Blog 9 Participation in Electronic Discourse in a "Feminist" Field

The article written by Susan C. Herrings focuses on a study which tries to equalize the amount of time in which men and women speak, by using E-mails to communicate thoughts without being interrupted by one another. According to the article men talk more frequently than women in public settings and using the Internet to communicate makes it easier for women to communicate their disagreements or agreements to topics they would not publicly speak about. so the Internet would give them a greater opportunity to do so. In fact online communication did not allow people to participate equally in discussions. the discussions were shown to be dominated by male participants, women would participate in male discussions but male participants would not do the same when women would post making it an unbalanced situation for the women. Men even in online communication groups were dominating by posting topics and only answering to those they feel are important mainly the male posts. so regardless weather it is a face to face discussion or an online the women are more often excluded and ignored in persons and online. This reminds me of one of the articles read where women pose questions or their thoughts but the men decide whether it is important to address shaping how the conversation will go on. it is unfortunate but in the article when women excluded the men by selecting to speak about something that men could not support they too were excluded and used powerless language which is commonly seen used by women. so in certain situations men can also feel what a women goes through on a daily basis when put in a situation where men are deliberately trying to exclude women. The article was very interesting and informative it proves that even on an online communications board a male will dominate in and out in society.

Blog #8

In the movie called "Stale Roles and Tight Buns" it talked about how through a constant view of advertisements a male human being is being programed to think, act, look, and feel like a man should in today's society in the eyes of the advertisers. It focused on different aspects of the male image and applied it to segments of the movie.
With each item that the movie showed there was several images to apply to their thesis of what they think a mans image is perceived as. For example the movie states that advertisers depict men as unemotional, that the advertisements teach males not to show emotion because it will then show weakness. Another image used was that men are dominant over women, by a guy slapping a woman's behind, or men looking down upon woman. There were images of this not only in adult men images, but also can be seen with children. A young boy was placed above a young girl.
The next thing that was interesting to see was the showcase of images in ad's that would depict their definition of success and what success is to them. It would show images of graduation, then the hard work images of a man staying late in his office, then after the series of education, hard work, it would go onto the rewards of the labor. The luxury ad's were a constant reminder to the viewer of what success is in the form of cars, expensive alcohol, watches, etc...
The ad industry does show the world an array of products and like the movie stated they know precisely what they are doing. Every thought of every action in the ad itself, the photograph, the models, the product, the messages, are all carefully planned to target the audience they need to target, but personally I do not think that people from woman to men are so enticed by the ads that it changes their behavior and molds their personality. I admit that the movies messages was that by the use of ad's the way a man should be is a straight line of what they are, in other words the movie says that the ad's are what men follow, and I do not think men follow every type of ad the industry publishes. I think men do follow and behave like some of the ads, such as the image of a perfect body, but just by viewing the images of a man hitting a woman on the butt to state dominance over a man will not go around hitting women on their butts for that sole reason. The movie did make a lot of good points and the advertiser's themselves are the ones that set the standards on what "they, the advertisers" think as the standard model of what a man should be, not the men themselves. The ad industry is a dark place that are sending negative messages, but I think as a society we need to have more trust in our males and females in what they perceive as what it takes to be a man and or woman in our society.

Blog #7

The article by Nancy M. Henley points out that sexist language does not harm women. The male generic form used in language is grammatically correct and is suppose to also include women. in many cases women do not feel as if they are being included when the masculine form is being used. I myself learned something new while reading this article and it was just that i had forgotten that when the masculine form is used it too includes females but he name changes my the visual image I get I only think of males. In reality the generic form of language is not intended to harm women but it is very detrimental to them because they cannot visually see themselves when the male generic form "he" is used. while applying for a job position according to the article many women did not apply or stopped because the application used the male generic form and it was as though the qualifications for the specific jobs were meant for males. In a sense sometimes the male generic is used intentionally to not deceive but because people are not aware of its grammatical use and may interpret as it just referring something to male.

