Category: Reading Journal

While reading the “Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy and the Identity Terms”, it revealed that tongue can either present to assist or attenuate cultural prejudice; we also got to learn about how gender impartiality and the feminist movement has created conversations between many others about the fact that women are not being recognized in this process. Feminism is the liberation of women and could also be described as the design of prerogative for women in a political, economic, and social standing that is equal to that of men; ideas of feminism goes through various alters and developments. Feminist researchers have expressed the way in which language has intentionally and unintentionally generated a rift involving the understanding of gender objectivity and has inevitably made women invisible in the process.

In the reading, the topic of false gender neutrality which is a concept I can agree with tried making the pronouns “he”/ “man” neutral when in fact it is not. Gender-neutral terms would be them, they, people, etc; these are more appropriate and fall into the category of gender-neutral. The reference of a man being used to describe humans has ultimately made women invisible and underlined labor that women do. Civilization is determined and marked by language based on males, it is immensely obvious to see that language is presides more in the male spectrum and it doesn’t matter what language you speak in the long run.

 

This weeks readings were very interesting. Starting off with ‘Identity Terms’, I never really thought of all the language people used describe themselves. I’ve heard of majority of these terms but can say I never really understood them fully. I didn’t realize that a ‘disabled person’ was differently identified than a ‘person with disabilities’. However, when reading that portion of the text, the differences became clear. This reading just furthermore proves the fact that language is extremely important. The way we phase our identities me see similar but they can be very very different.  The second reading ‘Feminist Philosophy of Language’ also focused on how important our language is. I must say before I read it I had my own interpretation on what it might have been about. Although I love what feminist stand for I do know that some have very drastic ideas and theories. Reading the section titled ‘Invisibility of women’ kind of proved my point of drastic theories. By saying words like ‘he’ and ‘man’ make women feel invisible is like saying ‘she’ and ‘woman’ have the exact same affect.  I believe being very careful with our language is important and both these readings show that very well, even if I don’t completely agree with everything they say.

The chapter “Identity terms” in Introduction to Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies, explains many critical identity terms used in the United States society. This chapter does a great job of explaining the different definitions and ways to approach identity, though I would recommend that you do further research to understand the history of these terms. When talking about race we learn that the term, people of color, is used to refer to anyone nonwhite, and the term, black, is used to refer to people who descend from Africa or are African American. When talking to, or about people who are disabled, always state a person first phrasing, unless told otherwise by the person themselves. This is because a disability does not define you. It additionally talks about ethnicity, gender, and sexuality but I will send you the link to this article because it does a great job in synthesizing these terms.

Feminist Philosophy of Language, gives us a look at “gendered language”. This research first addresses the false perception that there is gender neutrality within the English language. Many people refer to this neutrality by using the word “man” to refer to an individual (regardless of their sex). For example, a very famous phrase is, “the creation of man”, using this phrase assumes you are referring to both females and males. Additionally, many laws in the U.S also use the word “man” to refer to both male and female, but we learn that this creates confusion and has bad repercussions. This gender “neutral” language is put at test when we refer to females using the word “man”, what we get is, “man breastfeeds his young”. Feminist point to this and provide an argument saying the English language needs to be reformed. Acknowledging the problem of gendered language in English can help us begin to understand it’s repercussions, which is what this analytical paper aims to do.

Feminist scholars have studied the invisibility of women that has been created through the lack of a gender-neutral word. For example, some refer to women in men dominated jobs as “miss”, instead of “professor”, or “lady doctor”, instead of “doctor”, which emphasizes their gender in a situation of no need. Though some women may feel proud to have their gender be emphasized to reclaim their power, others suggest that this type of phrasing assumes women are just filling up men’s jobs. This can lead to false perceptions that are strengthened by people when they hear “miss”, this is because the word miss can weaken someone’s power in a workplace due to the false perception that women’s jobs are less than.

Another problem stated due to the lack of a gender-neutral word is the inevitable sex marking. To emphasize what I previously explained, sex marking is inevitable when describing the action of an individual. I personally had this challenge when I wasn’t educated enough. I would try to include everyone by saying “he/she” but I was told it was wrong with no explanation, hopefully this helps you understand why it is not the best term to use. Sex marking opens a path for sexism, according to Frye, this perpetuates male dominance because by saying “he” or “she” you are stating a sex difference. Which I see is true, for example asking if a professor is a he or she because you can’t tell by their name, might assume your male or woman preference,  and a question like, “why do you care” might arise.

