Language and Gender Response Paper

[Chelsea R.]

I chose this week to do a response paper because I am particularly interested in gender and power and have spent much of my professional life working towards greater equity and equality for women and others in marginalized identities and communities. I was surprised by what was covered in the chapter and equally surprised by what was left out.
First, it was interesting to me that there were none of the heavy hitters of gender theory or feminist theory mentioned in the chapter. I thought there might be a cast of familiars: Sedgwick, Butler, or even Halberstam. While I am acutely aware that Mooney and Evans do not always center American ideas or writing, and that this may have played a role in the theories not being included, I do feel that addition of these theorists would have enriched the chapter.
Specifically, I was thinking of Judith Butler’s theory of performative speech acts. Butler’s theory agrees with the idea that gender is a social construct, but also that gender is always constructed through speech acts that serve to define and affirm identities. That is language creates and upholds gender. Mooney and Evens seem to gesture in the direction of Butler and other “academics” and “scholars” by noting that “gender is socially constructed (Mooney & Evans 2015 109)” and that people can—and do—perform gender in a variety of ways. Mooney and Evens go on to say that gender “…is not something a person has, it is something they accomplish through their clothing, habits, and speech (109).” But Mooney and Evens do not go so far as Butler does which is to say that gender is not only done by us, but to us through performative speech acts. Butler notes, "Within speech act theory, a performative is that discursive practice that enacts or produces that which it names (Butler, 13)." Butler is pointing out that through language we create the reality in which we live, and thereby we create gender and reaffirm the ideas of gender through language. While the chapter indicates that gender is a construction, it also uses the word “judgment” regarding the way that one person might perceive another. It seems then that gender is only a construction of the body inhabiting or occupying the gender in question. So too does it seem that an individual has all the control over how they might be perceived by another. Clothing, habits, and the way a person talks or the subjects they choose to discuss are the way one might construct or broadcast gender. The chapter does not explicitly say that part of gender identity and performance is how the world projects gender onto other bodies through speech and language. Butler notes that the social construction of gender requires constant upholding through “language, gesture, and all manner of symbolic social sign (Butler 270).” Thus when calling someone a woman we participate in reiteration which further solidifies gender through performative speech. I feel that Mooney and Evans's chapter placed greater weight on the social ideologies that make up gender rather than the linguistic and theoretical ideologies that also play a part.
I do feel that the chapter illuminated the ways that power operates in relation to gender. It was noted that if people stray from the convention that “there are often consequences (109).” One only has to consider the legal precarity and historical pathologizing of queer (a reclaimed word) and transgender peoples in this country. Also noted was the pervasiveness of sexism, subordination, and hegemonic ideals of both masculinity and femininity that help to uphold the current dominant power system. It was interesting to note that while the chapter mostly dealt with the binary system of men and women, it also alluded to greater social stratifications within these two groups based on other identities or perceived identities. If we look at the example given by the book on the differences between Miss and Ms., we note that while both can be occupied by women, Ms. runs into socially risky waters because Ms. can denote a woman who may be “divorced, a feminist, a lesbian or unmarried (111).” While not all of these identities are considered marginalized (aside from the station of "woman"), all stand to further restrict power further through social, political, or economic loss. It goes without saying that gender cannot be the only thing to consider and that we must also consider the intersecting identities held by women because certain kinds of women stand to lose more on compounding identities regarding race, class, sexual identity, disability or even the very impressions of these identities.
Lastly, I could not help but look at the national climate in regards to the chapter and thought about how much of our political discourse seems to be entrenched in ideas around gender and power. We might look at a man and a woman giving testimony in court. Is this man passionate when he speaks? Is the woman emotional? Is a man’s potential for future worth more than a woman’s past? I do believe that linguistics and power are both at play when asking any of these questions. I do wonder how to dismantle the current power structure and imagine a future of better equality for women and all people.