Attitudes Towards Sexist Language by Parks and Roberton

In the article written by Parks and Roberts the authors analyzed an experiment which would allow them to pinpoint whether college students thought sexist language still existed. Their findings were not what they expected, many of the college students ranging from ages 18-20 were in support of the old fashion sexism language usage. There may be many reasons why college students feel as if sexist language does not exist one could be that they have seen the opportunities that were given to women by reading it in history books and benefiting form them now and that creates the belief that they have come far and should be content. when in reality it has not been that long ago since women received equal rights. This idea will leave women once more disempowed if women fail t recognize that there is some sort of biased. It is and will lead to a regression in women's rights and treatment by society if women do not except that they are not equal to men.

Post 5:Janet Holmes "Complementing- A Positive Politeness Strategy"

According to Holmes men and women interpret compliments differently, while women use compliments to establish , maintain and strengthen relationships men use them to compliment women more often than men. Men will complement women and not men because it is more socially acceptable to do so. For instance men will not compliment other men because it is considered face- threatening, creating a sense of discomfort, embarrassment and awkwardness for the person receiving a compliment about his appearance. Women according to Holmes tend to perceive and use compliments as positively affective speech acts to establish solidarity where as men will give but receive and interpret most compliments as face threatening.


There are many more forms of compliments that are used by men and women. Some compliments may be given and can be interpreted as expressing admiration, praise,and may even express envy. The common forms used by men are expressing praise and admiration toward women. Men are aware that women like compliments and often use them when addressing women. Compliments are given to women by men in different situations they can be encouraging one-ups or one-downs which are common in the work force for unequal ranked members. Women take a subordinate role in society and need more compliments because of the role they have and get praise more often than men. The position that women are in is a one down position because men who give them encouragement have a superior rank and it creates an imbalance when giving praise on a persons work which is ultimately being judged. ultimately women give more compliments to both men and women to establish rapport in a personal level, establish and keep a balanced friendship between peers and equals.

Post 4: Performing Gender Identity: Young Men's Talk and the Construction of Heterosexual Masculinity

The author Deborah Cameron argues that it is unhelpful and misleading that analysts and conversationalists use generic methods or models to imply that gendered speech is so generic that it is rather easy to notice the difference of masculinity and femininity in speech by what topics are spoken between the people. Cameron references an essay by Judith Butler that goes on to state that gender is a performance that must be shown repeatedly and daily to the culture and seen as a norm. This was interesting because when you see people in public that do not fit the cultural norm such as homosexual males who dress or behave more like women you assume they are homosexual males, thus them performing that identity of being feminine to society. Cameron then references a conversation between four white college 21 year old males. The conversation was assumed to be about women, wine, and sports, but it changes into something not normal, gossip on other males within their classes and calling them "gay". "Gay" was not used in the homosexual context since the males were heterosexual but instead used in a way that did not meet the standards of being masculine. The men then went on to talk about the appearance of males, their clothing, physical looks, and the way they talked. This was interesting because it was nothing like the title of wine, women, and sports, but rather showcasing some common conversation of what women would have; that being called gossiping. I think the men talking about other men is really out of norm for the men, and they should be labeled as "gay", but they most likely would not see it that way because they justify their "gay" observations with the onslaught of insults for those men they made observations about. These men did gossip and did it in a context seen as feminine, but covered it up.

The way the young men talked was interesting as well with one always trying to be the leader of the conversation. Cameron stated that it was mainly between two males and whenever an opening came up one would try to take the opening and run with it. The word "like" was a opening because it created the pause for allowing the opening. Lastly, Cameron states that men disguise gossip as something else and do not gossip when women are present, because they can differentiate themselves from "gossiping women", but since there were no women in the group of males the men did gossip. That was interesting because the males did not need to reassert the notion of their masculinity to each other, but they do it a form of everyone agreeing with each other (cooperative element) when it came to calling people not present "gay", I think since each one the males agreed on that part they all reestablished their heterosexuality.

Blog#10 sex dofferemces in parent child interactions

Gleason the author of this article studied children's language development and the factors that shape their language. The main factors that shape the children's language is how mothers and fathers interact with their children. The way a mother interacts with her daughter shapes the way she will talk and this is also true with father son interactions. fathers commonly use direct and implied indirect imperatives forms of speech when interacting with their sons. As a result the same forms of speech seen being used by the son as he becomes older. As for mothers they use the conventionalized polite imperative form instead of giving commands they ask if a child can do something. like the younger boys girls are exposed to the mothers form of speech and as a result use the same form when they speak. The way parents interact with their children as a result will create sex difference in the language of the children and will separate the roles that the children have in society.

