Allyson Jule - Gender and The Language of Religion

Gender and the Language
of Religion
Edited by
Allyson Jule
Gender and the Language of Religion
Also by Allyson Jule
GENDER, PARTICIPATION AND SILENCE IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM:

Sh-Shushing the Girls
Gender and the Language
of Religion
Edited by
Allyson Jule
University of Glamorgan, UK
Editorial matter, selection and introduction
© Allyson Jule 2005
Preface and individual chapters © the authors 2005
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Gender and the language of religion / Allyson Jule, [editor].
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1. Sex – Religious aspects. 2. Sex role – Religious aspects. I. Jule,
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Contents
Notes on Contributors vii
Acknowledgements ix
Foreword x
Miriam Meyerhoff
Introduction: The Meeting of Gender, Language and Religion 1

Allyson Jule
Part I Gender, Language Patterns and

Religious Thought 7
1 An Overview of God and Gender in Religion 9

Münevver Tekcan
2 The Gender of God: Judeo-Christian Feminist Debates 25

Francis Britto
3 Asymmetries of Male/Female Representation in Arabic 41

Samira Farwaneh
4 American Women: Their Cursing Habits and Religiosity 63

Timothy Jay
Part II Gender and Language Use in Religious

Communities 85
5 Women and Men: Languages and Religion in Taiwan 87

Chao-Chih Liao
6 Women’s Letters to the Editor: Talking Religion in a

Saudi Arabian English Newspaper 101
Hannes Kniffka
7 A Cyber-Parish: Gendered Identity Construction in an

On-Line Episcopal Community 133
Sage Graham
v
vi Contents
8 Language Use and Silence as Morality: Teaching and

Lecturing at an Evangelical Theology College 151
Allyson Jule
9 The Children of God Who Wouldn’t, but Had To 168

Annabelle Mooney
Part III Gender and Language Use in

Religious Identity 185
10 ‘Restoring the Broken Image’: The Language of

Gender and Sexuality in an Ex-Gay Ministry 187
Amy Peebles
11 ‘Assalam u Alaikum. Brother I have a Right to My

Opinion on This’: British Islamic Women Assert
Their Positions in Virtual Space 203
Fazila Bhimji
12 ‘Inshallah, today there will be work’: Senegalese

Women Entrepreneurs Constructing Identities
through Language Use and Islamic Practice 221
Shartriya Collier
13 Gender, Hebrew Language Acquisition and Religious

Values in Jewish High Schools in North America 240
Debra Cohen and Nancy Berkowitz
14 Speaking Our Gendered Selves: Hinduism and the

Indian Woman 257
Kalyani Shabadi
Index 270
Notes on Contributors
NANCY BERKOWITZ, PhD, is an independent consultant in research,

measurement and evaluation in Massachusetts, USA. She assists individ-
uals, corporations and non-profit organizations with research design
and data analysis, test development and programme evaluation.
FAZILA BHIMJI, PhD, is Lecturer in Humanities at the University of

Central Lancashire, UK. Her research interests are multifold. She is
currently working on gender, language, power and spiritual identities
among Muslim women in Britain today.
FRANCIS BRITTO, PhD, is Professor of Linguistics at Sophia University in

Tokyo, Japan. His work is related to computer literacy, feminism, India,
sociolinguistics, the Internet and religions. He has most recently served
as Programme Chair for the JALT International Conferences.
DEBRA COHEN is a doctoral candidate at the Hebrew University,

Jerusalem, Israel, examining the role of attitude and motivation among
teenagers learning Hebrew. She has worked as a child therapist and edu-
cational psychologist in the United States and currently in Israel.
SHARTRIYA COLLIER is a doctoral candidate in Language Education at

Temple University in Philadelphia, USA, where she also lectures in bilin-
gual and multicultural education. Her research interests include immi-
grant women entrepreneurs and language acquisition.
SAMIRA FARWANEH, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and

Linguistics in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University
of Arizona, Tucson, USA. Her research interests include Arabic phonol-
ogy, morphology and sociolinguistics, particularly language and gender
issues.
SAGE GRAHAM, PhD, is Assistant Professor of English and Linguistics at

the University of Memphis in Tennessee, USA. Her current research
addresses identity formation and conflict in computer-mediated com-
munication, the impact of technology on teaching effectiveness and
medical discourse.
TIMOTHY JAY, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Massachusetts College of

Liberal Arts. He has written several books and articles on cursing and
vii
viii Notes on Contributors
psycholinguistics. His research deals with verbal aggression and the use
of taboo language.
ALLYSON JULE, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of

Glamorgan, Wales, UK. She has published several articles and a book on
ethnic-minority girls in classrooms and is particularly focused on the
use of gendered linguistic space among classroom participants.
HANNES KNIFFKA, DPhil, is Professor of General and Applied Linguistics at

Bonn University, Germany. He has published several books and articles
on sociolinguistics, ‘culture-contrastive’ and anthropological linguistics,
textlinguistics and forensic linguistics.
CHOA-CHIH LIAO, PhD, is Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at

National Chiayi University, Taiwan. Her research interests include cross-
cultural communication, humorology, onomastics, as well as language
and religion related to Chinese or Taiwanese societies.
MIRIAM MEYERHOFF, PhD, is Reader in Theoretical and Applied

Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh. She is the author of several
books and articles on language use and is an active scholar in the field of
feminist linguistics.
ANNABELLE MOONEY, PhD, is a Research Associate at Cardiff University in

the Centre for Language and Communication Research, Wales, UK. Her
research interests include the rhetoric of marginal religious movements.
AMY PEEBLES, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Truman State

University in Kirksville, Missouri, USA. Her research interests include
language and identity, language ideology, gender, sexuality, religion and
life history narratives.
KALYANI SHABADI, PhD, is a Researcher at the Resource Centre for Indian

Language Technology Solutions, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore,
India. Her main areas of research are formal syntax, semantics, compu-
tational morphology and sociolinguistics.
MÜNEVVER TEKCAN, PhD, is Assistant Professor in Turkology at Kocaeli

University in Turkey. Her current research activities include linguistic
analyses of Middle Turkish and Chagatay manuscripts. She has a special
interest in Central Asian Sufi texts.
Acknowledgements
The contributors in this collection are to be recognized for their massive

efforts, particularly under tight summer deadlines, as well as for their
exceptional and innovative research connecting gender, religion and
language. It has been a great joy to work with each of them and to have
such an impressive and varied collection of research projects all in one
place. I particularly wish to thank Miriam Meyerhoff at the University of
Edinburgh for her generous support and for her insightful and impor-
tant comments in the book’s foreword.
I would also like to thank the many people who helped in developing
the concept for this book. The encouragement received by scholars at
IGALA3 (International Gender and Language Association at Cornell
University, June 2004) greatly helped to strengthen my reserves to bring
this collection together. I am especially grateful to Jill Lake at Palgrave
who encouraged the book, recognizing a vacuum in linguistic study
connecting religion and discourse. Thank you too to Nikki Niles for her
thoughtful cover photograph, and to Cheryl Wall and Penny Simmons
for their help in the editing process. And finally, all of the contributors
in this collection wish to extend their personal acknowledgements to
the family and friends who continually support their work.
ix
Foreword
Most people in the world today claim to be the follower of an organized

religion. If anything, the proportion is increasing: in the last decade, the
number of people who claim to be non-religious or atheist has dropped
from approximately 1.1 billion to about 850 million. Most of the people
who at least minimally identify with a religion are associated with one
of the major faiths – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism
and Sikhism. Although there are internal differences within each of
these families of faiths, these statistics indicate a remarkable degree of
global conformity and they point to the potential for the development
of enormously powerful supra-local identities. Religious identification is
increasingly an issue in both international and local politics. In some
traditionally secular societies, strong associations between individuals’
religious beliefs and their position on non-religious issues such as capi-
talist individualism, reproductive rights and educational opportunity
are creating a de facto erasure of traditional boundaries between church
and state. In other communities, religion has been bound closely with
these concerns for a long time, and increased opportunities for bodily
and virtual mobility present challenges to established relationships
between religious and other social identities as well.
Gender and the Language of Religion represents a timely move to explore
exactly how ideologies of gender and religion intersect. It also considers
how individuals negotiate and enact the daily practices of their lives
when religion as well as gender is among the identities that they are ori-
enting to. The contributions to this volume are varied, but all offer
something of merit to the reader. We are given a perspective on the ways
in which students and professors in an evangelical Christian college
enact and enforce gender roles in their pursuit of devotion. We also find
out how immersion in traditional Hebrew schools has a different impact
on the acquisition of Hebrew by male and female students. Three papers
discuss liturgical references to women and men and consider the impact
these have on the lived experience of the adherents of different reli-
gions. There are fascinating papers on the way religion is foregrounded
or backgrounded in different forms of discourse – the Internet, newspa-
pers, life history narratives and of course in ritual language.
Readers will find Gender and the Language of Religion provides a healthy
blend of methodological approaches. Some of the articles work within
x
Foreword xi
the more experimental paradigm of social psychology some provide

quite personal, in-depth studies of interactions in a hairdressing salon,
the classroom, or they offer close critical analysis of the discourse used
in ‘ex-gay’ narratives. Some draw more on the traditions of literary crit-
icism, and some on applied sociolinguistics.
What unites the papers in the volume is a fascination with how lan-
guage, gender and religion come together as part of the backdrop of day-
to-day life. As Jule puts it in her introduction: ‘Religious life seeks
transcendence from the mundane, but … it is the seemingly mundane
that also creates … religious identities.’ The authors in this volume
invite us to transcend the typically secular boundaries of language and
gender research and to take steps towards new frontiers in how we
understand what two pivotal identities are for many people today.
Miriam Meyerhoff
University of Edinburgh
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Introduction: The Meeting of
Gender, Language and Religion
Allyson Jule
Understanding the role of religions in the world is not at all a matter of

reading about exotic people and places or coming to some conclusions
regarding versions of truth as expressed in various communities. In today’s
global pluralism, almost any faith can be found anywhere, both as a pres-
ence and as an option of faith. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam (religions
originating in the East) are found all over the West, and the various repre-
sentations of the West’s Judaism and Christianity are now well established
throughout the world. A glance at any newspaper or any TV newscast
reminds us of how current events are embedded in religious communities
and how expressions of religion deeply affect the concepts of diversity and
globalization – or our resistance to such concepts. No comprehension of
world affairs or the larger human condition is possible today without some
understanding of the role of religion and how religion influences human
behaviour. Most of us in the course of our lives will come into contact with
people from a wide range of religious experiences, while at the same time
our own religious experiences will influence others and our views of the
world and the people who surround us. This book searches for a range of
language experiences within religious communities beginning with a
recognition of liturgy on to the working out of individual identity within
religious groups. The rhetoric, the method of meditation and religious
education differ from group to group but, regardless of these differences,
people are influenced by the ways their culture attempts to affirm human
life and attempts to transcend it. The practices of religion (such as worship,
rites of passsage, forms of devotion, group activities) constitute religious
expression and such religious expressions are woven into the cultures in
which we live and into the way we live within them.
One of the ways in which religion today is in a state of flux and
transition involves gender roles, particularly the role of women and the
1
2 Introduction
growing, shifting awareness of femininity and masculinity. Issues such as

veiled Islamic women or female ordination in Christianity are two exam-
ples of both religion and culture grappling with gender roles. Because of
common patriarchal roots in the world religions, women’s roles have
historically been very limited while men’s roles have often been more
developed or highly specific. I hope that, through survey books such as
this one, perceptions or assumptions can be deeply explored, allowing
for fresh perspectives on the role religion plays in society.
In reflecting on the position of religion and religious communities
alongside the current context of language and gender research, the con-
tributors in this collection offer us a variety of views and experiences –
each entering the discussion at various points of interest and expertise.
The book explores the ways we live with religion as a cultural discourse
and how gender, language and religion intersect in various yet shared
ways around the world. How language and gender are made meaningful,
how gender is interpreted and lived inside religious communities, and
how religion and gender impact on identity are all themes explored here.
In keeping with the local nature of each chapter, attempts have not
been made to make the book more consistent concerning terms or their
spellings (example: Koran or Qu’ran). This is to allow each author to
represent the ideas from within certain groups. It is also not the primary
goal here to review the criticisms of the larger debates in language and
gender research and scholarship; such discussions are well articulated
elsewhere. Instead, I wish to bring focus to religion within sociolinguistic
study, something not yet adequately grappled with inside sociolinguistics.
I believe the variety of scholarship in this collection creates a vibrant
offering to the field. It appears religion sits well in the fields of sociology,
anthropology and theology, but it is almost unexplored within linguis-
tic research. As such, this collection specifically explores the three
themes of gender, language and religion simultaneously, allowing for a
larger reflection on how these elements work alongside each other in
both complementary and contradictory ways.
Why the connection
The history of religious traditions often seems divorced from the more
private and lived experience of faith. The spiritual quest is often an inte-
rior, personal journey while religion seems preoccupied with liturgy and
doctrine. However, religions have a life outside theology and, as such,
can be a lens through which to understand something of society and
how it is we live, and live together, in certain ways.
Introduction 3
Religious people themselves have a varied reputation. For some,

religion is perhaps an admirable organizer of life and how to live it. For
others, it is seen and dismissed as something imaginative or unneces-
sary. Regardless of one’s own religious views or one’s personal sense of
faith, religion has been a force in the world – offering solace and peace
of mind to a few, charging some with grand or charitable acts, and influ-
encing others to violence or cruelty. Religious groups may fight between
and among themselves over versions of truth and tradition, and reli-
gious leaders of all faiths are sometimes consumed by worldly ambition
or human frailty. However, each religion articulates the universal quest
to find something sacred amidst the secular. In the West, there has been
an attempt to separate religion from politics – liberating religion from
the corruption of politics or liberating politics from the corruption of
religion. However, religious people around the world sometimes believe
they have a duty to bring their ideals to bear on society or they are
goaded to interact with society in an attempt to save it in some way
because of the power religion has had in their own lives. As a result, reli-
gion becomes personal and a way to self-definition. And because we live
together in groups, we are influenced by the religious views of those
around us, in the midst of our own personal views or regardless of them.
Religious life seeks transcendence from the mundane and yet, as this
book suggests, it is the seemingly mundane day-to-day living that also
creates religion, creates religious communities, and creates religious iden-
tities. That religion is so intricately connected with culture or ethnicity is
inescapable. There are converts who challenge this fact but, more often
than not, one’s religion and one’s religious views grow out of one’s cul-
ture of origin. We are religious creatures because we are compelled to find
meaning in our lives. In doing so, we emerge with our own particular
realities and seek out meaning for them in something larger, each in our
own place and each inside our own frames of reference.
Gender, language patterns and religious thought
The four chapters in Part I introduce the reader to some foundational

issues, including the authoritative language of religion and ways the
holy texts have been understood or misunderstood concerning gender.
Münevver Tekcan’s chapter sets the stage by providing an overview of
many of the world’s religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism, as well as Ancient Greek and Roman mythologies – and
exploring the view of gender and the divine, each within each. Tekcan
also discusses the particular cultural influences within each expression,
4 Introduction
suggesting that the various interpretations of ‘God’ have been influenced

by the various interpretations of ourselves. Francis Britto’s chapter, ‘The
Gender of God: Judeo-Christian Feminist Debates’ offers an overview
and critique of how God has been understood as male in Judaism and
Christianity. His work explores the particular issues of concern within
Christianity and the implications of seeing God as male or female. Both
of these chapters explore the traditions of religion and how a language
for gender has been understood and influencial. These first two chapters
set up a starting point to our sociolinguistic look at religion language
and gender.
The next two chapters reflect on the ways language is used alongside
religion – more specifically, how language patterns reveal religious
influences. Samira Farwaneh’s work looks at the asymmetries of sexist lan-
guage in Arabic and how modern media have influenced such patterns
within Islam. Timothy Jay’s work looks at how cursing, specifically ‘Oh
my God’, is now part of women’s speech patterns in the United States,
more so than it is among men. Both Farwaneh and Jay give some reflec-
tion on how language use is connected with religious views and how
language serves as part of an assertion of power and identity within them.
Gender and language use in religious communities
The chapters of Part II all examine gender and language inside religious
groups or communities. Each brings sociolinguistic research to bear on
the larger discussion of gender, language and religion. The chapters each
explore various ways devout behaviour is gendered and how language
provides some evidence that it is so. The first of the chapters is Chao-
Chih Liao’s work on women and men in Taiwan and how it is that
Christianity and Buddhism attract followers because of the languages
used – English as a way to both education and conversion. Hannes
Kniffka explores how women in Saudi Arabia interact through Letters to
the (male) Editor to articulate their religious experiences, and how the
male editor constructs them as women in print. Sage Graham’s work on
women in an Episcopal church in the United States explores how their
on-line discussions reveal and restrict their roles in church life. My own
research inside an evangelical college in Canada explores how morality
is gendered so that both men and women are rehearsed and rewarded
into specific ways of being understood as moral: men as public speakers
and women as polite audience members. Annabelle Mooney’s work
explores life inside ‘The Children of God’ cult-like community and how
group membership is negotiated and explained from the inside.
Introduction 5
All the chapters in Part II seem to agree that, regardless of the

interpretations of theology or sacred texts explored earlier in Part I,
many religious groups are in tension and in negotiation regarding gen-
der and gender roles. There appears to be a metanarrative at work which
serves to essentialize gender so that women are designated as devout and
loyal, as seen in Liao’s work in Taiwan and Graham’s work in the
American on-line parish; as quiet, as discussed in my own work inside a
Canadian theology college; and as frustrated within religious groups, as
expressed to some extent in Kniffka’s exploration of Saudi women’s
letters to the editor and Mooney’s work on the American group, ‘The
Children of God’.
Gender and language use in religious identity
Part III is a collection of chapters, each exploring the role of religion in

creating and influencing individual identity. Amy Peeble’s innovative
work on an ex-gay ‘therapy’ group in Texas sheds light on how gender
roles and sexuality roles are understood and then prescribed to commu-
nity members. Fazila Bhimji looks at young Muslim women in Britain
and how they negotiate themselves between and within multiple identi-
ties; Shartriya Collier looks at Senegalese Muslim women working in the
United States; Debra Cohen and Nancy Berkowitz explore young Jewish
teenagers, both male and female, learning Hebrew; and, finally, Kalyani
Shabadi completes the collection with her look at Hindu women in India
and how it is that they identify themselves as both Hindu and female.
This book
Religions share the ideas of icons, symbols, sacrifice, behaviour, attitudes

and quest as part of a meaningful life. However, how we each explore
and how we each relate to religion is infinitely individual, shifting from
various places and times, and most times significantly embedded in
culture and in communities.
In part then, this volume is an attempt to turn some attention within
linguistics to the impact of religion as well as to perhaps turn some
attention within religious studies to the impact of language use. In
either case, gender is seen as a significant variable influencing both and,
in turn, as being influenced by both. In all this, a new way of viewing
linguistics is the point. Religious life and the assumptions around it and
in relation to it are constructed in various ways and therefore need
continual and ever-new ways of understanding. There is more or less
6 Introduction
general agreement among the contributors of this volume that gender,

language and religion cannot be discussed separately. Because of the
enormous influences of all three on all three, they can and must be
discussed and explored together.
We live in a world where religion plays an enormous role in influencing
a wide range of spheres, including community life. The various religions
used for discussion here allow for an exploration of the various ways
religion is interpreted and experienced through gender and through lan-
guage use. The fact remains that social science must take into account
the effects of language and the effects on language. In particular, one can-
not understand sociolinguistics without some reflection on variables
which affect language. Gender and religion are two; there are clearly
other variables. Nevertheless, this collection provides some reflection on
the effect these two enigmatic variables have on language use and the
complex relationship gender and language have with religion.
Part I
Gender, Language Patterns and
Religious Thought
1
An Overview of God and
Gender in Religion
Münevver Tekcan
There are many different languages and ways to communicate and,

similarly, there are many different religious concepts that have changed
throughout history. On this we are agreed. However, there are
significant concepts within the world religions where there is much
uniqueness. One significant concept is that concerning the gender of
God. Not all religions have a godhead; some have none while
others have many. This chapter explores how various religions view the
gender of the divine and how their languages evoke a common
meaning.
For monotheistic religions, the deity is usually referred to in the
masculine though often argued to represent both genders or to have no
gender at all. Polytheistic religions have deities of both sexes and there-
fore easily represent both male and female. Meditative beliefs, such as
Buddhism, concentrate on the individual’s own physical and mental
actions. Each religion also has its own language of teaching. Inviolable
religious texts are paramount to religions such as Islam; in ancient
Greek, Roman and Egyptian texts, gods and the divine take the form of
characters in literature and in stories. Visual representations of gender
range greatly, from erotic tantric Hindu sculptures to consistent Islamic
calligraphy. As such, representations of gender and gender connotations
concerning God/gods are complex and often so deeply experienced as to
be subliminal or even subconscious.
Metaphor and irony are also available within religious literature to
communicate religious thought. Visual language offers a wide range of
alternative methods of representation and interpretation. All of these
are subject to cultural influences. Within this complex and dynamic
9
10 Gender, Language Patterns and Religious Thought
domain, there are five possible concepts of gender for a godhead:
1. ‘God’ has no gender

2. ‘God’ transcends gender
3. ‘God’ is both masculine and feminine
4. ‘God’ is masculine
5. ‘God’ is feminine
To Buddhists, the gender or even the existence of God is not as important

as an individual’s actions trying to reach Nirvana, an enlightened state
where one is freed from greed, hatred and ignorance. To Muslims, God
is transcendent, tanzih, over gender; Allah is beyond anything we know
or can know (Murad, 1999). There is a common notion that God is
unknowable and is beyond reach. Islam speaks of Allah in terms of deity
without gender – above our comprehension and experience (‘Concept
of God in Islam’, on-line). In the Koran, God is referred to as Huwa.
Arabic has no neuter form so no gender is necessarily implied when
Allah is referred to as He, any more than femininity may be implied by
the grammatically female gender of other neuter plurals.
The word for ‘spirit’ is feminine in Hebrew, neuter in Greek and
masculine in Latin. Language genders God in all three ways. According
to Christianity, humanity was created in God’s image, hence implying
that God is either male or female, though it has been argued that the
female aspects of the Judeo-Christian God have been overlooked. In order
to femininize God, ‘God is … envisioned in roles taken from … female
experience such as midwife, nurse, seamstress, mistress of a household,
and owner of money who searches for a lost coin that is very important
to her, rejoicing with neighbours when it is found’ ( Johnson, 1984,
p. 10). Yet as God is given female attributes, God may be lessened –
endorsing woman’s often lower status in society. What the linguistic
symbols signify is governed by the conventions used to receive the
message. Each religion has its own conventions, as does each culture
and each part of society within various cultures.
Islam offers a similar image which describes how, during the Muslim
conquest of Mecca, a woman was running about in the hot sun, searching
for her child. She found him, and clutched him to her breast, saying,
‘My son, my son!’ The Prophet’s Companions saw this and wept. The
Prophet was delighted to see their rahma, (their emotion) and said, ‘Do
you wonder at this woman’s rahma for her child? By Him in Whose
hand is my soul, on the Day of Judgement, God shall show more rahma
towards His believing servant than this woman has shown to her son’
An Overview of God and Gender in Religion 11
(in Murad, 1999, on-line). This image is seen to give Allah a female
characteristic – emotion. Traditional male and female attributes are so
entrenched in human culture and in language that it is easy to associate
rahma with the word rahim, which means womb.
The male Hindu gods have female consorts. The Hindu and Buddhist
tantric rituals are usually set as a dialogue between Lord Shiva and his
consort Parvati. He explains to her the philosophy and myths underlying
the tantric ritual. Tantric ritual involves reversals of the more common
Hindu social practices; it reverses physiological processes, such as the
drawing up of the semen out of the woman and into the body of the
man rather than from the man into the woman. The female consort is
seen as the principal force controlling the strength of the male. Within
this Tantric tradition, there is a strong binary where the male is in the
role of ‘strength’ and the female plays that of ‘control’. Together, there
is complete creation. In Hinduism, ‘god’ is not whole without both
maleness and femaleness together.
In Christianity, ‘God the Father’ has been a dominant concept, while
in Hinduism the many gods are male with female consorts. The mascu-
line has associations of strength, power and dominance. A male god
remains a male god even when displaying traits such as sensitivity, love
and nurture. The Western concept of ‘new man’ contains masculine and
feminine associations and yet remains ‘man’. When trying to define
‘new god’, ‘the introduction of presumably feminine features, the ando-
centric pattern holds. Since God is still envisioned in the image of the
ruling man only now possessing milder characteristics, the feminine is
incorporated in a subordinate way into an overall symbol that remains
masculine … the feminine is there for the enhancement of the
male … adding “feminine” traits to the male-imaged God furthers the
subordination of women by making the patriarchal symbol less threat-
ening, more attractive’ ( Johnson, 1997).
Egypt, Greece and Rome all had female gods that were equal to the
males and held prominent positions. Isis was the Egyptian goddess of
motherhood and fertility. A cult grew up around her and spread out
from Alexandria in the fourteenth century BC to the Hellenistic world.
This cult appeared in Greece in combination with the cults of Horus, her
son, and Serapis (the Greek name for Osiris). The tripartite cult of Isis,
Horus and Serapis was later introduced (around 80 BC) into Rome in the
consulship of Lucius Cornelius Sulla and became one of the most popular
branches of Roman religion.
Hinduism has many goddesses which are worshipped in their own
right or alongside their male counterparts. The female goddesses are
connected with letters and language. Within the Tantric tradition,

where the female is the controlling force, religious texts use ‘a type of
language which can be taken on many levels … everything has a gross,
a subtle and a supreme meaning … which can be taken at face value but
do not always have this meaning’ (Shiva Shakti Mandalam, on-line).
Derrida (1976) believed that, after deconstruction, the real meaning of a
text was in the realization of all the possible readings. Hindu texts seem
to operate in a similar way; where the supreme meaning is dependent
on its sub-meanings – something arrived at through the realization of all
possible readings.
Different cultures influence gender experiences in different ways.
Different religions have different relationships to gender. Within each
religion, both genders have a myriad of issues relating to the God figure.
Each culture and religion has its own language. Religious thought,
teachings and concepts of the deity are communicated verbally, visually
and through the various sacred texts. Religious groups have frequently
disagreed with each other, and the treatment of gender and the deity is
no exception. Several world religions will now be discussed in turn.
Christianity
Christianity has been using patriarchal language for centuries. On the

surface, language, pictorial representations and iconography have been
male dominated. Arguments have been put forward suggesting that ‘the
fatherhood of God is and must remain the predominant Christian
symbol; it is not a closed or exclusive symbol but is open to its own
correction, enrichment, and completion from other symbols such as
mother’ (Hooft, 1982, p. 133). Elizabeth Johnson (1997) sees this as
improving the father symbol, but there is no female equivalent. She
says ‘the feminine is there for the enhancement of the male, but not
vice-versa: there is no mutual gain’ (p. 10). It is only recently that the
Church has allowed women into the senior ranks but language has
changed very little. ‘The new priestesses have to deconstruct the old
hierarchy and system of communication if they want a more holistic
gendered God, though to some “deconstruction within theology writes
the epitaph for the dead God” ’ (Raschke, 1982, p. 27).
Parables or stories have played an important part of communicating
the Christian message. Many religious leaders have used narrative to
communicate complicated, philosophical truths. The message and
meaning can be very different. The narrative style of a parable does not
always carry a clear message. Isaiah 6: 9–12 says, ‘Hear ye indeed, but
understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of
this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they
see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their
heart, and convert, and be healed.’ The metaphors presented here make
the text a complicated one.
Metaphors have a common meaning in the context of shared social
experience, and it is questionable if male and female experiences are all
that similar. Metaphors borrowed from sexuality and gender are used to
describe the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit: the
metaphors involve procreation by and from God. Procreation arises
from the ancient theory of procreation, according to which man begets
life from his ‘seed’, while the woman is viewed as the ‘receptacle’, pro-
viding the shapeless ‘material’ for the new life (Raming, 1999, on-line).
In the ancient world, the male was dominant; therefore, Christian
story-telling has come from a dominantly male voice using male eyes in
a man’s world.
Early Christian art tried to communicate religious teaching to a largely
illiterate population. These pictures tended to be simple and naive. They
used a simple visual language illustrating events from the Bible. During
the Byzantine Empire icons encrusted with gold and lapis lazuli por-
trayed the divine nature of religious figures. In the fourteenth century
artists such as Giotto painted with yet greater depth of feeling.
Up to the Renaissance, artists only had a limited visual vocabulary.
However, as art became more sophisticated, images used many tech-
niques to display that the artist (and the patron) were in control
(Gombrich, 1971). Caravaggio used theoretical chiaroscuro that went
beyond reality. What Caravaggio was accused of, however, was having
promoted Beauty and Truth while academic tradition sacrificed Truth for
Beauty (Gombrich, 1971). Gendered semiotics began to play a greater
role in Christian art, and works such as Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
demonstrate how, during the High Renaissance, the female image could
be manipulated in a religious context. Production of religious imagery of
the divine was the domain of the wealthy elite who alone could dictate
content and style (McFague, 1987). Knowledge, learning and power had
replaced gold and other precious materials as symbols of status. This
power was in the hands of those born male.
A common form of Christian prayer begins ‘Our Father, who art in
heaven’. As a form of communal worship it emphasizes the male at the
head of the family. Some see Mary, The Virgin Mother of Christ, as a
restoration of the element of femininity to the godhead (Cope, 1959).
‘Virgin’ and ‘mother’ could be seen as a difference, where the meaning
of God shifts on a feminine binary – a move towards a female godhead.

