triskellian | Critical discourse analysis for fun and profit

I've been thinking for a while about trying an experiment in the way I use language, and something that came up in my reading today made me decide to go ahead and do it.

The experiment is this: I will watch for times when I'm about to use "he" to refer to a person of unknown gender, and I will substitute "she" instead (I'm talking about speech; I take care to use non-gender-specific language in writing). I think I mostly do this with the drivers of nearby cars, when I'm predicting they're about to do something stupid ("He's going to pull out!"), so there's no value judgement involved, just an attempt to change the default setting on a switch, so to speak ;-)

I invite you to join me in this experiment if you wish, and to call me on it if you spot me using "him" as a generic (also if you wish!)

The reading that prompted this is for the Good Course (as opposed to the Bad one), which is on critical discourse analysis. The material we're currently covering is to do with the way ideology shapes language, and through it the world, and I've just finished reading a chapter on the way "common sense" encodes and enforces a particular way of understanding the world. (This same material is causing me to write and rewrite every sentence in this post as I notice the assumptions I'm building into the most innocent-looking phrases.)

Anyway. The words that solidified my intention to proceed with the experiment describe a way of foregrounding common sense, of making its working obvious and therefore open to question:

"the deliberate disturbance of common sense through some form of intervention in discourse"
(Normal Fairclough, Language and Power)

...And they're a reasonable description of my experiment, too. So that settled the matter ;-)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I have a couple of text books who opt for gender non-specific description (the Director, the convenyancer etc) and it tends to annoy me as it tends to increase the length of sentences and can get quite confusing, as the description often appears several times in a sentence. I like simplicity in my reading. I also dislike the he/she his/hers things that some of my books do. I know enough that not all criminals are men, not all people buying houses are men etc. On the flip side, my criminal law books often give examples of the idea they are trying to convey and swap between using male and female names. But to be honest it's not something I notice especially. They could use initials for all I care :>

More interesting to me, is the use of insults, and the gender-specific nature of them. There are a number of insults that are particularly related to the fact that you are a woman - bitch, whore, bint, slut, slag, slapper. Other insults, such as bastard, git, bugger can be used to describe either sex, and whilst probably these are used more with men, can be interchangable. I can't think of as many insulting descriptions which apply specifically to men, as my first list do to women. I also find some of the insults that are 'female' much more insulting than the general ones - for example the word bint is completely repulsive to me, and i've rarely, if ever, used it. Similarly, the phrase mother-fucker. I'm not even entirely sure why this is an insult, although I could hazard some guesses. But we don't have father-fucker.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I got to write a list of semi-swear words, so I guess my work here is done.

or example the word bint is completely repulsive to me,

Odd that bint in particular should irk you, considering it means: "A girl, a woman". Granted it's often used derogatively, but compared to slut or whore, it's a much more innocuous word.

I'm not even entirely sure why [mother-fucker] is an insult

"You fuck your own mother." I can see why some people might find that insulting.

But why is it more offensive to suggest someone fucks their mother than tto suggest someone fucks their father? Am I being really dense here?

Maybe 'father-fucker' is just too alliterative to sound like a good insult.

Cue chorus of "Shut your fucking face, uncle-fucker..."

Related to this is the use of parts of the anatomy as insults -- eg. 'cunt' is more used as an insult against males then females in the UK, but I've heard that in the US it's more the other way round. In general though this is a bit weird, because, why is comparing someone to a cunt insulting? Cunts are lovely ;-)

I can't think of as many insulting descriptions which apply specifically to men, as my first list do to women

It may be that the ones which now are in the category "used more against men" were until recently used almost entirely against men.

If so, then the question is more specifically "why have people started using the male insults against women, but not so much the female ones against men?" rather than "why are there no male insults?".

Also note that of your 6 female insults, 4 of them are about promiscuity and/or prostitution. If that turns out to account for most of the difference, then again the question can be made more specific: "why is promiscuity used as an insult against women but not against men?", to which the answer (although not any kind of justification for the answer) is probably obvious.

Finally, there are a number of insults relating to homosexuality, which are used almost exclusively against men. I don't wish to sound as though I'm condoning that, but I do point out that it reduces the disparity you mention.

Critical discourse analysis for fun and profit

boys who like boys to be girls who do girls like they're boys who do boys like they're girls

Re: boys who like boys to be girls who do girls like they're boys who do boys like they're girls

Re: boys who like boys to be girls who do girls like they're boys who do boys like they're girls

Re: boys who like boys to be girls who do girls like they're boys who do boys like they're girls

Re: boys who like boys to be girls who do girls like they're boys who do boys like they're girls

Re: boys who like boys to be girls who do girls like they're boys who do boys like they're girls