User:Queenfeline/Words We Inherit, Words We Invent

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Reclaiming language as a feminist practice

Proposed Proposals & Project Proposal & Thesis Proposal


Idea

Why is language a feminist issue?

–> through and with language women are held oppressed and language is tied to the social and sexual hierarchy. The male as a default and the semantic derogation of women. Its not only what women speak but also how that is critizied (vocal fry)
How are feminist values encoded—or silenced—through language and publishing formats? The relation between language and women's oppression.
How do feminist movements use language to resist, redefine, or reclaim power?
knowledge as process, not possession.
To have words for experiences shapes how we see/interpret those experiences.
How about a glossary about women's empowerment (not oppression cause its important what words we use). Glossary of equality? I wanna make it about words that explain female experiences and give them the same room as male ones.
–> public moment idea: start the website with a few examples already and let people contribute to it!!!

Language is the next frontier of modern gender equality. We just have to help the world see it. (amamnda Montell s.17)

A Slip Of The Tongue

feminist glossary

How are definitions and glossaries sites of epistemic control — and how can they be reclaimed for feminist ends? Who defines meaning, and who gets to speak? How does gendered language reflect power dynamics and reinforces cultural and societal norms?
How can a glossary be used as a feminist publishing method?
How are certain voices marginalized or excluded from meaning-making? Can glossaries be performative, open-ended, or generative rather than fixed? What happens if definitions are open to multiple interpretations, narratives, or contradictions?
– Make my own feminist glossary – with the possibility for people to contribute to it in order to hear voices that mostly stay unheard.
Why make it online and with that global? Different people all around the world make different experiences and in order to practice intersectionality it is important to also hear voices which widen your understanding of what it means to behave feministic in this day and age.
A Glossary is an alphabetical list of technical terms in some specialized field of knowledge; usually published as an appendix to a text on that field. it includes terms within that book that are either newly introduced, uncommon, or specialized. (which makes so much sense for a feminist approach) A glossary is traditionally linear, authoritative, closed. But what if it was open-ended, networked, affective, or contradictory like lived experience? Can definitions reflect lived experience, not just academic consensus? What happens to a glossary if we abandon objectivity and embrace subjectivity?
I could ask (famous) feminists/ researchers to write for the glossary.
Who is it for and how should they feel using it?
Maybe for thesis: How can the glossary be a tool for feminist practices as it redefines understandings of complex constructs and opens new ways of seeing and experiencing the world. (and that is what feminists try to do: open a new worldview in which all humans are seen equal.)
Book that has my thesis as the introduction text and then there is something more
“cunt” got devalued because it directly names female sexuality, something that the patriarchy wants to control and shame.
—what is my own lense? Why and what can i contribute to the discourse? What drives me? Complict in my own oppression through language – what does that with the project – what am i adding to the discourse/discussion?
What do i want to find out? Why my fascination with that? – working on my own oppression.
for whoooo and why????
It is not only about language but how language shapes our self (image?)
Maybe a glossary that is critical and self reflective about terms we use in daily life and shows the sexism in that and how that shapes the selfperception of women* and maybe even offers an alternative (way of use)
We inherited a sexist language and must unlearn it! language is not just a list of words but a system of power that we uphold and reinforce everyday with speaking – A lot of sexism hides in the way we use the word not in the word itself
okay but i don't want the focus to be only on the negative. I also want to incorporate positive terms and alternatives
Each entry can unpack how a word reinforces hierarchy – through etymology, usage, connotation and offer new ways of usage, reclaimed and inclusive terms
how deeply language shapes internalized attitudes — not just what we say about others, but how we speak ourselves into being
The glossary could be an unfinished, evolving document(ation) of my attempt to unlearn internalized linguistic sexism. – make it personal


I want to create collective speech acts that invite reflection, exchange, and co-creation of meaning – It is not about change in language its more about noticing the sexism in language and using language as a tool to stop the sexist cycles and ways of speaking – I want to turn language into a site of feminist consciousness
Its about stopping the constant shaming and proudly reclaiming or rephrasing terms for selfempowerment
I could organize consciousness raising meetings at WdKA and prepare a text to read and discuss or just speak, and as time goes by other people could bring topics/readings they find interesting we we create a space to talk about feminist issues around school ?!
Word Workshop Two
Consciousness-raising (from 1970s feminism): the personal is political; sharing experiences creates political awareness – how does consciousness-raising translate in contemporary feminist practices?
How can collective reflection on everyday sexist language function as a form of feminist consciousness-raising today? So what happens when people come together to speak about language
What happens when we bring feminist theory into embodied, spoken exchange?
How does becoming conscious of the gendered nature of our language alter the way we experience ourselves and others?
How does speaking about language become a feminist method of resistance and self-definition?
How can participatory speech practices serve as a feminist methodology for uncovering and transforming internalized linguistic sexism?