However, The Virgin Mary is removed from one of the most basic female
experiences by having a virginal conception. It has been argued that
Christian texts not only reflect society at the time of Christ, but perpet-
uate male centred experience, ignoring and even dismissing the female
experience (Børresen, 1995).
Even the first Judeo-Christian story of Adam and Eve is imbued with
masculine centrality. Eve tempts Adam, and Adam blames Eve for the
Fall of Man. It can be argued that any text and the language it uses
embody the characteristics of the society it was produced in. Yet many
religions tend to empower archaic texts with a special significance that
in some way is related to the deity and is eternal.
Islam
The God in Islam, Allah, is said to be above gender. The deity is not
male, female or even neuter. The deity is not androgynous or even with-
out sex. Another way to describe gender and Allah is in terms of the Zen
Buddhist one-handed clap. Arabic has no word for neuter or the sound
of a one-handed clap. There is no dualism because ‘He is God the One
God, the Everlasting Refuge, who has not begotten, nor has been
begotten, and equal to Him is not anyone’ (Sura, 112 in Murad, 1999,
on-line). Islamic teaching is based on the Koran which seems to be, and
is viewed by Muslims as, the direct word of God. The Koran is the recita-
tion of the word of Allah, a deity without identification of gender
(Murad, 1999).
Oral transmission of religious thought is important to many religions
but particularly Islam. This phonocentrism could be used to argue that the
Koran is the closest one can get to the mind of The Divine. Structuralism
suggests that the meaning of words is dependent on their difference to
other words. ‘Black’ has meaning in its relationship with ‘white’, and
‘male’ in its relationship with ‘female’. Allah and the Christian godhead
stress their originality by emphasizing that The Divine is the creator, not
the created. As such, there is nothing to complement The Divine in a
binary. The Christian ‘God the Father’ is without a consort, and Allah
stands isolated. However, Murad (1999) highlights, ‘Izutsu and Murata,
who have both noted the parallels between Sufism’s dynamic cosmology
and the Taoist world view: each sees existence as a dynamic interplay of
opposites, which ultimately resolve to the One’ (on-line).
It could be argued that there is pluralism in Allah, as seen in the
99 names given to Allah. Sufi metaphysicians have gendered names for
Table 1.1 Gendered names for different aspects of Allah in Islam
씹 Names of Majesty ( jalal) 씸 Names of Beauty ( jamal)
The Powerful (al-Qawi) The All-Compassionate (al-Rahman)

The Overwhelming (al-Jabbar) The Mild (al-Halim)
The Judge (al-Hakam) The Loving-kind (al-Wadud)
The Absolute Ruler (al-Malik) The Source of Peace (as-Salam)
The Victorious (al-’Aziz) The Shaper of Beauty (al-Musawwir)
The Greatest (al-Mutakabbir) The Humiliator (al-Mudhill)
The Creator of The Harmful (ad-Darr) The Preventer of Harm (al-Mani’)
The Taker of Life (al-Mumit) The Giver of Life (al-Muhyi)
different aspects of God which were split into two groups (Table 1.1).
Considering the names of Allah, the gendering falls in line with con-
ventional, stereotyped notions of male and female. Power and control
are seen as masculine and compassion and love are seen as feminine. In
this sense, Allah has both male and female characteristics.
Islamic art does not allow the representation of living creatures;
instead, it has concentrated on geometric designs and calligraphy. Such
forms of art do not depict the human form and so aspects of gender are
non-existent in Islamic art. Calligraphy places stress on the written word
and on literacy. Beautifully written Arabic scripts of the Koran can be
considered as a form of art. Religious buildings are frequently decorated
with calligraphy, thus the worshipper is surrounded and totally
absorbed in a formal religious context. But even among those who do
not read the calligraphic inscriptions on various materials, the writing
serves as a type of picture, and the illiterate population (or those who
don’t know Arabic) can appreciate its artistic beauty, even without
knowing what is said.
Hinduism
Hinduism has one Supreme God who has aspects represented by 33 devas
also referred to as gods. Hindu gods are divided into two different groups;
Brahmanic and Vedic. Each of the 33 devas is an aspect of a supreme god.
Each aspect has a specific power and function in supporting the world.
Hindu gods take different forms and are considered personal to the
believer, emphasizing one’s moods, feelings, emotions and social back-
ground. The concept of god is both formless and has many forms.
According to various Tantric texts, there are 33 million aspects of Devi or
Hindu gods. The most important are listed in Table 1.2.
Table 1.2 Aspects of Hindu gods

Brahmanic Gods (trinity)
씹 Brahma creator 씹 Vishnu preserver 씹 Shiva giver
Brahmanic gods
씸 Saraswati speech, 씸 Lakshmi prosperity, 씸 Durga beyond

(consort to wisdom, (consort to purity, (consort reach,
Brahma) learning Vishnu) generosity to Shiva) destruction
씹 Hanuman courage, 씹 Krishna destroyer 씹 Ganesh[a] knowledge
(monkey god) hope, of evil (son of Shiva
intellect Durga)
Vedic gods
씹 Dyaush bright sky 씹 Varuna water 씹 Indra thunder bolts

씹 Surya sun, light 씹 Satitar sun 씹 Soma speech
씹 Agni fire 씹 Vayu air and 씸 Ushas wisdom, dawn
wind
씸 Prithvi earth 씹 Parjanya rain 씹 Varuna sky, water
씹 Yama death
Source: ‘The Goddess in the Tantrik Tradition’, on-line.
Hindu gods do not have wives but do have consorts. The consorts are
not separate from them, but they are considered different forms of
being. ‘They exist in perfectly evolved soul bodies, bodies which are not
properly differentiated by sex. … They are neither male nor female. To
better understand these Divine Gods, we sometimes conceive them as
being the man if they are strong in expression or the woman if they are
gentle and compassionate’ (‘Do God and gods have gender’, article
taken from Hinduism Today, on-line). This repeats the human propensity
to anthropomorphize. God may be above sex and above gender but
in the process of humanizing, gender stereotypes are introduced to
make the divine accessible. However, in Hinduism, aspects of gender are
not rigid and a single god can have male or female halves.
One early tale in Hindusim goes like this: A sage, one of the ardent
devotees of Lord Shiva, used to worship only Lord Shiva and not his
consort, Shakti (Parvati or Durga). The goddess Shakti, being the god-
dess of destruction, pulled out the energy from the sage’s body. He was
unable to stand. He pleaded to Lord Shiva who provided him with a
stick. On its support, he stood and still worshipped Lord Shiva alone.
Shakti observed ritual austerity, pleasing Lord Shiva who granted her the
privilege of being part of his form. So the Lord Shiva now appears male
on the right side and female on the left side (ardhanArIshvarar, on-line).
This story operates on two levels. At the human level, humanity is

powerless compared to the gods. A god takes away power or gives it. In
spite of all hardships, human beings must not stop their devotion, even
though rewards may not be seen in this life. Shakti takes away the sage’s
power, yet she becomes part of Lord Shiva who seems to need and desire
Shakti for himself to become complete. Together, they are seen as one
individual. The gods act both as signifiers and as a metaphor for
completeness. Male gods have powerful female consorts ‘but the sym-
bolic ascendancy of the feminine often goes with social denigration and
low status of women in everyday life’ (King, 1995, p. 16). This is not the
case in Lord Shiva and Shakti.
The main religious texts for Hinduism are the Vedas – the oldest
consists of 1028 hymns to a pantheon of gods. It has been memorized
syllable by syllable and preserved orally. The two main gods, Shiva and
Vishnu, are both male, with clear male attributes, but there are also a
number of important female consorts. The Vedas are regarded as
revealed canon (shruti), and no syllable can be changed. According to
some language theorists, oral language can be closer to the original
thought than the written word may be able to express. For Hindus, there
is no possibility of changing the words or making modern translations.
Shiva personifies both the destructive and the creative forces of the
universe. As the destroyer, he is represented wearing a necklace of skulls
and surrounded by demons. His reproductive aspect is symbolized by
the lingam, a phallic emblem. Shiva is the god of asceticism and of art,
especially dancing. Vishnu is the god whose navel is a lotus which gives
birth to the creator (Brahma). Brahma is the preserver of the universe
and is worshipped in the form of a number of incarnations. Several
of these are animals: the fish, the tortoise and the boar. Others are
the dwarf, Vamana; a man-lion; the Buddha; Rama-with-an-Axe,
Parashurama, who beheaded his unchaste mother; and Kalki, the rider
on the white horse who will come to destroy the universe.
The goddess Devi and her various aspects are the main female deities.
Devi is the prime mover who commands the male gods to do the
work of creation and destruction. Appearing as Durga, she is the
Unapproachable and kills the buffalo demon, Mahisha, in a great battle.
Appearing as Kalishe, she is black and dances in a mad frenzy on the
corpses of those she has slain and eaten, adorned with the still-dripping
skulls and severed hands of her victims. Both male and female aspects
represent the forces of nature in Hinduism and, in this respect, there is a
close tie with the planet. The images operate more on the subconscious
level than as clear metaphor.
The final parts of the Vedas are called Upanishads, which are
speculative and mystical scriptures. ‘The life of a mythology derives
from the vitality of its symbols as metaphors delivering not simply the
idea, but a sense of actual participation in such a realisation of transcen-
dence, infinity and abundance, as this of which the Upanishads authors
tell. Indeed, the first and most important service of a mythology is this
one, of opening the mind and heart to the utter wonder of all being’
(Campbell, 1990, p. 7). Male and female are not stereotyped; they are
power structures in their own right.
Two of the most popular books within the Vedas are the Ramayana
and the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata has been adapted for a play in
the West End of London and one of the religious texts has been turned
into a ‘soap opera’ on Indian TV, where it was so popular that extra
story-lines had to be made up. Such modern popularity in the West
demonstrates that some Hindu texts can be and are adapted to different
contexts and, at the same time, remain fixed in ancient beliefs. Religious
language operating in a pluralistic domain offers many interpretations
for gender, even within a tradition of constancy.
Buddhism
Early Buddhism developed as a movement within Hinduism. The

Buddha rejected the Hindu claim that a person’s worth was set at birth
and, in response, accepted all castes into his teachings. According to the
Buddha there are Four Noble Truths to life:
1. Life is suffering, in its very nature, human existence is essentially

painful from the moment of birth to the moment of death leading to
further rebirth.
2. All suffering is caused by ignorance of the nature of reality and the
craving and attachment that result from such ignorance.
3. Suffering can be ended by overcoming ignorance and attachment.
4. The path to the suppression of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path:
● right views ● right intention
● right speech ● right action
● right livelihood ● right effort
● right-mindedness ● right contemplation.
Human actions lead to rebirth; good deeds are inevitably rewarded and
evil deeds punished. Thus, neither undeserved pleasure nor unwarranted
suffering exists in the world, but rather there is a universal justice.
What is important regarding gender, God and the language of religion

is that for Buddhists the godhead is not all that important, and so the
deity’s gender is also unimportant. There are no symbols of mythical or
real gods. The main canon, the Tripitaka, concentrates on discussions and
rules on how best to reach a Nirvana, a state of consciousness beyond def-
inition. As such, the gender of the divine is irrelevant entirely.
Buddhism is different to most other religions because the godhead
only plays a minor role; Buddhism places emphasis on transcending the
cycle of birth, death and rebirth, called samsara, and, as such, gender
differences and inequalities are something to be overcome. Yet this
denies one of the most basic of human experiences. Wilson (1996)
argues ‘that Buddhists have gendered samsara as female, and entrap-
ment in it as a male dilemma. Because women have wombs, they
embody rebirth, or that which Buddhism aims to transcend’ (p. 71).
Wilson seems to see a femme fatale in the woman’s position within
Buddhism and highlights how entrenched gender is in human culture.
Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt
Ancient Greece and Rome have mythologies that still hold an important
place in contemporary culture. The stories have a plethora of gods with
heightened human values. The gods grapple with ethical and moral
questions. Claude Levi-Strauss, the structural anthropologist, saw the
gods and mortals in mythology acting as symbols ‘to make sense of the
world and to resolve cultural dilemmas’ (What are Myths?, on-line). As in
present-day ‘magical realism’, the incredible becomes more credible
because it is so incredible. Once the incredible is accepted as that,
the normal expectations can be broken. It is then possible to believe the
extraordinary (Flores, on-line).
Drama was a recognized art form to the ancient Greeks and Romans –
a prime way to explain the governing myths. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey
are centred on the Trojan War; Euripides wrote a play centred on Helen.
Helen was the most beautiful and intelligent woman alive and daughter
of Zeus and Leda. The three goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite
asked the Trojan prince, Paris, to choose the most beautiful among
them. Paris awarded the golden apple to Aphrodite, who had promised
him Helen. Aphrodite persuaded Helen to leave her husband Menelaus,
King of Sparta, and elope with Paris to Troy. Nine years of war followed.
Helen was called to watch the final battle between Paris and Menelaus.
Aphrodite helped Paris escape and, enveloping Menelaus in a cloud, she
took him safely back to Helen.
In contrast to conventional religions, the Greek gods tend to serve as

warnings that absolute power corrupts absolutely (Burkent, 1985).
Human war is started by immoral gods. Helen, the most beautiful and
intelligent woman alive, is corrupted by the goddess of love. Helen’s
beauty is traded for a golden apple; even nature is corrupted by money.
The main protagonists in this story are female; the main victims are
male – men who have to fight and die in the war. The final battle is
prevented by the human values of Helen. Moral order collapses for the
Greek gods as democracy emerges in Athens.
History, mythology and literature overlap in Greek and Roman
mythology. Gods are used to make sense of the futile irony of war and
dogmatic beliefs and to draw focus on society’s attitude. Readings
can take place on many levels. Euripides used everyday language, an
antithesis of religious language which challenged dogma. In
Helen, women take the dominant role. Euripides was writing at a time
when beliefs such as that of the sun being a divinity began to make way
for knowledge of the sun as made of matter. Myths, like religions in
general, help explain the world.
Table 1.3 lists the characteristics and symbols associated with the 12
principal Gods in ancient Greece. Carl Jung’s (in Campbell, 1990)
notion of archetypes or primordial images can be seen in this list.
Table 1.3 Characteristics of ancient Greek gods
Twelve Principal Gods (Olympians)
씹 Zeus ( Jupiter) sky, rain, cloud 씸 Hera ( Juno) marriage, childbirth,

gatherer, eagle, oak protector of women
씹 Hephaisetos fire, metalwork, 씸 Athena (Minerva) Greek cities, industry,

(Vulcanus) craftsmen arts and crafts, war and
peace, wisdom,
agriculture, owl
씹 Apollon light, prophecy, 씸 Artemis (Diana) chastity, marriage,

medicine, music, childbirth, nature,
poetry, pastoral arts, harvest, wildlife, moon,
archer, athlete, youth
agriculture
씹 Ares (Mars) brutal nature of war 씸 Aphrodite (Venus) love, beauty, fertility
씹 Mercurius commerce, trade, 씸 Histia (Vesta) health, personal and

athletes, good luck, communal security,
wealth happiness
씹 Poseidon sea, powerful, 씸 Demeter (Ceres) corn, harvest, fertility

(Neptune) vengeful
Female gods represent childbirth, even though there is no particular

reason for the female deities to represent marriage and fertility. The
gender divisions between the gods tended to reflect societies’ norms and
the status quo power structure. The gods’ immoral behaviour did not
seem to impede their authority. ‘Immortal, everlasting gods guarantee
continuity, ritual means determination. Even the festival of dissolution
and upheaval leads to the confirmation of the existing order …’
(Burkent, 1985, p. 21). Hera was able to avenge Zeus’s numerous
mistresses and offspring, and Athena is represented as armoured and
wearing her breastplate, the aegis. Other female deities were also able to
reap revenge on their unfaithful husbands. Male deities clearly held the
power, but both genders held symbols of knowledge and art. Together
with the narrative of mythology, human complexities are enacted out.
Linguists consider language as made up of signs that have meaning. In
Egypt’s Middle Kingdom (2134–1668 BCE) animals such as crocodiles,
lions, sphinxes and bulls had connections with royalty which could be
utilized in place of the literal word (Brass, 2004). In Egyptian mythology,
each god is represented by the head of a bird or an animal.
The god Isis was the goddess of motherhood and fertility and the
daughter of Keb (earth) and Nut (sky). She is frequently represented wear-
ing the horns of a cow. Her powerful charms resurrected her brother-
husband Osiris, who became the ruler of the underworld. Associations
with fertility are almost universal and can be traced back to palaeolithic
times where statues were made of pregnant-looking women.
The table of Egyptian mythology below (Table 1.4) shows that the
female deities are strongly linked with fertility, nature and love. Several
are represented by the head of a cow. Masculine deities are represented
by the head of hunting birds. During the New Kingdom (1570–1070
BCE), ‘the intellectual climate … stressed a changing relationship
between mankind and the gods. There is a unity of the cosmos where
sub-ordination is transferred from individual-society to humankind-god
and the protector is not a man but an omniscient deity who distributes
favours and disgrace in reciprocity for the actions of individuals’ (Brass,
2004, on-line). Religious texts, such as the Book of the Heavenly Cow,
eventually gained more influence. This is regarded as the world changing
from a primordial state where humans were detached from the gods to a
state of imperfection but connection. Ancient mythology, though not a
religion in the traditional sense, shows strong gender roles and assump-
tions. These roles and gender stereotyping have existed for many thou-
sands of years, so it is not surprising that they still exist today in most
modern religions. Language and symbols have changed, but an underlying
Table 1.4 Egyptian deities
Name Gender Attributes Head Hieroglyph
Ra (Re) 씹 sun hawk
Osiris 씹 male productive man wrapped in a

force in nature, king of mummy’s bindings
the land of the dead
Isis 씸 fertility, motherhood solar disk, cow
horns
Horus 씹 the day, sky, light, falcon
goodness
Anubis 씹 embalming jackal
Hathor 씸 sky, heaven, crow

love and gaiety,
fertility, marriage
Shu 씹 atmosphere human
Seb (Geb) 씹 earth goose
Tefnut 씸 atmosphere, moisture lioness
Nut 씸 sky naked woman
Ammon 씹 reproductive forces ram
Mut 씸 mother, sky vulture
Thoth 씹 wisdom, writing, ibis

(Djeheuty) mediation
Ptah 씹 creator, craftsmen human
Set 씹 darkness, evil falcon
‘nature’ remains constant. Gender is not a simple masculine and feminine

issue; it has human complexities which are played out through time and
place. The language of ancient cultures may be long forgotten but their
symbols still have the power to communicate a sense of the world that
continues to resonate as well as fascinate.
This chapter has examined the concept or nature of a god-figure. In

spite of many differences between religions, there is a commonality of
belief concerning gender and a desire to touch the divine, however it is
constructed. Male and female have to communicate about their particular
god-figure. They do so linguistically and symbolically in a context where
language is influenced largely by culture. While deities and religions
differ, humans are universally male and female and the experience of
masculinity and femininity is common to all.
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2
The Gender of God:
Judeo-Christian
Feminist Debates
Francis Britto
The cover of Sex and God (Hurcombe, 1987) features a provocative

painting. It is the figure of a squatting human, having a flowing, trian-
gular beard, a drooping belly, sagging breasts and four curvy hands. On
this creature’s head is another human face perched amidst matted locks
of hair, and between its legs juts out yet another human face, surrounded
by what could be taken as the main figure’s pubic hair. An explanatory
comment inside the cover reads that the figure visualizes ‘the bodily
birth (God as Mother of the entire fabric of creation) and the mental
birth (God as the Father of the creative mind which must be “spoken”
for ideas to be born)’ (p. ii). Orthodox Christians may find the picture
blasphemous and disturbing, but more and more women are being
drawn to such images of God in place of the traditional grandfatherly
image propagated by Judeo-Christian religions.1
What has caused this alienation of intellectual women from
Churches? What is the problem with the gender of God, when almost all
believers acknowledge that God is a pure Spirit beyond any gender?
What consequences does this debate have on Churches and Christians?
Such are the questions that this chapter aims to explore.
Feminist involvement in Church affairs
Without doubt, the gender of God has become a controversial issue

because of the phenomenal success of feminist2 movements. It is femi-
nists who coined or redefined an artillery of words such as sexism, andro-
centrism and patriarchy, and argued that the contemporary social structure
is sexist and patriarchal (e.g., Millet, 1970; Gornick and Moran, 1971;
25
Swindler, 1972; Emswiler and Emswiler, 1974; Lakoff, 1975; Ruth, 1980;
Kramarae, 1981; Fiorenza, 1983; Frank and Anshen, 1983; Smith, 1985;
Spender, 1985). Feminists were originally concerned with the progress of
women in the secular world, but they gradually came to get involved in
religion and confront the Churches because of various circumstances.
First, it has been customary for most authorities, who are predominantly
male, to oppose feminists using the Bible as an authority. Such use of the
Bible against women’s franchise was what motivated Elizabeth Cady
Stanton in the ninetheenth century to brand the Bible as the source of
woman’s subjugation and to create her own expurgated version (Hole
and Levine, 1980; Fiorenza, 1992a). Some feminists even go so far as to
suggest avoiding the Bible ‘like the plague’ or attaching to it the statu-
tory warning, ‘Caution! Could be dangerous to your health and survival’
(Martin, 1991, p. 403). The questionable use of the Bible has plagued
Christian Churches for several centuries and is current even today so
that some feminists feel they have to combat what they perceive as
Bible-based oppression.
Second, some feminists subscribe to what might be called a theory of
‘male conspiracy,’ which holds, with bits and pieces of historical
evidence (Starhawk, 1979, 1992; Haddon, 1988; Morton, 1992; Stone,
1992), that human society was initially matriarchal and goddess-
worshipping, and that, with the ascent of Judaism and subsequently of
Christianity and Islam, matriarchy came to be destroyed methodically
and deliberately by males. The whole of recorded history, therefore, is
seen by these feminists as a history of female oppression and male
conspiracy to keep women oppressed (discussed in Goldenberg, 1979;
Spender, 1985; Walker, 1987). Since religion has played an important
and authoritative role in recorded history, feminists hold religion
chiefly responsible for women’s inferior status. In the words of Collins,
‘Discrimination against women and denial of power to them in the
public political sphere has long been reinforced by organized religion’
(1992, p. 149).
Third, the past few decades have witnessed an explosive growth in the
number of highly educated women and women academics, especially in
Europe and the United States. Women’s achievements in the field of reli-
gion, despite the fact that they cannot occupy authoritative positions
within the Church, have been simply astounding. According to one
estimate:
[B]etween 1976 and 1986, the total enrollment of women in pro-

grams leading to ordination (usually the M. Div.) rose 110 percent,
The Gender of God: Judeo-Christian Feminist Debates 27
whereas total seminary enrollment rose only 31 percent … the

number of women who have graduated ready for ordination has at
least doubled and in some cases tripled, even within the Southern
Baptist denomination, which traditionally does not ordain women.
Overall, the number of women eligible for ordination increased 219
percent between 1976 and 1986, whereas the number of eligible men
rose by only 7.8 percent … In 1972, about 10 percent of the total
student population were women. By 1986 the number of women
studying theology had more than quadrupled.
(LaCugna, 1992, p. 241)
Christian feminism evolved from the labours of such theologically edu-

cated women. One consequence of the increase in the number of
women scholars has been the dispersion of the idea that the Bible, early
Church fathers, leading theologians, popes and the Canon Law have all
been contaminated by sexism and androcentrism (Daly, 1973, 1992;
O’Faolain and Martines, 1973; Ruether, 1974, 1983, 1985; Fiorenza,
1983; Fiorenza and Collins, 1985; Martin, 1987; Vasquez, 1989; Ranke-
Heinemann, 1990; Christ and Plaskow, 1992). The gender of God came
to the fore in this context of general feminist disillusionment with
Judeo-Christian religions. As they traced the roots of androcentrism,
feminists perceived a relationship between the androcentric practices of
the Churches and the androcentric nature of the Christian belief in God.
The maleness of the Judeo-Christian God
‘Although Christians (and sometimes Jews) argue that God is without

sex, neither female nor male, that contention is contradicted by a host
of beliefs indicating the maleness of their God’ (Ruth, 1980, p. 391).
That the Judeo-Christian God is a male is, strangely, not a point that is
vehemently denied, but enthusiastically defended by most traditionalists
(see note 2). P. Mankowski, a Jesuit priest opposed to radical feminism,
for example, says:
The acknowledgement of God as Father is an essential part of

