Women s Language And Textual Strategies - 1364 Words

For a number of years now, issues of language have been at the forefront of feminist scholarship. This has been as true in psychology, anthropology, and history as in literary theory and linguistics. Yes oddly, the studies that result often seem to have little in common. Psychologist Carol Giligan writes about women’s â€Å"voice,† historian Carol Smith-Rosenberg wants to hear ‘women’s words,† anthropologist Shirkey Ardener and Kay Warren discuss women’s â€Å"silence and cultural muteness,† literary critics form Elaine Showalter to Toril Moi explore â€Å"women’s language and textual strategies.† But it is not at all clear that they mean the same thing when the say voice, words, silence, and language as do the linguists and anthropologists who†¦show more content†¦A second source of coherence within feminist discourse has been continuing argument about the relative importance of difference – between women a nd men, and among women – as opposed to dominance and pore, in our understanding gender relations. The contrast between approaches focused on difference and those centered on dominance remains important in orienting debates, and feminist scholars increasingly argue that we need to move beyond such static oppositions. Since the familiar example. The silence of women in public life in the West is generally deplored by feminists. It is taken to be a result and a symbol of passivity and powerlessness; those who are denied speech, it is said, cannot influence the course of their lives or of history. In a telling contrast, however, we also have ethnographic reports of the paradoxical power of silence, especially in certain institutional settings. In religious confession, modern psychotherapy, bureaucratic interviews, oral exams and place interrogation, the relations of coercion are reversed: where self-exposure is required, it is the silent listener who judges and who thereby exert s power over the one who speaks. Silence in American household is often a weapon of masculine power (Settle 1983). But silence can also be a strategic defense against the powerful, as when Western Apache men use it to baffle, disconcert, and exclude white outsiders (Basso 1979). And this does not exhaust the meaning of silence. For the