words

cunt, bitch, slut, diva
Pretty/Ugly (unlearn patriarchy) handsome?
feisty
witch
hey guys
being a pussy
bossy / loud
have the balls to do smth
'Its probably a stupid idea but...'
'excuse my appearance, I just woke up'
Side/Not-so-FUN-FACTS:
the difference of woman and female (wordslut)

looks

– have a site for each letter and then a sub-site for each word.
– there is a submit button so people can contribute – how do I prevent spamming and not welcoming contributions? – Make a code of conduct/manifesto/rules for this project. – add positionality statement. (what terms or frameworks do I reject, and why?)
– Do I moderate it? i should.
– Make it look like a mindmap. everything is interlinked, you can jump from one definition to another. – annotate where definitions come from: lived experience, literature, oral history, protest signs, etc.
– People can contribute quotes, memes, (book) recommendations, poetry, lyrics, literally anything that adds some kind of value or different pov
– sort / explore : have a button to order or let them float free kinda like here

prototype

BITCH
Personal reflection
For me 'bitch' was my number one way to express my frustration about people, but also about situations. If I felt wrongly treated by someone, they had an attitude or were just mean, they were a bitch. If assessment situations were unfair or hard, the assessment was a bitch.
NOT-SO-FUN-FACT: One of my friends said that he uses bitch as a gender neural term. I think what he was trying to say was "I'm not sexist.". But if bitch means a woman (who is belligerent, unreasonable, malicious, controlling, aggressive, or dominant) insulting a man with it, is saying "Don't be (like) a woman." Which shows very clearly that the worst insults for a man* is being anything like a woman*, and a woman* is all these degrading other things. This made me also realize that many more insults, that are used for men*, are references to femininity ("Don't be such a pussy.") or they're not insulting them but their mum ("son of a bitch","motherfucker"). Plus women* get called a bitch when they embody traits that are considered positive in men* such as assertiveness, ambition, sexual confidence and authority.
People in the urban dictionary describe bitch as: "A women with a terrible attitude that likes to complain about a lot of things. never has anything nice to say, but always has an awful comeback for everything." or "Infamously known for being used in the hip-hop world and thoroughly considered as an offensive way of referring to a woman, the word bitch appears in music, as a way of referring to a woman who has no relations or value to the one saying the word." or "Any female who is selfish, rude, and ungrateful. A female who thinks they're better than others and hates anyone who doesn't match up to them, such as people with disabilities. A bitch only cares about herself and her friends, and all she cares about is partying and getting drunk. Bitches are bullies. They get pleasure out of hurting others." The Wiktionary article defines bitch as (vulgar, offensive) a woman, or a man who is considered weak, effeminate, timid or pathetic in some way.
Through my engagement with feminism and my growing interest in words, I wondered what the word actually meant and how it became such a famous insult.


Etymology
The word was first recorded as the old english bicce which meant nothing more than a female dog. But it didn't take long for the word to become a figurative insult for women. The Middle English bicced already meant cursed or bad. [] Published in 1785 Francis Grose describes bitch in his 'Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue' as "the most offensive appellation that can be given to a woman." In 1925 it was recorded to mean "sexually provocative" and a few years later as "spiteful, catty and bad-tempered" females.


Reclaiming
During the second wave feminist movement feminists started reclaiming the word. As the word already inherited powerful, confident and driven women*, feminists claimed that word and called themselves bitch with pride, because they are all these things and that shouldn't be considered 'wrong', if it is totally accepted in men*. Jo Freeman wrote in 1968 "The BITCH Manifesto" in which she defines bitch in a new, feminist way. In it she also illustrates how impossible it is to be a woman* in this society. She writes: "Bitches are not only oppressed as women, they are oppressed for not being like women." She describes bitch as a way of surviving in this society. A bitch cannot be shamed for being (herself), she simply doesn't allow that to happen.
To this day, bitch is not fully reclaimed yet and still broadly used as an insult, as we've seen in the urban dictionary. So what can we now do to further reclaim this word? To say it in Jo Freemans words: "BITCH does not use this word in the negative sense. A woman should be proud to declare she is a Bitch, because Bitch is Beautiful." So speak to your friends about it, correct them and come up with funnier and more original insults. Agree to only use bitch in a positive, empowering way. That may not feel like the most obvious and loudest thing to do, but I think it has a strong impact in your social circle and from there on may spread in other. Additionally Jo Freeman ends her Manifesto with the reminder to call yourself a bitch proudly and set aside your trained independence and connect with, and trust, other bitches.

Research

potential thesis questions

How does questioning our vernacular and the active reclaiming of words change the way we act in this society?
How are definitions and glossaries sites of epistemic control — and how can they be reclaimed for feminist ends?
Exploring the ways in which words/language is used to oppress women and how they can actively reclaim them, on the example of cunt

LIDIAS very helpful INPUT on HOW TO

Thesis Guidelines
Criteria for evaluation (Thesis)
A Guide to Essay Writing
Links to resources
The thinking 🤝 the making
Thesis can be 1. a report on your research and practice 2. an analytical essay exploring related artistic, theoretical, historical and critical issues and practices that inform your practice, without necessarily direct referring to your work 3. the representation of a text as a body of creative written work 4. a combination of those
What mode of address do you want to assume?
How do you want your text to speak to the reader? (essayistic, academic, narrative, non-linear, script, diary, field record)
All thesises ever
We will use the Harvard Style of referencing (Name, Year, p.XX) no referencing in footnotes!!! Reference list at the end is alphabetical
Sarah Ahmed on citation politics

Links

The Power of words shaping gender equality through language
How language reflects gender differneces
Why Women’s Language Matters: Identity, Representation, and Power
Internet Archive List
Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power – Lola Olufemi

Cunt: A Declaration of Independence – Inga Muscio

Inga Muscio is an American feminist, writer and public speaker adressing issues of sexism, racism and feminism.