Christian kerygma [‘official proclamation’]; it is unarguably the belief
of the Catholic Church. The priest may responsibly take prudent
measures not to give casual offense, but if he ‘adapts’ the wording to
‘Parent’ or ‘Mother/Father,’ he has forsaken that very doctrine which
he was entrusted to pass on in the liturgy.
(Quoted in Kaczor, 1992, p. 17)
G. A. Buckley, a Dominican priest, says likewise, ‘God is preeminently

both male and female … Nevertheless, when God revealed himself
throughout the history of the Old Testament, he revealed himself as
male, as Father’ (1991, p. 14).
What disturbs feminists is not that God is pre-eminently both male
and female, but that the ecclesiastical language and practices fail to do
justice to this belief. The traditionalists maintain that the use of masculine
gender for God – in songs, prayers, liturgies and discourses – makes no
assertion about the sex of God, but still its use is mandatory; whereas
feminists maintain that precisely because God has no sex, the exclusive
use of masculine gender is misleading and discriminatory, and so must
be modified, complemented or given up.
That the Judeo-Christian tradition addresses God most often as a male
can hardly be disputed. God in this tradition is usually given masculine
titles such as Father, King, Lord, Bridegroom, and almost never feminine
titles such as Mother, Goddess, Lady or Bride. Christian faith asserts that
there are three persons in godhead, namely Father, Son and the Holy
Spirit, and each of them is generally treated as a male – though the
gender of the Holy Spirit is often debated (see Santini, 2001). The male
metaphors are so pervasive that they can be found even among
Christians of diverse languages and cultures. For example, even in a lan-
guage like Japanese in which pronouns are rarely used, God is most
often referred to as a male.
There are, surely, little-known passages in the Bible containing female
metaphors for God (see Johnson 1989, 1992), but these have played
only a negligible role in Christian history. It is, therefore, rare to find
any Christian prayer, hymn, encyclical or theological treatise in which
God is hailed as ‘Mother’ or ‘Mother and Father’ (for rare examples of
recent popes referring to God as Mother, see Johnson, 1989, p. 520;
Guimarães, 1999). The only female of some supernatural stature is the
mother of Jesus, Mary, called since the Council of Ephesus in AD 431
theotokos ‘Mother of God’, but even Mary is not a goddess or a divine
person of the Holy Trinity. As Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis, said in
AD 403, ‘The body of Mary is holy but she is not God … Let no one adore
Mary’ (quoted in Johnson, 1989, p. 507). Although there have been
Christian mystics such as Julian of Norwich who looked upon God and
Jesus Christ as females (cf. O’Brien, 1964, p. 234), most Christians even
today find it difficult to do so. As Lissner points out, ‘To call God father
and mother in songs, prayers, and liturgical texts will be difficult, if not
impossible, for many believers for a long time’ (1991, p. 314).
Traditionalist defence of male metaphors
A concise article that brings together the most common arguments

for preserving exclusive male metaphors for God is Chris Kaczor’s
‘Inclusive language and revealed truth’ in Homiletic and Pastoral Review,
a conservative Catholic journal. According to Kaczor:
The strongest reason to call God Father, from the Christian point of
view, is that God himself through the Scriptures has told us how to
speak of him. In all Scripture, in both New and Old Testaments, God
is never called Mother. God is sometimes said to be like a mother, but
Scripture never says that God is a mother.
(1992, pp. 18–19)
Another argument of Kaczor is that Jesus called God only Father and so
it is unwarranted to call God Mother. He cites from a book by William
Oddie that ‘[i]n the whole of the Old Testament, God is described as
“Father” only 11 times. Jesus, in startling contrast, uses the term at least
170 times, and, except for the cry of dereliction from the cross always
uses this form of address and no other’ [emphasis in the original]. This fact,
concludes Kaczor, can only mean that ‘calling God Father was an
integral part of Christ’s revelation’ (p. 19).
E. A. Johnson (1992) points out several problems with this line of
reasoning. Why, for instance, must one take the Father metaphor so
absolutely when one ignores other serious metaphors that Christ used
and other injunctions that Christ gave? The imminent Kingdom of God,
for instance, was a major theme in Christ’s teachings, but the Church
does not present it today with equal urgency or vigour. The ‘Father’
image was not the only one that Jesus used to refer to God. His parables
offer such a variety of images as the following for God: ‘A woman
searching for her lost money, a shepherd looking for his lost sheep, a
baker woman kneading dough, a travelling businessman, the wind that
blows where it wills, [and] the birth experience that delivers persons
into new life’ (p. 80). As to whether Jesus himself used the word Father
as often as given in the gospels, there seems to be evidence that he did
not. Johnson points out that the use of Father increases gradually in the
Gospel narratives, leading scholars to believe that the more frequent use
of Father in chronologically later texts reflects the theological develop-
ments in early Church rather than the frequency with which Jesus
himself used the word.
Kaczor, however, also argues that the word Mother is etymologically

incongruent with God:
The science of etymology … confirms that a Creator God cannot

properly be called mother. Mother comes from the Latin word mater.
From the Latin mater, comes materia rendered ‘material’ in English.
All material is part of creation. Therefore, to call God Mother or Mater
is to call the Creator the creation. This name change brings a slip
from theism to pantheism, from Catholicism to New Ageism.
(1992, p. 18)
Kaczor continues to say that religions which consider God Mother are
all historically ‘pantheistic’ and ‘paganistic’; they deny an absolute
creation and an absolute Creator.
Kaczor’s reasoning is etymologically interesting, but theologically
unsatisfying. In Christian tradition, several metaphors (such as Rock) are
used to describe God, but such usage has never been condemned as iden-
tifying The Creator with the created. Neither can calling God ‘Father’,
‘King’ and ‘Master’ then be acceptable since all these terms are applied
pre-eminently to created human beings. Besides, Christians believe that
God is everywhere, including in creation, and so one can argue that asso-
ciating God with creation highlights this fact. Finally, some mystics, like
Julian of Norwich, have called God ‘Mother’, and they are revered as
great masters, not condemned as pantheists (cf. McLaughlin, 1992).
Feminist objections to male metaphors
In general, traditionalists defend the custom of treating God as a male

with arguments based on doctrines, dogmas and scriptures. They believe
strongly that the hierarchical Church is the guardian of an immutable
deposit of faith, that the male metaphors for God sanctioned by Scripture
and Tradition are part of this deposit, and that any attempt at modifying
this deposit would be sacrilegious and heretical (Steichen, 1985, 1992;
Ferreira, 1987; Kaufmann, 1992; Kelly, 1992; Ostling, 1992).
Feminists, on the other hand, challenge the male identity of God with
arguments based rather on contemporary norms of justice and equality
than on doctrines, dogmas or scriptures. ‘Feminist method is based on
a “hermeneutics of suspicion.” Hermeneutics sets forth criteria for inter-
pretation. A hermeneutics of suspicion regards all theological claims
produced by the patriarchal mind-set to have an underlying bias in
favor of men’ (LaCugna, 1992, p. 243). Even moderate Christian
feminists, therefore, would question the legitimacy of Scripture, Tradition

and the Magisterium to dictate norms that keep women subservient.
As proclaimed by Ruether, a feminist theologian, whatever ‘denies,
diminishes or distorts the full humanity of women is not redemptive.
Whatever does promote the full humanity of women reflects true
relation to the divine’ (in LaCugna, p. 243).
Many books have been written by feminists regarding their reasons
for why the male-only metaphors for God must be given up (Daly, 1973,
1992; Goldenberg, 1979; Halkes, 1981; Metz and Schillebeeckx, 1981;
Johnson, 1984, 1992; Haddon, 1988). In essence, their reasoning
parallels that of feminist linguists who argue against the generic use of
masculine forms in language (Martyna, 1980; Spender, 1985). Like
feminist linguists, feminist theologians contend that male metaphors
for God reinforce androcentrism, subordinate women to men, make
women invisible or unimportant, and silence them (Christ and Plaskow,
1992); as theologians, they also argue that male-only imagery is
idolatrous and theologically untenable. The standard feminist position
is concisely stated by Johnson:
Patriarchal God symbolism functions to legitimate and reinforce

patriarchal social structures in family, society, and Church. Language
about the father in heaven who rules over the world justifies and
even necessitates an order whereby the male religious leader rules
over his flock, the civil ruler has domination over his subjects, the
husband exercises headship over his wife.
(1992, pp. 36–7)
Some of the most commonly cited instances of sexism in the Church

and its authorities are:
1. The biblical creation story that implies only man was created in the
image of God, and that woman was responsible for humanity’s fall
from grace.
2. Pauline passages (e.g., 1 Cor 11: 2–16, 14: 34–5; 1 Tim 2: 11–14, 5: 13–15;
Col 3: 18–19; Eph 5: 21–3) which subordinate women to men.
3. St Augustine’s contention that woman by herself is not the image of
God (Ruether, 1983).
4. The disparaging views on sex and women held by early Church
fathers like Tertullian and Jerome (Ranke-Heinemann, 1990).
5. Thomas Aquinas’s thesis that women are ‘defective and misbegotten’
(Ruth, 1980, pp. 98–100).
6. The Church’s historical teaching – based on a literal interpretation of

the Bible and the doctrines of its revered Fathers – that women must
not aspire to priesthood or holy offices (Bernard, 1989).
7. The Church’s overall tendency to defend the status quo and to
‘teach’ rather than to ‘dialogue’ sincerely with its critics (McCormick,
1989, p. 72).
Not all the ‘anti-women’ quotations catalogued in feminist publications –

at times out of context – do justice to the somewhat nuanced views of
the Church on women. Few ecclesiastical leaders today would defend
sexism by quoting from ancient writings that women find offensive.
The ecclesiastical luminaries of the past were probably biased against
women, but so were the intelligentsia of the past (see Clark, 1999).
Currently, though, most liberal theologians, bishops and priests are
sympathetic to the cause of feminists (see McCormick, 1989; Treston,
1989a, 1989b; Trautman, 1997), and priests are reported to be using
maternal and androgynous symbolism (e.g., ‘God’s womb’, ‘God our
Father and Mother’) in liturgies, even without any ecclesiastical author-
ization (Finley, 1992, p. 186). Recent popes assert explicitly that the
sexes are equal, as did Pope Pius XII in 1957: ‘Man and woman are the
images of God; in their own manner they are equal in dignity and have
the same rights. It cannot be claimed in any way that woman is inferior’
(quoted in Guillemette, 1989, p. 131). The new Canon Law of 1983 too
‘rejects the antiquated notion of women’s subordination on the basis of
the creation accounts, and the idea that women are potential
temptresses’ (Bernard, 1989, p. 18).
Feminist theologians find the conciliatory gestures of the official
Church far from satisfactory, for they still see the dominance of
patriarchy, especially in the denial of priesthood and other hierarchical
positions to women. Their goal of dismantling patriarchy, starting from
the male gender of God, therefore, still remains unaltered.
Feminist alternatives
While almost all feminists are agreed that the male God propounded by
patriarchy must be sacrificed at the altar of sexual equality, they do not
agree on the alternatives. The alternatives range from giving up the entire
Judeo-Christian religiosity to making minor changes in the language used
to refer to God.
According to Goldenberg, ‘Jesus Christ cannot symbolize the liberation
of women. A culture that maintains a masculine image for the highest
divinity cannot allow its women to experience themselves as the equals
of its men’ (1979, p. 22). She hopes to replace theology with thealogy (thea
being ‘goddess’) and sees ‘an image emerging that many women can live
with’, namely, ‘the Goddess of feminist witchcraft’ (p. 89).
B. G. Walker, a self-labelled sceptical feminist, feels convinced that the
‘reason a feminist needs a skeptical view of father religion is the product
of that religion and will remain so long as God is assigned a masculine
gender’ (1987, p. 19). True feminism, according to her, ‘implies and
embraces a return to the idea of the supreme Goddess, once nurturant
Mother of everything including all gods, who owed her their allegiance
and respect as the author of their being’ (p. 19). Others who favor the
worship of goddesses or of a supreme Goddess include Goldenberg
(1979), Starhawk (1979), Fiorenza (1992b), and Christ (1992, 1997).
R. Gross favours an androgynous God: ‘I propose to move beyond God
the Father … to an imagery of bisexual androgynous deity by reintro-
ducing the image of God as female to complement the image of God as
male. I wish to argue for this option because I am convinced that …
theism … requires anthropomorphism’ (1992, p. 168). Haddon favours
worshipping God as ‘God-Feminine’ and ‘God-Masculine’ rather than as
‘Goddess’ and ‘God’ since the latter terms ‘call to mind the image of two
deities, rather than complementary facets of the One’ (1988, p. xiv). She
encourages the incorporation of Eastern non-Christian symbols and
traditions, and is profuse in offering unorthodox images, metaphors
and symbols for prayer and meditation.
Sister Elizabeth Johnson (1992), the author of She Who Is, is compara-
tively orthodox and argues in unwavering terms for the creation, devel-
opment and propagation of female metaphors for God. She sees no
objection to the use of male metaphors, but believes that it is imperative
to use female metaphors – underdeveloped and secondary though they
may be – in order to undo the damage patriarchy has done and to arrive
at more theologically sound metaphors. Most moderate feminists and
liberal theologians would favour the balanced views of Johnson. For
example, among the ten theses put forward by Catholic women in
German-speaking countries (Austria, Switzerland and Germany) in 1989
is the following: ‘Language is an expression of consciousness and reality.
The church’s language oppresses women (brotherliness, sons of god …).
Thus a language is desired that names and makes them visible (sisterli-
ness, sons and daughters …)’ (Lissner, 1991, p. 340).
Inclusive language
Although some feminists include in their agenda the total destruction or

transformation of Judeo-Christian religions, not many churches seem
pressed as yet to decorate places of worship with icons of a female-

Christ, statues of provocative goddesses and monstrous divinities, or
artifacts of witchcraft. Perhaps the feminist innovation that affects most
believers at present is inclusive language, although even this, according
to a survey, is thought to be peripheral or unnecessary by the majority
of Catholics (see Hughes, 2002). Inclusive language, which even the
secular press made light of as recently as the 1970s (see, e.g., Kanfer,
1972), has now become the norm in society and, naturally, is very familiar
to most of the population, including Christian believers. Reformist and
sensitive ecclesiastical authorities, biblical scholars, liturgical coordinators
and university chaplains have already come up with biblical translations,
prayers, hymns and liturgical books that are in inclusive language
(Smith, 1994; Newman, 1995; Gold, 1995; Guidelines, 2001; Wisnesky,
2001). The International Commission on English in the Liturgy
(ICEL), consisting mostly of academic scholars but supervised by
Catholic Bishops, has revised several liturgical texts in inclusive lan-
guage (Filteau, 1992).
There are, however, serious theological problems in adopting
inclusive language, especially the so-called vertical inclusive language –
concerned with gender references to God (see Trautman, 1997; Urda and
Sabalaskey, 1999). It is not a simple matter of changing phrases like ‘God
the Father’ to ‘God the Father-Mother’ since each change may affect the
dogmatic content of faith and require reworking of all related texts and
traditions that have existed for many years. Calling God by the non-
sexist ‘It’, for example, would be anathema to Judeo-Christian religions
since their God is a personal God par excellence, unlike the impersonal
Brahman of Hindus, who may be referred to as It.
Theologians and biblical scholars agonize over vertical inclusive lan-
guage, and the issue has become highly controversial and divisive (see
Schneiders, 1986; Mankowski, 1994; Hitchcock, 1995; Marlowe, 2001).
The Vatican has admonished Catholics to be wary of texts like the New
Revised Standard Version of the Bible that are written in inclusive
language (Gilchrist, 1995) and has called on ICEL to eliminate inclusive
language from liturgical texts such as the Missal and the Lectionary of the
Mass that ICEL had drafted in inclusive language (Hitchcock, 2000a,
2000b). In May 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the
Discipline of the Sacraments in Rome released a strictly worded document
Liturgiam Authenticam, outlining the principles that should guide vernac-
ular translations of Roman Catholic liturgical texts. The document,
highly sensitive to contemporary values of equality, assures readers that
a right interpretation of the texts ‘excludes any prejudice or unjust
discrimination on the basis of persons, gender, social condition, race or

other criteria, which has no foundation at all in the texts of the Sacred
Liturgy’. However, it is also extremely cautious about inclusive language,
and debars any innovation regarding the gender of God: ‘In referring to
almighty God or the individual persons of the Most Holy Trinity, the
truth of tradition as well as the established gender usage of each respective
language are to be maintained.’ While the traditionalists rejoice at such
an intervention from Rome, the liberals find the document too suffocat-
ing and rigid (see Jensen, 2001; Moloney, 2001; Hitchcock, 2003, 2004).
The final versions of several Catholic liturgical texts are still being
processed. Indications are that the new texts, when approved, will not
be in inclusive language – to the discontent of feminists and liberals.
Conclusion
In their introduction to Womanspirit Rising, Christ and Plaskow observe

astutely that feminists who challenged religious sexism ‘found that
nothing aroused the ire of male theologians and churchmen so much as
the charge that traditional language about God is sexist. The question
seemed to challenge the fundamental core of biblical revelation’ (1992,
p. 4). The reaction of theologians and churchmen is quite natural since
altering the core of what is ordinarily taken to be biblical revelation and
Christianity is in fact one of the declared goals of feminism. ‘Language
about God in female images not only challenges the literal mindedness
that has clung to male images in inherited God-talk … But insofar as
“the symbol gives rise to thought,” each speech calls into question
prevailing structures of patriarchy’ ( Johnson, 1992, pp. 5–6). The gender of
God is a volatile issue precisely because it shakes the foundations of what
many Judeo-Christians, men and women, hold to dearly as true faith.
Only time can tell whether the Christian God-talk will undergo radi-
cal changes and cause corresponding changes in theology and ecclesias-
tical practices. Regardless of the validity and correctness of the feminist
critique of religious language, the inchoate efforts of feminists to rede-
fine Christianity might ultimately lead to the purification of religions
and a better understanding of God. Meanwhile, less dogmatism and
more openness on the part of both feminists and anti-feminists may
help ease the tension that currently prevails between them.
Notes
1 The problems in God-talk discussed in this chapter may very well apply to reli-
gions other than the Judeo-Christian ones. The focus, however, is the God of
Judeo-Christian religions, especially of Roman Catholicism. At present

the Judeo-Christian women are, perhaps, the most educated and most out-
spoken of all women, and their literary output is substantial, influential and
widespread. The androcentrism, sexism and patriarchy of other religions have
not yet been as thoroughly investigated, though they do exist (see, e.g.,
Jayawardena, 1986; Hekmat, 1997; Pandey, 2004). It would be erroneous to
infer from this chapter that Judeo-Christian religions are in any way more
sexist or more patriarchal than other religions.
2 Both traditionalist and feminist are terms with a variety of good and bad con-
notations (Carlin, 1992). In this chapter, traditionalist is used solely to denote
one who defends traditions, especially the tradition of using male metaphors
for God. Likewise, feminist is used to denote one who accepts the basic femi-
nist concepts of sexism, androcentrism and patriarchy, regardless of other
ideological differences. Neither traditionalist nor feminist is used here in any
pejorative sense.
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3
Asymmetries of Male/Female
Representation in Arabic
Samira Farwaneh
The correlation between language and gender has advanced to the

forefront of sociolinguistic research, particularly after the widely acclaimed
yet highly controversial work of Lakoff (1975) in which she examines
societal gender inequity and its effect on linguistic performance, focusing
on language used by women as well as language used to refer to women.
She sheds light on several linguistic domains where gender asymmetry
figures prominently. Her work generated an upsurge in research on lan-
guage and gender issues, primary among which is the detection of sexist
language usage in English and other languages. Evident throughout is the
assertion that sexist language usage, that is, the overt expression of gender
bias, manifests itself in a variety of linguistic domains: syntax, semantics,
discourse and the lexicon, as demonstrated unequivocally in the study of
naming practices, terms of address usage, sex language and use of
metaphors (Pauwels, 1998). According to these studies, gender inequity
manifests itself in a variety of patterns ranging from the subtle to the
profound. These manifestations include the following:
1. The generic use of the masculine pronoun; for example, ‘to each
his own’.
2. Ordering the masculine form before the feminine; for example,
‘husband and wife’ rather than ‘wife and husband’.
3. Euphemisms; such as using the term ‘lady’ instead of ‘woman’.
4. Semantic derogation; for example, ‘mistress’ which is no longer the
exact equivalent of ‘master’.
5. Lexical and paradigmatic asymmetries; for example, the term
‘spinster’ which refers exclusively to females has no masculine
counterpart in the English lexicon; nor does the title of address ‘Miss’
which reflects differentiation on the basis of marital status.
41
A few studies have emerged in the last two decades targeting gender
differentiation in Arabic; for example, Abdel-Jawad (1986, 1989) on
Jordanian, Haeri (1987, 1992) on Egyptian, Abu-Haidar (1989) and Bakir
(1986) on Iraqi, among others.1 The aforementioned works approach
gender differentiation in language from a purely linguistic dimension;
observing, documenting and analysing the effect of gender as a social
variable on linguistic variables, and situating their findings within
sociolinguistic and linguistic theories. Religion is a social variable,
among other variables, whose effect is detected and quantified and
contrasted with other variables such as age, education and occupation.
This work continues this avenue of research, yet it departs from
previous works in that it does not view gender solely as a social category
that explains male/female speech differences, but rather as a component
of individual identity whose affirmation or negation can be detected via
linguistic signals. Further, I do not focus, as is the case in the aforemen-
tioned works, on the linguistic behaviour of males and females, and
how gender differentiation is encoded through language use; rather, I
focus on the components of males’ and females’ respective identities,
and the asymmetric, often inequitable, expression of these components
in language. The questions to be asked are, then, how do men and
women identify themselves and refer to each other, and to what extent
is this identification symmetric across the two genders?
If imbalance in gender indexing is detected, then an investigation
into the linguistic or sociocultural factors which may have precipitated
such imbalance is in order. Arabic presents a curious target of research
when it comes to gender. It is on the one hand a language, like any
other, which functions as a vehicle for transmitting sociocultural norms
and stereotypes, and presents, through constant usage, means for per-
petuating those stereotypes. On the other hand, Arabic secured for itself
in the last 2000 years a unique status as the primary symbol of religious
identity in the eyes of many Muslims; a status matched only by Hebrew.
As such, gender inequity in Arabic can be viewed as a direct reflection of
gender inequity inherent in the religion it symbolizes. Given the reli-
gious significance of Arabic, and since this volume focuses on the lan-
guages of religion, then it is natural to add to the aforementioned two
questions a third one: to what extent is gender indexing imbalance, that
is, gender gaps and asymmetries, inscribed in religious texts, and to
what extent is Islam, compared to its monotheistic predecessors,
responsible for generating and fostering gender inequity?
To answer all these questions, I undertake an investigation of the
linguistic representation of females and males drawn from within the
Male/Female Representation in Arabic 43
nominal and adjectival systems in Arabic2 to identify types of gender-

related asymmetries in the use and reference of identity labels. Such
asymmetries are examined through consideration and evaluation of the
morphological structure and semantic features within three linguistic
variables: personal names, symbolic of primary (or basic as termed in Eid
2002) identity; titles, symbolic of volitionally acquired identity; and
terms of address and reference, symbolic of superposed (i.e., not
acquired volitionally) identity. In the course of the discussion, I will
address the role of the Islamic religion, both in its faith and cultural
sense, in this asymmetric encoding of gender identity through language.
The data collected for this purpose come from different sources:
dictionaries, novels, the media, informal discussions with native Arabic
speakers and the author’s own native repertoire. A short overview of the
morphological system of Arabic is given, focusing on the role of
grammatical gender therein; thereby establishing the null hypothesis
that in a gendered language, parity is expected in the nominal and
adjectival system from which identification labels are drawn. Deviation
from this hypothesis warrants an exploration and explanation. In the
last part of the chapter, I undertake an examination of personal names,
titles and terms of reference respectively, highlighting the different
types of asymmetry within each category. It will be shown that the data
collected reveal three patterns of asymmetry: avoidance, shift and
incongruence, discussed generically below, and more specifically in the
following sections.
Avoidance
Avoidance phenomena were first mentioned as viable and potentially

productive targets of research in Ferguson (1997) who called for more
studies of cases where speakers use, consciously or unconsciously,
certain lexemes or phones while avoiding others, especially in dialect
contact situations, where dialect differences are levelled in favour of
certain forms but not others. In her extensive study of Arabic, Persian
and English obituaries, Eid (1994, 2002) elaborates on the notion of
avoidance by revealing an interesting trend in the obituaries (especially
in earlier ones), namely that personal names of Muslim women in
obituaries during certain decades show a drastic decline, a phenomenon
she terms ‘name avoidance’. Her findings corroborate Romaine’s state-
ment that ‘one of the subtle forms of discrimination against women is
that they are simply not mentioned at all’ (Romaine, 2002, p. 154). Eid’s
work on obituaries is the only work that correlates avoidance to gender
identity. She observes that during certain decades in Egypt, Muslim

female names seem to be more visible at times of social and political
stability, and invisible during turbulent times, that is, when national
and religious identity are in conflict with gender identity.
Avoidance in this paper refers to the absence of one gender category
in a pair, rendering gender patterns incongruent, which I take as a sign
of invisibilization of gender identity; examples from English are ‘virgin’
and ‘whore’ with their exclusively feminine reference. Similarly, in
Portuguese (Pauwels, 1998) the word [marito] ‘husband’ has no femi-
nine equivalent *[marita],3 instead the word [moxer] ‘woman’ is used to
refer to wifehood. Why, all things being linguistically equal, do we not
find counter-gender equivalents of such terms?
Shift
Semantic shift, usually derogation, refers here to cases where both gen-
der forms exist but exhibit inequitable semantic connotations, usually
with semantic derogation of the feminine; for example, ‘master’ versus
‘mistress’, where the feminine form started off on equal footing then
degenerated over time (Romaine, 2002, p. 159).
Incongruence
Incongruence refers to cases where the grammatical and referential

features of the lexeme are not congruent, that is, the lexeme appears
without the feminine marker /-a/ giving the appearance of a morpho-
logically zero-marked masculine form, yet exclusively denotes a feminine
referent.
As the chapter reveals these asymmetries, it will aim to relate them to
their triggering socio-cultural influences, focusing on the role of reli-
gion, which is most often held responsible for gender inequity.
Morphological gender in Arabic
The salient characteristic of Arabic (and Semitic) morphology is that all

lexical categories are derived from a bi-, tri- or quadriliteral root, which
carries the core meaning of the word. Intervening vowels – vocalic
melody – serve as functional morphemes indicating the number and
class in the case of nouns and adjectives, or measures in the case of verbs
and corresponding verbal nominals. Since identification labels are
derived from nouns and adjectives, therefore every term of reference or
identification, be it a personal name, a family name, a title or other,

carries the semantic features of the root. Grammatical gender in Arabic,
as in many Romance languages, is derived by a productive affixation
rule as in the kinship terms in Table 3.1a. Masculine forms are derived by
zero affixation, that is, they are identical to the bare stem. Feminine terms
on the other hand are derived by appending the suffix /-a/ to the bare
stem. Other kinship term pairs are arbitrarily marked for gender, that is,
specified as [feminine] or [feminine], lexically,4 as in Table 3.1b.
By default, gender is assigned on the basis of semantics; that is, nouns
or adjectives denoting a male referent are assigned masculine gender,
and vice versa. In such cases, there is an overlap between the morpho-
logical and referential features. If semantic gender cannot be discerned,
as in the case of inanimate and deverbal nouns – analogous to gerundive
nouns in English – then gender is assigned purely on a morphological
basis; thus, forms ending in the morpheme /-a/ are assigned feminine
gender, while zero-marked forms, that is, forms identical to the bare
stem, receive masculine assignment. For example, deverbal nouns
ending with /-a/, for example, [qiraa’-a] ‘reading’, [kitaab-a] ‘writing’
and [’idaar-a] ‘management’, require feminine agreement, whereas zero-
marked deverbal nominals, for example, [xitaam] ‘ending’, [ibtisaam]
‘smiling’ and [ta␥riid] ‘chirping of birds’, take masculine agreement.
We will assume that the null hypothesis, stated in the introduction
and to be tested in the following sections, stipulates that all masculine
nouns and adjectives are appropriate identification and referential labels
for males, and all feminine nouns and adjectives are appropriate for
females. Yet an examination of personal, occupational and referential
labels in Arabic reveals, even upon casual observation, a number of
counter-examples. The following sections will take each variable in turn,
revealing the imbalance in the representation of males and females, and
examining the role of gender both as a social category, that is, ‘the
Table 3.1 Kinship terms in Arabic
Masculine Feminine Gloss
(a) xaal xaal-a ‘uncle / aunt (maternal)’

