First published Fri Sep 3, 2004; substantive revision Mon Aug 21, 2017
Feminist philosophy of language has come a long way in a very short time period. Initially, most work in
the area was critical, calling for changes either to language itself or to philosophy of language. More
recently, howeve...
Feminist Philosophy of Language STUDY
NOTES
First published Fri Sep 3, 2004; substantive revision Mon Aug 21, 2017
Feminist philosophy of language has come a long way in a very short time period. Initially, most work in
the area was critical, calling for changes either to language itself or to philosophy of language. More
recently, however, the dynamic has changed, with the advent of several major positive research
programmes within philosophy of language. In this entry, we first discuss the critiques that constitute
the first phase of feminist work in this area, before moving onto the positive research programmes that
have recently come to the fore. Our focus in this entry will generally be on the analytic tradition. For
continental approaches, see the entries on feminist approaches to the intersection of analytic and
continental philosophy, feminist approaches to the intersection of pragmatism and continental
philosophy.
1. Critical work on language and philosophy of language
o 1.1 False gender-neutrality
o 1.2 Invisibility of women
o 1.3 Maleness as norm
o 1.4 Sex-marking
o 1.5 Encoding of male worldview
o 1.6 Reform efforts: successes and limitations
o 1.7 Maleness of language
o 1.8 Metaphor
o 1.9 Philosophy of Language
2. Positive research programmes in philosophy of language
o 2.1 Feminism and Speech Act Theory
o 2.2 On the Meaning of ‘Woman’
o 2.3. Ameliorative Projects and Conceptual Engineering
o 2.4 Hermeneutical Injustice
, o 2.5 Generics
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1. Critical work on language and philosophy of language
1.1 False gender-neutrality
There has been a great deal of feminist concern over the supposedly gender-neutral use of terms like
‘he’ and ‘man’. It is commonly said that these terms have both gender-specific meanings, as in
sentences (1) and (2), and gender-neutral ones, as in sentences (3) and (4).
1. He drank the wine.
2. A man went into a bar.
3. When a student comes into the room, he should pick up a handout.
4. Man is a primate.
Feminists, however, have pointed out that even the supposed gender-neutral meanings of these terms
are not really gender-neutral. Janice Moulton (1981a) and Adele Mercier (1995) provide examples in
which there is no doubt that a gender-neutral meaning is intended, but this meaning seems unavailable.
As a result, the sentences seem ill-formed:
5. Man has two sexes; some men are female.
6. Man breastfeeds his young.
We are, then, making a classificatory error if we claim that ‘man’ and ‘he’ are gender-neutral terms. In
order to avoid such a classificatory error, we need to do more careful work on what the meanings of
these terms actually are. Perhaps the meaning of ‘he’ that has been called ‘gender-neutral’ is not really
gender-neutral, but something much more complex. Mercier suggests, for example, that we should
understand the ‘gender-neutral’ use of ‘man’ as referring to either (a) a person or persons of unknown
sex; or (b) males or a combination of males and females. This explains why ‘men’ in (5) and ‘man’ in (6)
are anomalous: these terms are being used to refer exclusively to persons known to be female.
The supposed ‘gender-neutral’ meaning of these terms, then, is not truly gender neutral. But, on its
own, this does not show that there is a problem with those uses that have traditionally been classified as
gender-neutral, as in sentences (3) and (4). (Discovering that we have misclassified an adjective as an
,adverb would not show anything wrong with actual uses of the term in question.) Further reasons are
needed in order to object to the use that is made of these terms.
1.2 Invisibility of women
Feminist concerns, however, go beyond mere classificatory ones. Feminists have also argued that terms
like ‘he’ and ‘man’ contribute to making women invisible—that is, to obscuring women’s importance,
and distracting attention from their existence. Fighting the invisibility of women is an important feminist
project in many areas,[1] and language that makes one less likely to think of women clearly contributes
to this invisibility. There is good psycholinguistic evidence that those who encounter sentences
(like (3) and (4)) using the terms ‘he’ and ‘man’ think more readily of males than of females.[2] If this is
right, then the use of these words can be seen as contributing to the invisibility of women. This gives
feminists a good reason to object to the ‘gender-neutral’ use of these terms.
1.3 Maleness as norm
If one’s only worry concerned the obscuring of women’s presence, however, it would be difficult to
object to certain other terms to which feminists do commonly object: gender-specific occupational
terms like ‘manageress’ (still common in the UK, though not in the US) or ‘lady doctor’. These terms
certainly do not contribute to the invisibility of women. Instead, they call attention to the presence of
women. Moreover, they call attention to women’s presence in positions of authority—doctor and
manager. Nonetheless, most feminists who think about language find these terms objectionable.
