MEN’S WORDS AND DICTIONARIES EXCLUDE THE FEMALE VOICE

MEN’S WORDS AND DICTIONARIES EXCLUDE THE FEMALE VOICE

1. DICTIONARIES SUBJUGATE WOMEN’S VOICES

Cheris Kraniarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, INTERNATIONAL

JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE, 1992, p. 137-38.

The dictionary is not designed by women or for women’s exercise of imagination. It is a basic laugh at

women, a book which sets forth a category system, a way of knowing ourselves and our relationships with the rest of the earth. It’s not only a hostile system for women, but it is constantly referred to as the only system. It does not encourage ideas or new connections and relationships, or imagination about how we

could write and talk our past and future.
2. WOMEN ARE RIDICULED FOR A7LTEMPTING TO CHANGE LANGUAGE

Cheris Kramarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE, 1992, p. 138.

Women are not to corn words or to muck about with the language. Etymologies are often cited as the final word as to what can be said or done with a word. Many speakers are made to believe that knowing the original meaning of a word is vital to knowing what it means today. “Experts’ often ridicule feminists who suggest alternatives to the spellings, pronunciations and meanings of dictionaries; they are told that if they knew the ‘roots’ of words they wouldn’t be so foolish.
3. DICTIONARIES DO NOT INCLUDE WOMEN/MINORITY PERSPECTIVES Cheris Kramarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE, 1992, p. 141.

In the US, it’s white, middle-class men who determine who is allowed into The Circle. Women and ‘minority’ men are generally not candidates for admission to the enclosure unless they have a male mentor who is already part of The Circle and who has found their expressions acceptable. In the case of dictionary making, the editors quote from each other’s work extensively, they use each other as consultants, they listen to radio and television announcers who have themselves consulted dictionaries to guide their speech.

The oppression of those people who do not speak dictionary-proper English may be increasing. The supporters of the national organization US English have supported a proposed English Language Amendment to the US Constitution which would make English the official language of the US. Some of the organization’s criticism is directed at bilingual education programs. The proponents seem to be particularly upset by the increasing number of Spanish speakers. The organization is a spurt in a long-flowing stream of white linguistic conservatism in the US that ebbs and flows with the perceived threat to the status of dictionary-correct English.

By using a literary standard based in large part on literature which conforms to traditional dictionaries, editors help maintain class structure and the supremacy of the male educated class. Far from being accurate and representational records of the language usage of most of us, dictionaries are handbooks sanctioned by every level of schooling. They are instruments of social control which disguise and depress the linguistic confidence and creativity of most speakers and writers.

Cheris Kramarae, Professor of Speech Communication, University of Illinois, THE FEMINIST CRITIQUE OF LANGUAGE: A READER, 1990, p. 149.

Sexism is also at work. H. Lee Gershuny (1973), examining sentences in the Random House Dictionary that illustrated word usage, argued that a dictionary not merely reflects sexist social attitudes but acts in a variety of ways to preserve and recreate stereotypes as well -- thus perpetuating notions of women as particular kinds of speakers (to illustrate usage for the word nerves, the RHD used ‘Women with shrill voices get on his nerves’.

PETER KROPOTKIN

ANARCHIST (1842-192 1)

Life And Work

Though Peter Kropotkin was born a prince on December 9, 1842, in Moscow, it was not a life of privilege that he chose. He grew up in the midst of a revolutionary struggle against the Russian Czars, and saw thousands of people in privilege risk their status, their careers, and their lives to disseminate revolutionary propaganda and aid the cause. He saw hundreds of these people executed or exiled, until the revolution finally toppled the Czar. He also saw his father, a wealthy landowner and cruel autocrat, exemplify the evils of the feudal system. The serfs under his father were punished, often cruelly beaten.