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

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