The book calls for women to break down boundaries between themselves, their bodies and each other. It is a try to reverse the negative connotations behind the word cunt, so to say reclaim it.

s.9 – “cunt,” that claims the innate power of the sex organ it names.

A feminist dictionary – Cheris Kramarae []

cunt: "In ancient writings, the word for "cunt' was synonymous with 'woman', though not in the insulting modern sense." "From the same root came county, kin, and kind... Other cognates are 'cunabula', a cradle, or earliest abode; 'Cunina', a Roman Goddess who protected children in the cradle; 'cunctipotent'" all powerful (i.e., having cunt-magic); 'cu-nicle,' a hole or passage; 'cuniculate,' penetrated by a passage; 'cundy,' a covered culvert; also cunning, kenning, and ken: knowledge, learning, insight, remembrance, wisdom." (Barbara G. Walker 1983, 197) Given in Eric Partridge as c*nt, the word dates back at least to Middle English and is from the same root as cuneiform, from cuneus "wedge." Partridge writes that "owing to its powerful sexuality, the term has, since the 15th century, been avoided in written and in polite spoken English," and has been held to be obscene since about 1700, making it a legal offence to print it in full. Even playwrights and dictionary-makers courageous where other language was concerned, found ways of avoiding the word. J. S. Farmer and W. E. Henley (1890-1904) provide a brief entry under cunt but place their major entry for the word under the heading monosyllable, where hundreds of synonyms are listed. Partridge notes that even James Murray of the Oxford English Dictionary did not include it, though he included prick: "Why this further injustice to women?" (Eric Partridge 1961, 198)
cunt art: A term used by some women artists to describe their new female imagery, "in celebration of the discovery that not all sexual symbols are phallic." (Gloria Steinem 1983, 154)

Breaking the Patriarchal Code – Louise Gouëffic

s.3 – "We trust in the words we receive as infants. Words are the shaper of ideas. They name concepts and ideas; we cannot have a clear thought without being able to express ourselves in words. Reasoning involves thoughts put into premises and conclusions, and these are expressed through words. Critical reasoning implies that we move correctly from our premises to our conclusions. So if a word in a premise is false or imprecise, our conclusion will be false or imprecise. Therefore, the words used in the premise of a theory are crucial to the theory."


Wor(l)ding: A Harvested Glossary for Social Justice in Arts Education and Beyond – Michelle Teran, Ali Sahin, Kari Robertson, Pablo Lerma

s.15– Words wield power and with it, are able to shape the world around us as we live through it; they do not just describe and inform, but they can guide and mislead, clarify and confound, convince and discourage, permit and forbid, call into existence and nullify.
A glossary is an attempt to contextualise and connect words, which constitute a particular discourse.
While a dictionary asserts to offer a comprehensive and objective collection of words and their meaning, glossaries are always partial and have a specific orientation. Where dictionaries may claim (political) neutrality, deciding which words we in- or exclude from use is an inherently political action. Words are the way we filter the world around us into something comprehensible and communicable. They are political and relational matter.
s.18 – [...]to share what tools, allies and words we have; these enable us to name, navigate, and, hopefully, resist the many intersecting systems of oppression that we are subject to in varying ways and degrees.


Feminism and Linguistic Theory – Deborah Cameron

Deborah Cameron is a British linguist and feminist. She is currently working as a Professor in language and communication at Worcester College, Oxford University. Cameron is mostly interested in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, more specifically in the relationship of language and gender/sexuality.

This Book examines recent ideas relating the oppression of women to the structure and social functions of language. She argues that language is a feminist issue. She confronts the sexism of linguistic "science", showing how lay ideas and experts theories about language are inextricably bound up with the social and sexual hierarchy.