In conclusion, you can see how although subtle, the English language is male dominated and better customized for men. Many feminist scholars are trying to bring attention to this because women’s voices are being hidden or disadvantaged because of it. An example of a successful reformation has been using “they”, “them”, and “their” to neutralize gendered language. And though there is an ongoing discussion on what it means to be a woman, we do know that gender is a binary…I am currently trying to understand this my friend, so I will get back to you on that. I used to think I saw all genders as equal, until I realized that I did not want to let go of this binary gender because I felt I was proud to be a woman (this thinking of mine insinuated I thought of women as more powerful). Therefore, by recognizing men’s capability to have challenging experiences just like me led me to better understand my thinking. Now that I know gender is a binary, and I accept it, and acknowledge, my question is, wouldn’t feminist scholars advocate and support for a nonbinary gender? Because even though women have been disadvantaged for centuries, wouldn’t the study through the same lens (advocating for women) just reinforce gender as a binary?

In this reading, I got to learn about the feminist movement to the language and psychology of the language. Gender neutrality and feminism have been putting out how language has purposely created a conversation between others about a woman is not being taken into account during this process. Feminism can be known as the idea of freedom for women politically, economically, and socially with the same rights and opportunities for women as the same as for men. The main focus of the feminist language is to acknowledge the unawareness ways that language both minutes of silence and emphasizes gender in different ways. It is a very interesting topic to read, it gave a different point of view of the situation. Part of the theory focuses on words or phrases that make one gender, in this case, women, subjugated, or invisible compared to the other. Moreover, society determines and marks language by basing it on males, considering that it has importantly an essential use of language reflecting the necessity of society. The fact that people will negatively judge somebody else and discriminate their attitudes and points of view is considered a menace. Also, using a male as a reference to people has made women go invisible but at the same time emphasized their work. It’s very obvious on how dominant the language by males is, it does not matter in which language you speak. On the other hand, when we speak about language and its differences involving feminism, it takes me to the identity terms “People of color” vs. “Colored people” a single word can change a whole meaning. for example, when you identify someone by “people of color” you are highlighting the person as different than the rest, which is the same thing when it comes to language and its distinction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the modern-day, language can be termed as either politically correct or politically incorrect. Still, I think that, in the real sense, language is continually evolving, and its use extends beyond the political domain. Nothing illustrates the evolution of language than the present-day use of gender-neutral terms like ‘man.’ Traditionally, the words ‘man’ and ‘he’ were accepted as gender-neutral terms, but the wake of feminism has revealed that these words are not really gender-neutral. In this respect, it is crucial to be cautious about the words we use.

Furthermore, the philosophy of language has unraveled that language can either serve to promote or alleviate racial discrimination. A typical case in point is the use of the phrases ‘people of color’ vs. ‘colored people.’ On one hand, the phrase ‘people of color’ collectively refer to all non-white individuals, but it eliminates divisions based on racial lines. Conversely, the phrase ‘colored people’ denotes non-white people, but it emphasizes skin color as the unique identifier, thereby promoting institutional racism.

Finally, considering that society has evolved significantly, it is crucial to use language that reflects the contemporary needs of society. Arguably, the language used in traditional society used to promote the invisibility of women. It is hard to argue with the psycholinguistic evidence that traditional society championed males and disfavored females, and, by extension, the language used was crafted to serve this purpose.

I also used to reject the idea that language promotes the invisibility of women until I attended a lecture, and the speaker substituted the maleness in language with femaleness and claimed that it was gender-neutral. For instance, instead of saying ‘chairmen’ of the board of the university, the speaker would say ‘chairladies’ of the board of the university, but the board was comprised of both men and women. Everybody understood when the term chairmen was used, but everyone seemed bothered when the word ‘chairladies’ was used in the same context. The confusion was proof enough that language has always been promoting the invisibility of women.

In gender studies, one of the most contested subjects is the feminist philosophy of language. Many feminists have argued that for women to be free from the oppression in society, they need to develop a style that only they understand. One of the feminist philosophy theories is the feminism and speech act theory (Moi). Hornsby and Rae Langton did the first substantial research on the feminist philosophy of language as they tried to prove Catharine MacKinnon’s theory that pornography subordinates and silences women. According to Langton, pornography silences women during rape, since men cannot understand when women are saying no to sex. Langton distinguished three terms in the philosophy of language which are; perlocutionary, locutionary, and illocutionary (Moi). It is a locutionary act of uttering a word to change its meaning. A perlocutionary act involves speaking a word to have an expected result while the illocutionary act is uttering the concept altogether. An example is Jennifer uttering the sentence, “ I pledge my allegiance to her majesty the Queen and all her heirs. The locutionary act was speaking the sentence with a different meaning. The perlocutionary effect of this act is that she got a British passport, and the illocutionary act was becoming a British citizen.

