Women, Language, and Politics
Experts and nonexperts alike tend to see anything women do as evidence of powerlessness. The language of the media is replete with examples of how difficult it is for women to be regarded as beings with authority and power. The attitude follows women in power everywhere, but... nowhere is the conflict between femininity and authority more crucial than with women in politics.
The characteristics of a good man and a good candidate are the same, but a woman has to choose between coming across as a strong leader or a good woman. If a man appears forceful, logical, direct, masterful, or powerful, he enhances his value as a man. If a woman appears forceful, logical, direct,
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Fainting conjures up a frail figure crumpling into a man's rescuing arms, maybe just for dramatic effect. Passing out suggests a straightforward fall to the floor.
An article in Newsweek during the 1984 vice presidential campaign quoted a Reagan aide who called Ferraro [Geraldine Ferraro- a 1984 vice presidential candidate] "a nasty woman" who would "claw Ronald Reagan's eyes out." Never mind the nastiness of the remark and of the newsmagazine's using it to open its article. Applied to a man, nasty would be so tame as to seem harmless. Furthermore, men don't claw; they punch and sock, with correspondingly more forceful results. The verb claw both reflects and reinforces the stereotypical metaphor of women as cats. Each time someone uses an expression associated with this metaphor, it reinforces it, suggesting a general "cattiness" in women's character.
In his book The Language of Politics, Michael Geis gives several examples of words used to describe that undercut her. One headline called her "spunky" and "feisty." As Geis observes, spunky and feisty are used only for creatures that are small and lacking in real power; they could be said of a Pekingese but not a Great Dane, perhaps of Mickey Rooney but not of an average-size man.
It's not that journalists, other writers, or everyday speakers are deliberately, or even unintentionally, "sexist" in their use of
In our world there are so people that are being overrated, from their skin color, to how they talk or to where they came from or the way they walk, everything from what people wear to where people come from and their ethnic background. These people are looked down on from the rest of society for just being themselves and doing only what they know to do. For some, it’s wrong if others do not act just like them and they put them down for it. Stereotypes can be described someone of a certain race, religion, gender, nationality, or other groups. You can see that language, gender, and culture (class and race) does relate to power because men’s have more power than women’s, the way you speak, your
Throughout United States history oppression of people has always been prominent, whether through African American’s and segregation or Asian American’s during the Vietnam War. What is often ignored is our history of the oppression of women. No matter what time in history, there is always a case to be found of the discrimination over gender. Many people know of how African American’s came into freedom and the long perilous road it took, but few know the struggles, changes and hardships that women have perceived to get where they are today. As the civil war halted and industrialization and urbanization came into play, the role of women changed dramatically and their status
The sexualisation of women in advertising has become a very prominent and controversial issue in today’s society. Many brands, products and campaigns we are presented with portray women as being available and willing sexual objects, who exist to cater to the male gender. Gucci is one such brand that does this, focusing on emphasizing the sexual appeal of the female gender in order to sell their products, because as advertisers know: ‘sex sells.’ This new cultural shift can however, be seen as politically regressive for women, as the ideology it brings negatively impacts how women are viewed by society and how they view themselves.
Numerous systemic barriers are preventing women from entering the political workforce including (but no limited to): family, the brutality of politics, male domination, stereotypes and traditionalism. Family plays probably the most important role in women’s decision-making on whether to enter politics.
genders. Women may have the same political rights, however they are still degraded and seen as inferior to men. So, women in politics are now trying to prove that they are just as capable as men are. However, their attempts are being suppressed due to the inappropriate comments against them. Sexist remarks in the media against female political candidates is the reason why there is a smaller amount of women in government.
In reality, however, women are equally and in some ways more qualified to hold leadership positions than men. Although there is no single explanation for why women are underrepresented in politics, the gender gap in the political arena stems from the lack of female participation in elections as women are often discouraged or feel threatened by society to run for political office. Young women who aspire a career in politics encounter both structural and emotional barriers, which prevent them from running for political office. Women battle issues of self-confidence, face stereotypes, and derive false perceptions of political campaigns, all of which broaden the gender gap in the political
Similar to the relationship between active under-age people and able voters now, women influenced the men who did hold such power, to ultimately have a say in politics. The action of women influencing surrounding men has been happening throughout history, Abigail Adams majorly influenced her husband John Adams, who did enjoy the privilege of having a say in politics, by constantly reminding him “ to remember the ladies”. The continuing theme of women recognizing themselves as valuable and influential members of society, despite having oppressive nondemocratic ideals thrown upon them, grew with the development of the white mans democracy. Women’s fight for equality was not in spite of men’s increasing political power, but a result of it. Women saw men enjoying the power that they inherently knew they deserved and reacted
Equality for women has been an ongoing debate for years. Most people recognize the inequality for women in areas besides the business world. However, women in politics is one of the most well-known topics. Until a few years ago, the thought of having a woman as president was absurd. It wasn’t until the 2008 election that the idea of a woman for president would change drastically. Both Sarah Palin and Hilary Clinton decided to run in the 2008 presidential election. Although neither of the two were elected, they both still made a dramatic impact on the views of women in politics. Michelle Bernard states that the 2008 election was a breakthrough for women in general. However, Marie Cocco disagrees, stating that the loss was a major disappointment for women. Although both authors feel strongly about their
Even as far back as the United States independence, women did not possess any civil rights. According to Janda, this view is also known as protectionism, the notion that women mush be sheltered from life's harsh realities. Protectionism carried on throughout the general populations view for many decades until the 1920's when the women's movement started. Women finally received the right to vote in the Nineteenth Amendment. The traditional views of protectionism, however, remained in people's minds until the 1970's (Janda et al, 2000: 538-539).
