Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

Amanda Montell’s Wordslut builds on the substantial tradition of analyzing language through a feminist lens. Throughout the book, Montell draws on the research from numerous feminist linguists to show how the English language reflects our society’s long history of sexism against women. She also discusses the different ways feminists have grappled with the links between language and misogyny and attempted to resolve these issues.

Since the 1960s sociolinguists have assessed how sexism can become entrenched in language, even in languages without grammatical gender, such as English. From derogatory language, biased use of male pronouns, and gender socialization and speech, feminist linguists have highlighted how the historical power imbalance between men and women continues to manifest in language. In her own work Montell does not endorse every researcher’s conclusions, but she uses them to show the different ways in which language and linguistic features can be interpreted through a feminist lens. 

Importantly, Montell also shows how linguists and laypeople come to different conclusions about how language could be used to resolve ongoing inequalities between men and women. For instance, in the 1970s Robin Lakoff pioneered the study of language and gender with her groundbreaking book Language and Woman’s Place (1975). Lakoff argued that women are socialized to use gentler speech habits, such as frequent apologizing and hedging, to appear more docile and ladylike. Lakoff viewed this as a harmful aspect of society’s gender role socialization. Not content to merely observe the phenomenon, Lakoff encouraged women to shed these aspects of their communication to appear less feminine, thereby claiming more authority and respect from others. As Montell explains, “Lakoff’s issue with women succumbing to this expectation […] was that inserting too many justs or you knows in order to come off as sweet and self-doubting won’t help women’s overall station in society; instead, it will reinforce the stereotype that women are naturally docile and insecure” (89).

Other feminist linguists sought solutions to the problem of misogyny in English. In 1980 Dale Spender published Man Made Language, which argued that since English evolved alongside patriarchal society, it perpetuated the male perspective and English speakers needed new, women-centric language to remedy this. Linguist Suzette Haden Elgin agreed, and even invented a whole new women’s language in her fiction work Native Tongue, which she hoped would catch on among women in the real world and give them a new means of expressing themselves. Similarly, feminists Mary Daly and Jane Caputi published a “Wickedary,” or a women’s dictionary, in the 1980s. This lexicon of invented or redefined terms promoted women’s empowerment and also purposefully reclaimed some insulting language for women.

Montell disagrees with Lakoff’s and Elgin’s approach, explaining that women already influence English a great deal—indeed, she refers to research that credits young women as being the primary innovators of new words and linguistic features. She explains, “For decades, linguists have agreed that young, urban females tend to be our linguistic innovators” (126). Moreover, she agrees with linguists like Oxford professor Deborah Cameron that English is not inherently sexist, but simply needs to be used more mindfully to eliminate sexist word choice and, equally important, sexist bias directed at its speakers. 

By showcasing decades of linguistic research, Wordslut functions as a brief summary of feminist sociolinguists’ contributions to their field and to feminism. It is also a continuation of this tradition, as it offers a new argument on how English speakers can achieve a more egalitarian use of the language.