s.1– language is a weapon, used by the powerful to oppress their subordinates.
s.2– linguistic communication is crucial to the organisation of human societies. So people with an interest in the workings of any society must also concern themseves with its language – how it is structured and used, what its users believe about it and so on. Feminists are deeply interested in the workings of their societies, since in order to fight their oppression they must first understand it.
s.3– Much feminist effort is directed, therefore, to reanalysing society as a patriarchy, a system in which men have power over women. Language is part of patriarchy. If it plays a crucial part in social organisation it is instrumental in maintaining male power, and feminists must study its workings carefully.
language is about representation
and on the simple assumption that people's attitudes will be affected by something they see repeatedly, feminists exposed, and tried to eliminate, negative and stereotypical portrayals of women.
s.4– Non-sexist language is an illusion. Language is pervaded by sexism, and that women are alienated from it because it is controlled by men.
s.5– Language is a feminist issue and it is nowhere clearer that in the practice of consciousness-raising, where women uncover the roots and precise nature of their oppression by talking to each other about their experiences. (the private is political!)
This practice is also called naming where in fact a name or label is not always necessary, sometimes its enough to define an experience by describing it and getting others to acknowledge it. So its not about naming but about communicating
Language itself does not guarantee communication!
s.6– and women can feel inhabited by the inadequacy of words. Having an idea or feeling but not having the right words to describe it has been called women's alienation from language.
Reclaiming women's language is indeed crucial for women's liberation
Gyn/Ecology – Mary Daly she wants us to look behind the taken-for-granted senses of words
Sociolinguistics (the study of language and society, how social differences interact with linguistic ones and what the role of language in culture is) can be helpful and semiology (which amongst other things tries to explain how children develop gendered subjectivity)
There is three areas of investigation:
1. Sex-differences; do men and women use language differently and if so, what does that mean?
2. Sexism in language, it's effects and how to eliminate it.
3. Alienation; is this the 'oppressor's language' within which we cannot articulate our experiences as women?
s.7 – One of the most important outstanding problems is to clarify our underlaying theory of the relation between language and world view.
misogyny is constructed and transmitted through language – so can we even think outside of a woman-hating language?
keep the discussion accessible!!
s. 10 – CHAPTER 2
What is linguistics? – 'scientific study of language'
language has been studied in guise of grammar, rhetoric, poetics and philology but scientific studies are rather new
so language can be scientific? – first we must understand what it means to call any kind of enquiry scientific:
science is factual – it deals with facts, not wild guesses
science has to be objective and methodical, rather than biased, casual
scientists are obligated to provide not only facts but explanations, by discovering the laws of how things work (which implies that anything a scientist studies must have laws for her to find, rather than operating at random
science is highly valued and has prestige – we believe that science, distinguished from the arts by its objectivity and from scholarship (history) by its power to explain things, will lead us to the truth. (even though intuition and guesswork actually play a significant role in all investigations)
The scientificness of linguistics is enshrined in three principles
1. Descriptive v. prescriptive: eliminating subjectivity
grammar is prescriptive rules telling people what they should say when they would naturally tend to say something else
Linguists are interested in descriptive rules, formulae which capture the regularities of what people really do say – or more accurately, because of a sophisticated theoretical sleight of hand which we will shortly come, what they unconsciously know about their language
The scientific requirement of objective investigation is the root of the believe in description rather than prescription.
To be objective, the linguist must include in her grammar not what ought to be said but what is said, excluding only what cannot be said in the language under consideration.
2. Synchronic v. diachronic: eliminating history
'diachronic' linguistics is the study of relations between languages and their descent through time (history)
'synchronic' linguistics is the study of everything about the language as it existed in that frozen moment – which is obviously idealised, since languages are in a constant state of change, also speakers vary in age
However the idea that language could be studied ahistorically was an important one
3. Knowledge v. use: ordering chaos
The dichomoty between what the language user knows, the system, and the use she makes of that system as demonstrated by her actual linguistic behavior
Saussure – langue/parole : langue is the abstract system of social relations which make individual behavior possible. It is a social contract rather than the property of any one speaker, and its the linguists primary object of interest. The individual behavior regulated by langue, particular instances of speech, is called parole.
langue is what is researched in linguistics
3 approaches to study language:
1. structural approach (semiology: the tendency of human societies to construct symbolic systems such as languages – the science of signs)
But if language is not just a tool of the mind, society, education or philosophy, what is left for it to be?
Signs – combination of a signifier and the signified, signs separate language from things, from reality (a signified is not a thing but a concept.)
s.15 It is the difference between signs that defines them.
to define something we mostly set in context of other things /comparing
s.18 – a sign is not only a word, but can also be a picture. A picture used in many of the same situations makes us connect it with a particular meaning (image of a naked woman will invoke ideas of sexual availability and degradation. A naked women will not signal these things inherently, it could mean any other thing, yet it has become a sign, with the image as the signifier and availability/degradation as signified, one particular meaning, a misogynist one, has more power than the alternatives, and its unpleasant connotations cannot simply be discarded.)
This kind of meaning is not arbitrary tho! It is mediated by the political structures of a misogynist society.
2. psychological approach ( Language above all is property of the mind)
s.20 – you cannot observe the unconscious, it is always mediated by language
Lacan believes that without language, everything must remain not only unobservable but undifferentiated, without structure: and since the unconscious is highly structured, it cannot exist before language does.
lacan reasons that the unconscious must in fact be constructed through language, as language develops in the child. Learning language is what makes us what we are, and since sexuality and gender identity are a big part of what we are, this theory is important for feminist trying to understand how femininity is constructed in patriarchal societies.
Semiology is part of social psychology
We do not learn an infinite number of potential sentences but rules for producing sentences. And as kids can speak, the rule are innate and if they are innate they must be kind of the same in all languages
3. sociocultural approach (language as a product and shaper of human culture)
speaking as a mediator of social relations. a way of expressing social role, a reflection of, and an influence on, culture
relativity (asserts that reality is perceived differently by different cultures) v. deterministic (asserts that language is responsible for the variation)
find correlation in linguistic features in people's speech and social indices like race, sex, age and class
variations are structured and systematic rather than occurring at random, that these social aspects of language are as much part of our competence as the ability to construct grammatical sentences.

