In order to live in the world we must name things. Naming things gives meanings and structure to everything in the world as we know it.. Dale Spender discourse is about the politics that were involved in giving things names and their meanings that make up our language. Our forefathers gave the world these meanings. And early in history males were thought as the superior gender and most of the names and writings that were used by society were masculine. So, Spender raises questions about our forefathers being able to be the only gender to have any say in the decisions made for society. Spender uses sexuality and religion as the major topics for explanation and discussion. Spender questions whether god is a male or is the man that everybody worships in religion really a goddess? Spender believes society viewed females as inferior to males throughout history and that explains why the words and meanings for most of the language in society is in the masculine view point and is demeaning to females. For example, Spender attacks sexual words claiming they are demeaning to females. One example, explains that females sometimes have feelings that can't be said by any words because only females have these feelings and males made up the language. Therefore some females are left with a feeling that they can not describe with words. Germaine Greer uses examples of demeaning words of sexuality to females such as "screwing", "poking", and "fucking" (1971:41). These words are examples of the passive females and aggressive males. There are no words explaining this intercourse from the female perspective.
The author raised the question, why is the language we use in today's society so one-sided towards males. Spender questioned today's society asking if the world is still a patriarchal society and if it is not, why doesn't society make a language that is not gender bias. The author believes the bias dates back to the making of the language as we now call it English. The author brings up evidence of the vulnerability of females in the modern English language and believes the language needs to be non-biased for society to be equal.
Dale Spender's goal was to give evidence supporting females inferiority to the language in today's society. The article gives many examples of situations where females struggle with the words of the language. This article also raises questions females probably have not even thought of. They take things for granted because that was the norm of society. The example of god, the male, being the one who created all people, which is written in most religious bibles, but we all know that females are the reproducers. The article has a lot of supporting evidence on the topics Spender uses as examples about the demeaning of females through the use of the naming of the language.
The article overloads the evidence. The articles dialogue is
about one view, the female view, to the point of overloading the
information and making it appear one-sided. The use of all the
examples to get the point across was used after the author already
proved the credibility of the point. The author uses a lot of
controversial topics that can not be proven in some of the interpretations
of how the naming was brought about. The author appears to be
subjective in the article by showing only one side of the view
only. The Spender also uses other documentation that appears to
be one sided, also.
The questions that are raised in the article will make readers think. Some of the topics people take for granted because that's how we as a society have known it to be. Other topics are raised to make the females appear to be as much of a minority as the blacks in today's society. My interpretations of some of the topics left me to believe that females are more demeaned than blacks when we look at the equality of the naming of the world.
The naming of the words is a topic that will probably never be fully understood. The language goes back in history too long to be able to be proven if the males did name everything. Therefore, the topic is somewhat a cause for speculation. That is why the author goes into great detail of the history of naming and the reason why society has its inequality today. The author uses the background as a strong force of the evidence to prove her points.
The author does not give any alternatives to what should be done to reach equality properly. Also, the author fails to show if there has been any progress in the naming of today's society's equality. Although, the author uses Mary Daly's thoughts on how the inequality can be changed.
It seems that the authors point has been made, but can the inequality
of naming brought up in the article really be solved? These problems
have dated back to early civilization. Is there really a need
for change now in the twentieth century. The topics have opened
up controversies in language and society of the world, and more
research should be done to prove if this is a problem that needs
to be dealt with. In today's society women are thriving in the
so-to-speak "man's world", and the inequality of naming
is important to society. Are women at a disadvantage in today's
society?
© Dan Hayes, Winona (MN) State University, 30 January 1997. This document may be freely distributed for educational use as long as this notice of its authorship accompanies its distribution.
Return to annotated bibliography on language, gender, and writing.