Blog#03 "Kings are Royaler than Queens:Language and Socialization."

In Sheldon's article she argues that the English language and our current society as a whole have created and passed along, a language influenced by a male dominated use of words. For example, she states that our society uses "he" to distinguish non sexed items such as stuffed animals, animals, and others. Her personal stories of her own daughter stating that there are more he's than she's so he should be used. She states that media, television, and children's stories have conditioned children that there are more males in society than females and argues that their should be equal sexual representation. I agree that as a society we do use words that target males over using words that create equality throughout society such as using "guys" to represent a mixture of a group of males and females instead of using "ladies and gentlemen" or "folks". I agree with her on her views of equailty but I personally place blame on our society and their uses of words that leave people unequal, but as society and with our access to this wonderful English language we have the opportunity to change. With the English language we have the options to chose different words in place of a male dominated word. In Sheldon's article she uses an example of fishermen, this implies that all people who chose fishing as an occupation are male. Sheldon's example this goes on to state that women and men can both become people who fish as an occupation and once that was established the term fishermen was no longer used, instead in fishermans place was angler. Sheldon's article does make a good point and as a society we should use words that show equality within our world not a dominance towards one sex.

Blog#2 Talk in the Intimate Relationship: His and Hers

This article points out conversational differences among men and women. it states that women and men have their own unique ways of interpreting a conversation one in a more literal sense and the other using underlying messages,tone and facial cues to cue them in to what the speaker really means or what they think they meant. I communicate using the women's conversational style and as I was reading the article there were instances in which I questioned the way I communicate in my relationship. instead of communicating what I want I will just assume my partner will know what I want without me saying it . I found that I'm guilty of misinterpreting what my partner says and that my interpretations are not always right and I admit that I'm wrong so we too argue in circles. there was another instance while I was reading that i remembered my fiance and I were getting ready to go to San Diego for a family reunion. He wanted to get a separate hotel and he told his mom and as we all were talking about our plans i noticed by the tone of her voice and body language that she wanted everyone to stay in the same hotel vicinity. after our conversation I told my fiance that his mother was not okay with it and we should just stay in the same hotel but he said he didn't pick that up from her and she didn't care as to where we would stay. As I read the article i noticed that i picked up on what they really wanted because i cared abut her and her relationship which was one ting that women do. I just thought it was very interesting how we both had different accounts on how the conversation went and views about it. i really enjoyed reading this passage it was very eye opening and i think i am going to try to implement men's style of communication in my way of communicating with men and just being open and saying what i want, going straight to the point without a lot of detail, but i will still be sensitive to what others want but I'll ask them instead of assuming what they want.

Blog#1 Yanyuwa:'Men speak one way, Women speak another'

The article written by John Bradley focuses on a group of people who possess a unique language system. The Yanyuwa society not only have separate roles for the men and women in the community but the men and women also have separate dialects within the society. This wasn't the case at one point, when the children of both sexes were young they predominantly spoke the female form of the Yanyuwa language. The children when young are surrounded by their mothers and other women so they first learn to speak the mothers dialect. Once the young boys are initiated into the male society through a series of rituals they then use the male dialects to their best abilities without trying to infuse female dialects.

It was very interesting to follow the young boys transition form a child in to an all male society. If any of the young males in the group accidentally used the female dialect they were scrutinized by the males. In some circumstances the adult males would ask the young males if they had breast like women because they were sure speaking like them. On the other hand the women of the Yanyuwa community too would correct them if they ever heard them speak the women's dialect. As I was reading the article I felt bad for the young boys in the Yanyuwa community because they were not at fault in making the mistake of speaking the women dialect since they were exposed to it from birth . To the boys it would be like learning a foreign language and they were being made fun of by both older males and females to the point that it made the young males feel ashamed of themselves when it wasn't their fault.