->

theory of 'gendered subjectivity' claims that women are alienated in society because they have to learn a male language
relation between language and disadvantages
sexist language as verbal violence; restrictions on women speaking in public as a form of social control, judgements on speech style as reinforcements of sexist personality theories
s. 28 – CHAPTER 3 The politics of variation: Sex differences in language and linguistics
two main concerns:
1. the sexism of linguistic science (mass of assumptions and practices reflecting the status quo)
2. the political significance of sex difference itself
Sex difference research inevitably comes out of sexist ideology, and its findings unsurprisingly, are interpreted in ways that reinforce that ideology.
the hidden presumption, men are the norm from which women deviate, the difference is ultimately reducible by biology, it's 'natural'
s.29– the feministic aim is to expose, and then to destroy, academic legitimations of women's oppression, which are a powerful force simply because so many people accept the factuality and objectivity of science.
feminists have to main interests:
1. the quest for an 'authentic' female speech or writing
2. identifying the sexual power dynamic in language use. Sex differences are related to the power of men and the powerlessness of women, and the political point being made is that even our speech behavior reflects and perpetuates patriarchal norms.
It is not about the generic he, terms of insult or other things that are in the language – its about variations in people's linguistic behavior
why are some linguistic features used more by one sex than the other? Why are the standards different for women and men (less acceptable for women to swear)?
norm (men) and deviation (women) research
'folklinguistics' is the name given to that collection of beliefs about language which are accepted as common sense within a society
s.33 – Stereotypes, however false, tend to persist for as long as they reinforce important social inequalities. So long as women are subordinate to men, their language has got to be characterized as indicating natural subservience, unintelligence and immaturity. While men dominate women in mixed groups by limiting their opportunity to talk, our folklinguistic beliefs must include the untruth that women talk incessantly.
It it important to question the origin and importance of linguistic beliefs generally, cause even feminists tend to belief them
s. 35 – feminists believe women speak like that: disfluency, unfinished sentences, nor ordered in the forms of logic, statements couched as questions (approval-seeking), speaking less than man in mixed groups, using co-operative strategies in conversation, whereas man use competitive strategies
revaluing that would be super, but it is only a women's speech folklinguistic imagination and not based on how women actually speak
s.41– subordinate groups are very often accused of speaking in an 'illogical' way – but it just follows a different logic, that the white male scientists don't understand...
s. 57 – CHAPTER 4 False Dichotomies: Grammar and Sexual Polarity
– Women in patriarchy are constructed as the Other – as whatever men are not. If a man is active, woman is passive; if he has a phallus, she simply lacks it. Femininity is masculinity inverted.
– women are different from men, but they are not the opposite
– women are excluded from making what counts as knowledge
– very binary structure– one end men the other women
s.58 – Do oppositions exist in the language to be discovered by linguistic science, or are they invented as a handy way of analysing language? In other words, is the binary opposition principle a claim about linguistic structure or a claim about what analytic strategies most naturally come to the linguist?
The second is a nature/nurture question. If there really is a tendency to think in opposites, wether or not it reflects the existence of those oppositions in the world, is this tendency innate in the human mind, or is it inculcated by upbringing and education?
s.59 – Do the creatures either side of the gender division have opposite qualities that are relevant to people's conceptualisation of them, and to their use of words?

The feminist critique of language – Deborah Cameron []

Cameron, Deborah (1990) The Feminist Critique of Language Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc. New York

