How much has our language actually changed to adapt to gender issues?

Target audience: readers of Red Magazine (working class women and possible feminists).

The way that we use language helps shape us into the person we are. Our freedom of speech, and the ways we choose to use it, allows us to express ourselves. Our generation is persistently publicizing equality in language, but many people have been led to ask the same question: is it really the way that we use language that is changing to adapt to gender issues, or is it just our opinions of the way that we use language that are adjusting? Do our perceptions of the way that women 'should' speak mean that, although women have the right to speak freely, they are restricted by what society believes they are 'allowed' to say?

Language and gender theorist Robin Lakoff had the opinion that women used certain features of language (such as tag questions), that made 'female language' the deficit of 'male language'. Lakoff used the deficit theory to argue that the way women asked questions such as 'isn't it' when in conversations, as well as the use of other language features, shows that women are unsure and lack confidence in what they are saying. However, another gender theorist, Pamela Fishman argued that tag questions actually showed power and dominance on women's behalf. They were used to show that women were interacting well with other participants to show interest and help guide the conversation by dictating a topic and the next person to take turn. The opposing ideas of each theorist could support the idea that the way we use language has not changed, but the way we view the certain language features that others use dictates our opinions of language equality between genders.

Mary Beard, scholar, investigated the idea that women who show power in speech are seen as 'freakish' if they use language features that are 'not in their nature'.

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