Opinion article on Is Women’s language weaker than Men?
While growing up, we were socialised that heroes were mainly man – therefore have embedded the patriarchal ideology within our innocent mind, Think about it, we have all grown up with many images and from novels to movies of what constitute a hero and this cultivates culture expectation, Let us look at some in detail? Shall we?
Look at Cinderella, her blue gown, fine blonde hair and a skinny woman however living in such extreme environment treated badly by her stepmother which is actually a bad thing, what could she do to get herself out of the tragic zone? Well you’re throwing me a question so let me tell you it’s that there’s always a hero will solve this issue which is – Prince Charming with his muscular muscles. He saves Cinderella by running around the town and chose her to become his wife, but as most people will not be aware of the way how she didn’t choose Prince Charming to become her prince? In this context it’s a way of how society is indicating a women has no control of her life, seen as a possession and they often need someone to rely on , like mice’s, magic and men!
The point I’m trying to bring out is that all the ideologies has started to embed since we were little, just like how they portrayal women as a weaker sex therefore it’s language is weaker, well it is surely not the case because in most recent researches women are seen to be using language differently in contrast to men, Deborah Tannen has said ‘Different sex aim for different things in a conversation’ which means we aren’t people from different planet, it’s just that we live in the same planet speaking the same language but not the same dialect. It’s like women has to speak in a certain way to be seen as more feminine, which absolutely makes no sense because there aren’t such definition for how a women should be acting in order to become more feminine, but certainly a high pitched squeaky voice sometimes do make you look like an idiot.
I think Lakoff’s theory is a bit too extreme in terms saying Women’s language is weaker, the use of tentative language will lead to some disadvantages, like preventing themselves getting a promotion but that isn’t the case though, I can’t challenge her theory as in some features were very true however look at the world! More and more women are working in leadership positions which is absolutely fantastic, you can find heroines in workplaces, there are 2 female Politian working within the G9 group however the ratio is still small compare to Men, but it is a great massive improvement in our society, we aren’t preventing ourselves getting a promotion, it’s because the way how we use language differently, us, women tended to aim for Overt prestige which we rather make someone feel orientated or nice instead of being competitive or often challenges the other – the phenomenon has been named as Rapport talk, To be honest if a women started to have such challenging conversation she will be seen as rude so that’s probably why we add so many politeness strategies into our sentence and this may make us look even weaker due to we literally add endless of politeness strategies! But Janet Holmes has indicated the fact about this is a way of how women helps and keeps the conversation going on – but lakoff’s theory is a bit too simplest in terms of just seeing women’s language in a one way, she has to think wiser and outside the box!
I guess one of the reasons could be the way how the patriarchal society often do not give a chance for women to expose their strengths in terms of not giving them a particular job roles which is frustrating from my point of view, like adding the suffix ‘ess’ to indicate a specific job role should led by a men but not a women because she can’t work properly. Absolutely none sense! But that doesn’t stop women can’t be heroine in their own rights, we are living in 21st century!
Even though our culture tends to celebrate masculinity when it comes to being a hero, we can still look at all the great quantities of heroines and appreciate them – we have many examples in our lives such as our grandma, mum or aunties!
Remember both heroines and heroes do compliment with each other so don’t be too fussy about it, we’re just different, the same coin with different sides and patterns.
Kelsey <3