s.1 – Why is language a feminist issue?
1.Silence and exclusion from language, which also raises the question of finding an authentic female voice
s.3 – Language is on one sense the inalienable birthright of every human being, regardless of gender; some forms of linguistic activity, moreover, are popularly associated with women as much as or possibly even more than with men (for example gossip, storytelling, letters and diaries)
They are private forms of language, confined to the space of the home or village community: in the public domain of culture these genres have no currency, let alone value.
The silence of women is above all a an absence of female voices and concern from high culture.
it is not just that women don't speak, often they are explicitly prevented from speaking, either by social taboos and restrictions or by the more genteel tyrannies of custom and practice. Even where it seems that women could speak if they chose, the condition imposed on their lives by society may make this a difficult or dangerous choice. Silence can also mean censoring yourself for fear of being ridiculed, attacked, or ignored.
Explicit language is still thought more inappropriate for women (and in their presence) than for men
In writing women are excluded from the knowlage and skill needed to write at all.
Writing is not an organic growth out of general linguistic capabilities, but a technology; like most technologies it has been monopolized by the powerful. Gender differences are striking enough
Taking away the skills to read and write also takes away power. The oppressed shall stay dump so they don't clock the injustices that are going on
6. In modern societies, the language of permanence and authority is always written language: if women are illiterate, they will not be able to share fully on the culture and specifically, they will not play a full part in shaping it. Illiteracy is not the only obstacle to it tho: most women, even those of the privileged classes, lack the economic independence and leisure time which are needed for sustained literary effort.
There is a general assumption that women's time and energy are endlessly available for ministering to the needs of others, and women themselves feel this constraint on their endeavours.
7. Yet if women writers must take pains to avoid being unfeminine, they also must avoid being too explicitly, uncomfortably feminine: many women have felt constrained to keep silent about specifically female experiences and concerns, since these habe been defined as outside the 'human values' literature deals with.
The pressure to avoid discussing female experience is not confined to the literary domain, it is felt throughout public discourse and to some extend in private discourse too. In the early years of the modern Women's Liberation Movement women organized consciousness raising groups and 'speakouts' where the aim was to discuss and bear witness to experiences like incest and backstreet abortion, as well as less obvious taboo subjects from our lives. This was perceived as a political act if breaking silence, painful but liberating. It challenged prevailing views of the world, and lessened the isolation of individual women.
so is there even an authentic women's language or feminine writing?
Is it enough to for women to speak and write as men do?
If we're 'allowed in' to literature and culture only on condition that we accept conventional (masculine) ways of expressing ourselves, we are simply exchanging one silence for another
10. The appropriate task for feminist criticism is to concentrate on women's access to language...on the ideological and cultural determinants of expression (i.e., the social rather than the psychic). The problem is not that language is insufficient to express women's consciousness but that women have been denied the full resources of language and have been forced into silence, euphemism and circumlocution.
11. The body, sexuality irrationality: a phenomenon in which women are identifies with sex, body, passion while men are identified with reason and the mind. De Beauvior explicitly rejected the idea that rationality and everything else our culture values were inherently masculine: she said they were human, universal, but dishonestly claimed by the patriarchs for themselves.
Language is irreducibly a social practice, grounded in history. Whatever changes in perception and expression we manage collectively to bring about, we will always carry with us the baggage of history in the domain of language as everywhere else.
2.naming and representation, in which the meaning of gender is constructed and contested
12. Next issue: Not women speaking but women spoken about.
Language encodes the culture's values and preoccupations, and transmits these furthermore, to each new generation.
It is thus the utmost importance for feminists to examine how issues of gender are represented in languages. Like other representations linguistic representations both give a clue to the place of women in the culture and constitute one means whereby we are kept in our place.
On the whole, our language is sexist: that is, they represent or 'name' the world from a masculine viewpoint and in accordance with stereotyped beliefs about the sexes.
In religion: a man in the person of Adam gave names to God's creation and this male monopoly of naming has serious consequences – many feminists have claimed, that the names we give our world are not mere reflections of reality, nor arbitrary labels with no relation to it.
Names are a culture's way of fixing what will actually count as reality in a universe of overwhelming, chaotic sensations, all pregnant with a multitude of possible meanings.
we use language to organize our experiences and that differs from culture to culture
Many languages have an underlaying semantic or grammatical rule whereby male is positive and female negative, so that the tenets of male chauvinism are encoded into language; and the reason why languages are structured in this sexist way is that their rules and meanings have been literally 'man made': women have been excluded from naming and definition.
14. Language itself cannot be sexist it is the way we use language that is sexist – Language could be seen as a reflection of sexist culture; or it could be seen as a carrier of ideas and assumptions which become, through their constant re-enactment in discourse, so familiar and conventional we miss their significance.
'sexist language' cannot be regarded as simply the naming of the world from one, masculine perspective; it is better conceptualized as a multifaceted phenomenon occurring in a number of quite complex systems of representation, all with their places in historical traditions
15. 'man' as the synonym to humanity – the generic masculine, the norm, with women as exceptions. (which is also female silencing in a way)
men = active, women = passive; in literature men wipe out women's creativity and reduce them to passive objects in relation not just to art but also sex and reproduction – their language reflects and reinforces sexist definitions of gender. (men 'penetrate' and 'screw' while women 'get laid')
The most obvious place where the idea of a women as a passive sexual object is found is the lexicon (vocabulary) OMGGG THATS EXACTLY WHY I NEED TO MAKE A FEMINIST GLOSSARY!!! (also the cambridge dictionary still mentions 'feisty lady' first in the list of examples and i bet there are many more [] here another good one...a slut is obviously also a women...)
16. There are also no masculine equivalent to any female curse words
Linguistic conventions mark women not just as sex objects but as male property. 'I had her' meaning 'we had intercourse', marriage is symbolic of the passage from father's property to husband's, the title of Miss or Mrs further indicate whether a women is still 'on the market' or not.
One reason why feminists have paid detailed attention to language and discourse: our ways of talking about things reveal attitudes and assumptions we might well consciously disown (no longer embedded in law), thus testifying to the deep-rootedness of sexism
17. When rape gets reported it is being represented as a crime against a man rather than a women. 'rape' was synonymous to 'theft', in some cultures still, to rape a women was to rob her father or husband of her value by rendering her unchaste...
19. To detach language from its historical, cultural, and social roots, to think of it as outside individual and societal control, is a certain route to political quietism – a sense that nothing can be changed.
A Feminist Dictionary by Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler draws attention to the authoritarian and sexist nature of mainstream lexicography
3. behavioural differences in language, their relation to male dominance and female culture
20. The different styles of language, particularly speech, used by women and men – yet another perspective on women's exculsion from some areas of language, and on cultural representations of the feminine.
21. As the views on language alter, so do the sins of which women stand accused
23. Language and Women's Place by Robin Lakoff echoes features of 'typical women's speech': overpoliteness, heavily qualifies statements, 'empty' vocabulary and trivial subject matter
we are more influenced than we realize by a tradition of comment on sex differences which we did not create and which is blatantly antifeminist
reinterpretation of what stereotype behaviors mean: Lakoff maintains that women are forced to learn a weak, trivial, and deferential style as part of their socialization, which is essentially a training in how to be subordinate. A different approach: Women use language in a different way from men, and perhaps thats okay and can be seen as an authentic manifestation of a female culture
24. Investigation of actual behavior is also necessary in so dar as it confirms that 'women' and 'men' are not homogeneous groups: class, ethnic, and cultural divisions are important too, and the speech of middle-class western Europeans cannot simply be generalized to all groups of women.
Does the fact that women use hedges more than men reflect the verbal inadequacy attendant on their socially subordinate position? Or is it a manifestation of female values evolved outside mainstream culture, more supportive and less self-aggrandizing than the unqualified statements valued in male discourse?
25. They found men interrupt women overwhelmingly more (surpriiiiiise) and this relates to social dominance and not some invariable masculine style was suggested by the very low incidence of interruption in all-male conversations.
women's speech style is seen as the outcome of power struggles and negotiations which are played out under the surface of conversation. Rather then belonging inalienably to the woman, 'female' stylistic features belong to the context in which she is trying to interact with a male superordinate.
Thus women ask more questions than men, not because insecurity is part of our psychology and therefore of our speech style, but because men in a dominant positions often refuse to take responsibility for the smooth conduct if unterpersonal relations.
Feminist researchers have suggested that women do organize their talk differently from men – they are more cooperative and less hierarchial, more supportive of their interlocutors and less concerned with competing for the floor
Dominance and difference are both valuable: they allow us to perceive women as complex social beings who are more than just victims of our conditioning, or of men.

