Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language

By examining how grammatical gender can reveal sexist norms and beliefs, Montell explores the relationship between language and misogyny. She depicts this relationship as an unfortunate inheritance of society’s sexist history, and another area of complication for ongoing feminist efforts to achieve gender equality in all areas of life. She also draws attention to how even non-grammatically gendered language can influence perceptions around issues regarding sexuality and gender dynamics. 

Montell suggests that while the gendered language around objects is often random, the gendered language around people is not. By detailing how some languages’ grammatical gender permanently associates women with inferior or traditional roles, Montell argues that language is highly influenced by societal norms and values, sometimes entrenching them in the language in an outdated way. She explains, “In French, for instance, most prestigious jobs are masculine: the French words for police officer, doctor, professor, engineer, politician, lawyer, surgeon, and dozens of others all have masculine gender. (The words for nurse, caretaker, and servant all happen to be feminine, though)” (145). Thus, Montell implies that the gendering of these terms is not random or neutral: Instead, the gendering of terms can impact how people view the “roles” of men and women in society, reinforcing gender biases over what counts as “men’s work” or “women’s work.” 

By suggesting that people’s use of language might also inform their perceptions of the world, Montell presents the relationship between language and misogyny as a two way-street. The more powerful direction, according to her, is the cultural ideology speakers draw on when creating words and grammatical structures. However, according to Montell, speakers’ use of their language sparks another, weaker “street” which leads back to culture. She argues that “there is some undeniable ‘leakage’ going on between grammatical gender and how we perceive human gender in real life…it is highly possible—and sometimes inevitable—for the gender of a word to bleed into speakers’ perceptions of what that word means” (140). 

Montell also addresses how non-grammatically gendered languages can also reflect biases in other ways, such as how English speakers tend to discuss sex. She argues that much of sexual terminology and slang presents a male-centered view of sex, casting men as active, dominant, and even violent while female sexuality is framed in language that suggests passivity. She also questions why language associated with male genitalia, such as “penis,” is less taboo than language for female genitalia, such as “vagina”—she points to the censoring of the latter word, but not the former, on Grey’s Anatomy to illustrate this point. These examples thus suggest that sexist and misogynistic assumptions are sometimes subtly reflected in everyday use of speech.   

By detailing these issues with gender and language, Montell argues that language is an important point of contention in a society striving for gender equality. Montell implies that such sexist perceptions could translate into real-world discrimination, adding to her argument that language should be interrogated and, when necessary, adapted or reinvented.