‘amm ‘amm-a ‘uncle / aunt (paternal)’
’ibn ’ibn-a ‘son / daughter’
(b) rijjaal mara ‘man / woman’
walad bint ‘boy / girl’
’ax ’uxt ‘brother / sister’
’ab ’um ‘father / mother’
stereotypical assumptions about what are appropriate social roles for

women and men’ (Hellinger, 2002, p. 108), and a component of one’s
identity, that is, the way a person is perceived by oneself and others.
Asymmetries in personal names
Personal or first names are representative of the person’s primary

identity, hence the care taken by the parents or other name givers when
choosing names for their offspring, thereby attempting to shape this
identity. Although the name holder is not consulted in the personal
name she or he is granted, personal names constitute the first corner-
stone in the person’s identity. Very few opt to volitionally change their
first names, choosing instead to live fatalistically with the names they
were given and its implications. The gender of the child, and the per-
ception of gender values by the parents, is deterministic of the quality of
names given to male and female children. Consequently, the domain of
personal names is perhaps the best to exemplify the three aforemen-
tioned types of asymmetry: name avoidance, better described as name
aversion, semantic shift which creates semantically inequitable gender
terms, and incongruence, or the mismatch between grammatical and
referential gender.
Since they serve as labels to identify human referents, names are
derived from nominal and adjectival forms of different measures. Arabic
with its grammatical gender categories provides the mechanism to
derive both masculine and feminine forms from each noun or adjective.
The expectation is, then, to find a feminine counterpart for every mas-
culine personal name. This is indeed the case with many personal
names, especially those derived from adjectival forms of an iambic
CVCVVC template, or participial forms of the augmented trochaic
template CVVCVC, as in the names in Table 3.2.
Table 3.2 Personal names in Arabic
nabiil nabiil-a ‘noble’

samiir samiir-a ‘companion’
laTiif laTiif-a ‘gentle’
kariim kariim-a ‘generous’
saami saami-a ‘eminent’
baasim baasim-a ‘smiling’
Yet not all names can be so paired. We find gaps in the naming paradigm,
not surprisingly, in the subdomain of religious names, although such
names are also derived from adjectival (mostly passive participial) forms.
As Abdel-Jawad (1986) points out, religious names derived from the roots
/Hmd/ ‘bless’ and /‘bd/ ‘worship’ are favored among Muslims, following
the Prophet’s saying that [xayru l‘asmaa‘i maa Hummida wa ‘ubbid] ‘the
best names are the ones from the verbs Hamad and ‘abad’. Although the
Prophetic saying did not specify gender, such names are without excep-
tion (at least in the Arab World) bestowed upon male children only.
Examples of common religious male-exclusive names from the afore-
mentioned roots can be seen in Table 3.3.
The personal names in Table 3.3 hold religious significance, as they
either signify the humans’ relation to their creator, as in the /‘bd/
derivatives, which are compound nouns with [‘abd] compounded to
one of the 99 attributes of God, or are variant appellations of Prophet
Muhammad, as in /Hmd/ derivatives and the titles [muxtaar] and
[muSTafa]. The restriction does not hold with respect to non-religious
names from the same roots. One finds, for example, personal names like
[Hamiid] and [Hamiida], [Hamdi] and [Hamdiyya] ‘good’. This phenom-
enon exemplifies the first of our three asymmetries, namely avoidance
or the absence of a morphologically possible gender-related term. What
is the reason behind this avoidance?
Abdel-Jawad (1986) invokes taboo theory to explain this asymmetry,
attributing it to a social taboo against endowing girls with the holiest of
names. Such names or titles referring to Allah or the Prophet are consid-
ered too ‘precious’, in Abdel-Jawad’s terms, to be bestowed upon females.
One may argue that the morphological pattern of such names, that is,
the passive participle form, renders them less desirable in the feminine,
since an addition of the feminine marker augments the syllabic structure
of the form thereby increasing its duration and difficulty of articulation.
Table 3.3 Religious names in Arabic
‘abdallah *‘abdatallah ‘worshipper of God’

‘abduh *‘abdatuh ‘His worshipper’
muHammad *muHammada ‘blessed’
’aHmad *Humdaa ‘most blessed’
maHmuud *maHmuuda5 ‘blessed’
muxtaar *muxtaara ‘chosen’
muSTafa *muSTafaat ‘favoured’
However, note the following names from the same morphological

(passive participial) patterns: [maHbuuba] ‘beloved’, [mabruuka] ‘blessed’,
which indicates that it is the religious significance of the name and not
its morphological patterning that dictates its suitability for naming
females. Thus, although Muslims generally hold the contention that all
believers, be they males or females, are, or are supposed to be, Allah’s
worshippers and the Prophet’s followers, only males can overtly bear the
identity as such embodied in their first names. Avoidance of, or aversion
to, feminine counterparts of religious names creates an inequitable
gender representation in religious space, and consequently signals the
exclusion of the female from this domain.
While avoidance is witnessed with respect to a number of religious
names, only one religious name provides evidence of the second asym-
metry, semantic shift, which ultimately and naturally leads to avoidance;
that is the name [xaliil] ‘beloved’ and its missing feminine equivalent
*[xaliila]. The masculine name is one of the titles of the prophet Abraham,
referred to in the religious literature as [ibraahiim ulxaliil] ‘Beloved of
God’. Appending the feminine marker, however, yields the term [xaliila]
which has been derogated to mean ‘mistress’ in the sense of an unlawful
partner. This derogation renders the term ineligible as a naming label.
The third type of asymmetry, incongruence, is exemplified by
compound names whose first member is a feminine noun, yet its refer-
ential feature, that is, its name bearer, is masculine. Compound nouns
bear the gender and number feature of the head of the compound, the
leftmost member of the compound. However, when feminine nouns
like [‘aay-a] ‘evidence’ and [Hujj-a] ‘proof’ are compounded to the form
[‘allaah] ‘God’, the compound is accorded a masculine identification
which overrides the feminine feature of its first member. Hence, if the
name acquires religious significance, it becomes male-exclusive. Such
names have been promoted, especially among the Iranian Shiites, from
a personal name to the rank of a title. The only feminine compound
names which retain the feminine feature of the head of the compound
are [hib-at allaah] and [ni‘m-at allaah] ‘gift of God’.
Exiting religious space into the realm of the secular, we find that
secular names show the same gaps and semantic and featural inequities
observed in religious names. Secular names, by virtue of their underly-
ing roots, embody the attributes desired in a child by a name giver.
These attributes correlate with the socio-cultural stereotypes associated
with masculinity or femininity. The naming process in Arab culture is,
therefore, a ‘careful mental process that is influenced by linguistic,
social, psychological, or cultural considerations’ (Abdel-Jawad, 1986).
It is customary in many cultures to bestow upon girls personal names

expressing beauty, peace, faith and elegance, stereotypically correlated
with femaleness. Suffice it to ask yourself how many English-speaking
boys or men, versus girls or women, you have met named Charity,
Chastity, Faith or Hope. Arab cultures do not deviate from this trend. In
Jordanian Arabic, for example, girls, not boys, are given first names that
evoke notions of beauty, peace and piety (Abdel-Jawad, 1986). These
gender-specific cultural norms are bound to precipitate gaps and asym-
metries in the name paradigms, as we see below.
While the name [kaamil] ‘perfect/complete’ is quite common across
the board in the Arab World, its feminine *[kaamila]6 is not. The name
has an active participial or agentive nominal form, which is morpholog-
ically susceptible to feminization. Perhaps the aversion to conceptualiz-
ing perfection associated with femininity stems from the distorted
interpretation of an aledged Prophetic Hadith (saying) that females
are [naaqiSaatu ‘aqlin wadiin] ‘deficient in faith and mind’ in the folk
understanding of religion. A similar gap, which we interpret as avoidance,
is found with the morphologically parallel name [‘aadil] ‘just’ whose
feminine counterpart *[‘aadil-a] is also unattested.
Incongruence, that is, the clash of morphological gender and the sex
of the referent, is another consequence of cultural gender bias. When a
common noun is transferred into a proper noun, the semantic features
of the noun – regardless of its morphological gender – determines its
eligibility as a male or female name. Thus, congruence between seman-
tics and sex supercedes that of morphological gender and sex. The
following female names in Table 3.4 are transferred from masculine
common lexical and deverbal nouns.
Should congruence between morphology and reference be main-
tained, and the female names be given to males, the male name bearer
Table 3.4 Female names
Name Gloss
’ibtisaam ‘smiling’
yasmiin ‘jasmine’
’ariij ‘scent of flowers’
ta␥riid ‘singing of birds’
wafaa’ ‘loyalty’
Hanaan ‘tenderness’
’imaan ‘faith’
xitaam ‘end’
may be subjected to societal ridicule and accusations of effeminateness.

The practice of name giving is one of the strategies that mulds, albeit
unconsciously, the identity of the female to fit the dominant values of
the culture. Palestinians, because of their tumultuous history and long
experience with military occupation, diverge from this tendency and
break the gender taboo by giving children of both sexes assertive
masculine-marked first names evoking power and strength; for example,
[kifaaH], [niDaal] and [jihaad] ‘struggle’; incongruence still exists, but
the underlying gender bias is eliminated.
Yassin (1986) states that name choice is prompted if not dictated by
the operation of cultural, social, interpersonal and many factors distin-
guishable from the linguistic structure itself, which explains the lack of
overlap between linguistic structure and the gender of names, but to
what extent is religion part of these asymmetry-causing socio-cultural
factors? Undoubtedly, Islam and Islamic tradition enriched the name
repertoire and continues to influence the naming practice in the Arab
World. Yet, it seems that religious tradition plays a dual function, both
as a source and a deterrent; while it has been observed that male
religious names endure in popularity and use, female religious names
are either non-existent, for example, *[maHmouda], or are gradually
falling out of use (Abdel-Jawad, 1986). On the other hand, secular names
with religious themes, for example, [‘afaaf] ‘chastity, and [’imaan]
‘faith’, seem to be female-exclusive. As we move from personal names to
titles, it will be shown that once women gain control over their own
identification labels, the influence of religious tradition dissipates to
leave ample room for gender egalitarianism.
Asymmetries in titles and terms of address
Titles and forms of address are indicators of the professional or social

status of the addressee or referent. Unlike personal names, titles are
acquired experientially and with volition. A title holder chooses to
acquire a social or professional title through education, occupation or
marriage. There is frequent overlap between titles and terms of address,
since form of address usage reflects the addressor’s recognition of the
addressee’s social and occupational status. In Arabic, titles and address
forms precede the given (first) name, not last name, as is the case in
English and other Western languages. The only difference between titles
and forms of address is that the former is optionally definite. Forms of
address, on the other hand, are obligatorily indefinite and are preceded
Table 3.5 Forms of address
(a) Title id-doktoor-a nadya or daktoor-a nadya

the-doctor-F Nadia ‘Dr Nadia’
(b) Term of Address yaa doktoor-a nadya *yaa id-daktoor-a nadya
voc. doctor-F Nadia ‘Oh Dr Nadia!’
Table 3.6 Titles
(a) Professional Titles

doktoor doktoor-a ‘Doctor / Professor’
basmuhandis basmuhandis-a ‘Engineer’
’ustaaz ’ustaaz-a ‘Teacher’
(b) Social Titles

’ax ’uxt ‘Brother / Sister’
zamiil zamiil-a ‘Comrade’7
sayyid sayyid-a ‘Mr / Mrs’
*’aanis ’aanis-a ‘Miss’
by the vocative particle /yaa/, as in example Table 3.5, which shows the
difference between the two.
Professional titles are symmetric, with no paradigmatic gaps, which
indicates that Arab women have gained equal access to many occupa-
tional fields that were previously male dominated. The examples in
Table 3.6a demonstrate gender equity in occupational titles. Social titles,
on the other hand, are relatively asymmetric, with female titles being
binary, reflecting the marital status of a woman, while male titles are
unitary, regardless of marital status, as in example Table 3.6b.
The lack of parity in social titles indicates the fundamental role of
women’s sexual status in constructing their gender identity in the eyes of
society. This sexually-based asymmetry is not unique to the Arab/Islamic
world, however. Other languages coined binary titles indicating women’s
sexual inexperience and hence eligibility for marriage, for example,
English ‘miss’ versus ‘Mrs’, French ‘Madame’ versus ‘mademoiselle’, and
Spanish/Italian ‘señora’ versus ‘señorita/señorina’ are a few examples.
To explain the parity of professional titles versus the incongruence of
social titles, one has to consider closely the type of identity which these
titles articulate. Titles represent a person’s acquired identity (Eid, 2002);
yet the way professional and social titles are acquired is not parallel.
Professional titles are acquired volitionally, as a result of a person’s wilful
intent to acquire a professional status through upward education and
employment. Social titles, on the other hand, are superposed on the

person by others, as is the case with terms of reference discussed in the
following section. Social titles are not endonyms, that is, terms of self-
identification, never used by a person to refer to her/himself. You never
hear a woman referring to herself as ‘miss so-and-so’, but many women
are proud to announce their professional status by referring to them-
selves by their professional title. The equity of professional names, then,
stems from the fact that they are identity labels chosen deliberately by
women themselves to refer to themselves. Social titles are labels chosen
by others to identify women, driven by the stereotypical misperception
of gender and its correlation with age.
The limited number of address forms in contrast to referential terms
leaves little room for asymmetry. While personal names discussed in the
previous section and referential terms to be discussed in the following
section exemplify all three types of asymmetry – avoidance, shift and
incongruence – titles and address forms present only one instance of
avoidance, namely the unpaired term [’aanisa] ‘miss’ and the absence or
avoidance of its masculine counterpart. This is an interesting instance
of avoidance, however. Unlike the religious names whose feminine
counterparts are avoided out of taboo belief that religiosity and femaleness
do not mix, avoidance in this case assumes a more positive quality. The
term *[’aanis] is avoided due to its negative implication for males. I will
term this phenomenon ‘positive avoidance’; a term is avoided if it carries
negative values, hence its avoidance enhances or secures the addressee’s
positive status. As we shall see in the following section, avoidance of
feminine terms, which I shall refer to as ‘negative avoidance’, aims to deny
the addressee or referent an elevated status, and hence is parallel to
semantic shift or derogation.
Asymmetries in referential terms
Referential terms, unlike terms of address, become a symbol of one’s

acquired identity without her/his knowledge, much less consent. They
are superposed upon the referent by the speaker who is guided by
his/her positive or negative perception of the referent. As such, these
terms provide interesting evidence of societal gender-stereotypical
perceptions. And, as is the case with personal names, provide abundant
examples of avoidance, shift and incongruence.
Superficial parallelism
Let us first begin with paired referential terms, that is, terms exhibiting
no gender gaps. Table 3.7 gives a few examples.
Table 3.7 Terms of reference
Masculine Gloss Feminine Gloss
(a) zawj ‘husband’ zawj-a ‘wife’

(b) ’a‘zab ‘bachelor’ ‘azb-a ‘bachelorette’
(c) ‘ariis ‘bridegroom’ ‘aruus ‘bride’
(d) walad ‘boy’ bint ‘girl’
(e) muTallaq ‘divorced’ muTallaq-a ‘divorced’
(f) ’armal ‘widower’ ’armal-a ‘widow’
Table 3.8 Examples
(a) nadya ’armala ‘Nadia is a widow.’

nadya ’armalat kamaal Huseen ‘Nadia is the widow of Kamal Hussein’
(b) kamaal ’armal ‘Kamal is a widower.’
*kamaal ’armal naad ya Huseen ‘Kamal is the widower of Nadia Hussein.’
These terms show perfect morphological and semantic symmetry. Each

term has its gender counterpart, hence no avoidance, shift or incongru-
ence. However, this superficial symmetry conceals disparaging usage if
context is taken into consideration. This disparity applies particularly to
the terms (d), (e) and (f). The term [bint] ‘girl’ and [walad] ‘boy’ represent
different social dimensions: While the term [walad] is a purely age-
related term referring to a male who has not reached manhood, the term
[bint], on the other hand, is sexually related and refers to a woman, of
any age, of no sexual experience, that is, a virgin. The terms for
‘widow/widower’ and ‘divorced’ in Table 3.7 (e)–(f) are referentially
equivalent but contextually asymmetric: the feminine terms may be used
in association with the woman’s late or former spouse, thereby stating
the spouse’s name after the term as in Table 3.8a, while the masculine
terms are used as pure referential terms stating the marital status of the
man without association with his spouse as in Table 3.8b.
Asymmetries: positive and negative avoidance

We now turn to morphologically and semantically asymmetric terms
that exhibit gender gaps, semantic non-equivalence or feature mismatch
to illustrate the effect of avoidance, shift and incongruence on the use of
referential terms. The terms in Table 3.9 show examples of unpaired gen-
der terms, thus providing examples of avoidance. The starred forms
indicate a gender gap in the paradigm.
The first two terms in Table 3.9 (a) and (b), are typical examples of gen-
der inequity, whose equivalents are found in many languages. Virginity
Table 3.9 Term of reference asymmetries: avoidance
(a) *’a‘dar ‘adr-a ‘virgin’

(b) *‘aahir ‘aahir-a ‘whore’
(c) *‘aqiil ‘aqiil-a ‘bondage, wife’
(d) ba‘l *ba‘l-a ‘master, husband’
(e) mu-Hallil *mu-Hallil-a ‘enabler’
and whoredom, which occupy the opposite poles of the sexual experi-
ence continuum, are culturally perceived as female-exclusive. Female vir-
ginity is a primary prerequisite for marriage, while male virginity is
neither required nor desired. Sexual promiscuity, on the other hand, is
observed, documented and penalized only if the agent is a female, hence
the need to coin a feminine referential term for ‘whore’; promiscuity
among males goes unnoticed, and if noticed, escapes sanction; hence
the absence of a masculine counterpart. Yet the tenets of Islam prescribe
[‘iffa] ‘chastity and abstinence’ to both sexes. Consequently, both mas-
culine and feminine terms may be derived from the root /‘f/ ‘be chaste’
as in [‘afiif] and [‘afiif-a] ‘chaste’; both gender forms are used as personal
names and referential terms. Interestingly, the term for ‘whore’ is not of
native Arabic origin; its phonetic resemblance to its English cognate,
and the juxtapositioning of two pharyngeals in the root /‘hr/ which
underlies the surface form, are indicative of its foreign origin. Native
Arabic roots observe a co-occurrence restriction on adjacent phonemes
of the same place of articulation (Greenberg, 1960).
The term [‘aqiil-a] is used as term of reference identifying the woman
as the wife of someone; therefore, it is always used in a construct phrase
and never as a singleton noun. Some argue (Abdel-Jawad, 1989) that the
term [‘aqiil-a] may derive from the root /‘ql/ meaning ‘mind’; thus, to
refer to a woman as the [‘aqiila] of someone is to imply that she is the
wise one in the marriage. Societal norms and practices in the Arab
World, however, as well as the absence of the term outside the construct
state, do not lend support to this interpretation.
Particularly intriguing are the last two terms in Table 3.9 (d)–(e) which
are the only masculine terms with unattested feminine counterparts.
The first term [ba‘l] is borrowed from Phoenician and Hebrew and denotes
ownership,8 and is used in Arabic as an archaic form of address referring
to a husband, particularly in lamentation (Badawi and Hinds, 1986, p. 88).
The last form, [muHallil] ‘enabler’, is derived from the biconsonantal
root /Hl/ ‘to permit, to make kosher’. The surface form assumes the active
participial form of measure II [mu-CaCCiC] reserved for causative function
of lexical categories. This is the only term in the list deeply rooted in
Islamic tradition, and whose maintenance is justified on purely religious
grounds. According to all interpretations of Islamic law, divorce is revoca-
ble after the first or second pronouncement and may be abrogated within
the three-month waiting period following each pronouncement. Divorce
becomes absolute once the third repudiation is pronounced, whereupon
the husband may not have conjugal access to his wife through a fourth
marriage. However, in some interpretations, a husband may reclaim his
irrevocably divorced wife if the wife marries a second husband, and is
divorced after consummating the second marriage. She may then return
to her first husband. The second husband is referred to as a [muHallil]
or ‘enabler’; his role, be it intentional or accidental, is to enable the first
husband to reclaim his wife after a third repudiation. A search of the two
primary sources of Islamic law, the Qur’an, Muslims’ Holy Book, and
Hadith, the sayings of Prophet Muhammad, yielded no instantiations of
the term [muHallil], which indicates its latter-day coinage. The concept,
however, is documented in a few Hadiths – prophetic sayings – in Sahih
Bukhari, one of the collections of Hadiths. One such Hadith goes as
follows:
A man divorced his wife thrice (by expressing his decision to divorce
her thrice), then she married another man who also divorced her. The
Prophet was asked if she could legally marry the first husband (or
not). The Prophet replied, ‘No, she cannot marry the first husband
unless the second husband consummates his marriage with her, just
as the first husband had done.’
(Volume 7, Book 63, Number 187)
Interestingly, the other main source of Hadith, Sahih Muslim, bears no

mention of this concept, which sheds doubt on its authenticity.
Authenticity not withstanding, our analytical interest lies in the absence
of a feminine counterpart of the term, that is, *[muHallila]; like the term
[ba‘l], [muHallil] is another status term embodying authority and power
grounded on religious superiority, and as such, is male-exclusive.
In sum, forms denoting subservience, sexual promiscuity or inexperi-
ence seem to be exclusively female with no masculine counterpart. This
is a manifestation of ‘positive avoidance’ where a negatively connotated
or powerless term is avoided to enhance or preserve the superior status
accorded to the referent, here the male. Terms denoting power and
authority, on the other hand, tend to be male-exclusive. Avoidance of a
feminine equivalent is seen here as a form of ‘negative avoidance’, that
is, avoidance of prestigious elevated forms to deny or demote the identity

of the referent, here, the female.
Asymmetries: semantic shifts

The identification labels discussed in this subsection differ from the
previously mentioned ones in that both gender forms are attested, but
with disparaging connotations. The masculine form connotes prestige
and status while the feminine form is belittling at best, if not outright
derogatory. Consider the paradigm in Table 3.10. Down arrows indicate
negative semantic shift.
What all the forms in Table 3.10 have in common is that appending
the feminine morpheme /-a/ to the masculine form involves downward
semantic shift ranging from marginalization to derogation. The form
[rabb il-beet], for example, is demoted to a mere ‘housewife’ when the
feminine suffix is appended. One may be tempted to argue that a [rabbat
beet] is equivalent to a mistress of the house, an equally powerful term.
However, as Lakoff (1975) and Romaine (2002) point out, the connota-
tions of words do not arise from the form in isolation but from the
context of their usage. Collocations ‘transmit cultural meanings and
stereotypes which have built up over time’ (Romaine, 2002, p. 160). The
feminine form usually collocates with negative constructions and mini-
mizing modifiers such as ‘just’ or ‘only’ as in ‘she knows nothing about
the outside world because she’s just a housewife’, while the masculine
term associates with positive declarative constructions as in ‘he makes
all the decisions because he is the master of the house’.
The referential terms in Table 3.10 (b)–(e) all indicate how terms may
begin on an ‘equal footing,’ then the feminine term degenerates over
time (Romaine, 2002, p. 160). According to Said, (1978), the phonetically
non-reduced form [‘aalima] used to refer to a learned woman who is an
Table 3.10 Semantic shift
Masculine Gloss Feminine Gloss
(a) rabb il-beet ‘master of house’ ↓rabbat beet ‘housewife’

(b) ‘aalim ‘scholar’ ↓‘alma ‘entertainer’
(c) waliyy ‘holy man’ ↓wiliyya ‘woman-pejorative’
(d) ␥aazi ‘warrior’ ↓␥aziyya ‘entertainer’
(e) seex ‘Sheikh’ ↓seexa ‘entertainer-in
North Africa’
(f) maHram ‘travelling ↓Hurma ‘woman’
companion’
accomplished recitor of poetry and the Qu’ran. By the mid-nineteenth

century, the term degenerated and the meaning shifted to become a
reference to a female dancer and singer who may practice prostitu-
tion on the side (Said, 1978, p. 186). Similarly, the feminine forms in
Table 3.10 (c)–(e) lose their original meaning and gradually acquire an
abusive and pejorative connotation, often with implications of sexual
promiscuity. Notice here that semantic shift toward pejoration is associ-
ated with reductive phonological processes: [‘aalima] becomes [‘alma]
via vowel shortening and syncope (deletion of a word-internal vowel),
[waliyya] is rendered [wiliyya] by vowel raising (which involves reduction
in sonority), and [␥aaziya] converts to [␥aziyya] also by vowel shortening.
The correlation between phonological reduction and pejoration becomes
transparent once we consider the nature of pejoration. Pejoration has
many social and psychological functions, one of which is to demote the
status of an individual out of spite or in jest; another is to stereotype an
individual for her membership in a social or ethnic group. Stereotyping, as
defined in Talbot, involves ‘simplification, reduction, and naturalization’
(2003, p. 169). Phonological reduction, then, can be viewed as an auditory
manifestation of social reduction.
Another dimension of stereotyping is objectification – association of a
human referent to an inanimate object – and zoologization – association
to an animate non-human object (Maalej, 2003); the last pair in the list
[maHram] and [Hurma] is an illustrative example. Both are derived from
the root /Hrm/ ‘ban/prohibit’ which is the antonym of /Hl/ ‘permit’ from
which the term [muHallil] discussed in the previous section is derived.
The masculine form [maHram] refers to a male travelling companion
required of women otherwise travelling alone. This companion must be
a male kin whose blood relation to the woman pre-empts marriage. The
surface form assumes the templatic pattern ma-CCaC which identifies
instrumental nouns, as in [masraT] ‘scalpel’ and [maqla] ‘fryer’. The form
can, then, be interpreted literally as ‘instrument of prohibition’. Contrast
the authoritative connotation of the masculine form to its feminine
counterpart [Hurma], used as a euphemism or derogation for ‘woman’.
The form takes the nominal templatic pattern CuCC-a reserved for inan-
imate nouns such as [lu‘ba] ‘toy’, [jumla] ‘sentence’ and [rukba] ‘knee’.
[Hurma] is the only nominal of this pattern with a human referent. One
may therefore interpret the form literally as ‘object of prohibition’; the
current use of the plural [Hariim] in both Eastern and Western writings
attests to the inferior status the term allocates to women.
This section shows how gender inequity is reflected through semantic
shift or derogation of the feminine. This shift yields an abundance of
masculine terms denoting religiosity and chivalry versus feminine forms

denoting promiscuity and worldliness with abusive connotations. This,
however, is not unique to Arabic or Islam. Semantic derogation of these
forms parallels that of English terms like ‘lady’, ‘mistress’ and ‘courtesan’,
which indicates the universality of the tendency to belittle or marginalize
the feminine through linguistic means.
Asymmetries: incongruence
Personal names provided examples of incongruence where the referential
and morphological gender features do not match. These are usually of
the deverbal noun form. Referential terms provide a yet more interesting
example of incongruence. Few female referential terms appear in the
masculine zero-marked form, that is, they do not inflect morphologi-
cally for gender, despite their referential feminine feature. A few examples
are listed in Table 3.11.
The first term [Haram] is another derivative of the root /Hrm/ ‘ban’.
When used as a singleton noun, qualified or unqualified, it refers to a
sacred enclave (Badawi and Hinds, 1986, p. 201); as in [ilHaram issariif]
‘the Grand Mosque of Makkah or Jerusalem’, or [ilHaram iljaami‘i] ‘the
sanctuary of the university’. As a first member of a construct phrase, for
example, [Haram il’ustaaz] ‘wife of the professor’, the form is interpreted
obligatorily as a female-exclusive label, despite the absence of feminine
marking, signalling marital status. The converse [Taaliq] is another zero-
marked form denoting a woman’s marital status, or the reversal thereof.
The third term [‘aanis], like its English counterpart, collocates with
negatively connotated terms indicating plainness, old age and desperation
(for marriage) (Romaine, 2002), and in the Arabic popular culture corre-
lates with the profession of school teaching.
Another religiously-based gender term is represented in Table 3.11 (d).
This referential term denotes a wife who oversteps the bounds of
her marital role as prescribed by the husband. She is then deemed
‘disobedient’ and can hence be forced into the marital house, termed
Table 3.11 Incongruence
Term Gloss
(a) Haram ‘wife of’

