Subtler-Yet-Powerful Aspects of Language
Language both shapes and reflects consciousness, revealing a culture's deepest beliefs and values. It's very hard to talk about concepts for which we have no vocabulary. And the words we do have determine how we think about the people, ideas, and phenomena those words describe.
Adapted from the article by Lethea F. Erz, PhD, “The Challenge of Language: Teaching the Language of Partnership.” It is taken from The Partnership Way: New Tools for Living and Learning, 2nd ed. by Riane Eisler and David Loye.
Man-Made Language
Power is always an issue in the way things are named and labeled. In the dominator cultures that shaped modern English, men controlled writing and printing and the "rules" of language. Therefore, men's perceptions and values are reflected in how things are named. Often, words associated with maleness have lofty, important meanings, while words associated with femaleness imply inferiority or pathology. For example, contrast "seminal" ideas with "hysterical" ideas; both adjectives come from the human reproductive system, but what a difference in meaning between the male and the female! Another example: "master" (a person of great competency) and "mistress" (a man's illicit paramour). The above examples of non-parallel terms reflect male power to name and define. So do gender-associated words that have no parallels for the other sex. Try to think of a female equivalent of "emasculated" or "virile." Or a parallel word for "feisty" or "dainty" that would apply to a man. What terms derived from female genitals are parallel in solemnity and importance to "testimony" or "testament" (derived from testes)?
Animal names are used to describe males and females in non-parallel ways. Those applied to women are often degrading or sexualized (heifer, filly, chick, dog, shrew, pig, sow, beaver, old crow, bunny, bitch, bat, fox, cold fish, hen, vixen, cat, kitten - usually paired with "sex") while those applied to men frequently reflect power, virility and cunning (buck, bull, stag, stallion, wolf). "Miss" and "Mrs." are traditional female "courtesy titles" that have no parallel male term. The title "Ms." has been adopted by many women since the 1970's as a parallel for "Mr." since neither "Mr." nor "Ms." provides information about an individual's marital status. Language scholar Jackie Young writes: "It is our culture and communication system that constructs-and constricts-our reality, and if the male culture controls that system then our reality is created and shaped (constricted) by male perceptions." (1992, p. 98).
Seeing the Invisible and Creating the Nonexistent
In a partnership-oriented language, surely we would have more than one four-letter word ("love") to describe such varied forms of affection as romantic passion, long-standing friendship, the devotion of a long-married couple, the feeling of parent for child, the reverence of child for parent, the attachment of people and pets, enthusiasm for skiing, or a taste for vanilla ice cream! What does it say about our culture that we have no single word for sexual intercourse that is neither clinical, violent, or taboo, yet we have so many different and graphic words to describe conflict and killing? Why are our most "obscene" oaths and expletives so often words for female sex organs or violent acts of dominator sex?
In addition to spoken and written language, it's important to pay attention to non-verbal communications - the "language" of behaviors such as eye contact, paying attention, changing the subject, interrupting, questioning, body movements, tone of voice, and "holding the floor" longest in conversation. In a partnership-oriented society, these behaviors would be evidenced fairly equally among women and men, and among people of different ages, races, or appearance. When they are not, it's likely that dominator dynamics are at work.