The speech act theory became the most widespread idea in feminism and was taught and studied in mainstream education. Over the past years, more feminists have risen separately, each with different reasons and perspectives of feminism. In 2015, Bauer and Lorna Finlayson argued that pornography as an example in speech acts was misguided since pornography should not be treated as a form of speech. Her major critique was that the scholars in this theory did not consider other factors that may lead to the silencing of women in the society. Although pornography may have a role to play, there are other underlying factors in the community, such as toxic masculinity that lead to women’s subordination (Beattie).

She further argued that the idea of using the example of pornography was irrelevant and should never be used by scholars in speech act theory. Recent studies have shown improvements in the use of this theory in talking issues such as hate speech and racism. Modern feminists argue that there is a form of silencing that develops from pornography, but speech is not only considered as subordinating or silencing but also oppression. Indeed, researchers argue that the use of oppressive forms of expression is a widely developed phenomenon across the globe. More feminists have come up with the idea of using the speech theory act in explaining racism. Feminists such as Langton have shifted their attention to how hate speech affects interactions between people in society (Beattie)

Feminist philosophy of language and its inequality in treating males and females in our society based on gender bias intentionally or unintentionally.

Reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of philosophy and the Identity Terms opened my eyes to a new world where simple words can describe powerful men and others can describe a weak woman. Reading books in Arabic, French, and English all suggested that this gender bias exists in all the languages because most of the culture gives the men the power and the woman is always the nurturer. I can also admit that thanks to recent feminist advocates and philosophers we saw a huge impact on feminism and it improved the way we look and describe a female.

The woman is not the follower, the nurturer, the weak body, and the intellectual female, but we see more of diversion and more of a positive involvement of women from all ages in all ranges of higher positions. so our language has to reflect that change as well.

Let’s say the Chief officer or the chairman is a woman why can’t she be called a chairwoman? Maleness should not be the norm anymore.

”There is sexism in language, it does enhance the position of males, and males have had control over the production of cultural forms. (Spender 1985: 144)”, once a person is born a male, he can claim all the power even in the language because he is the strongest and the most dominant creature.

Another issue was that ”One sort of criticism was that philosophy of language, like English, displays a male bias. Another was simply that philosophy of language is ill-equipped to further feminist aims”. 

Society’s influence went beyond the family, the culture, and put a huge stamp on the language as well and made it male-centered. what if we were living in a world where women dominate more, will we be having the same issues, will we dominate the language and make it woman-centered?

Eventually, strength, dedication, working hard, and having a positive attitude toward anything can make a big change in resolving any gender bias issues. Genetic, physiology should not limit anyone and restrict their abilities and their dreams especially our communication and our language.

 

 

In the reading “Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy” gave us some descriptive and challenging meanings on what Feminism actually is. Feminism can be defined as the idea of freedom for women politically, economically, and socially with equal rights and opportunities for women as same as for men. The idea of feminism has been undergoing different changes and improvements. It identifies ways in which dominant conceptions and practices of knowledge attribution, acquisition, and justification systematically disadvantage women and other subordinated groups, and strives to reform these conceptions and practices so that they serve the interests of these groups. A feeling of altruism becomes important for ensuring the root feelings of feminism. Moral attitude is also required for keeping the feelings of the welfare of women alive. A committed behavior is also required to live the principles of feminism. If it remains in word, then there is no use of such feelings. Strong dedication and positive feelings are always required. In the other reading, “introduction to women, gender, sexuality studies”, discusses how one is viewed through one’s appearance. The fear that someone else will judge one’s appearance or behavior negatively and thereby conform that person’s prejudiced attitudes is known as stereotype threat. I think as diversity increases, people will stop making quick judgments about others as they will have no idea what the other person is based on their looks or appearance. We can stop making judgments based on appearance only when we understand the meaning of sayings that have been with us since the beginning of time. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” or “Beauty is skin deep.” We need to reject the stereotypes of how people look.