(b) Taaliq ‘divorced’
(c) ‘aanis ‘spinster’
(d) naasiz ‘disobedient’
[bayt iTTaa‘a] ‘house of obedience’. This rule which made its way into
the personal status law in many Arab countries derives its legitimacy
from the following verse: ‘Should you fear their (Fem) disobedience
[nusuuz], admonish them, desert their beds, then beat them …’ (Qur’an
Sura 4 (Surat an-nisaa’ ‘women’), aya 134).
Searching for other instances of the word [nusuuz], one finds another
Aya (verse) in the same Sura (chapter), where the referent this time is the
male:
If a wife fears cruelty [nusuuz] or desertion on her husband’s part,

there is no blame on them if they arrange an amicable settlement
between themselves; and such settlement is best.
(Quran sura 4 (Surat an-nisaa’ ‘women’), aya 128)
Though the Qur’anic verses utilize the deverbal noun [nusuuz] in reference
to a character deficiency observed in both genders, the civic law (enacted
exclusively by men) coins a masculine participial form [naasiz] referring
only to women.
The negative social implications of the forms are evident, and so is
their morphological incongruence. The use of the masculine form when
the referent is female cannot be attributed to the typical, much frowned
upon, generic use of the masculine to refer to both sexes. Instead, the
masculine form is used as the default when no gender opposition is
assumed. Therefore, the term for ‘pregnant’ appears in most Arabic
dialects in its masculine zero-marked form [Haamil] not *[Haamila]. One
can therefore glean from the use of the masculine in these cases the soci-
etal misperception of the female as the only sex that can be owned
through marriage [Haram], divorced without volition [Taaliq], spinsterly
[‘aanis], and disobedient [naasiz].
Conclusion
In this chapter I have outlined the dimensions of gender inequity by

categorizing the types of asymmetry observed in the usage and choice
of three linguistic variables: personal names, titles and address forms,
and terms of reference. It has been shown that the masculine forms of
stereotypical feminine terms are avoided to preserve the prestige of the
masculine, while the feminine counterparts of elevated masculine terms
are either avoided or derogated to deny or trivialize female identity.
It was also shown that mismatches between semantic, morphological
and referential features are attributable primarily to a stereotypical view

of females and their role in society.
An attempt to trace the observed inequitable terms directly to the
Qur’an has proven unsuccessful, and those purported to come from the
Hadith either do not transmit from reliable sources, or lack consensus
authentification. Hence, one may safely assume that the gender repre-
sentational imbalance observed in Arabic is not due to Islam per se, but
rather to the folk understanding of Islam, which views religious identity
as antithetical to female visibility.
Once women claim ownership of their identity, the impact of folk
religious tradition dissipates allowing women to acquire equitable repre-
sentational visibility, as is evident from the parity of occupational titles.
Should women claim similar ownership of their religious identity,
through active participation in scriptural interpretation, the gap between
gender and religious identity, which precipitates disparaging linguistic
expressions, is bound to disappear.
Notes
1 Reasons for the deficit of language and gender research, especially within the
geographic bounds of the Middle East, include the salience of national identity
which often overshadows gender concerns, pseudo-religious traditions, state-
prescribed limitations on academic freedom and the impact of traditional
education on critical thinking and research.
2 The linguistic target here is Modern Arabic dialects. For the purposes of this
chapter, however, I am not focusing on any particular variety. Should there be
any noteworthy dialectal variation, it will be mentioned.
3 Similarly in French, two masculine terms exist, ‘homme’ and ‘mari’, referring
to manhood and husbandhood respectively; womanhood and wifehood, on
the other hand, converge under one surface form ‘femme’.
4 That is, both forms are present in the lexicon, rather than deriving one from the
other by suppletion. External evidence corroborating this claim comes from the
absence of typical overgeneralization errors which characterize L1 and L2 speech,
such as the production of goed for went. There is no evidence to date of overgen-
eralization such as the following, whereby a feminine marker is appended to the
bare form: [walada] for ‘girl’, [rijjaala] for ‘woman’. We do observe overgeneral-
izations with true suppletive plurals, where the L1 or L2 speaker may provide
[*mart-aat] and [*HSan-aat] as the plural of [mara] ‘woman’ and [HSaan] ‘horse’,
instead of the correct suppletive forms [niswaan] and [xeel].
5 An internet search of the name [maHmuuda] ‘Mahmouda’ yielded around ten
results, all of which are ethnonymically and linguonymically non-Arab;
for example, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mauritania, Senegal and Kenya.
6 This name is common in both Ottoman and Modern Turkish (S. Kuru and
N. Babur, personal correspondance).
7 Usually used in socialist countries like Syria and Iraq. It would be interesting to
witness the fate of such socialist terms in Iraq, as the political map is being
redrawn.
8 Ussishkin (personal correspondance) states that in Hebrew [ba‘al] has a dual
meaning depending on the term it is juxtaposed to. It denotes ownership if
juxtaposed to an inanimate noun, for example, [ba‘al bayt] ‘owner of a house’
or marital status when appended to a human noun or pronoun, for example,
[ba‘ala] ‘her husband’. The feminine equivalent [ba‘ala] is used only in the
sense of ownership and never marital status; thus, [ba‘alat bayt] but not
*[ba‘alato] ‘his wife’.
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Linguistics 25(2), 77–82.
4
American Women: Their Cursing
Habits and Religiosity
Timothy Jay
Cursing is the use of offensive emotional language to express one’s

emotions and communicate them to others. Cursing is ubiquitous
in American social life. Many questions remain to be answered since
scholars have given the phenomenon scant attention over the years.
Here I focus on two questions: Why do American men curse more than
American women do?; What role does religion play in the process?
These questions allow us to review research on three psychosocial factors,
gender identity, religiosity and cursing. My aim is to demonstrate that
people who curse use offensive language primarily to express anger or
frustration, and that gender and religiosity moderate this habit (as do
mental status, hostility and alcohol use). Religious women seem to be
doubly restricted from cursing, first for their gender (men can express
aggression more openly than women can) and second for their religious
beliefs (Christians should not use profanity). I review religious restric-
tions on language, the relationship between religiosity and cursing, the
relationship between sex anxiety and cursing, women’s use of taboo
language, and working-class women as a counter-example. I begin the
discussion with an examination of recent increases in women’s public
cursing and an outline of cross-cultural cursing comparisons.
American women’s cursing: past and present
Curse words persist over hundreds of years because they are useful to a cul-
ture (see Hughes, 1991). Until recently it was difficult to get an accurate
measure of how frequently curse words were used in public. All written
records and documents have been censored and estimates of cursing based
on written materials are entirely unreliable. Frequency estimation
63
techniques and recording methods are more accurate than written

materials. Besides, cursing is primarily an oral, not a written phenomenon.
To provide data on the frequency and stability of cursing, Jay compared
a field study of cursing from a sample from 1986 (see Jay, 1992) with a
set of 1996 data recorded on the east and west coasts of the United States
( Jay, 2000). The 1996 study permits geographic comparisons and time-
frame comparisons. Data were collected by male and female researchers
who recorded episodes of cursing in and around college communi-
ties in Los Angeles, California, Boston, Massachusetts and in western
Massachusetts. Half of the data were recorded by females and half by the
author. Half of the data were recorded in California and half were
recorded in Massachusetts.
Most of the data from California (90 per cent), are accounted for by
the usage of ten words. Two words fuck and shit account for 50 per cent
of the cursing episodes. Most of these curse words are obscenities (fuck,
shit) or profanities (god, hell, damn). Females were much more likely to
say the mild oath ‘Oh my god’ than males. Males were recorded swearing
more than females, 56 per cent and 44 per cent respectively. Both males
and females generally use the same set of words with a few exceptions.
Males had a production vocabulary of 28 words and females, 20. The
correlation between male and female vocabularies is high, r 0.75 to 0.80.
In Massachusetts most of the data, 90 per cent, are accounted for by
the usage of ten words. Fuck and shit accounted for 54 per cent of the
data. Most of the curse words are obscenities and profanities. Again,
females were much more likely to say ‘Oh my god’ than males. In this
sample males and females were recorded cursing at about the same rate.
Males had a production vocabulary of 22 words and females, 24. The
correlation between males and female cursing is quite high, r 0.93.
The correlation between the most frequent words used on the east
coast with their west coast counterparts is quite high, r 0.97. This
means that there is very little difference in cursing in these two different
locations. One important difference is that females were recorded swearing
more in public in the east, relative to the west coast. This might be due
to the fact that only one female recorded data in the west, while three
females recorded data in Massachusetts.
The past decade – 1996 and 1986

Most cursing involves the use of a small set of curse words that are
repeated often. Not much has changed for public cursing during the last
ten years. Speakers in a college community rely heavily on obscenity
American Women: Cursing Habits and Religiosity 65
(fuck, shit) and profanity (hell, Jesus, goddamn, damn, god). Males tend to
use more obscenities than females, who use more profanities than
males. Interestingly, one finds the opposite emphasis (more profanity
and few obscenities) in a nursing-home setting, where speakers in their
eighties and nineties are less likely to utter strong obscenities ( Jay, 1996).
There are also more women in nursing homes than men. Overall, one
might notice that extremely offensive language occurs at a low rate in
public, words such as cocksucker, cunt, nigger or spic were heard infre-
quently around campus communities. One noticeable difference is that
American women are swearing more in public than they did 20 years
ago. We conclude that American cursing is fairly stable, involving a small
set of words repeated frequently, mainly obscenities and profanities. The
stability of these cursing patterns over ten years suggests that cursing in
public has not undergone dramatic changes. Before moving on we need
to address another question at this point. First, how does American cursing
compare to other cultures?
Cross-cultural comparisons
One method for making cross-cultural comparisons is to look at patients

with similar cursing problems across cultures (see Jay, 2000). For example,
Tourette Syndrome (TS), a tic disorder associated with compulsive cursing
(coprolalia), occurs in all cultures and there is uniformity in its clinical pic-
ture. What is missing in the picture is that a Touretter from a non-English-
speaking country utters forbidden words in his or her culture, not what
is forbidden in English. Because the coprolalic lexicons differ depending
on culture, cross-cultural comparisons of TS lexicons reveal the semantics
of forbidden words in a culture. Coprophenomena in TS indicate a neuro-
logical failure to inhibit thoughts and speech learned in childhood that
are forbidden within the child’s culture. Cross-cultural coprolalia reveals
the universal use of religious, sexual, scatological and animal references.
However, the relative frequencies of these references (religious versus
sexual, for example) depend on culture. Whether a Touretter utters
profanity or not depends on his or her culture.
Meaningful background information about TS appears in the work of
Shapiro, A., Shapiro, E., Young and Feinberg (1988). As for cross-cultural
comparisons of Touretters’ lexicons, one of the first was made by Lees
(1985). Lees made comparisons of Touretters’ frequent coprolalia based
on US, UK, Hong Kong and Japanese studies (Table 4.1). Several reports
have surfaced since Lees’s work, which are examined later.
Table 4.1 Comparisons of Touretters’ coprolalia
United United Hong Kong Japan

States Kingdom
fuck fuck tiu (fuck) Kusobaba (shit grandma)

shit shit shui (useless person) chikusho (son of a bitch)
cunt cunt tiu ma (motherfucker) (female genitalia and breasts)
mother- bastard tiu so (aunt fucker)
fucker
Note: Table adapted from Lees (1985); US data from Shapiro et al. (1978); UK data from Lees
et al. (1984); Hong Kong data from Lieh Mak et al. (1982); Japan data from Nomura and
Segawa (1982).
American, British and Canadian English

As Lees’s work and that of others (Shapiro, A., Shapiro, E., Young and
Feinberg, 1988) indicated, English coprolalia most frequently employs
obscenities (fuck, cocksucker, shit, cunt, motherfucker) and socially offen-
sive words such as bitch, bastard and nigger. Obscenities and socially
offensive words predominate over milder profanities (hell, damn, Jesus).
One theory is that obscenities relieve the stress associated with copro-
lalia more effectively than mild profanities.
Beyond the English-speaking world, one has to ask if non-English-
speaking cultures produce coprolalia similar to English-speaking counter-
parts with TS? The answer is not straightforward. Some of the semantics
underlying coprolalia, for example references to genitalia, religion,
animals or faeces, are remarkably similar.
Middle East
One of the studies that makes it obvious how sensitive coprophenomena
are to culture is Robertson and Trimble’s (1991) analysis of five patients
from the Middle East with TS. The most interesting case is a young
woman born in Kuwait of an Arabic background. Her coprolalia began
at the age of 15. The literal translations of the Arabic words were ass,
bitch and pimp. But more telling was her sexual disinhibition in public,
which included uncovering her thighs in public, unacceptable in Moslem
culture, and exposing her breasts at school.
Japan
Several authors working on TS have stated that the disorder occurs only
rarely in Asian cultures, referring mainly to Japanese and Chinese
research. Nomura and Segawa (1982) reported a study of 100 Japanese
TS cases. According to the report, coprolalia is also infrequently seen

in Japanese aphasics, but not uncommon in English-speaking aphasics.
One caution, reported differences in prevalence may be due to compar-
ing samples with different age ranges and not due to cultural/genetic
differences.
Common Japanese words reported in Table 4.1 include kusobaba (shit
grandma), an insult usually directed at an older woman, chikusho (son of
a bitch), an animal reference to domesticated animals, comparable to
expletives of frustration in English (damn it). Other words were references
to female genitalia and breasts.
Brazil
Cardoso, Veado and de Oliveira (1996) studied the clinical features of 32
Brazilian patients (24 men and eight women) with TS. Coprolalia and
copropraxia were present in nine patients. The lexicon of ‘obscenities’
shouted by the patients is as follows:
merda faeces
bosta faeces
filho da puta son of a whore
bunda buttocks
buceta vagina
cacete penis
caralho penis
porra sperm
va tomar no cu fuck off
(Cardoso, Veado and de Oliveira, 1996, p. 210)
The authors suggest that coprolalia represents an expression of disinhi-

bition and patients with TS become incapable of suppressing the pro-
duction and vocalization of obscenities ‘which vary depending on
culture’.
Spain
Lees and Tolosa (1988) in a report on tics, listed the following curse
words from Spanish patients with TS. The words are listed in order
of frequency:
puta whore
mierda faeces
cono vulva
joder fornicate
maricon homosexual
cojones testicles
hijo de puta son of a whore
hostia holy bread, literally
Denmark
Regeur, Pakkenberg, Fog and Pakkenberg (1986) studied 65 patients with
TS in Denmark, who were being treated with Pimozide for their symp-
toms. Seventeen patients exhibited coprolalia. Examples of their
‘obscenities’ (with the authors’ translations, p. 792) included:
kaeft vulgar expression for shut up

svin swine – rather powerful in Danish
fisse, kusse very vulgar expressions for the
vulva
pik vulgar expression for the penis
rov ass
pis piss
sgu by God
gylle rustic word for farm animal
excretions
lort shit
These examples seem somewhat similar to English coprolalia, in that

they refer to body parts, genitalia and body products. The animal terms
and profanity are less typical of English-speaking Touretters but still
typical of English cursing.
Hong Kong
Lieh Mak, Chung, Lee and Chen’s (1982) study of coprolalia is based on
15 Chinese patients, born in Hong Kong and treated there. The original
report indicated that seven patients used single swear words (not reported)
and two used phrases like ‘fuck your mother’ and ‘rape your aunt’. Their
families considered coprolalia to be the most undesirable symptom, but
the patients did not seem to be distressed by the symptom. According to
Table 4.1, Lees reported the patients making references to female geni-
talia, breasts and useless persons, but these words are not in the original
report. And one has to wonder about the difference between ‘aunt
fucker’ and ‘rape your aunt’ as translations. They seem to be meant as
equivalent interpretations of a Chinese term, but are they? A caution on

translation is necessary.
It is tempting to conclude that English speakers are more obscene and
Brazilian, Danish and Spanish speakers are more religious because they
present different patterns of coprolalia. Japanese speakers also produce
less obscene and religious references, employing more ancestral allusions
and insulting references. We can infer that profanities are salient in cul-
tures where TS patients utter them. What is needed is more cross-
cultural data before universal similarities and differences in cursing can
be made with a degree of certainty.
Of course there are other bases for cross-cultural comparisons.
Restricting the discussion to pathology, we can address one additional
comparison based on ‘culture-bound’ syndromes which are not particu-
lar to the United States ( Jay, 2000). I refer to conditions similar to people
‘running amok’, where victims of the nervous condition have licence to
express intense emotions and even violent behaviour. Ataque de nervios,
present in Latin America, and latah (in east Asia), are two such syndromes
where women are given licence to express verbal and physical aggression,
which would be stifled in public at other times.
A nervous condition or culture-specific syndrome provides an accept-
able outlet for cursing not otherwise enjoyed in their culture and it would
be interesting to record what kinds of speech occur during these episodes.
At this point we see profanity is common across cultures on the basis of
the outbursts of people who cannot control their cursing. It is also the
case that religion plays a greater role in setting standards for public
behaviour in some countries than others and it is to the issue of religious
restrictions that we turn next.
Religion, learning and language restrictions
Social learning explains why we do or do not curse. For example, the

child who is told that ‘sex is bad and sinful’ develops a negative emo-
tional response to sexual stimuli. Also on the negative side, people have
learned a negative emotional response to the word ‘abortion’ when told
such things as ‘abortion is murder’. The religiously raised child who has
heard and read many positive emotional statements about God will be
positively conditioned to this word. Religious parents forbid the use of
profanity in the home ( Jay, King and Duncan, 2004). But a child reared
in a home filled with profanities will learn less positive reactions to reli-
gious words and concepts. Centuries of prohibitions on and declarations
about the use of profanities restricted their use.
Religious people become conditioned to think of profanities as ‘bad’

words. Other words are ‘good’ words. ‘Good’ words are non-profane,
non-obscene, those that do not offend or attack religion. ‘Bad’ words,
like goddamn, shit or fuck, offend religious people, who will not utter
them and do not want others to utter them. Religious training and practice
creates social tensions within a culture about the behaviours and
thoughts that must be inhibited. Tensions surrounding religion and
religious figures at times require catharsis through humour and joking.
Religious figures thus become the subjects of religious jokes. Legman
(1975) recorded scores of jokes that include priests, nuns and other
religious figures. He dedicated several pages to the subject of ‘mocking
God’ in his second volume of jokes.
Restrictions on words originate in part from religious ceremonies and
sacred texts (Bible, Koran). Words are defined as ‘bad’ through religious
doctrine, Old Testament law, Islamic or other religious laws, or when
religious authorities declare words and thoughts as forbidden. Religious
ceremonies employ special language that is regarded more highly than
everyday speech. Generally speaking, religious restrictions are based on
the notion that words are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and that ‘bad’ people use ‘bad’
words. One’s attitude about religion and blasphemy depends on one’s
personal-psychological development and indoctrination in a religious
community.
Censorship
Another means of teaching people that profanity is taboo is through the
process of censorship. Words have to be sacred, powerful or dangerous to
be censored by religions. An example of religious censorship over speech
comes from the motion picture industry. From the first days of ‘talking’
pictures, the Catholic Church played a significant role in censoring
American films ( Jay, 1992, ch. 6). In 1927 a set of guidelines for film
language, known as the ‘Don’ts and Be Carefuls’, banned ‘god, lord, Jesus,
Christ, hell, damn, gawd, and every other profane and vulgar expression
however it may be spelled’ ( Jay, 1992, p. 217). Here the public is explic-
itly informed that profanity is powerful through censorship standards.
The Church banned profanity because it had the power to do so.
Recently, however, these prohibitions on profanity have declined signifi-
cantly. Profanity is now common in all forms of popular media (radio,
television, newspapers, comic strips). As older prohibitions on profanity
have largely disappeared, current media censorship focuses on obscene
and indecent speech (Flexner, 1976; Jay, 2000). Punishment and sanctions
must be understood in light of definitions of profanity and blasphemy.
Profanity and blasphemy

To be profane means to be secular or indifferent toward religion. A profane
word is not an attack on the Church; it amounts to indifference toward
or a misuse of religious terminology. Holy shit! is a profanity. Blasphemy
is more troublesome; it is an attack on religion and religious figures.
It represents an intentional and offensive threat to religion subject to
greater punishment than profanity ( Jay, 1992, 1996). The Pope is a fool is
a blasphemous statement. The distinction is necessary here even though
the person on the street uses ‘profanity’ to refer to all categories of offen-
sive speech. However, profanity and blasphemy are specific categories of
religious speech sanctioned by religious authorities.
Censorship is enforced by members of a religious group or by one’s
(religious) parents. But if religious sanctions disappear in a community,
profanities are frequently heard. In cultures where religion is powerful
and its followers devout, penalties are proscribed which reduce the
frequency of profanity and blasphemy. Since the 1900s in the United
States, blasphemy prosecutions have all but disappeared. In comparison,
Islamic punishments for blasphemy (‘words of infidelity’) still result in
the loss of legal rights, marriage validation or claims to property (Elaide,
1987). However, there are ways for emotional expressions to sidestep the
profane.
Euphemisms
One way around the religious restrictions on profanity is to express emo-
tions through the use of euphemisms or substitute words. Euphemisms
are milder replacement words (e.g., cripes) for more offensive counter-
parts (Christ!). The list includes expressions such as darn, gosh darn, jeep-
ers, heck, sugar, fudge and friggen. K. C. Ushijima (2004) has documented
how extensively Mormon students enrolled at BYU-Hawaii and on BYU
campuses in Utah and Idaho use euphemisms and substitute words. As
a testament to religious conservatism, Ushijima found that the most
commonly used word by students on these three campuses was crap,
which clearly contrasts with college students elsewhere who liberally utter
words such as fuck and shit ( Jay, 2000).
Religion is the source of some Americans’ most frequent curse words
because profanity (damn) is less offensive than sexually explicit (cunt) or
aggressive speech (fuck you). Profanities (damn, hell, Christ) are acceptable
in public speaking and in popular media in many cultures. Because
profanity is so common and frequent in the United States, it is quickly
learned by children, who along with others realize that they will not be
punished as much for uttering profane epithets as they will for obscenities.
But people who define themselves as religious should eschew profanity

regardless of how mild others deem it.
The religious personality and cursing
Personality refers to an individual’s consistent patterns of behaviour and

thought; examples are extraversion or neuroticism. We tend to think of
personality as fairly stable across contexts, but we must realize that envi-
ronment and learning also influence personality. The notion of personal-
ity allows us to differentiate individuals on the basis of personality traits
and ask questions such as ‘What kind of woman curses in public?’.
The answer to the question must reference personality factors because
an act of cursing springs from a speaker’s personality and speech habits.
How seriously anyone treats profanity depends chiefly on her view of God.
Cursing, as a habit, is part of a woman’s psychological make up. When we
hear a woman cursing we see traits related to her religiosity, aggressiveness,
anxiety, racism or hostility. By training, a religious woman is more likely to
be offended by profanity than a woman who is not religious.
Offendedness and offensiveness

Before we continue we need to distinguish between properties of words
and properties of people. The notion of offendedness refers to a speaker’s
sensitivity to offensive language. Offendedness is an aspect of personality;
it is a psychological reaction to words. In contrast, offensiveness is a prop-
erty of words. Words can be very offensive or inoffensive. Offendedness
is not innate, people learn to be offended by ‘offensive’ words. One’s
offendedness is a product of personality development and social aware-
ness, which ultimately affect one’s reaction to profanity and one’s
tendency to curse. A religious woman who is offended by profanity will
not utter profanity. Similarly, a mother with high sex anxiety is unlikely
to use sexual slang around her children.
To correlate cursing habits with personality, psychologists administer
personality tests to subjects and then they measure their reactions
to taboo words. Personality scores, for example, high sex anxiety (or
religiosity) are then correlated with the word data. Very little work has
been done to develop a test of offendedness and as a result we know
little about what kind of women curse in public. While we have estab-
lished facts about offensiveness ( Jay, 1992), we know less about offend-
edness. Below is what one can find in the social science literature.
Long and Herrmann (1997) developed a 45-item questionnaire to
gauge a person’s sensitivity to taboo words and behaviours. Questions
were designed to ask how acceptable, on a one-to-seven scale, respondents

find behaviours related to questions tapping Sexuality, Religion, Obscenity,
Seaminess, Liberality (live-and-let-live), Publicity (public displays of
questionable behaviour) and Laxity (society has declined morally).
Three of these factors (Publicity, Liberality and Laxity) provided consis-
tent scores. The Publicity, Liberality and Laxity sub-scales measure feel-
ings related to the sacred, which are used to make word choices in social
situations. Gender differences were not delineated in the paper. This is
just a beginning and more research is needed to fully develop the ques-
tionnaire with a non-college sample.
A review of personality and language research indicates that reliable
correlations exist between cursing and religiosity and between cursing
and sexual attitude ( Jay, 2000). People with high religiosity and those
with high sexual anxiety tend to be offended by profanity and sexual
slang. These variables have also been examined with two additional
lines of research, studies of viewers’ reactions to speech on television
and laboratory studies examining subjects’ reactions to offensive
speech.
Broadcast language
A good predictor of one’s offendedness (by crude language) is the depth
of religious belief. Complaints about television broadcast content are
linked to religiosity and sexual conservatism. Here we learn little about
gender. Hargrave (1991) and Wober (1980, 1990) recorded complaints
about broadcast language and the complainers’ demographics. Hargrave
identified five groups of people with unique approaches to broadcast
content:
1. ‘Anti-sexual’, who are mainly young men who were offended by

sexual terms.
2. The ‘offended’, who are frequent churchgoers with strong and negative
opinions about all types of offensive words on television.
3. ‘Non-anatomical’, who are most offended by scatological references
and those words that referred to the genitals.
4. ‘Permissive respondents’, who are least likely to complain about
sexual words.
5. ‘Religious protectors’, who are conservative churchgoers who reacted
most strongly to words from religious origin.
These results are interesting in light of Long and Herrmann’s (1997)

work. Consistent predictors of reactions to speech in both studies were
attitudes about the sacred, moral decline and public displays of offensive
behaviour.
Laboratory studies
Religiosity has been an accurate indicator of one’s hesitation to say taboo
words in experimental settings. Here is better evidence about speaker
gender. The explanation behind one’s hesitation is as follows, when a
speaker takes longer to say a taboo word relative to a neutral word, this
hesitation represents the process of repression. Repression delays both
decision processes and utterance latencies (reaction time, RT).
Grosser and Laczek (1963; see also Grosser and Walsh, 1966) compared
students from parochial school backgrounds with students from secular
schools to see if reluctance to say taboo words (utterance latencies) was
related to religious training. Subjects viewed single words projected on
a screen. They had to pronounce the word on the screen for the experi-
menter. The time between the end of the visual presentation and the
onset of the oral report was recorded (RT). Subjects saw 15 neutral
words, 15 aggressive words, 15 taboo sex words, then 15 more neutral
words. The taboo sex words were (prostitute, sperm, homosexual, pervert,
adultery, douche, intercourse, erection, lesbian, seduce, vagina, penis, mastur-
bation, rape and incest). The RTs to the taboo words were significantly
slower than any other sets of words, indicating that word meanings
caused different reactions across participants.
The religiosity effect was most pronounced in the parochial females.
The non-parochial females had the fastest RTs to the taboo words and the
parochial females had the slowest RTs. The males fell between these
extremes; the male secular subjects had the same RTs as the male
parochial subjects for the taboo words. The authors attribute the parochial
females’ strong response repression effect to their moral training in
school. Religious background and religious belief (some 40 years ago)
have significantly affected measures of offendedness. One other potent
variable in personality research is sexual repression.
Women’s sexual anxiety, guilt, repression and cursing
Historically, religions have placed severe punishments on sexual expres-

