social roles, politics, religion, affluence, philosophy and the politics of war and peace. Challenging sex/gender roles was a part of these other societal shifts. The 1960s and its sexual revolution challenged the traditional models of male–female relationships.

By the 1970s and 1980s, Western societies saw many resulting legal reforms, such as equal pay for equal work, more accessible divorce laws, more legal access to abortion, increased day care options, and more affirmative action in both the workplace and in educational opportunities. Quite rightly, many societies have a lot to thank second-wave feminism for in regards to the improvement in much of women’s freedom – particularly in the West. The issue of women and their lives on the margins of power entered the social consciousness and changed enormously in public life, the workforce, in university programs, in the literary canon and in family dynamics. Anyone connected to academia today recognizes the basic gifts of feminist thought to our daily lives.

Importantly, the notion of feminism itself must be understood as much, much older than the second-wave incarnation; the study of and concern for women and women’s experiences reaches much further back. Major early feminist thinkers include England’s Mary Wollstonecraft who, as an extension of the Enlightenment movement in general, wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792. Wollstonecraft criticized the lack of rigorous education for girls in 18th-century England as related to their weaker positions in society. She believed that women couldn’t possibly hold positions of power if they lacked the training to do so. She saw it as imperative that society educate its women. American Sarah Moore Grimke wrote Letters on the Equality of the Sexes in the early 1800s. In 1843, Sojourner Truth gave her ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ speech as part of the emerging feminist movement witnessed at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention. ...