If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Max Ehrmann

All that is human is mediated through language. And because we learned the process of being human in our culture as we learned the language of that culture, much that we learned remains invisible to us. But even though invisible, it guides what and how we learn and remember, our perceptions, our behaviors. Throughout our lives it continues to affect us, all too often without our realizing.

With these materials we hope to direct users’ attention to the invisible impacts of their daily language use, whether as readers, speakers, listeners or writers, whether hearing or seeing. We want to make the invisible visible. We want our students and readers to begin recognizing all the many ways our daily talk and interactions create and reinforce genders.

The lessons presented here explore how language functions, where its power comes from, and why it often resists change even when its negative impacts are obvious. Throughout, we pay attention to aspects of language rarely noticed, which, precisely because users don't notice them, have powerful effects outside the users' awareness. After our review of how language functions, we explore a number of issues related specifically to how English disadvantages many of its users. We show that many of these problems emerge in the ways gender functions in this supposedly non-gendered language. We describe the many ways our daily talk and interactions create and reinforce genders, gendered behavior, and gendered relationships that we really do not intend. We conclude with a number of suggestions of ways in which we can use English to reflect our egalitarian values.

Our goal is to nurture understandings that make available language and communication tools permitting us to live productively and engage fully in mutually fulfilling relationships.

This is a work in progress, copyrighted by authors, M. J. Hardman (hardman@ufl.edu) and Anita Taylor (ataylor@gmu.edu). Please do not quote or reproduce without permission from authors.

book Chapters

Introduction

Ch 1: How Language Works

Ch 2: Uses of Metaphor

Ch 3: Derivational Thinking

Ch 4: Limiting Agency

• Simple Denial
• Pollution
• False Categorization
• Isolation
• Anomalousness

Ch 5: Confusing Observation, Inference, and Judgment

Ch 6: Maintenance of Privilege: CHESWAM

Ch 7: Using Sentence Structure to Recreate Social Structure

Ch 8: Is the Seducer

Ch 9: Making Changes