sion (see Grey, 1993) and as a consequence people who are highly reli-
gious are often highly anxious about, and offended by, sexual language.
Religiosity comingles with one’s sexual anxiety. Hargrave (1991) found
this in his broadcast speech survey, and numerous laboratory studies
have confirmed the relationship between sex anxiety and repression.
Free-association research
A traditional approach to studying word meaning is the free association
method. Subjects are presented with a target word and asked to respond
with the first word that comes to mind. Galbraith, Hahn and Leiberman
(1968) used the word-association test to examine the relationship between
sex guilt and responses to double entendre words, which possessed substan-
tial sexual connotation (mount, pussy, screw).
Subjects first completed the Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt Scale to
measure their level of sexual guilt. Next their responses were recorded to
a set of 50 words, 30 double entendres and 20 words devoid of sexual
meaning. Associative responses to the words were scored 0, 1 or 2 depend-
ing on the amount of symbolic sexual components in the response. The
higher the numerical score the higher the verbal, sexual response.
Results indicated that sexual guilt was negatively correlated (r 0.41)
with sexual responsivity. Scores reflecting the frequency and flagrancy
of verbal sexual responses in the free-association task to double entendre
sex-slang terms were negatively correlated with guilt over sexuality.
The free-association format has been used to test sexual responsitivity
in relation to males’ repression and defensiveness. Schill, Emanuel,
Pederson, Schneider and Wachowiak (1970) used free association to
examine sexual responsivity to double entendres with a group of male
college students. They found that personality traits of Defensiveness and
Sensitization were related to the sexual responses provided during a free-
association task with double entendre words with sexual connotations
( pussy, screw). Subjects rated low in Defensiveness had the highest level
of sexual responsitivity. Non-defensive Repressors and Sensitizers had
greater sexual responsitivity than did Defensive Repressors. These results
were obtained when male subjects were tested by a male experimenter.
When male subjects are tested by a female experimenter, sexual
responsitivity is reduced. Under these circumstances male subjects
become inhibited, because they want to make a good impression on the
female experimenter and therefore they inhibit their sexual responses.
The subjects’ need to repress sexual responses is more salient with the
female experimenter. With the male experimenter, male subjects are less
defensive and more responsive without worrying about the impressions
that their sexual responses makes on him.
Milner and Moses (1972) used both female and male subjects to
extend the findings of Schill, Emanuel, Pederson et al. (1970). Using sex-
ual responsivity measures to double entendres with both male and female
experimenters, Milner and Moses found no overall differences comparing
males’ and females’ responsivity. However, sexual responsiveness of

males was significantly inhibited when the test was administered by
a female experimenter. The sexual responsivity of the females tested by
a male experimenter was significantly lower than all of the other exper-
imental groups. Therefore, sexual associations to double entendre words
were repressed when a member of the opposite sex administered the test
and this was especially true for females. Experiments like these reveal
the sexual dynamics underlying repression, which fit with those that
underlie religiosity. However, the link between religiosity and gender is
inferred and not empirically established by the researchers.
Women, power and taboo language
Gender identity is a set of beliefs, behaviours and norms that permeate

human activity. Each culture seeks to transform infants into masculine
and feminine adults. Gender identity is a set of cultural prescriptions
and expectations that specify how men and women, gays and lesbians,
should behave. In the past, cursing and aggression have been most closely
identified with masculinity. Our cultures constrain how speakers com-
municate about sexuality. Sexuality is a taboo topic in the United States
and words denoting sexual activity are avoided. Sexual speech is taboo
because sexuality is taboo, not vice versa. Historically, American women
have been expected to repress sexual thoughts, while men have been
freer to use sexual speech.
Speaking sexually in public is intimately bound to cultural definitions
of human sexuality and gender identity. A speaker’s gender identity
affects the tendency to curse in cultural contexts. Gender identity (with
age, wealth, occupation and class) is a co-variant of power. The freedom
to curse without punishment is for those who have power. But cursing
and dominance are masculine traits, and ultimately cursing in public
depends on both gender identity and power. Males tend to have more
power to curse in the United States than females, though this is not
universally true as we see later.
Throughout history men and women have experienced different
standards for public behaviour. Not long ago, men cursed freely in
pubic, especially in male-centered contexts, such as factories, taverns and
sporting events. As women entered contexts historically occupied by
males, women’s cursing standards became more relaxed. Even though
we have not experienced parity, American women can curse more
openly in public now and men can no longer use obscenity as freely as
in the past.
Research on gender and cursing reveals three recurrent findings, men

curse more than women; men use a larger vocabulary of curse words
than women; and men use more offensive curse words than women
( Jay, 1992, 2000). Gender differences in cursing emerge when children
enter school and they persist into middle age. It is worth noting, however,
that women outnumber and outswear men in nursing-home settings
( Jay, 1996). While men generally curse more in public than women,
research indicates that the frequency gap between men’s and women’s
swearing is decreasing ( Jay, 2000). Gender differences in cursing are also
related to differences in the use of sexual terms, joke telling, harassing
speech, insulting and fighting words.
Sexual terminology
Gender differences regarding the use of sexual terminology have been
documented many times. Heterosexual men, women, gay men and
lesbians speak with distinctive sexual lexicons and prefer different terms
for genitalia and sexual acts (Walsh and Leonard, 1974; Sanders, 1978;
Sanders and Robinson, 1979; Terry, 1983, 1994; Wells, 1989, 1990). Men
and women also write different kinds of sexual graffiti (Bruner and
Kelso, 1980; Arluke, Kutakoff and Levin, 1987); that is, men’s graffiti is
more sexually suggestive and less socially acceptable relative to
women’s. Men’s graffiti also tends to be more racist, more homophobic
and less romantic than women’s graffiti.
Joke telling
Speaker gender plays a significant role in dirty joke telling (Mitchell, 1985).
Reliable differences appear in the selection of joke themes, characters in
jokes, and forms of jokes. Men, relative to women, tell a higher percentage
of obscene jokes, religious jokes, ethnic-racial jokes, and jokes about
death and drinking. Women, relative to men, tell a higher percentage of
absurd jokes, morbid jokes, Pollack jokes, jokes about authority figures
and jokes with plays on words. Men tell more openly aggressive and
hostile jokes than women. Finally, women prefer to tell their jokes to
other women, while men are more willing to tell jokes to mixed audiences
and opposite-sex audiences.
Harassment and fighting words

An interesting pattern of gender differences emerge when research on
sexual harassment and fighting words is examined. Women are more
sensitive and men less sensitive to speech that constitutes verbal sexual
harassment ( Jay and Richard, 1995). In contrast to sexual harassment
dynamics, men are more sensitive to what constitutes fighting words

( Jay, 1990). Fighting words are personally provocative words that lead
to violence. Men are more likely than women to say they would be pro-
voked into fighting by insulting or threatening speech. Women are
more sensitive to harassment and men seem more sensitive to the
dynamics of fighting language.
Gender-related insults
As for the question of words and insults, gender identity provides a basis
for insulting words. Insults are based on cultural differences in men’s
and women’s personalities. To get a clear picture of how men and
women insult each other, one must first appreciate the kinds of traits
associated with American men and women. Masculinity is associated
with traits such as aggressiveness or dominance. Femininity is associated
with traits such as nurturance and sensitivity. Gender-related insults
tend to be based on references about deviations from expected or idealized
gender-related behaviour.
Risch (1987) asked women to list insults for men and found that the
most frequent words were based on references to the genitalia (dick),
buttocks (ass, asshole) and ancestry (bastard, son of a bitch). Preston and
Stanley (1987) asked subjects to list the ‘worst thing’ men and women
could say to each other. They found the worst insults were:
woman to man: bastard, prick

man to woman: cunt, slut
man to man: faggot, gay
woman to woman: bitch, slut
The semantics of insult in these studies seem clear. Insults directed to

heterosexual men refer to them as insincere or effeminate. Insults directed
to heterosexual women refer to sexual looseness. These gender-related
insults for women and men have legal implications as the dimensions of
sexual looseness (whore) and homosexuality (faggot) are likely to be
perceived as fighting words ( Jay, 1990).
Insults are not merely offensive words; they are references to behaviours
and traits that disturb Americans. The semantic structure of insults pro-
vides a model of those behaviours and traits. Through the use of detailed
interviews with college students, Holland and Skinner (1987) constructed
a cultural model of insulting. The semantic dimensions used in the
model of insults were based on sexuality, attractiveness and sensitivity.
Several categories of terms were specific to males and females. Female

directed insults were references to:
women who promised intimacy but did not fulfill the promise –
dickteaser
social deviants who want too much from men – bitch
ugly, unattractive women – scag, dog
sexually loose women – cunt, slut
Insults for men also had definable target behaviours/traits:
effeminate or weak – homo, fag, wimp

insincere or mean – bastard, prick, asshole
inept, unattractive – nerd, jerk
attractive but sexually exploitative – wolf, macho, stud
Holland and Skinner (1987) showed that gender-related insults go beyond

sexuality as a basis for insulting, as insults also reference attractiveness,
ability, sexual potential and ineptitude. These dimensions of gender-based
insults can be found in popular US media.
Media stereotypes
The construction of gender and gender-related insults is influenced
by, and reflected in, media. American stereotypes are reinforced in the
electronic and print media, as has been demonstrated in motion pictures
( Jay, 1992), newspaper comic strips (Brabant, 1976; Brabant and Mooney,
1986; Mooney and Brabant, 1987, 1990; Jay, 1992) and televised films
( Jay, 1993). The overwhelming majority of the portrayals of men and
women cursing show that men curse more than women, men use more
offensive words than women, women use more euphemisms than men.
Men are rarely sanctioned for cursing. Women who curse tend to represent
‘bad’ characters (whores, drunks, drug users). The role of these exagger-
ated stereotypes of men and women are important to the degree to
which they affect consumers.
A caution
One note of caution must be addressed on the issue of gender differences
and speech. Henley (1995), reviewing literature on communication and
dominance, concluded that women of colour are generally ignored in
these studies, limiting applications to predominantly white middle-class
society. Gender in most studies refers to white men and white women.
Also, heterosexual identity is assumed in many gender studies. Analyses
based on gay men’s and lesbians’ speech are less common in the literature.
Obviously a broader sample of ethnic, homosexual and lower-economic
groups is needed to draw valid conclusions about gender differences and
cursing.
One of the most influential pragmatic forces controlling cursing is
the power relationship between the speaker and the listener. Power is
the ability to influence others through control over desired resources.
Power co-varies with age, education, wealth, occupation, gender and
race. Among equals, speakers adopt a level of verbal and non-verbal com-
munication that is responsive to the listeners’ power. Speaker–listener
communication includes eye contact, personal space, speech volume,
vocabulary, syntax and profanity. These components will shift according
to the level of formality adopted. Power makes communication among
non-equals asymmetrical. People with power have licence to tell jokes,
make fun of subordinates and use curse words. The level of speech for-
mality adopted in a context depends on who has the power to shift levels
up or down.
Cursing generally occurs at an informal, non-standard level. Cursing
should be appropriate for the speaker–listener relationship. Speakers can
‘talk up’ or ‘talk down’ to the listener, urging a shift to higher or lower
standards of formality. A speaker can initiate the use of cursing as a way
to move to a non-standard, more relaxed level of speaking. A working-class
woman, however, might inhibit cursing when she thinks she might be
judged negatively by her boss.
Working-class women and cursing

Paul Fussell (1983) described many of the obvious and not so obvious
differences in American lifestyles as a function of status. One lifestyle
difference is our speech patterns. He noted that the ‘bohemian class’ is
fairly free to use obscene speech, using it with rhetorical effectiveness.
Working-class speakers are fonder than most people of calling someone
an asshole according to his analysis. Fussell stated, ‘your social class is
still most visible when you say things’ (p. 151), noting that the sizeable
middle class feared offending others. To avoid offence they employ
euphemisms, genteelism and mock profanity (‘holy cow’). Examining
both gender and class differences, Hughes (1992) noted the reluctance
of lower-working-class women to use profanities at work. In contrast to
their lack of profanity, the lower-working-class women frequently use
expletives, in part to maintain social cohesion.
According to Hughes (1992), the use of ‘prestigious’ standard English

has little value for lower-working-class women because standard English
cannot provide any social advantage to them or increase their chances
for success. Speaking standard English would work to isolate them from
their own peers. In contrast to the stereotype that women curse less than
men, lower-working-class women frequently use strong expletives (cunt,
fuck, shit) that many middle-class men avoid. Daly, Holmes, Newton and
Stubbe (2004) drew a similar conclusion about the use of expletives on
the factory floor. Many exchanges using the word fuck served to
promote cohesion and solidarity between women (and men) factory
workers. Interestingly, working-class women in Hughes’s sample exhibit
a strong moral code against the use of profanity ( Jesus, Christ, God). The
middle class might find these values surprising, that is, where obscenities
are acceptable and even encouraged, but profanities are avoided. One
cannot ignore the impact of religion on this choice.
In addition there are some data relating joke telling to occupational
status. Coser (1960), studying joking among staff members of a mental
hospital, found that the most frequent targets of the senior staff joking
were junior staff members. Patients and relatives were targeted by the
junior staff members. Humour was directed downward at those with no
power over the speaker.
Jokes and harassment at work

In many occupational settings, speaker power is a defining feature of
sexual harassment. Most verbal sexual harassment suits involve junior
female workers claiming to have been harassed by male managers.
Unwanted jokes, obscenity, sexual innuendo, comments about physical
attractiveness or appearance flow from the top of the hierarchy down.
Top-down harassment has been documented with nurses and doctors
(Cox, 1987, 1991a, 1991b; Braun, Christle, Walker and Tiwanak, 1991),
medical students and physicians (Nora Daugherty, Hersh et al., 1993),
workers and management (Martell and Sullivan, 1994).
Henley (1995) studied non-verbal communication patterns as a function
of power, gender and dominance. Her comprehensive view of communi-
cation presents cursing within a broad interpersonal context which incor-
porates class, race and gender variables. Power gives a speaker the licence
to do things that the powerless cannot. Dominance legitimizes inva-
sions of personal space, touching others, engaging in eye contact, and
addressing subordinates by their personal names rather than by title.
Dominance and power also legitimize the use of offensive language
over subordinates. Therefore, the doctor tells a dirty joke and the nurses
laugh, but not vice versa.
Conclusion
What have we learned by examining the nexus of gender, cursing and

religion? We see that each factor has a significant impact on language
choices. Women curse less than men, generally speaking, but times are
changing and for working-class women this generalization does not
apply. Social class, status, power and occupation are important mitigating
variables. The Church has lost power to broadly censor speech in US
media; however, the faithful maintain values that allow them to repress
profanity in public. Religiosity and sexual anxiety are primary traits
underlying language repression. Cross-cultural studies reveal the perva-
siveness of cursing and the semantics of the forbidden in different cultures;
some more focused on profanity than others. Finally, the role of cursing
for American women is changing and we will probably continue to see
a relaxation of the restriction on their cursing in the future.
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Part II
Gender and Language Use in
Religious Communities
5
Women and Men: Languages
and Religion in Taiwan
Chao-Chih Liao
The earthquake in Taiwan in September 1999 resulted in renewed

searching within that country – an awakened awareness of the role of
religion. The reasons the Taiwanese people have chosen to follow a par-
ticular religion are varied. Many young people in Taiwan are drawn to
Christianity1 because Christian organizations offer English classes
whereas many older women and men remain loyal to Taoism and
Buddhism. This chapter explores some connections between gender,
language and religion in Taiwan and the reasons why educational
institutions have contributed to the rise of Christianity in particular.
Most Taiwanese religion is a combination of Confucianism, Buddhism
and Taoism. However, because Taoism allows for more materialistic pur-
suits, it is embraced by many of today’s Taiwanese.2 Those who follow
the Taoist religion may be looked down upon by the more conservative
Buddhists. I have heard it said that if a person’s faith is expressed only
by participation in the chin-hsiang-tuan (‘Incense Holding Parade’)
during festivals, s/he is in an ‘elementary-school’ phase of religious
development, while those who study the Buddhist scriptures would
consider themselves to be in the ‘university’ phase. A Buddhist believes
that human lives are miserable and it would be better not to be born.
Once born, however, one must refrain from greed, anger and silliness,
and pray not to return to life through reincarnation. Chen (1996)
summarizes the complexities and contradictions by saying that the
Taiwanese religious experience begins with ancestor homage, is cultivated
by Confucianism, coloured by Taoism, and modified by Buddhism. That
is to say, religion in Taiwan is complex and multi-layered.
From elementary school onward, files are kept for all Taiwanese, in
which their religion is identified. Ten 50-year-old women interviewed
for this study stated that their religion was Buddhism, although six of
87
88 Gender and Language Use in Religious Communities
them admitted they were actually Taoists: they differentiated on issues

like reading scriptures or strict adherence to a vegetarian diet. They, like
many Taiwanese and Hakkas, prepare food and burn incense in front of
the house, at the ancestor hall and/or at temples only on specific days
and not on a regular basis. Such contradictions are common in today’s
Taiwan.
This study applied three research methods to explore gender, language
and religion: participant observation, interview and questionnaire
analysis. Participant observation and interviews lead to the following
results: Taoist and Buddhist places of worship communicate in the
Taiwanese or Mandarin languages in order to be believer-friendly,
and Christian churches use English, Taiwanese, Mandarin, Hakka and
aboriginal languages for this purpose. Buddhism uses the Mandarin
transliteration of Sanskrit to reveal mysticism and tradition (many
scriptures are Chinese transliterations from Sanskrit in the third to tenth
centuries). Islam uses both Arabic and Mandarin.
The state of religion, gender and language

classes in Taiwan
According to the Executive Yuan (1995) 52.8 per cent of all Taiwanese are
religious believers (over 11 million people). Among believers, 43.7 per cent
identify themselves as Buddhists, 34.7 per cent as Taoists, 8.5 per cent as
I-kuan Taoists, 6.5 per cent as Christians, and 6.6 per cent as belonging to
other religions.
In Taiwan, Buddhism and Taoism are the two main religions
(86.9 per cent of the religious population identify themselves as
Buddhist or Taoist); Christianity and Islam play more minor roles. The
Taiwanese traditionally use incense to show respect to ancestors and in
praying to ancestors for their help. Christianity and Islam do not allow
this practice and consider it to be idol worship, which makes it difficult
for the Taiwanese to give credence to these religions.
In the 1950s there were ten universities in Taiwan, three of which
were Christian (Wang, 1996). Since the 1990s, many more universities,
with new Departments of Religion, have been established. Their purpose
is to promote the social and humane study of world religions, and thus
to promote harmony among people of different faiths. Other steps have
been taken as well, such as the Taiwan government’s 2000–1 Show of
Western Religions. The motivations for this exhibition were to bridge
the gap between believers and non-believers and specifically to promote
Christianity in Taiwan (Chen, 2000).
Women and Men: Languages and Religion in Taiwan 89
Though Islam is a major world religion, it is much less significant in

Taiwan. There have been efforts to promote it, such as in 1990, when the
ROC (Republic of China in Taiwan) government sold a piece of land at a
very low price for the building of the Taichung Mosque. This was
an attempt to please the international community, even though the
ROC government clearly promotes Christianity over Islam in more
significant ways.
One Buddhist master in Taiwan, Shih Zheng-yen, the founder of Tzu
Chi, said, ‘If one worships Buddha without studying scriptures, s/he
becomes either superstitious or ignorant’ (in Shih, 1992, p. 44). She
views many Taiwanese as less devout since they do not read Buddhist
scriptures or follow the main tenets of Buddhism. Because women tend
to visit religious places and perform the rituals rather than study the
scriptures, they are often viewed as more superstitious and ignorant
than men.
The English word for Taoist and Buddhist places of worship is temple.
However, in the Taiwanese language, the definitions are more compli-
cated: Buddhists use the word si for a Buddhist temple, and other words
(miao, gong or tzu) to identify Taoist places of worship. Many Taoists
themselves are not aware of these differences. While collecting data,
I found many university students to be unsure whether they were
Taoists or Buddhists, identifying themselves as either Buddhist or Taoist,
depending on the circumstances.
Religion and education

The United Daily News (26 March 2004, page A4) reported the Dean of
Academic Affairs of the National Taiwan University as saying that NTU
had informed its professors that they were not to initiate discussions
about sex, politics or religion in class unless the course specifically
focused on such material. While these three topics remain taboo in
Taiwan’s most prestigious university, newspapers and television
newscasts continue to report about them and the students in this study
cooperated well on the topic of religion for the purpose of data collection.
However, religion is seldom the main topic of discussion in educational
institutions. In a study of 1278 English teachers in Taiwan, only one
male student noted that a female teacher was a pious Buddhist (Liao,
2005) and that was because she told her students about her religious
activities. Such teachers can be reprimanded if students complain.
The link between Christianity and education in Taiwan is significant.
Here, Christian institutes of higher education have a longer history than
those of other religions. Chang-jong Catholic High School has existed
since 1885. The first Catholic university in China/Taiwan is Fu-ren

Catholic University, founded around 1930 and re-established in Taiwan
in the 1950s. Since 1963, the Stella Matutina Girls’ High School and
Viator High School, two highly competitive schools in Taichung City,
have been famous for quality education. Both are Christian institutions.
There are 25 Buddhist academic institutions, but only five Buddhist
graduate schools. Temples offer courses to children on Confucius’s
teaching about filial piety and the hierarchical structure of society.
These Buddhist institutions have been in existence only since 1994,
more than 20 years after the founding of the Tzu Chi-initiated aid
programmes for victims of natural disasters. Since Buddhism and
Christianity each have their own higher education institutes in Taiwan,
both systems can choose scholars from among the most brilliant
students. Students attending the Christian institutions tend to be better
off economically, partly because the Christian institutes of higher
education are more established.
Among the smaller Taoist sub-sects, I-kuan Tao is the most enthusiastic
about contributing to Taiwanese society, operating 34 nursery schools,
21 hospitals, 8 clinics and 3 nursing homes. Taoism has no educational
institute. One reason Taoists have not established schools might be due
to its tradition of personal devotion rather than promoting a doctrine of
ambition and accomplishment.
In the late 1990s, the monks at the Chung Tai Chan Monastery
proposed to cut the hair of all attendees at their summer camp and
convert all of them to Buddhism. Many parents rigorously objected. The
Taiwanese admire religion but despise such extremism and coercion.
After the matter was settled, the Minister of Education, in hopes of
developing both awareness and tolerance, proposed that Taiwanese
universities offer courses on a variety of religions rather than focusing
on one in particular. To most Taiwanese religion is suitable as a pastime,
but religious believers who forsake their families to live and serve in
temples or monasteries might be described as tzou-huo-ru-mo (‘walking
on the fire and stepping into devil’), referring to the rejection of family
loyalty for the sake of another calling. Such abandonment of family is
not encouraged in the culture at large, even for Buddhists.
Languages and religions in Taiwan

Taiwanese languages include the High Language of Mandarin, Low
Taiwanese, the in-group Hakka and the many aboriginal languages
(Huang, 1993). Mandarin speakers comprise at least 90 per cent of the
population, Taiwanese speakers 78 per cent, and Hakka speakers
12 per cent (Huang, 1993). The Taiwan people are generally bilingual,
some Mainlanders may be monolingual, and Hakkas and aborigines are

often trilingual. A Taiwanese person who speaks English fluently enjoys
high social status. Because of this, more Taiwanese women go to church,
where there are times of English worship, and may eventually convert to
Christianity. As such, women’s language is often associated with higher
status (Labov, 1972).
Christianity in Taiwan is a legacy of much missionary effort from the
Western world. From 1624–62, missionaries from Holland learned the
languages of Taiwan and worked to convert native tribes. The work was
stopped in 1662 but recommenced in 1865 under the direction of the
Presbyterian Church of England. In 1872, the Presbyterian Church of
Canada started a Protestant mission in Taiwan (Campbell, 1889). In the
1900s and 1910s, Marjorie Landsborough (1972) served as a missionary
for the Presbyterian Church of England in Formosa. Though Taiwan was
ruled by Japan from 1895–1945, she taught classes in Taiwanese rather
than Japanese, using Bible lessons to help boys and girls become literate.
Christianity has contributed much to Taiwan’s languages. Missionaries
helped compile the Hakka–English/English–Hakka dictionary in 1959 as
well as the English–Taiwanese/Taiwanese–English dictionary, which
used romanized spellings throughout. Taoist and Buddhist professionals
have tried to appeal to visitors or new converts by using the local
languages of Hakka or Taiwanese. Because aborigines reject Buddhism
and Taoism, aboriginal languages are not used within those religions.
Islam first came to Taiwan in 1662 but many Muslims eventually con-
verted to Taoism or Buddhism. It was not until after World War II that
more Muslims arrived, this time with the support of the Chinese
Nationalist Government. Most local Muslim men are older, born in
1949 or before.
Buddhism enjoys a higher status than Taoism. A real Buddhist tells
people that s/he is a Buddhist and may condemn those Taoists who
claim to be Buddhists. Most Taiwanese claim that Chinese believe in a
combination of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. However, they
reject the idea of Confucianism as a religion, because Taoism and
Buddhism have ritual ceremonies, while Confucianism does not – it is
more a philosophy that values filial piety than a religion to be
adhered to.
Taiwan’s aboriginal groups have their own religion. However, many of
them also believe in Christianity. From 1895–1945, the aboriginal
people were isolated and no religious groups reached their settlements
in the mountains to promote other religions. After the Japanese
withdrawal in World War II, the Presbyterians arrived and converted
70 per cent of Taiwan’s aborigines to Christianity (Yisikakafute, 1997).
The study
Results of interview and participant observation

When I questioned people whether they believed more men or women
visit religious places of worship (temples and churches), the answer was
overwhelmingly ‘women’. Church visitors might be family members or
younger people either single or not old enough to have children.
However, visitors to Buddhist or Taoist temples are mostly older women
(whose family members are either too busy or do not share the same
religion); occasionally they attend with children and grandchildren.
Women demonstrate gratitude and faith in their prayers – they pray for
their husbands to succeed in their careers, their sons to do well in
school, and their daughters to have good marriages. They also pray for
good health for their families. Men tend to be more pragmatic in their
religious observances – their prayers are more likely to be for material
success.
Many Taiwanese students attend churches that offer English Bible and
Conversation classes in order to improve their English. In Taiwan, one
can find churches or temples using monolingual messages of Mandarin,
Taiwanese or Hakka. However, it is impossible to find a Buddhist or Taoist
temple using English in worship. In some churches, four languages –
Mandarin, Taiwanese, English and Hakka/one aboriginal language – are
used to cater to different groups of people at different sessions.
Questionnaire analysis
In March 2004, I distributed two sets of questionnaires to undergradu-
ates; each participant completed only one set. For Set 1, their responses
were immediate; Set 2 had two weeks to consider their responses. There
were 32 responders in Set 1, 104 responders in Set 2.
Set 1
I asked a class of 32 university men and women to think of all the reli-
gious believers that they personally knew and to identify the gender,
age, religion and the reason for conversion if they were aware of it. One
hundred and thirty-nine believers – 93 female (66.9 per cent) and 46 male
(33.1 per cent) – were listed. The numbers for each religion break down
as follows:
Buddhist 56 (40.3%)
Christian 56 (40.3%)
Taoist 27 (19.4%)
Table 5.1 Ratio of older to younger people within their religions
Buddhism Christianity Taoism Total
Younger 24 (34.3%) 42 (60%) 4 (5.7%) 70

Older 32 (46.4%) 14 (20.3%) 23 (33.3%) 69
Total 56 (40.3%) 56 (40.3%) 27 (19.4%) 139
Chi-square value (␹2) 28.508 (p-value 0.000).
The believers ranged in age from 15–95; the average age was 41.7 years.
Because of this, I divided the list into two groups and set 42 years of age
as the dividing line between the younger and older age groups. The
gender variable seemed relatively evenly divided between the two
groups; the age factor appeared to be more significant.
As can be seen in Table 5.1, more younger people believe in
Christianity, while more older people believe in Taoism.
Set 2
For Set 2, each participant was given two weeks to interview two devout
religious believers – one of their parents’ age and the other closer to their
own age – and to take note of the believers’ age, gender, religion, moti-
vation for their faith and the languages used in the place of worship
they attended. The interview was then used for discussion in an English
conversation and writing class. Four females out of the 104 total partic-
ipants could not find any young believers and asked for permission to
interview two older people. Six students visited one older believer only.
It was generally observed that there were fewer younger believers to
interview than there were older. This may in part be due to the fact that,
when compared with the life experiences of younger people, older people
have likely seen more illnesses, disasters, unpredictable events and
hard-to-explain coincidences or miracles.
Seventy-five females and 29 males finished the assignment. Because
men and women tend to interact with people of their own gender (Liao,
2005; Tannen, 1986), I expected the male participants to interview more
male believers and the female students to interview more female believers.
However, this was not the case. In both groups, more females than males
were interviewed as believers.
The figures in Tables 5.2 and 5.3 suggest that the number of both
older and younger Taiwanese female and male believers do not differ
significantly within these religions. The gender variable seems quite
balanced. However, Table 5.4 significantly demonstrates the age
factor as salient here. Table 5.5 shows the ratio consistency in Sets 1 and
2 for the older groups, Table5.6 inconsistency in the younger groups:
Table 5.2 Older believers’ religions
Buddhism Christianity Falungong Taoism Total
Females 23 (29.1%) 16 (20.3%) 1 (1.3%) 39 (49.4%) 79

Males 11 (42.3%) 7 (26.9%) 0 8 (30.8%) 26
Total 34 (32.4%) 23 (21.9%) 1 (1%) 47 (44.8%) 105
␹2 3.290 (p-value 0.349).
Table 5.3 Younger believers’ religions
Females 17 (26.2%) 30 (46.1%) 18 (27.7%) 65

Males 3 (10%) 14 (46.7%) 13 (43.3%) 30
Total 20 (21.1%) 44 (46.3%) 31 (32.6%) 95
␹2 4.084 (p-value 0.130).
Table 5.4 Older versus younger believers’ religions
Buddhism Christianity Taoism Others Total
Older 34 (32.4%) 23 (21.9%) 47 (44.8%) 1 (1%) 105

Younger 20 (21.1%) 44 (46.3%) 31 (32.6%) 0 95
Total 54 (27%) 67 (33.5%) 78 (39%) 1 (0.5%) 200
␹2 14.029 (p-value 0.003).
Table 5.5 Comparison of Set 1 and Set 2 (older groups)
Table 5.1 32 (46.4%) 14 (20.3%) 23 (33.3%) 0 69

Table 5.2 34 (32.4%) 23 (21.9%) 47 (44.8%) 1 (1%) 105
Total 66 (37.9%) 37 (21.3%) 70 (40.2%) 1 (0.6%) 174
␹2 4.210 (p-value 0.240).
Table 5.6 Comparison of Set 1 and Set 2 (younger groups)
Table 5.1 24 (34.3%) 42 (60%) 4 (5.7%) 0 70

Table 5.3 20 (21.1%) 44 (46.3%) 31 (32.6%) 1 (1.1%) 95
Total 44 (26.7%) 86 (52.1%) 35 (21.1%) 1 165
␹2 17.861 (p-value 0.00).

