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Re: CHAT: BOOK/CHAT: FW: Lunatic Lovers of Language

From:Laurie Gerholz <milo@...>
Date:Friday, September 25, 1998, 4:30
Pablo Flores wrote:
> > I agree. It's always been pointed out that women tend to speak more and > with more expressive terms. In many languages the vocabulary of women is > broader and more colorful than that of men. It seems to me that women > create subtly different words naturally from their sources as they need > them, while we men get stuck thinking... This must be related to the fact > that few women build model railroads or assemble motorbikes for fun, for > example. Women work with structures and change them -- men blow up the > structures and build new ones on top of them :-) >
Sigh. I know that no one here meant any harm, and were simply pondering over an apparent discrepancy in activities between the genders. But I can't begin tell you how tired I get of the cliche "women are better with language, men are better with spatial/physical structures". I simply have to remind everyone that whereas perhaps there is a difference in the mean tendencies between the genders, there is also usually much more difference *within* each gender than there is between them. Please note that I haven't gotten around to reading the original post (from Baba?). The following rant was triggered solely by the ensuing discussion. If women are so much better with language than men, why, until recently have the great majority of our acclaimed writers and orators been men? If men are the ones who construct new "things", what's all that textile work, and pottery, and other domestic creation that women have been doing for millenia? Yes, there is, in each culture, usually some split between materials that are considered traditional for men and those that are traditional for women. For example, in the European-based American culture that I'm most familiar with, textiles are usually considered a female domain and woodworking a male domain. But it varies from culture to culture, and even from time to time. Did you know that in Europe, knitting was originally a men's craft? The professional knitting guilds of the Renaissance were only open to men. It became a women's home activity after it was no longer economically feasible as a large-scale profession. Did you know that when men and women participate in an art, such as painting, that carries relatively little gender bias, that it is next to impossible to identify the gender of the artist if one is allowed only to view the work? This has been learned from juried art shows, where the judges accept works based on viewing slides without knowing the identities of the artists. And finally, I guess this is a hot button for me because I practice many "constructive" arts (as opposed to "performing" arts, like music or dance). Whenever the above generalization comes up, it is frequently accompanied by an implicit ignoring of all the construction/creation that women have actually done. I really *hate* it when it is implied that my work can't exist because I'm a woman and "women are better at language". Okay, feminist artist rant off. And maybe I should go back and read Baba's post, and find out if I've just made a flaming fool of myself. Laurie --- milo@winternet.com http://www.winternet.com/~milo