In her essay, “Housewives and Homework: The Lacemakers of Narsapur,” Chandra Talpade Mohanty focused on how men sold products that women produced and profited from women’s work. The essay basically pointed out how work can be defined according to sexual identity. It made me wonder if American women are still perceived by men in society as being housewives even though some of us are doctors, lawyers, teachers etc. Is the work that women do seen as what Mohanty pointed out in her essay as “leisure time activities”? I think that to some extent men believe that women’s sole purpose on Earth is to be their wives/partners and to be good mothers to their children. Even though we “leisurely,” as Mohanty so
During the 18th and 19th century, patriarchy has been responsible for designing women’s role in society. Throughout history, men have been deemed as superior while women have been regarded as inferior. Society has this ideology that women are the sole laborers of a household; they were not granted the same privileges as men. In addition, women have been negatively affected by stereotyping. Women have been portrayed on television as being submissive to men. The depiction of women on television portrays the implications of a societal view of women. From a man's perspective, an ideal woman is a housewife who does all the household duties herself. However, over the years, studies have shown that gender roles have slowly advanced. Women began
In many works of Literature women play a controversial role, one in which their actions are the cause of conflict in many situations. There are more often then not two reasons for this. One reason why the female character is always caught in the center of the conflict is ignorance, such is the case Shakespeare's "Hamlet; Prince of Denmark" with the character Queen Gertrude as an example. The second reason why women are the cause of the central conflict are that in many instances they are trying to make a stand against society by defying what society holds to be the norm. An example of this would be Sophocles' "Antigone". In either case, the woman character is cause of the central conflict within the
This is seen in two ways; the first is interpersonal interactions, and the second is representations of men and women in that are embedded in form and content of language. For example Cameron (1992) found that women are referred to by their first name as well as terms of endearment such as ‘love’ and ‘dear’. It shows that language and representations are closely linked and that language holds representation of ideas in clichés, epithets etc. It has also been represented that a women’s experience is systematically devalued in comparison to that of the male norm. Weitz (2003) has highlighted that throughout history women’s bodies have centrally affected the structures within which women live. Females are described as passive, for example Mother Nature. Objects such as cars and boats are mostly deemed female and temperamental and are also dominated by males. English language reflects the power that men have historically held in many areas of life. The sexist language against women shows them in lower social and economic status. An example of this is nouns ending in ‘ess’ e.g. waitress, stewardess, these are then seen as less significant than their male equivalents. This also applies to the suffix ‘ette’ this is giving feminine status to objects such as cigarette, this shows inferiority. Some studies have shown that individuals who do not believe in traditional sex stereotypical roles are less likely to write an educational essay using sexist language (McMinn, Lindsay,
Woman’s studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning women, gender and feminism; exploring our gender existence, how we perform femininity and masculinity and how this interacts with other aspects of our identities, such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and sexuality. Women’s studies emerged in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s as a concerned women being misrepresentation and trivialization in the higher education curriculum and as well as being excluded from many positions of power authority as colleges faculty and administrators. An example from the “ Women’s Voices /Feminist Vision” book written by Susan M.Shaw Janet lee was “the entire course in English or American literature to include not one
New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote in 1893, however, since then we have dropped to 27th when it comes to gender representation in government, out of 188 countries. One of the many reasons as to why women are under represented in parliament can be linked to the issue of the political obstacles that face women. This is when they want to be in parliament, women whom are in parliament, and the many women who this is not an option for due to lack of opportunity. Women have to face this “masculine model” of politics and government. Men are dominant in parliament, meaning that political life revolves around male norms and values (Shvedova). This can be extended, politics is very much about competition and confrontation. Rather than politics being