(Note: the p-value of 0.00 in Table 5.6 is owing to my precision re: one’s definition of
Taoism. In response, some respondents changed their minds.)
Of the 105 older believers, only three female Taoists and one male
Catholic had chosen a profession within their religion. The three older
women operated shentan (‘A shop selling specific gods for worship’3) at
home and the male was a Catholic Father. All the remaining older
believers donated money and labour to their religion. Of the 95 young
believers, marginally more young males chose a religious career than did
females – three Taoists (one female and two males) and one male Catholic.
The female Taoist worked in a temple and the two male Taoists helped
at their parents’ shentan. The Catholic male attended a Catholic high
school.
Languages used in places of worship

According to the reports about older believers (Table 5.7), 75 per cent of
Buddhists communicate in Taiwanese, 61.1 per cent in Mandarin and
2.8 per cent in Hakka. The one place where Hakka was spoken was in a
place where two other languages – Mandarin and Taiwanese – were also
used. For Christians, 20 places of worship (87 per cent) communicated
in Mandarin; seven places (30 per cent) used Taiwanese; four places
(17 per cent) used English, and one place (4 per cent) used only the local
aboriginal language. At 26 Taoist places of worship (55.3 per cent),
Mandarin was spoken; at 28 places (59.6 per cent) Taiwanese and at one
place both Taiwanese and Hakka were spoken. In summary, the main
language of Buddhism and Taoism is Taiwanese, the main language of
Christianity is Mandarin.
For younger people (Table 5.8), the main language used in Buddhist
places of worship was Mandarin (14 places, 73.7 per cent); in Christian
Table 5.7 Languages used at the gathering places for older believers
A HT M ME MHT MS M and T T Total
Buddhism 0 0 8 0 1 1 12 14 36
Christianity 1 0 11 4 0 0 5 2 23
Taoist 0 1 9 0 0 0 17 20 47
A: Aboriginal language; E: English; H: Hakka; M: Mandarin; S: Sanskrit; T: Taiwanese.
Table 5.8 Language used at the gathering places for young believers
E H M ME MT MTE T TS Total
Buddhism 0 0 8 0 6 0 4 1 19
Christianity 1 0 23 11 5 2 2 0 44
Taoism 0 1 4 0 10 0 14 0 29
places, Mandarin (41 places, 93.2 per cent); and in Taoist places, Taiwanese
(24, 82.8 per cent). The reason for the majority of older Buddhists speaking
Taiwanese and the majority of younger Buddhists speaking Mandarin may
not be that they attend different temples but that they simply did not pay
attention to the languages they were not familiar with. If young people are
fluent in Mandarin, they may ignore the fact that the Buddhist temple
they attend also uses Taiwanese. One Catholic reported that only English
was used in her church, because she only attended the English mass.
Motivations
This section concentrates on the believers’ motivations for their faith.
The pragmatic reasons for becoming religious may be personal need,
concern for family, or out of gratitude. Examples of the first include
wanting peace of mind or help to find a good spouse or a good job.
Instances of the second might be to pray for healing for a family mem-
ber or because it is the family religion. An example of gratitude could be
when one’s life is miraculously spared, as for those who survived the
earthquake of 1999. Tables 5.9, 5.10 and 5.13 demonstrate common
motivations for all Taiwanese, and Table 5.11 indicates that 12 older
women are religious out of gratitude. Of these 12, two became Buddhists
after the earthquake, nine became Taoists for different reasons, and one
became a Catholic because the church helped her after the earthquake.
Table 5.9 Motivations for religious belief of older people
F FG Fr G O S U Total
Buddhism 11 0 3 2 2 14 4 36
Christianity 8 0 0 1 1 11 2 23
Falungong 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1
Taoism 14 1 1 8 1 18 5 48
Total 33 (30.6%) 1 (0.9%) 4 (3.7%) 11 (10.2%) 4 (3.7%) 44 (40.7%) 11 (10.2%) 108
␹2 10.862 (p-value 0.900); F: family; G: gratitude; Fr: friends; O: others; S: self; U: unknown.
Table 5.10 Motivations for religious belief of younger people
Buddhism 8 (38.1%) 0 0 2 (9.5%) 1 (4.8%) 9 (42.9%) 1 (4.8%) 21

Christianity 17 (38.6%) 1 (2.3%) 0 2 (4.6%) 4 (9.1%) 14 (31.8%) 6 (13.6%) 44
Taoism 18 (58.1%) 0 1 (3.2%) 2 (6.5%) 0 8 (25.8%) 2 (6.5%) 31
Total 43 (44.8%) 1 (1.0%) 1 (1.0%) 6 (6.3%) 5 (5.2%) 31 (32.3%) 9 (9.4%) 96
␹2 11.287 (p-value 0.504).

97
Table 5.11 Older men and women’s motivations
Women 26 (32.9%) 1 (1.3%) 2 (2.5%) 11 (13.9%) 3 (3.8%) 28 (35.4%) 8 (10.1%) 79

Men 6 (23.1%) 0 2 (7.7%) 0 1 (3.9%) 14 (53.9%) 3 (11.5%) 26
Total 32 (30.5%) 1 (1%) 4 (3.8%) 11 (10.5%) 4 (3.8%) 14 (53.9%) 3 (11.5%) 105
␹2 7.631 (p-value 0.266).
Table 5.12 Younger men and women’s motivations
Women 27 (41.5%) 1 (1.5%) 1 (1.5%) 3 (4.6%) 4 (6.2%) 24 (36.9%) 5 (7.7%) 65

Men 16 (53.3%) 0 0 3 (10%) 1 (3.3%) 6 (20%) 4 (13.3%) 30
Total 43 (45.3%) 1 (1.1%) 1 (1.1%) 6 (6.3%) 5 (5.3%) 30 (31.6%) 9 (9.5%) 95
␹2 5.358 (p-value 0.499).
Table 5.13 Older versus younger people’s motivations
Old 33 (30.6%) 1 (0.9%) 4 (3.7%) 11 (10.2%) 4 (3.7%) 44 (40.7%) 11 (10.2%) 108

Young 43 (45.3%) 1 (1.1%) 1 (1.1%) 6 (6.3%) 5 (5.3%) 30 (31.6%) 9 (9.5%) 95
Total 76 (37.4%) 2 (1.0%) 5 (2.5%) 17 (8.4%) 9 (4.4%) 74 (36.5%) 20 (9.9%) 203
␹2 6.741 (p-value 0.345).
Table 5.14 Are older believers voluntary workers?
Buddhism Christianity Falungong Taoism Total
No 25 (69.4%) 17 (73.9%) 1 (100%) 44 (91.7%) 87 (80.6%)

Yes 11 (30.6%) 6 (26.1%) 0 4 (8.3%) 21 (19.4%)
Total 36 23 1 48 108
␹2 7.51 (p-value 0.057).
Table 5.15 Are younger believers voluntary workers?
No 19 (90.5%) 30 (68.2%) 29 (93.6%) 78 (81.2%)

Yes 2 (9.5%) 14 (31.8%) 2 (6.5%) 18 (18.8%)
Total 21 44 31 96
␹2 9.184 (p-value 0.010).

The number of men and women in both groups who volunteer is not
significantly different: 20 per cent of older people do voluntary work
and 80 per cent do not, while 18.8 per cent of younger people do and
81.2 per cent do not. Table 5.14 shows that most older Taoists are not
voluntary workers (only 8.3 per cent), while about one-third of Buddhists
and Christians are. Table 5.15 shows a different distribution: younger
Christians are more likely to do voluntary work than are younger
Buddhists and Taoists. This suggests that Buddhism and Taoism may
need to change their strategies to recruit more young voluntary workers.
Discussion and conclusion
Catholicism in particular has been adjusting to Taiwanese culture to

allow its believers to continue the tradition of respect for their ancestors.
However, Christianity as a whole has not done this. According to
government records, by 1995 only 2.7 per cent of Taiwanese religious
believers were Catholics. This would seem to indicate that allowing
believers the practice of respecting their ancestors has not significantly
increased the number of practising Christians in Taiwan. However, the
data in Tables 5.1–5.3 reveal a higher percentage of Christians in Taiwan
than do the government records. A possible reason for this discrepancy
is the research method used here. The educational level of the intervie-
wees for this study would likely be higher than that of the general
population since the university students conducting the interviews
would be more likely to interact with people of their own educational
background and social status.
The fact that more women than men go to church/temple might be
explained in one of three ways: (1) Taiwanese women are oppressed; as
such, they need more interaction with God; (2) Taiwanese women are
less busy than men and have more time to go to church/temple; or
(3) Taiwanese women are more sensitive to their emotional or spiritual
lives. They have more worries than men, and thus need more of the
comfort which religion provides.
Tannen (1986, 1990, 1994) proposes that women like to be connected
with people, while men prefer to be independent. Attending church and
temple is one way to connect with people or other beings such as God
or Buddha. Also, some men might consider it a weakness to admit they
need help in dealing with their mental, spiritual and material problems;
attending a place of worship may be considered by them to be an
admission of such a weakness.
Many Taiwanese reject the passive expression of traditional conserva-

tive Buddhism. Young women who want to become Buddhist nuns
may be criticized for avoiding the secular world. Men who want to
become Buddhist monks are not as likely to be criticized. However,
for the past decade, many Buddhists are becoming more actively
involved in the world by providing shelter and medical help for victims
of disasters.
Tables 5.7 and 5.8 would indicate that Mandarin will become more
and more essential in religious places of worship. In Taiwanese mosques
today, the Qu’ran is read in classical Arabic, but explained in Mandarin.
Many Taiwanese Christian churches have priests, fathers or sisters
coming from English-speaking countries. They know English is an inter-
national language, and offer English worship. The number of Christians
in Taiwan is expected to increase.
The Ministry of Interior Affairs calculated that in 2002, 12.5 per cent of
Taiwan’s newborn children were born of a foreign parent – mainly
from Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand or Vietnam (Hsue, 2003). The
Indonesian Islamic women married to Taiwanese husbands like to
gather in mosques to socialize. It will be worth noting if the number of
female Muslims in Taiwan will increase and if more Taiwanese people
will speak Arabic in the future. It would also be interesting to do a
follow-up study 20 years from now, comparing the religious distribution
of the young people interviewed for this study to what they are at
that time.
Notes
1 The term ‘Christian’ will here refer to the Catholic, Protestant and Mormon
expressions of faith, even though the differences between the three groups are
often times deep and complex, with much rivalry within many Taiwanese
communities.
2 Sometimes the term ‘Taiwan people’ better identifies those understood as the
Taiwanese (Southern Min speakers who immigrated to Taiwan in the seven-
teenth century, who claim to speak Taiwanese), whereas other terms refer to
specific groups, such as Mainlanders (people from all over Mainland China,
who took refuge in Taiwan around 1949 and who regulate Mandarin as the
national language), Hakka (the Hakka speakers who also arrived in the seven-
teenth century) and Aboriginal Tribes (who lived in Taiwan before the arrival
of the other groups). For the purposes of simplicity, in this chapter ‘Taiwanese’
will refer to the general population of Taiwan.
3 In Taiwan, a Taoist and Buddhist place of worship has more than one idol: the
main god and others.
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6
Women’s Letters to the Editor:
Talking Religion in a Saudi
Arabian English Newspaper
Hannes Kniffka
The letters to the editor (LTE) investigated here appear on a page titled
‘Islam in Perspective’ in a column titled ‘Our Dialogue’ in which the
Religious Editor of the Saudi Arabian newspaper Arab News (and in a
similar column in the newspaper Saudi Gazette) answers questions sent
to him by readers of the newspaper. This chapter looks at a corpus of
women’s LTE (henceforth WLTE) only. They represent a small fraction
(less than about 10 per cent) of a corpus of LTE (of a total of some 150
LTE written mostly by men, analysed in different contexts and respects
in Kniffka, 1994, 2001, 2002). All WLTE investigated represent one and
the same text type, or ‘sub-type’. They all have the structure Question
(Q), sent in by a woman author, Answer (A), supplied by the Religious
Editor of the newspaper.
This chapter will focus on which components and interrelations of
components in terms of the ‘Ethnography of Communication’ are to be
analysed for an adequate description of LTE as communicative events as
well as differences between LTE (or questions in LTE) written by men
and LTE written by women.
Some linguistic data, for example text coherence and text cohesion
phenomena, the enumeration and ‘bundling’ of questions by the editor,
the ways in which name references to women authors are given or not
given in LTE are descriptive data worth being stated in their own right
(see Kniffka, 2005). In the focus of this chapter is the question, to what
extent and in what way do the linguistic features of the texts reflect the
‘socio-cultural position of women’, their social status, public role(s) in
the Saudi Arabian society of the 1980s and 1990s? Special emphasis is
laid on questions that women ask (or are reported to ask according to
101
LTE appearing in the press) in religious matters, which concern the

totality of (their) social and cultural life in this strict Islamic
(Wahhabite) society.
Theoretical frame of reference: the ‘Ethnography of

Communication’ components of LTE-communication
From the few questions mentioned above, it follows that a description

of the verbal (grammatical) data alone available in LTE published in
Saudi Arabian newspapers would be inadequate. This means that a
sociolinguistic or sociology of language framework is needed to account for
the complexity of the phenomena envisaged, and to yield an adequate
description and explanation of LTE-communication. In other words: the
communicative event constituted by LTE on religious matters in Saudi
Arabian daily (English) newspapers requires a perspective reaching far
beyond grammatical data. This is confirmed by the fact that many
salient ‘cultural’ data are to be accounted for.
The most adequate framework that takes this into account seems to be
an adapted version of the ‘Ethnography of Communication’ model
developed by Dell Hymes, John Gumperz and others.1
It is not possible here to describe a well-defined set of theoretical
postulates, let alone a coherent theory of this type of mass-media com-
munication. A few salient facts on some components and their interac-
tion will be outlined below. Which components are of particular salience
for the description and explanation depends on the perspective chosen.
The main task, in essence, is to describe each component of the inter-
action systematically in its own right. This is not meant as a checklist of
single items, but as a description of the ‘dynamic’ interaction and the
complex interrelation of components, so that eventually the total
‘dynamics’ of the components and the communicative act in its holistic
‘Ganzheit’ will be accounted for. Due to the questions in focus in
this paper, the components setting, sender and addressor, receiver and
addressee/audience, message form, message content, genre will be of
prime concern. Other components, which are of equal relevance for an
exhaustive description, cannot be treated here but just be mentioned in
passing, like the ‘phenotype’ (layout and the ‘ensemble’ of the page on
which the religious LTE appear, Kniffka, 1980), the norms of the interac-
tion and so on. From the basic observable data it can be seen that it is
a very complex interaction indeed that is to be described: (published) LTE
in the Friday edition of a Saudi Arabian English-speaking newspaper is
‘person-to-person’ written communication in the first dyad (i.e., between
Women’s Letters: Talking Religion in Saudi Arabia 103
the LTE author and the Religious Editor), and at the same time it is to be
described as ‘mass communication’, since the questions and answers
published in the newspaper edition are directed towards a large non-
individual readership consisting of hundreds of thousands of readers.
The Religious Editor is a complex entity also: he/his team is responsible
for the selection of (parts of) LTE which appear in the newspaper edition
(and those which do not appear). He is the sender-authority responsible
for the actual wording (message form) and the content of a particular
LTE and he may have (and very likely does have) a large range of
different motivations for making an LTE in the printed version look the
way it does; satisfying the expectation of the government, the newspa-
per owner/editor, the readership and so on. All this is in itself reason
enough to choose an ‘ethnographic’ frame of reference for an adequate
description.
In addition, LTE in an English-speaking newspaper in the setting of
Saudi Arabian culture is, by definition, ‘intercultural communication’. It
involves, as a rule, interlocutors from (at least) two different cultures and
languages. In fact, very few of the LTE authors (newspaper readers) seem
to be natives of Saudi Arabia. The majority of LTE authors (as inferred,
among others, from their names and the topics chosen) do not seem to
be natives of Saudi Arabia nor native speakers of Arabic. The main read-
ership of the religious page of the English-speaking Saudi daily papers, at
least in the time period from which the corpus sample is drawn (1980s
and 1990s), seem to represent non-Arabs and non-native speakers of
Arabic, but speakers, for example, of languages like Urdu, Pashto,
Gujarati, Tamil, Tagalog, Bahasa Indonesia and others.
This can be explained by several factors mainly of the local setting:
there is also an Arabic edition of the English daily paper Arab News. If
native Saudis (and speakers of Arabic) were to write a letter to the
(religious) editor of a newspaper, they would very likely choose Arabic
(rather than English) in an LTE and would send it to an Arabic-rather
than an English-speaking newspaper. Why write a letter to the editor in
one’s native country in a language other than one’s native language?
The socio-cultural setting of Saudi Arabia in the

1980s and the 1990s
A few ingredients of the general Saudi Arabian socio-cultural setting in

the 1980s and the 1990s must be mentioned here. The Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia is a theocracy of strict Wahhabite denomination. Islam is
the state religion, which means that every citizen must be a Muslim (and
non-Muslims cannot be given citizenship). The king has, among others,

the title of ‘custodian of the two holy Harams’ (ÌÁdim al-Îaramayn
as-sarDfayn), that is, the two cities (and holy districts) of Mekkah and
Medinah forbidden to non-Muslims. Worship of religions other than
Islam is strictly forbidden. Christians, for example, who live in the
Kingdom as ‘guest workers’, including engineers, medical doctors, uni-
versity professors and so on, are not allowed for instance to import a
Bible in their personal luggage or to wear a little crucifix around their
neck. Non-Muslim foreigners are expected and required to observe
general Islamic laws and public regulations. They must not drink, eat or
smoke in public during daylight in Ramadhan, must not kiss their wives
goodbye at the airport, must not drink or import alcohol and so on.
Some regulations seemed less strict in the first half of the 1980s than in
the second and had become much more strictly observed in the 1990s
due to the increased influence and public appearance of the ‘religious
police’ (al-muÔawwiÝÙn). While it was possible (and not explicitly
forbidden) for non-Muslim men to swim in short swimming trunks in
the Red Sea a few miles outside the city (of Jeddah) and to go shopping
in shorts (bermudas or similar) in the early 1980s, this has become more
and more frowned upon and is frequently explicitly forbidden now.
Needless to say that there are no cinemas or liquour stores around. Saudi
men may marry (foreign) non-Muslim women, who, within a short
time, will convert to Islam. No Saudi woman is allowed to get married
to a (foreign) non-Muslim man, however. Severe penalties exist for
violations of Islamic laws as constituted by the Shariah code of justice
which has been effective in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for as long as
the country has existed.
It should be added, however, that within the strict rules of Islamic
religion and culture, life was (in the 1980s) enjoyable even for non-
Muslim Europeans. Saudi Arabia then was probably one of the safest
countries in the world. In the early 1980s, shopkeepers used to leave
their stores for prayer (ÒalÁt), leaving non-Muslim foreigners in the
store together with piles of banknotes unattended on the shop counter.
In later years, everybody was asked to leave the store before prayer
began. Foreign people, Muslim and non-Muslim, were treated by the
unparalleled laws of hospitality everywhere in the countryside. In the
ÎadD it is stated that a stranger coming to anybody’s house is to be
treated by the host to the best he can. Only after three days is the host
allowed to ask what the visitor has come for.
For the communicative setting in which the newspaper interaction
investigated takes place, a few data pertaining to the interrelation of the
components setting; sender; message form; genre; and instrumentalities

(channel and media characteristics proper) must be sufficient here (for
the components sender and receiver see LTE 8 and LTE 9).
In 1992, there was (according to official statistics by the Ministry of
Information) a total of ten Saudi daily newspapers, three of them
English speaking, with a total circulation of some 600,000; 34 per 1000
population. Radio (1994): there were some 3,800,000 receivers (1 per
4.6 persons) in Saudi Arabia. Television (1994): some 4,700,000 receivers
(1 per 3.7 persons). Radio and TV broadcasting are operated by the
Ministry of Information.
Education (Literacy): in 1995, 62.8 per cent of the population aged 15
and over were literate; 71.5 per cent males; 50.2 per cent females. In
1995, Saudi Arabia had a total population of 17,880,000; 82 per cent
Saudi, 9.6 per cent Yemeni, 3.4 per cent other Arab, 5 per cent other.
Religious Affiliation: Muslim (mostly Sunni): 98.8 per cent; Christian:
0.8 per cent; other: 0.4 per cent (1983).
In 1965, King Feisal ordered television to be installed, after a painstaking
discussion process with opponents, in particular the Ulema (the members
of the highest religious council). The programme consisted of Qur’an
recitations and other religious broadcasts, yet the opposition to the
media was not silenced – leading to the tragic events that finally led to
King Feisal’s assassination in 1975. Today, there is still ample coverage of
religious topics in both official Saudi TV channels, channel 1 (broad-
casting in Arabic) and channel 2 (broadcasting in English). In the early
morning and at bedtime, Qur’an verses are recited. During ÒalÁt, five
times a day, TV programmes are interrupted and a (steady) picture of the
KaÝba is shown. There is also entertainment (mainly Egyptian and
Indian films, US soap operas). Another important local fact: public cine-
mas and so on have been forbidden in Saudi Arabia since the late 1970s.
At the same time, the Saudi population seems to be one of the best
equipped in the entire world with videos of various denominations to be
shown in private, which again is difficult to analyse in reliable scientific
terms for obvious reasons. TV programmes, sales of videos, any public
communication whatsoever is governed by strict (official) censorship.
Two of the three English-speaking daily newspapers, Arab News
and Saudi Gazette appear in Jeddah (the third, the Riyadh Daily, pub-
lished in the capital since the late 1980s will be left out of consideration
here). Arab News has a circulation of some 53,000, Saudi Gazette about
35,000 (1996). For comparison, some data on German daily papers:
in Germany, 375 daily papers with 1600 local editions and a total
circulation of some 26 million copies are published daily (in addition
28 weekly papers with 2.2 million copies and 8 Sunday papers with
4.8 million copies), that is, 314 copies per 1000 inhabitants. Four-fifths of
Germans aged 14 and over (80.7 per cent) read a daily paper (50 million).
Some 16.4 per cent read ‘their’ daily paper. Reading habits: 78 per cent
read the local news daily, followed by political news, foreign policy. Of
particular importance to the readers are ads, editorials and letters to the
editor. The last mentioned fact of reading behaviour seems to be quite
similar to readers of the two English-speaking newspapers in Saudi Arabia.
The Arab News and Saudi Gazette have been running personal ads since
about the mid-1980s on topics like cars for sale, shared housing and
rooms for rent which, being novelties then, people were rather eager to
read. The Arab News has been running LTE at least since the early 1980s
on all kinds of secular (culturally permitted) topics and in its Friday
edition runs a page ‘Islam in Perspective’, a ‘religious page’ so-to-speak,
with a column ‘Our Dialogue’ in which both editorials by Islamic
scholars and a large section of LTE appear, the latter in the form of
questions sent to the Religious Editor of the paper and his answers to the
readers. Saudi Gazette has followed this example since the 1990s (they
carried no such coverage a decade earlier).
There is one other fact of the general cultural and religious setting
worth mentioning here: the different degree of tolerance Saudis (strict
Muslims) display against the two other monotheistic revelatory religions,
Christianity and Judaism, on the one side, and polytheistic and other
‘religions’ on the other (Saudis would not use and accept this term for
them), like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and others.
There is also racial and/or ethnic prejudice in Saudi Arabia, though
not as overtly marked and perceivable as the former. Saudi hospitality,
students’ genuine friendliness towards their teachers, be they locals or
from abroad (as put down in the Qur’an), an enormous spontaneous
personal appreciation of others, all this is activated almost self-evidently
towards other Arab Muslims and, for example, German ‘ÌawÁÊa’ – not so
towards people from India, the Philippines, China and so on, even if
they are Muslims. A Saudi MD, asked about his attitude towards black
people in general and (Saudi) fellow citizens in particular, would echo
the general official version that they were, of course, fully recognized,
that there was no discrimination, no antipathy and so on. When asked
in private, he would say that he would never allow one of his daughters
to get married to a black Saudi. There is an (entirely un-Islamic) hierar-
chy of appreciation for other races and ethnicities with white/Caucasian
people from the United States and Europe on one end of the scale and
people from India and the Philippines on the other.
Corpus of women’s LTE
The textual data of the questions of the WLTE investigated are given
in Table 6.1.
In the left-hand column, the name and the edition of the paper is
given, in this case, different editions of the Saudi Arabian newspaper
Arab News (AN) of 1987 and of 1996 and one edition of the Saudi Arabian
newspaper Saudi Gazette (SG) of 1997. The right-hand column contains
the original wording of the LTE as it appeared in the newspaper. The
‘headlines’ (HL) of the LTE and also the numbering and compartmental-
ization of questions (or the lack of it) were supplied by the Religious
Editor. There are no explanations for why the editor chose this particular
text-compartmentalization or why these headlines were chosen.
The selection of the corpus of WLTE in Table 6.1 as a whole is acciden-
tal. The overall criteria for selecting these WLTE and not others is that
the ‘name line’ underneath the LTE as it appears in the newspaper
and/or the text is an explicit indication that the LTE author is a woman
rather than a man. There is in fact a continua of explicitness (or non-
explicitness) in this respect (Kniffka, 2005), meaning that in some cases the
form of the name given does not identify the sex of the author, but, as in
LTE (3), the wording and the content of the LTE do, ‘my husband seems
Table 6.1 Women’s LTE
LTE (1)
AN, 08.11.1996 Inheritance that was usurped

Q1: When our father died 20 years ago, he left behind his
wife, 4 sons and 5 daughters and a family house. One of our
brothers has died before our father. Our two eldest brothers
sold the family house 10 years ago and used the money in
their business. Our mother died 2 years ago. Now our two
brothers have given each of us his or her share of the original
price they received for the house. They also paid the share of
our deceased brother to his widow, not to his four children.
Our father did not make a will in favor of those because they
are well-off. Please comment.
Q2: What is correct English spelling of the name of the
mother of prophet Ishmael. Is it Hajra or Hajer? Does it have
any meaning?
Q3: Can a Muslim study American law and practice law in
U.S., accepting only the cases that do not involve anything
against Islam?
Mrs B. Sheikh, Jeddah
Continued
108
Table 6.1 Continued
LTE (2)
AN, 01.11.1996 How should we react when others do wrong?

