Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

In her final chapters, Montell concludes her theme on The Relationship Between Language and Misogyny by exploring how language frames sexual experience and genitalia. By citing research on five centuries of English sexual slang, she argues that the English language reflects the enduring gender stereotypes in Anglo culture. Montell cites Jonathan Green’s findings that English genitalia slang tends to portray men as active and even violent, while women are passive and compliant. Moreover, heterosexual sex itself is often implied to be a male-centered act. Such masculine-centered language thus reinforces a certain sexual power dynamic between men and women, which Montell suggests marginalizes female sexuality and female sexual experience.  

By inventing other, more female-centric options to describe sex, Montell shows that there is nothing inevitable about the prioritization of the male perspective. She writes, “If one were to describe sex from the vagina’s standpoint—to say something like, ‘We enveloped all night,’ or ‘I sheathed the living daylights out of him,’ or ‘We clitsmashed’—it would be such an exceptional rebellion […] that to many listeners, it would be a real head-scratcher” (256). Montell’s examples thus demonstrate how changing sexual language to be more female-centric would, in turn, change the framing of male-female sex acts, placing a woman’s experience at the heart of the art and even granting her a position of power instead of passivity. Montell’s suggestions invite the reader to consider how English might be different if women had enjoyed more political power and sexual empowerment during the centuries the English language was developing.

Montell’s reflections here also connect with her discussion on the misogynistic attitudes behind words for female anatomy. Her example of the unfair television censorship of words for female anatomy is a clear example of how terms for female genitalia are unfairly stigmatized compared to their male counterparts. Montell argues that misconceptions of female anatomy even extend into the supposedly objective medical world, which can also be skewed by sexist bias. She turns to the definition of “vagina” in TheFreeDictionary.com’s medical glossary, noting that the definition refers to it as “‘An organ of copulation that receives the penis during sexual intercourse’” (257). Montell points out that there is a heteronormative bias at work in this supposedly objective definition, writing,  “I would invite a doctor to try telling a lesbian that her vagina is ‘an organ that receives the penis’” (257). By detailing how terms for female anatomy are often stigmatized or poorly defined, Montell shows how society’s uneasy relationship with women’s bodies and sexuality manifests in the language itself.

Montell addresses The Politics of Language in her discussion of language as a means of strengthening community bonds and navigating societal prejudices. For instance, she explains the development of the Polari dialect, a now largely extinct dialect intentionally created by gay men in 20th century Britain to communicate privately with each other. Montell casts Polari as an inventive act of resistance as well as a pragmatic tool for evading persecution for their sexuality. Montell’s inclusion of the rich lexicon of slang that originated in America’s queer drag and ballroom culture helps illustrate how marginalized people can use language as a tool to strengthen community bonds.

Montell connects the communal functions of language to the modern-day phenomenon of gay men speaking with certain linguistic features, such as the sibilant s and uptalk. Montell explores the pros and cons gay men experience when they use these features in their speech. On the one hand, it gives them more commonalities to bond over, yet it also subjects them to judgment from those who deride the more feminine aspects of their speech. By connecting this judgment to the same misogynistic trends that promote criticism of young women’s speech, Montell encourages the reader to see this sexist perspective as wide-ranging and harmful towards anyone—male or female—who chooses to express themselves in a “feminine” way.

Montell concludes her exploration of The Nature of Semantic Change and Gendered Language by discussing the second wave feminist phenomenon of feminist dictionaries. Written by and for women, dictionaries such as Mary Daly and Jane Caputi’s “Wickedary” were intended to give voice to the particularities of women’s experiences and express their equality—if not superiority—to men. Montell explains, “The authors’ idea was that if we could redefine the English language to reflect how women see the world, we could redefine the world itself too” (275). By explaining why this concept did not catch on with the general public, Montell adds to her argument that cultural change precludes semantic change, and that trying to change society’s values by simply inventing new words is an interesting but ultimately futile idea. 

Furthermore, Montell highlights and celebrates the fact that women speakers organically come up with new terms all the time, and so don’t need a rigid set of terms assigned to them: “[W]omen are unbelievably innovative linguistically—from their slang to their word pronunciation—and can wield their existing English to express themselves just fine” (280). Montell’s conclusions about how language reflects culture more than it informs it are backed by her evidence, but also seem to contradict her book’s subtitle that feminists should “take back” the English language. Ultimately, then, Montell’s idea of “taking back” English focuses more on how women can use, repurpose, or adapt existing usage than trying to replace the language in a more drastic way.