As I read the Barry section on Feminist Criticism, the section that stuck out the most would have to be the section concerning language. The idea behind this section is a discussion on gender oriented language and it’s restraints on women writers “so that when a woman turns to novel writing she finds that there is ‘no common sentence ready for her to use’” (Barry 121). This male-oriented language creates a bias in the medium which effectively disables the female writer from expressing herself in an unrestrained fashion. These constructs perpetuate gender bias language and impedes female expression.
This bias doesn’t only exist in literature or other genres of writing, but gender variation language has been a recent subject of interest in the field of sociolinguistics concerning oral communication and entertainment forums (eg: cartoons, sitcoms, etc.) In The Study of Language by George Yule, he discusses current findings on such studies in contemporary English concerning “male and female talk”. He found when analyzing dialogue between genders that:
“[t]here is a pattern documented in American English social contexts of women co-operating and seeking connection in language, whereas men are more competitive and concerned with power via language. In mixed-gender pairs having conversations, the rate men interrupt women is substantially greater than in reverse. Women are reported to use more expressions associated with tentativeness, such as ‘hedges’ (sort of, kind of) and ‘tags’ (isn’t it?, don’t you?), when expressing an opinion: Well, em, I think that golf is kind of boring, don’t you?” (Yule, 2002, 242).
So, although we currently are in the “3rd wave feminism” movement, the focus of gynocentrics seems to be dominated on literature (at least on what we read in Barry for this week), it seems to me that focus should also be split to re-evaluate other mediums, specifically media: television and programs aimed at the youth that perpetuate such phallolocentrism ideologies. If such mediums are overlooked, then the "mechanics of patriarchy" will continue and female traits will be determined by cultural and social constructs of America.
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You're sounding like Ms. Hooks! I agree with your thoughts on targeting the youth in terms of transmitting feminist thought.
ReplyDeleteI think that is beginning, slowly, to happen. I noticed it when Blue's Clues first debuted on Nickelodeon. Blue, much to my surprise, is a female. It made me think: "Everyone associates blue with boys, pink/red with girls." So, a few years later, Blue gets a friend who is a boy and is, surprise, surprise, RED. It's a small thing but someone was clearly trying to break a segment of patriarchical semiotics down.
If there are people who are comfortable with the status quo of sex relations in this country, how hard will these people fight to hold on to these traditional values? At what point does government and society overstep bounds of interference? Sadly, not not everyone wants things to change. People who are happy with what they've got and where they're at don't need revolution.
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