Pat Parker

Anna Livia

Kathy Miriam

Critiquing Lesbian Sadomasochism in the Gay Nineties/a Collection of Radical Feminist Writings

Unleashing Feminism

Controversy over gendered pronouns, for example using the generic "he," has been a staple of feminist arguments about patriarchal language over the last 30 years, and is certainly the most contested political issue in Western feminist linguistics. Most accounts do not extend beyond policy issues like the official institution of non-sexist language. In this volume, Anna Livia reveals continuities both before and after the sexist language refore movement and shows how the creative practices of pronoun use on the part of feminist writers had both aesthetic and political ends. Livia uses the term "pronoun envy" ironically to show that rather being a case of misguided envy, battles over gendered language are central to feminist concerns. Livia examines a broad corpus of written texts in English and French, concentrating on those texts which problematize the traditional functioning of the linguistic gender system. They range from novels and prose poems to film scripts and personal testimonies, and in time from the 19th century to the present. Some withhold any indication of gender; others have non-gendered characters. Livia's goal is two-fold; to help bridge the divide between linguistic and literary analysis, and to show how careful study of the manipulation of linguistic gender in these texts informs larger concerns. This fresh and highly interdisciplinary work lies at the intersection of several vital areas, including language and gender, sociolinguistics, and feminist literary analysis.

Literary Uses of Linguistic Gender

Pronoun Envy

A London lesbian visits, and comes out to, an idiosyncratic assortment of relatives in Australia.

Relatively Norma

Minimax is the hilarious, often farcical, story of Minnie, her trials and romantic tribulations in London, Australia, and San Francisco. "Impressive powers of invention...pure and acidly funny."--The Village Voice "A blend of north-of-the-equator magical realism, science fiction, and lesbian-feminist political savvy."--The Advocate

A Novel

Minimax

Lilian Mohin

Lesbian Feminist Fiction

The Pied Piper

Relates the intertwined stories of three people who turn to Ella Weissman, a feminist therapist, to reveal their loves, fears, and confusions

Bruised Fruit

Kira Hall

This pioneering collection of previously unpublished articles on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender language combines queer theory and feminist theory with the latest thinking on language and gender. The book expands the field well beyond the study of "gay slang" to consider gay dialects (such as Polari in England), early modern discourse on gay practices, and late twentieth-century descriptions of homosexuality. These essays examine the conversational patterns of queer speakers in a wide variety of settings, from women's friendship groups to university rap groups and electronic mail postings. Taking a global--rather than regional--approach, the contributors herein study the language usage of sexually liminal communities in a variety of linguistic and cultural contexts, such as lesbian speakers of American Sign Language, Japanese gay male couples, Hindi-speaking hijras (eunuchs) in North India, Hausa-speaking 'yan daudu (feminine men) in Nigeria, and French and Yiddish gay groups. The most accessible and diverse collection of its kind, Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality sets a new standard in the study of language's impact on the construction of sexuality.

Anna Livia

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