SPEECH AND SILENCE

"Women and fiction" – Virginia Woolf
Text is about women who write fiction and the fiction that is written about women
The history we know is a male history. Made from men inherited to men, about men. The women only get the side character, about whom we don't know much other than their names and the number of the children they bore
Women were held up with labor work so they didn't have time to produce art (writings) if women wrote, they were single and with no child, giving them the headspace to do art. Then fiction is the easiest thing for a woman to write, cause it can be put down or picked up more easily
In women's writing we re not only conscious of the character but also about the woman's presence writing the character and her pleading for rights
37. in Both life and art the values of a woman are not the values of a man. Thus, when a woman comes to write a novel, she will find that she is perpetually wishing to alter the established values–to make serious what appears insignificant to a man, and trivial what is important to him. And for that she will be criticized!
There was a big shift in the amount of literature written by women

With denying women access to learning/studying most things (and keeping them busy with labour work), they denied them on finding their own voice

when women have leisure, and money, and a room for themselves (which they've been denied for so long) they will write not only novels but poetry and criticism and history!
"The silence is broken" – Josephine Donovan
42. When latin so longer functioned as a spoken language it was used (and learned) only by male, white academics – with that women were denied access to the world of formal, public communication (including literature) cause they were not allowed to learn
Latin is the entrance to the male educated elite – latin has become a sex-linked language, a kind of badge of masculine identity.
43. If women did have the chance to learn the language and reading and writing their works are seemingly more authentic and less artificial
44. The association of women with sentimental love novel is a stereotype. An early eighteen century novelist explained: As she is a women and with that denied access to the education, she cannot imagine subjects higher than what nature teaches her. So love is something she was able to experience and with that write about.
Novel writing was also a new thing which means there were no rules on how to write such thing, so no higher knowledge was needed, and no access was denied for women.

Wordslut – Amanda Montell

Amanda Montell is an American author, writer and linguist. She studied linguistics at New York University. Wordslut is her debut book. She uncovers linguistic ways in which women (and other marginalized groups) have been kept from power. She writes about many linguistic phenomena like catcalling, grammar, but also vocal fry or filler words. The book sheds light on the biases that shadow women in pur culture and our consciousness.

