Abstract
This chapter looks at women and words: at women’s writing and women’s relationship to language, and at what contemporary feminist theory has had to say about these issues.
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Further reading
Belsey, Catherine and Jane Moore (eds), The Feminist Reader: Essays in Gender and the Politics of Literary Criticism (London, Macmillan, 1989). Excellent collection, primarily post-structuralist; includes important essays by Cixous, Kristeva and Spivak. Lucid introductory overview. For a fuller overview with useful chapters on French feminist theory
see Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory (London and New York, Methuen, 1985).
Cameron, Deborah, Feminism and Linguistic Theory, 2nd edn (London, Macmillan, 1992). First published in 1985; the 1992 edition is comprehensively revised and updated. Refreshingly down-to-earth guide to the complex field of contemporary linguistic theory.
Castle, Terry. The Apparitional Lesbian: Female Homosexuality and Modern Culture (New York, Columbia University Press, 1993). Readable and wide-ranging collection of essays, ranging from Greta Garbo and Brigitte Fassbaender to Anne Lister and Henry James. An important contribution to lesbian critical theory.
Mills, Sara and Lynne Pearce, Feminist Readings/Feminists Reading, 2nd edn (Hemel Hempstead, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1996). Fully revised and updated edition of book first published in 1989. Distinctive for its practical application of theory to specific texts. Helpful glossary.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Tendencies (Durham, Duke University Press, 1994). Stimulating collection of essays, ranging from eighteenth-century literature to contemporary politics, by a key writer of queer theory.
Showalter, Elaine (ed.), The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature and Theory (London, Virago, 1986). Primarily, but not exclusively, ‘Anglo-American’ in emphasis. Contains pioneering essays by Bonnie Zimmermann (lesbian feminist criticism) and Barbara Smith (Black feminist criticism).
For more recent developments in these areas, see Karla Jay and Joanne Glasgow (eds), Lesbian Texts and Contexts: Radical Revisions (New York and London, New York University Press, 1990)
Cheryl A. Wall (ed.), Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women (London, Routledge, 1990).
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© 1997 Gill Frith
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Frith, G. (1997). Women, Writing and Language: Making the Silences Speak. In: Robinson, V., Richardson, D. (eds) Introducing Women’s Studies. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25726-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25726-3_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-68470-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-25726-3
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)