Language and Liberation: Feminism, Philosophy, and Language

Language and Liberation......Page 1
CONTENTS......Page 6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......Page 8
Introduction How to Do (Feminist) Things with Words1......Page 9
Part I The Power of Words: Changing Meanings, Changing Social Spaces......Page 11
Part II The Power to Speak: Who Is Speaking, from Where?......Page 19
Part III The Power of Masculinist Metaphors: Words that Keep Women in Place......Page 24
Part IV The Power of Feminist Metaphors: Words that Open Spaces for Women......Page 30
Notes......Page 38
References......Page 43
1 Derogatory Terms......Page 48
The Problem......Page 50
Contextualism: An Inferential Role Theory of Meaning......Page 51
Social Context: An Absolutist Position Concerning Groups, Labels, and Power......Page 58
The Reclamation Project: Reclaiming Labels, Regaining Power......Page 63
Conclusion......Page 69
Notes......Page 74
References......Page 83
I. Women and Powerless Speech......Page 87
II. Women and Power......Page 89
III. A Different Way to Analyze Gender, Power, and Language......Page 92
IV. Beyond Masculinity and Femininity: Discourse Competence......Page 95
Notes......Page 100
References......Page 101
3 Surviving to Speak New Language......Page 104
Wielding Our Labryses: Mary Daly and the Deep Spinning Power of Metaphor......Page 107
Toward a Politics of Location: The Metonymic Poetry of Adrienne Rich......Page 116
Notes......Page 126
References......Page 130
4 From Revolution to Liberation......Page 133
Notes......Page 147
References......Page 150
PART TWO THE POWER TO SPEAK......Page 151
I. Articulating Silence......Page 152
II. The "Feminist" Label and the Dream of a Common Tongue......Page 153
III. Saying "We" Epistemologically and Politically......Page 156
IV. Reading (and) the "Experience of Real Women"......Page 159
V. Reading "Philomela" as a Feminist......Page 162
VI. Painful Politics and the Performative "We"......Page 170
Notes......Page 172
References......Page 174
6 Confessional Feminisms......Page 176
Embattled Subjects of Personal Disclosure: What's "I" Got to Do with "It"?......Page 177
Anatomizing Confession......Page 180
Personal Subjects in Contestatory and Expressive Confessional Modes......Page 182
Transgressive Acts: Violence of Confessions and Confessions of Violence......Page 185
Toward a Confessional Mode of Reflexivity......Page 193
Updating Confessing Feminist Theory......Page 197
Notes......Page 202
References......Page 205
7 The Postcolonial Critic......Page 209
Notes......Page 236
References......Page 240
PART THREE THE POWER OF MASCULINIST METAPHORS WORDS THAT KEEP WOMEN IN PLACE......Page 243
Introduction......Page 244
What "Man" Does......Page 245
The Personification of Man?......Page 248
Any-Woman and Every-Man......Page 253
Kant and His Two Mothers......Page 260
Conclusion......Page 266
References......Page 268
9 Frege's Metaphors......Page 271
Notes......Page 292
References......Page 297
Introduction......Page 298
Graphic Properties of the Hymen in "The Double Session"......Page 299
"Beneficent Figure"?......Page 303
Property Rights over Language and Writing......Page 305
Forced Figure......Page 307
Rhetorical Strategies of Euphemization: Metonymy and Metaphor......Page 309
Catachresis: Forgetting and Euphemizing a Violent History......Page 313
References......Page 318
PART FOUR THE POWER OF FEMINIST METAPHORS WORDS THAT OPEN SPACES FOR WOMEN......Page 320
I......Page 321
II......Page 328
Notes......Page 340
References......Page 343
12 Writing (into) the Symbolic......Page 345
Notes......Page 359
References......Page 362
13 Language and the Space of the Feminine......Page 364
Subjectivity, Language, and the Feminine......Page 365
Psychoanalysis, Feminine Agency, and the Body of the Mother......Page 372
Formalism versus Pragmatism: Textualizing Change, Exploding the Present......Page 382
Conclusions......Page 385
Notes......Page 387
References......Page 388
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS......Page 390
B......Page 394
F......Page 395
J......Page 396
L......Page 397
R......Page 398
Z......Page 399