"This catch-22 presents women with a few options, none of which are appealing. You can directly pursue a man, but only if you want to convey that you’re only in it for sex. You can choose not to pursue him, but then you’re relegated to this historic, passive role that doesn’t jibe with your active, considered approach to any other area of life, be it work or real estate or even friendship."
Well hell, the thinky editorial pieces that keep popping up around this Daniel Bergner book are getting me seriously intrigued.
13 comments:
I don't think a woman pursuing a man conveys that at all. To me, instead, it reflects a woman that has confidence and is not hung up on societal gender constructs. The whole quote seems to be putting women into two boxes: the 'angel in the home', beloved of Victorian men, or a whore. It's perpetuating the two stereotypical roles of women and if anything is severely regressive.
That being said, the Guardian review of the book sounds very interesting.
I think what Friedman took from the Bergner piece is that's how society views forward, sexually aggressive women, not how individuals do. Societal gender constructs are just that, socially constructed, and Friedman fears that if women act outside these constructs they will be penalised by not having power or agency over their relationships.
Thats what I got anyway! Yeah, it sounds super interesting!
I may have spent too long in academia, but shouldn't our intent be to make it acceptable for women to act outside of these two tired stereotypes. I'm a linguist so I know how women are expected to behave in the language that they use, be it simply in the greater use of tag questions. I also know that the changing of the title to 'fireperson' drastically increased the number of women joining the fire department. To really make a difference you need to change how society views the woman's role in relationships and society, and by cautioning the wisdom of straying from the societal mandated role is not going not going to achieve that.
I'm not disagreeing with you! I totally agree! Women should absolutely stray from socially mandated roles, we all should! Please lets not argue!
Also, what are tag questions? That is amazing, what other ways does gender constructs on language? Tell me tell me!
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come across as argumentative. I knew we had the same general idea so I was just talking.
Tag questions are when you make a statement but add a question at the end. A pretty basic example would be "it's a nice day, isn't it?". It's an example of positive politeness because it promotes closeness and friendliness between interlocutors. Women use them more than men because they are expected to be more caring and open.
Socio isn't really my area, but one of the other major differences between men and women linguistically is that women use more prestigious language. They use the standard language more often. Men don't need to use it because society values them highly already, so they can deviate from it without any real implications; deviation is almost expected to prove manliness. Women are expected to use it to prove their worth as individuals to society. Somewhat paradoxically, women are also the greatest innovators in language. They use the standard more often, but also introduce the new features into the language.
I was talking to an old lecturer of mine recently and she has been promoted to the head of the applied languages department. She was telling me that she has had to change the way she talks to the men that are now underneath her. Another man could tell them to do something, but for her to be effective in her job she has to make requests. She has to promote inclusivity in her new role that a man wouldn't.
Combined facts and anecdotage in your reply, love it :) That's fascinating, thanks so much for replying.
I suppose I should read some Steven Pinker for more info, or could you recommend anything else? What part of linguistics do you work in, etymology? Semiotics? I am ludicrously underinformed on this topic so just plucked those terms out of my memory.
Haha, most people think linguists just learn languages, so you were closer than 95% of individuals with etymology. All linguists love etymology, but nobody will pay you to do it so it's not really a job. I'm currently working on a historical linguistics/syntax project for the next 1-2 years. Syntax isn't punctuation, by the way, it's the study of the structure of language and what is permissible within it. The famous Chomsky sentence "colourless green ideas sleep furiously" is a perfect example of a grammatically sound sentence that is semantically meaningless. I'm hoping to move into more pyscho- and neuro- areas after this project, though. Playing with fMRI machines sounds fun!
Pinker's 'The Language Instinct' is a really good starter book, I think he even covers Genie in it which is a fascinating subject case. Jean Aitchinson's 'Words in the Mind' is also a good book for psycholinguistics. In socio a lot of writers from sociology are used, like Judith Butler and Foucault, but for a purely linguistic analysis Norman Fairclough is my favourite. I like 'Language and Globalization' but 'Language and Power' has the famous part about manufacturing consent that Chomsky appropriated for the title of one of his political works. Also, my favourite book is 'Swearing' by Geoffrey Hughes. It's a commentary on how society can be reflected in the language that we use to curse; beginning with Chaucer having no problem with the phrase "a shitten shepard" but being uncomfortable with blasphemy, to 'Lady Chatterly's Lover' (an awful book in my opinion and not because of the language) controversial use of the word "cunt".
I could probably tell you hundreds more if you ever want to add a linguistics section to the library, but nobody wants to read me blathering on about it for this long so I'll stop now.
Thanks for your very detailed response! I've just orded the Pinker and the book on swearing, you sold it well. I've a friend who keeps going on about Judith Butler so I suppose I'd better get to her at some point. JEEZ. So much reading, how will I cope. ( I will manage)
What a great career to have! Is that project focussed on English or Irish? I suppose you keep all your etymological hankerings as pet projects to fill up your weekends, you language geek you. Colour me jealous.
The project is on the influence that Old English syntax had on modern Irish-English. In the southeast there are a lot of linguistic features that came about from contact with people from Bristol in the 12-13th century that have been lost to all other speakers of English. I get to read a lot of old books, so it keeps me entertained. Being a librarian sounds like a cool job. You're surrounded by books all day and Batgirl was a librarian! Except for the interacting with the public part, I wouldn't have the patience for that.
'Swearing' is really good, I hope you enjoy it. The chapter on Old and Middle English is my favourite, but the part about Shakespeare is pretty close behind. It's about how he got around the Puritans bans by using French in his plays to reference sex. 'Antony and Cleopatra' isn't very subtle about it, everything Cleopatra says could be "le petit mort", and the Oedipus complex in Hamlet is a bit of a cliche, but I had no idea so many of his other plays had references to banned material.
Oh WOW. Seriously? Thats awesome. The economic links were seriously dense between those regions in the early medieval period weren't they? I read about some archaic dialect from, I think Wexford? That has Anglo Saxon loanwords I think? I'm totally misremembering the article I think.
Oh, that book sounds great, I'm going to be very taxed reading it by the sounds of it, my recollection of Shakespeare is horrendously skant.
Yeah, it's called Forth and Bargy. Settlers from the southwest of England and Wales moved to Wexford and carried on their own distinct dialect. It was actually the Old English spoken in that part of England that they brought over and it grew into a language. It's one of the most fascinating dialects I've ever come across because the surrounding Irish speakers had virtually no influence on it. Sadly, it died out in the 19th century. The southeast as a whole was one of the most important areas for English to become a spoken language in Ireland, Waterford was a big trading area with Bristol and was the first area to write official documents in English. Some of the features that Waterford people use, like saying "I'm after doing it" come from Irish, but majority come from Old English.
The Shakespeare part is only small and they use plenty of examples, you should be fine with it. It covers 6 centuries so there will be other writers and people that you might enjoy more.
Thank you! Ah, I misremembered most of it so. Just got the Pinker today so I will try to remedy my linguistic ignorance so I can keep up with your comments in future!
Cool, I hope you enjoy it. It's a beginners psycholinguistics book, but I remember Pinker having an engaging writing style. If there's anything you'd like to know more about feel free to ask.
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