The clearest reason for objecting to ‘manageress’ and ‘lady doctor’ is that the use of these terms seems
premised on the idea that maleness is the norm, and that women filling these jobs are somehow deviant
versions of doctors and managers. This is also a key objection to the use of ‘he’ and ‘man’. Moulton
(1981a) understands these terms on the model of brand names, like ‘Hoover’ or ‘Scotch tape’ that
become generic terms for a product type. The message of such terms, she suggests, is that the brand in
question is the best, or at least the norm. According to Moulton, terms like ‘he’ and ‘man’ work in the
same manner: they are gender-specific terms for men whose use has been extended to cover both men
and women. This, Moulton argues, carries the message that maleness is the norm. As a result, the use of
these terms as if they were gender neutral constitutes a sort of symbolic insult to women. Laurence
Horn and Steven R. Kleinedler (2000) have disputed the details of this, noting that ‘man’ did not begin its
life as gender-specific and then get extended to cover both women and men. Rather, ‘man’ actually
began its life as ‘mann’, a gender-neutral term, which only later acquired a gender-specific meaning. The
temporal sequence, then, cannot support the claim that a gender-specific term has been extended to
cover both genders. Nonetheless, Horn and Kleinedler agree that the use of terms like ‘he’ and ‘man’ as
if they were gender-neutral perpetuates the objectionable idea that men are the norm for humanity.
1.4 Sex-marking
English, like most—but not all—languages, requires a great deal of what Marilyn Frye calls ‘sex marking’
(Frye 1983). For example, one cannot use pronouns to refer to a particular individual without knowing
their sex. (Frye, in common with most feminists of the early 1980s, does not consider trans issues. She
, also does not consider the possibility that pronouns like ‘he’ and ‘she’ might be a matter of gender, not
sex.) Frye notes the absurdity of this.
If I am writing a book review, the use of personal pronouns to refer to the author creates the need to
know whether that person’s reproductive cells are the sort which produce ova or the sort which
produce sperm. (Frye 1983: 22)
Singular personal pronoun usage, Frye argues, is impossible without knowing the sex of the person one
is discussing, and in many cases sex would otherwise be utterly irrelevant. Frye takes this to be an
instance of a general tendency to make sex relevant where it need not be, which she takes to be a key
feature of sexism. In addition, she suggests, the constant need to know and indicate sex helps to
perpetuate the conviction that sex is a tremendously important matter in all areas. For Frye, this is a key
factor in perpetuating male dominance: male dominance requires the belief that men and women are
importantly different from each other, so anything that contributes to the impression that sex
differences are important is therefore a contributor to male dominance.
1.5 Encoding of male worldview
The idea that some terms encode a male worldview is initially a puzzling one. One thing that is meant by
it is, roughly, that the meanings of certain terms seem to divide the world up in a way that is more
natural for men than for women. Good examples of this come from the terms ‘foreplay’ and ‘sex’. ‘Sex’
is generally taken to refer to an act that is defined in terms of male orgasm, while the sexual activities
during which many women have their orgasms are relegated to secondary status, referred to by terms
like ‘foreplay’. These terms, then, can be seen as based in a male perspective on sex. (It is worth noting
that the ‘male perspective’ claim need not rest on the (implausible) idea that this perspective is shared
by all men. Rather, it can rest on claims about what is typical for men, or on the claim that the only
perspective from which certain understandings make sense is a male one.) As a result, these terms may
serve as a barrier to accurate communication or even thought about women’s experiences of sex
(Cameron 1985; Moulton 1981b; Spender 1980 [1985]). Catharine MacKinnon and Sally Haslanger also
discuss legal definitions of ‘rape’ as (among other things) involving more than ‘the normal level of force’,
an understanding that seems committed to the idea that some level of force is acceptable in sexual
relations (Haslanger 1995: 109; MacKinnon 1989: 173).
Languages may also lack words for things that matter a great deal to women. This sort of gap is another
way that a language can be seen as encoding a male worldview. The term ‘sexual harassment’, for
example, is a recent feminist innovation. Women’s discussion of their experiences led them to see a
certain common element to many of their problems, and as a result they invented the term ‘sexual
harassment’. Once the problem was named, it became much easier to fight sexual harassment, both
legally and by educating people about it (Farley 1978; Spender 1985).
Miranda Fricker (2007) calls gaps such as that before the invention of the term ‘sexual harassment’ a
form of hermeneutical injustice. Roughly speaking, this is what occurs when “some significant area of
one’s social experience *is+ obscured from collective understanding owing to” (2007: 155) a gap in
communal linguistic/conceptual resources that is more damaging to those from a socially disadvantaged
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