s.4 – Over the Decades linguists have learned that pretty much every corner of language is touched by gender, from the most miscroscopic units of sound to the broadest categories of conversation.
s.9 – Language has always been, and continues to be, used to reflect and reinforce power structures and social norms. Because old white dudes have ruled our culture for so long, and language is the medium through which that culture was created and communicated, the time has come to challenge how and why we use language the way we do, and how we think about it in the first place. That means questioning the words we speak every day, as well as the contexts in which we use them – because without realizing it, something as simple as an address term or curse word might be reinforcing a power structure that we ultimately don't agree with.
s.10 – Its the way English is habitually used that "expresses (and so reproduces) some culturally ingrained sexist assumptions." This means –good news– the English language is not innately biased against women and nonbinary genders; but the bad news is that its speakers have collectively consented to wield it in a way that reinforces existing gender biases, often in ways they're not even aware of.
s.26 – Linguists have actually determined that the majority of insults for men sprout from refereneces to femininity, either from allusions to women themselves or stereotypically feminine men.
s.31 – When English speakers want to insult a women, they compare her to one of a few things; a food (tart), an animal (bitch), or a sex worker (slut). That we have used language to systematically reduce women to edible, nonhuman, and sexual entities for so many years is no coincidence. Instead, it makes a clear statement about the expectations, hopes and fears of our society as a whole.
s.39 – reclamation. people actively redefining what these words mean from the ground up.
s.40 – There are also words like bitch, ho, dyke and cunt which are definitely still used abusively, but have also evolved as terms of endearment among women who use them inside their own groups (which is usually how a word’s reclamation begins — it’s when the rule of “I can cal myself this word, but you can’t” becomes more relaxed over time).
s.41 – Perhaps when we call each other ho, we acknowledge that we are women who have sex and earn our own money too, and when we call each other bitch, we acknowledge the realities of this man-made world and affirm our abuts survive in it. Through resistance comes redefinition.
s.42 – Semantic change down not happen overnight; instead, it’s a more gradual process wherein one meaning slowly overlaps another, then eclipses it.
s.44 – the first step we can take to reduce the harm caused by gendered insults is simply to avoid using them abusively.
s.68 – But there is still an intense drive to come up with language to describe these different identities. We still crave labels. Linguists say that this has everything to do with the power of words to legitimize experiences, as if an idea only becomes valid once it's christened with a title. "It's clearly empowering for people to discover that thery're not the only ones having an experience and that the experience can be named," explains UCSB gender and language scholar Lal Zimmman.
s.69 – ... gender differs not only from person to person but also between entire cultures, depending on how certain bodies and behaviors are interpreted (through languageeee!!!)

Feminism in Philosophy of Language – Jennifer Hornsby

s.2 – One question raised was whether concerted attempts to avoid sexism in speech might themselves constitute a feminist advance, or whether language’s working to women’s detriment is merely a symptom of existing power relations. On the assumption that language can be a site of oppression in its own right, some argued that women’s enfranchisement—whether as political subjects or as knowledgeable beings—required women to find a distinctive voice.
s.3 – the use of language is treated always in a social context, in which the presence of gendered beings is taken for granted.
s.3 – What is it for words and sentences to be meaningful?
s.3 – speech is action.
s.3 – three broad categories of things people do with words: 1. locutionary (speaking), 2. illocutionary (things done in speaking) and 3. perlocutionary (things done by speaking) acts
s.4 – Semantic theories are supposed to reveal words and sentences as the meaningful things they are; but we gain a conception of words and sentences as meaningful through an idea of speakers’ using them.
s.4 – saying something to someone will count as fundamental among the various things that speakers do in making meaningful noises.
s.5 – In accepting that saying to another is a communicative speech act, one allows that the idea of people saying things coexists with the idea of people understanding others as saying things to them.

On design, feminism, and friendship – Briar Levit

s.16 – Nowadays, girls have the vocabulary to express how they feel and how they want to be treated in explicitly feminist terms, with those discussions starting much earlier.

Culture, Ideology, and Hegemony – D.M. Kellner and M.G. Durham

s.14 Every cultural texts are full of meaning, values, biases, and messages that advance relations of power and subordination. Often extremely prejudicial, of class, gender, race, sexuality, and myriad social categories and groupings.
Cultural texts are saturated with social meanings, they generate political effects, reproducing or opposing governing social institutions and relations of domination and subordination.
The concept of ideology, for example, forces readers to perceive that all cultural texts have distinct biases, interests, and embedded values, reproducing the point of view of their producers and often the values of the dominant social groups.
feminists, multiculturalists, and members of a wide range of subordinate groups, detected that ideologies also reproduced relations of domination in the arenas of gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and further domains of everyday life. Feminists, for example, criticized sexist ideologies that advanced the domination of women by men and social institutions and practices that propagated male supremacy. Racist ideologies were criticized that furthered the subordination of specific races and ethnicities. In a broad sense, therefore, ideologies reproduce social domination, they legitimate rule by the prevailing groups over subordinate ones, and help replicate the existing inequalities and hierarchies of power and control.
Marx and Engels began a critique of ideology, attempting to show how ruling ideas reproduce dominant societal interests serving to naturalize, idealize, and legitimate the existing society and its institutions and values.
s.16– In fact, human beings and societies are extremely complex and contradictory, but ideology smoothes over conflicts and negative features, idealizing human or social traits like individuality and competition which are elevated into governing conceptions and values
18– to properly understand any specific form of media or culture, one must understand how it is produced and distributed in a given society and how it is situated in relation to the dominant social structure.
In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Benjamin argued that film, sports, and other forms of mass entertainment were creating a new kind of spectator, able to critically dissect cultural forms and to render intelligent judgment on them
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