Gender Flashcards
Julia Stanley 1973
Male as the norm→ the theory that society is intrinsically geared towards men.
Women occupy negative semantic space as they are rendered invisible
LINGUISTIC DETERMINISM is the notion that the language you speak predominantly determines your thoughts and feelings, and so if the language inherently favours men over women, perhaps this created an accepted norm in the minds of both sexes.
Goldberg 1974
PERCEPTIONS OF GENDER
As children learn to speak, they absorb the values, assumptions and expectations of the adults who surround them through the words they are given to learn.
Language shapes our view of society: there is no such thing as a culture-free view of the world
It follows that if the language children learn in our society is biased towards men and women, even girls will grow up and take for granted the supposed superiority of the male over the female sex (see Male as the Norm Syndrome)
Sex Discrimination Act 1975
It became illegal to write a job advertisement in a way that implied people of only one sex could apply.
However, some exceptions remained: where a job required a particular type of recruitment because of the under-representation of a group, Or other special circumstance.
Goddard 1983
TERMS OF ENDEARMENT
Many women feel patronised by terms like ‘pet’, ’love’ and ‘dear’
These terms are perhaps patronising when used by a man to a woman - she does not know that they simply imply that
- It is his right as a man to speak to them like this
- Any right minded female will welcome it
Context is important though:
Eg. In Manchester, it’s not uncommon for males to refer to females as ‘love’ & in Newcastle, the term ‘pet’ is applied to all genders
Sue Lees 1986
LANGUAGE AND CONTROLLING SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR
Men control female sexual behaviour by the use of derogatory terms –> the word ‘slag’
Since the male equivalent of a ‘slag’ is a ‘stud’, and ‘stud’ is a term that confers prestige, the language men use to discuss sexuality seems biased heavily in their favour.
Dale Spender
PRIMARY SCHOOL ARTICLE
Talks about the 1960s, when most primary school teachers were female, articles referring to them as habitually following the gender-free noun primary school teacher with the feminine pronoun she.
Tautologous→make redundant with needless repetition
He coined the term “marking”, an undertone attributed to pre modifiers indicating social bias and hidden norms
‘Mother’ has multiple pre-modifying adjectives that indicate judgement towards mothers in different situations (i.e., unmarried mothers being mothers who are intolerable to men or incapable of keeping a husband)
Dominance Theory
the idea that men are more likely to control the conversation & topic of conversation → reflecting an asymmetrical relationship.
Difference Theory
Tannen created the idea that there are male and female ‘cultured’ with their own rules, shared meanings and ways of doing things. → In single sex groups, men and women understand each other, but in a mixed sex group, there are misunderstandings
Diversity Theory
Argues against Dominance models
Robin Lakoff 1975
DOMINANCE THEORY
She noted assumptions that categorised women’s speech, as including the following:
- avoid course language or expletives
- Speak less frequently
- lack of a sense of humour; women do not tell jokes well & often don’t understand the punchline of jokes
This theory claims that women are conditioned from childhood to be subordinate in language
She referred to this as being encouraged to ‘talk like a lady’
Examples of Lakoff’s theory
Hedging
Polite forms: ‘would you mind if…’, ‘i’d appreciate it if…’
Tag questions
Use of empty adjectives: ‘divine, lovely, adorable’
Have a special lexicon: women use more words for things like colours,
men for sports
Zimmerman and West 1975
DOMINANCE THEORY
Is that men are more likely to interrupt than women when engaged in mixed-sex conversations
What was Zimmerman and West’s procedure?
his study was conducted in 1975 on a small sample of conversations, which were undertaken at the university of california.
All participants were under 35, white and middle class.
What were the findings of Zimmerman and West’s Study?
In 11 conversations between men and women:
Men used 46 interruptions.
Women only used 2
what are the criticisms of this study?
Ungeneralisable/unreliability:
- Using a male dominated sample size with only white middle class people restricts the general findings of a study (i.e., you can’t say ‘women’ as you’ve only studied one subsection of women) →cultural relativism
- ‘Small sample’ of conversations
- Not mentioned what was discussed