Q: After the death of my husband I took my children to
settle down at another place. When I came back, I found
someone occupying our house on the pretext that my late
husband owed him money. I agreed to pay in due course, but
he wants immediate payment. Can he occupy the house in
this way? Similarly a motorcycle which belonged to my
husband was sold on installments but the buyer paid only
the first installment. Is it lawful to delay payment in this way?
Affected Lady, Makkah
LTE (3)
AN, 09.08.1996 A second marriage

Q: After 10 years of marriage, during which I have had four
children, my husband seems intent to marry a second wife.
My protestations have gone to no avail. I am a working
woman and my husband takes away all my salary. In his
attempts to get married, he is telling other people that he is
unmarried. I am very worried about my life and children.
Please comment.
E.A.R., Riyadh
LTE (4)
AN, 18.10.1996 What to avoid in the family home, etc.

Q1: If a wife is disobedient to her husband, is her prayer
acceptable? What if a man is married to a domineering wife
and he is scared of contradicting her? May I also ask whether
it is true that most women go to hell?
Q2: Does Islam allow women to work in factories or offices?
Q3: Can a man marry a second wife without the approval of
the first wife?
H. Nazeer (Mrs), Jeddah
LTE (5)
AN, 22.11.1996 Briefly

Q1: If at any place the period between dawn and sunset lasts
for 18 hours or so, what is the time when Muslims should
finish their fasting?
Q2: Is it permissible to eat kosher meat?
Q3: Why are stones exempt from zakah when they have
considerable value?
N. Jaffri (Mrs), Michigan, USA
Continued
Table 6.1 Continued
LTE (6)
AN, 20.09.1996 Woman’s appearance and dress

Q1: Is it permissible for a young woman to shape her eye-
brows, particularly when they are too thick or irregular?
What about the removal of facial hair, particularly over her
upper lip? Its presence is likely to invite ridicule.
Q2: Is it permissible to replace hair if one becomes bald at a
young age?
Q3: Is there anything wrong with a girl wearing loose pants
which are more comfortable particularly during travel?
M.M.A., Riyadh
LTE (7)
AN, 04.05.1987 Can one take medicine while fasting?

Q: As a doctor, I would like to know whether intramuscular
and intravenous injections may be given to a fasting person,
in normal circumstances or in emergency. Can a person who
suffers from asthma use his aerosol inhaler while fasting?
What is the ruling regarding the use of ear, nasal and eye
drops, suppository and the drawing of blood for investiga-
tion during fasting?
Naseema Ismail, Riyadh
intent to marry’. In some cases there is neither any explicit ‘text-external

marker’ in the name line nor a ‘text-internal’ marker identifying the sex
of the author, but just some degree of likelihood that a woman may be
the author. In LTE (6) the content of the three questions asked about
‘women’s appearance and dress’ seems to be more located in the domain
of women than of men.
The total amount of LTE-data of the period between about 1981
and 1999 available to me suggests that there is a high percentage of
recurrence of wording and structure, and also of topics of LTE. One can
say that the topics of the LTE in 1983 are more or less the same as the
topics in LTE in Arab News in 1993 and 1996. This in itself is an inter-
esting culture-specific fact of Saudi Arabia. It does not indicate that there
has not been a development concerning the role of women in Saudi
Arabia. It rather suggests that there has been a certain continuity in the
way LTE authored by women on religious topics have been handled by
the Religious Editors of the newspapers during these two decades. Some
minor changes certainly did take place in details in the 1990s, such as
the fact that the Religious Editor of Arab News is mentioned by name at
the head of the page written with his by-line right below the page’s title
‘Islam in Perspective’, which was not customary during 1981–8.
The topics occurring in the LTE investigated can be grouped together
into a limited amount of classes, which also reflects a relatively high
degree of recurrence of topics on which women write LTE and the
Religious Editor chose to answer in the Friday edition of the newspaper.
The most frequently asked questions involve:
● Inheritance
● Second marriage of husband
● Women’s ‘proper’ appearance and dress
● Execution of religious life and duties
● Equal rights and/or value of women
● The role of women in congregational prayer
● The general role of women in Islam
● Proper spelling and proper language use (of Arabic, English and other
languages)
● Legal aspects of Islamic life abroad in a non-Muslim country
● Selected special questions asked by women, but referring to general,
other than women’s concerns.
Sociolinguistic analysis of LTE written by women
The components ‘message form’ and ‘genre’ of LTE

It is worth noting that the reader of the newspaper, is not in any way in
a position to judge which ‘message form’ the portion of the text printed
in the newspaper is created by the LTE author and which is due to mod-
ifications by the Religious Editor. The only persons to know would be the
author and the editor. Such details are generally not revealed to people
other than members of the newspaper’s staff, in Saudi Arabian as well as
in Western newspapers. As a rule, newspapers keep this information to
themselves, just printing a certain selection of LTE in a paper’s edition,
without saying which LTE or parts of LTE were not printed. The actual
wording of the LTE as a printed text product appearing in a newspaper is
a complex interrelation of components and sub-components, here
mainly of the sender, the addressor, the message content, the genre, the
receiver, the addressee, the audience and the message form.
In Arab News the page ‘Islam in Perspective’ has a little box addressed
‘To our readers’, stating the postal address of the paper and its Religious
Editor, to which readers should send their LTE.
Another ingredient worth stating for message form is the ensemble of

the whole page ‘Islam in Perspective’ containing several texts on Islamic
topics, stories, a calendar of important historical Islamic events, the
column ‘Our Dialogue’, and also the fact that newspapers like Arab News
and Saudi Gazette have secular (non-religious) LTE on different topics. They
appear (in the 1990s) on Wednesdays in Arab News and are differentiated
from the religious LTE other than by the day of appearance alone, but also
by the place/page where they appear in the newspaper edition (on a page
other than the religious page), text type, topic (that is non-religious topics,
such as politics, sports, domestic affairs) and phenotype/make-up. A more
detailed analysis of the components cannot be given here. The general
descriptive and explanatory potential seems clear.
The components ‘sender’, ‘addressor’; ‘receiver’,

‘addressee’ and ‘audience’ in WLTE
As mentioned above, the text type ‘letter to the editor’ is primarily char-
acterized by the specific complexity of the component’s ‘message form’;
and of ‘sender’, ‘addressor’; ‘receiver’, ‘addressee’ and ‘audience’ and
their interrelations.
The ‘sender’ component itself is characterized, inter alia, by the fact
that it is a ‘global’ component, consisting of the following constituents:
● The newspaper editor(s) and the other members of the newspaper
staff as a whole.
● A particular, identifiable sender, the Religious Editor. He also is an
‘addressor’, that is, the text author of the ‘answer-portion’ of an LTE
published in the paper. To what extent he is also ‘addressor’ (‘editor’)
of the ‘question-portion’ of the LTE cannot be determined accurately.
● A single, identifiable ‘addressor’, the author of the LTE (here of the
questions asked in the LTE).
This structural complexity of the sender component has no direct equiv-

alent in the ‘receiver’ and ‘addressee’ categories. The latter are
characterized by the general fact that there is no personally identifiable
receiver/reader of the newspaper, but a global addressee and audience
category, unless s/he acts, in turn, as a sender and writes an LTE, which
gives it a unique structure of its own. LTE are the only media or the only
text type (apart from ads) in which readers of the newspaper have the
possibility to act as senders (authors) in the newspaper. So there is
the rare chance that text products of the readership which would not be
heard or read in print otherwise can be accounted for. One can say that
in mass-media communication Hymes’s distinction between ‘addressee’
and ‘audience’ within the receiver category coincides or is ‘neutralized’,

with the exception of LTE, which makes this another definitory trait of
the text type LTE.
The category of ‘addressor’ as it appears in the LTE printed in a Friday
edition of a Saudi Arabian newspaper carries highly significant socio-
cultural information about the interaction as such, about society and
about the people involved.
All 9 LTE of the corpus were written and sent to the Religious Editor by
women authors, which is more or less explicitly stated in the ‘name line’
at the bottom of the LTE (see Table 6.1).2 The most general opposition is
between male authors of LTE on the one hand, whose names are given
by FN LN CN.3 FN are sometimes abbreviated/given in initials only,
with the general understanding, that the author of the LTE is a male
(the ‘unmarked case’ of sender- and authorship indication), and LTE
authored by women on the other hand, which have an addition (Mrs)
(mostly in parentheses) added to the name (as the ‘marked case’). In
respect to sender-identification, it is noteworthy, too, that no LTE with
an addition *( Miss) or *( Ms) respectively occur in the corpus. This could
mean that LTE sent in by female authors are written by married women
only, that the Religious Editor, or the editor of the paper chooses the
variant ( Mrs) only, no matter if the women authors are married or not,
or that it is the paper’s policy to print LTE authored by married women
only. There is no way of telling which is the correct explanation here.
The fact that women authors are identified by the addition of (Mrs) is no
doubt a basic marker of the structure of Saudi Arabian society and the
position of women in it.
There is an interesting difference between a particular LTE versus the
rest of the LTE of the corpus: In Table 6.1 LTE (2) it is not FN LN
(Mrs) CN that is given, but rather an anonymous, more general refer-
ence by an appellative Affected Lady, Makkah (I have not seen an example
such as *Affected man, Jeddah).
Presumably in all newspapers, the names of the authors of some LTE
are withheld; that is, they do not appear in print, though the editor may
know (or, frequently, is required to know) them. Some papers, including
the two Saudi Arabian papers investigated, have the policy to accept LTE
only with the full name and address of the sender given to the editor.
They may or may not appear in print. Seemingly one of the major
reasons for this is the specific status, maybe ‘touchiness’ of the topic
(manifest content) which the LTE in question has. In the case, for exam-
ple, of LTE (2), the author may not wish to be identified by name
because the LTE refers to a ‘touchy’ matter and/or the LTE-editor may
not wish to identify her publicly. As with other ‘internal’ editorial data,
the two alternatives cannot be determined any further on safe empirical
grounds by the linguistic observer. That an editor and/or Religious
Editor does not want the name to appear in print may itself be due to
a large variety of reasons. The author may not want to identify herself
for different reasons, too. There may also be ‘joint ventures’ of one kind
or another. There is no way of telling which (combination of the two)
applies. Interestingly enough, one may thus be able to state a special
‘status’ of the topics in such LTE in which the name of the author is not
revealed without being able to come up with any detailed valid expla-
nation. The same applies basically to LTE written by men (cf. Kniffka,
2002). In a particular LTE a man may inquire, for example, about
unislamic behaviour or some wrong-doing, and not surprisingly does
not want to identify himself.
The ‘touchiness’ of a particular topic is itself an interesting indicator of
culture-specific constraints: What is ‘touchy’ and what is not is highly
marked by culture-specific factors; what one is eager or ready to talk about
in (the) public (press), even more so. There is no overall intercultural
invariant hierarchy of which topics are ‘touchy’ in a culture x and
which are not. On the contrary, its status is by definition a highly culture-
specific matter. Some topics may be touchy, dangerous or even forbidden,
or severely punishable if expressed in public (e.g., mass media) in
Saudi Arabia, but are no problem at all if publicly stated in the West.
In the case of LTE (2) in Table 6.1, the topic as such does not seem in
any conceivable way to be a topic which would suggest or require with-
holding of the name from a Western European perspective. The ‘Affected
Lady’ in this LTE complains that, when she had moved to another place,
someone occupied her house because her late husband owed the usurper
some money. So she asks the LTE-editor whether the man has any right to
occupy her house and also whether it is lawful that he has not paid the
total instalments for a motorcycle that her late husband had owned (his
name is not mentioned). It should be stated here, that in none of the
other questions of the corpus are the name and address of the sender/
author withheld. Neither the LTE with a question like Is it true that most
women go to hell? nor Can a man marry a second wife without the approval
of the first wife? nor Is it permissible to eat kosher meat? are anonymous.
Obviously Saudi culture views some matters differently from Western
societies. Some questions would not likely be asked in a Western
daily paper (for a variety of reasons); some would neither require nor
ask for the withholding of the author’s name (as here in LTE (2),
‘collecting debts’).
Culture-specific facts of the setting of women

in Saudi Arabia and in WLTE
Some of the more important data of the general socio-cultural setting of
Saudi Arabia have been outlined above. Below, the data will be supple-
mented by those pertaining to women in Saudi Arabian culture in the
1980s and 1990s. Special reference will be made to the LTE written on
women and by women. As was also stated, Arabic-speaking Saudi news-
papers address a readership different from that of English-speaking
Saudi daily newspapers (and certainly weekly papers). Not many native
speakers of Arabic (and Saudis for that matter) will read the English edi-
tion of Arab News. Also, one can tell from many of the names of the LTE
published that they are frequently from Islamic, but non-Arabic-speaking
countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and others. It is safe to say that the
English edition of Arab News is definitely a paper for expatriates (Muslim
and non-Muslim) living in Saudi Arabia, rather than native Saudis. In
addition to the names, the topics of the questions asked and the way
they are asked in some cases also reveal that it is unlikely to have a
native Saudi author. A native Saudi would mostly not ask such
questions, or at least not publicly in a daily paper.
It would also need further detailed empirical study to determine to
what extent the range of topics published in a paper reflect the actual
interest of the readership and/or the religious convictions and publishing
and editing practices of the Religious Editor. It would require an insider
to arrive at any real reliable data. Nevertheless, two very basic facts about
the LTE are beyond dispute:
1. The selection of WLTE actually did appear in press on the page ‘Islam
in Perspective’ in the column ‘Our dialogue’ on the dates given. The
data are authentic ‘real life’ data.
2. The WLTE were selected for publication (over others) by the Religious
Editor of the paper, that is, they were considered to be of general
interest to a large readership, and therefore (and because of
additional concerns) were selected.
One can assume that the LTE investigated contain salient information
on Islamic life and culture in Saudi Arabia in the 1980s and 1990s. The
data are genuine and ‘psychologically real’ information on what was
going on in Islamic matters in Saudi Arabian print media in that period.
They are cultural icons of Saudi Arabian Islamic life and culture. They
also reflect mental activities, ways of thinking, value systems and
attitudes of expatriates living in Saudi Arabia and of at least one Saudi
national, the Religious Editor.
A few more facts on women and women’s behaviour in everyday

Saudi culture must be added. Normally women are excluded from public
life in the Saudi socio-cultural setting. They are totally unrecognizable in
public and wear wide, long, black clothes covered with an abayah down
to the ground not revealing any body form. Normally, native Saudi
women are veiled entirely in public and can be identified as such by this
very fact. Women have their own entrances in banks, hospitals and so
on, their own entrance to their house or building. They also have their
own living quarters in a flat, including a bathroom reserved for women
(and children). This part of a flat/house is not entered by male visitors.
Women are not allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia, nor to sit next to
someone in a taxi, in a car, at a bench, at the beach and so on, who they
could possibly be married to.
Taking all this into consideration, it appears ‘logical’ that, in Saudi
culture, women are the ‘marked’ class of sexes, for example by the
addition of ( Mrs) as senders of LTE, whereas the ‘unmarked’ forms (e.g.,
initials for FN and a LN) refer to men as LTE authors.
A brief comparison of men’s LTE (cf. Kniffka, 1994, 2002) with the
WLTE of the corpus shows that nearly all topics and topic areas occur in
both (LTE by women and by men), notably with the exception of ‘Equal
rights and value of women’ occurring only in WLTE, and some obvious
specifications, like ‘growing moustache and beard’ in men’s or ‘women’s
proper dress’ in women’s LTE. A brief look at topics of men’s LTE (taken
from Kniffka, 2001) continues this:
● Problems of marriage, second marriage, divorce, sexual and domestic

behaviour.
● The role and status of women at home and in public.
● Questions of Islamic law in terms of civil rights, zakah (alms), death,
inheritance.
● Performing the daily religious duties of a Muslim properly contained
in the so-called ‘five pillars of Islam’ (five prayers per day, fasting,
zakah and so on).
● Questions of proper Islamic behaviour, including linguistic questions
like proper spelling of names, pronunciation, reciting the Qur’an and
so on.
● Proper behaviour when living in a non-Muslim environment, like,
for example, professional conduct as Muslims in the West, working as
a lawyer in the US; which direction to bow to when offering prayers
if, for example, living in the south-east of Canada or in South
America or aboard a plane.
In other words: with the exception of a (significant) difference in one topic,

a large symmetry or overlap can be shown for men’s and women’s LTE. This
means that, with the exception mentioned, there are no or few LTE-topics
‘specific to women’, nor LTE-topics ‘specific to men’, but rather a common
class for both. This does not mean, that LTE written by men and LTE writ-
ten by women are alike, however. There are differences in the frequency of
occurrence of some topics in each, such as problems of ‘second marriage’,
which are, not surprisingly, more frequent a topic in LTE by women, zakah
and other financial matters being more a topic in LTE by men.
The large coincidence of topics and the somewhat ‘limited’ scope of
questions asked as such is itself a culture-specific fact of Saudi culture,
and seems, above all, a characteristic of the ‘ensemble’ given by the page
‘Islam in Perspective’. At the same time it reflects the usages and
editorial policies of the Religious Editor.
It is safe to say, that all this is a sign of a relatively strong impact of
Islam on Saudi Arabian culture, affecting everybody, men and women,
in basically the same fashion and strength, modelling the differences of
both as defined in Islam in a clear cut way. This is in fact topicalized
quite frequently in (W)LTE.
Two exemplaric LTE written on women and by women

It was pointed out briefly, that the LTE written on women (by men) and the
LTE written on women by women do not seem to contrast significantly in
terms of topic and wording. On the contrary it is plausible to assume that
both are very similar, as far as the questions of the LTE are concerned.
A different matter may be the answers supplied by the Religious
Editor. The answers show a considerably sharper contrast for different
LTE than the questions and probably also for men versus women as LTE
authors. A striking contrast in the answers is found, however, in the LTE
investigated in two examples (8) and (9), in which the Religious Editor
answers LTE written by women of a different cultural background. The
fact that both LTE authors are women is beyond doubt according to the
data supplied in the LTE. All other information cannot be stated with
equal safety. It is remarkable in the answers of the Religious Editor what
differences the texts in both cases contain. It seems worthwhile to give
the questions and the answers in full detail.
LTE (8)
AN, 06.12.1996 Equal rights or equal value for women
Q: In a recent reply to a reader’s question you have stressed the equal-

ity of men and women. May I suggest that this frequently asked
question results from a problem of linguistics. The Oxford English

Dictionary lists 12 definitions for ‘equal’. The first two are 1) being iden-
tical in value, and 2) having the same rights and privileges. Both these
meanings are common in the everyday usage of education. Thus the two
sexes are unequal in the sense of the second definition. You have men-
tioned on more than one occasion some of the differences between the
two sexes. May I suggest then that the answer to whether Islam consid-
ers men and women equal should be both ‘yes and no’. This will stress
their equality in value, but not in rights and privileges.
Dale McIntyre, Dhahran
A: The case is certainly well argued by Mrs McIntyre, but I still disagree
with her. People differ in their abilities, aptitudes and temperament.
When the law gives certain rights and privileges to all people, they do
not exercise these rights in the same way. They cannot, even if they try.
Some are bound to have much less than others. It can be argued that the
law has given them the chance to be equal, but they cannot make that
equality physically and materially apparent. Maybe this is part of what
gives human life its richness. But if the law assigns the same rights and
privileges to all people without taking care to favour some less endowed
or less able groups, these may be at a great disadvantage.
Take the example of education where the law in most countries gives
all children the same rights. If the law does not take care to give special
facilities to children with special needs, then these children will not
have the same education. If the law gives them that, then it appears to
indulge in favouritism. Dyslexia is a stark example. It signifies a range of
learning disabilities that have no apparent cause and no cure. Yet many
children are dyslexic and need to learn special strategies to get round
their difficulties and acquire the learning to which they are entitled.
Dyslexic children should be given more time on their tests and for their
assignments. If the law gives them that, it appears to favour them, while
if they are not given extra time, they show themselves less capable, and
they are, as a result, at a great disadvantage. To my mind, equality
cannot be administered unless these children are given the facilities
necessary to learn at their own pace, and also to show their ability.
Otherwise, the law which guarantees a minimum standard of learning
for everyone cannot be enforced.
Men and women are equal in God’s sight, both in value and in their
rights and privileges. How can we say that when there are several areas
in which they appear to be in a position of inferiority? My reader lists
quite a few of these, including that they are not allowed to marry four
husbands, and they cannot divorce at will, as well as their inheritance
and the fact that in certain cases two female witnesses may serve in place
of one male witness.
But if we take these at face value, we will be doing the same as one
who claims that God has threatened those who pray. To justify his
claim, he quotes the fourth verse of Surah 107, which says: ‘Woe to
those who pray.’ If you take this verse alone without reading the follow-
ing one which qualifies it, you will think that people should not pray in
order to spare themselves the woe with which they are threatened. But
if you read the rest of this short surah, your conclusion will be totally
different because it reads: ‘Woe to those who pray but are heedless of
their prayers; who put on a show of piety but refuse to give even the
smallest help to others.’
In order not to make such a hasty and faulty judgment, we should
carefully consider these differences in the rights and privileges of men
and women. When we do, we are bound to conclude that the differences
in rights and privileges do not have any bearing on the equality between
them. They are meant only to help each of them fulfil the role assigned
to them so that both give to human life the best they can. To satisfy our-
selves of this basic equality, we need only to remember that both men
and women have the same duties to believe in God after reflection and
consideration, and to worship Him in the same manner. Both will have
the same reward for any act they do in fulfilment of their religious and
community duties.
LTE (9)
SG, 03.01.1997 Can a woman lead congregational prayer, or be
Shariah court judge?
Q: I have heard that a woman cannot lead the congregational prayer or

deliver Friday sermons, whereas a man can. Why? Can a woman be a
judge in a Shariah court? If not, why? Please refer to some ahadith in
support of your answer.
Safia Iqbal, Makkah
A: It is a prerequisite for the correctness of the Imamah [leading salaah
in congregation] men and women that the Imam be a true male. A her-
maphrodite may not lead the congregation of males. This cannot be
done either in the obligatory ( fard ) nor the sunnah salaahs. However,
womenfolk may lead only womenfolk in the salaah. There is a hadith
from Ayesha as well as from Umm Salmah and Ata that the prophet
( pbuh) said: ‘Truly, the woman leads the saalah for womenfolk.’ Imam
Daraqutni reports from Umm Waraqah that the Prophet (pbuh) had
someone to make the Adhan for her so that she could lead the saalah for
the womenfolk in her household. This is the ruling of the three Imams.
However, Imam Malik does not even allow womenfolk to lead the saalah
for womenfolk. Over and above this fact, a woman’s voice, in as far as
reading the Qur’an and singing is concerned, is also regarded as awrah,
but not her talking. Should she, for instance, lead the saalah and have to
recite the Qur’an, her voice which is part of her awrah would immedi-
ately disqualify her and it would also evoke mixed emotions from male
worshippers. A man’s voice is not regarded as awrah. A woman may also
not be a judge and a woman is not allowed in some cases to bear testi-
mony on certain matters. One may ask, why? The answer to this is very
simple and very logical. As far as being a judge is concerned, he must
have all his faculties intact and he should be well versed with what goes
on outside, in the marketplaces, the mosques, in fact everywhere, for he
should investigate these. A judge needs to have discourse with other
jurists on matters on which he is to base his judgment, he needs to speak
to the witnesses and everyone participating in the dispute in order to
really do justice. It is forbidden for a woman to do all this (i.e., sitting
with strange unrelated males due to fear of temptation). Also a woman,
despite her high degree of intellect and the high degree of her knowl-
edge, yet she is still governed by a natural instinct, namely her deep
compassion bestowed on her by the Creator and she can do nothing
about it. And because of this deep compassion of hers, she in most cases
may have her judgment clouded. Imagine what the situation would
have been if a woman who is a judge is in need to decree the death
penalty on someone. In most cases this would be impossible for her to
do, because of her natural compassion which will cloud her logic. In the
majority of families, this comes to the fore very strongly where children
are concerned. Irrespective of their mother’s high intellect, they know
how to get to her unlike the firm father. Let us take a baby, for example.
This child may cry for months during the night, yet the mother despite
all the sleep she has lost, would not utter a word of despair or say any-
thing derogatory about the child in frustration. The father would lose
his cool after a day or two because again, that is the way Allah created
him. He must support the family, he must go and work, he needs his
sleep, therefore his reasoning is very logical. Although the mother also
needs her sleep, she has been strengthened by Allah with inner strength
and with such compassion which overrides every rule of logic. For that
reason He said to us in Chapter 4, Verse 32: ‘And do not wish for those
things where Allah has bestowed His gifts more freely on some of you
than on others. To men is allotted what they earn and to women is
allotted what they earn. But ask Allah for His bounty, for Allah has full
knowledge over all things.’ When she has to bear testimony, she is
allowed to do so in matters of trade and personal law only. In these cases
two males are necessary, but if two males cannot be found, then one
male and two females. This is based on the fact that womenfolk gener-
ally do not participate in such acts. Then there are situations where
womenfolk are even disallowed to be witnesses in court when it comes
to accusing two persons of adultery. Here four men are required to tes-
tify in front of the judge what they have seen, how did they see it, what
positions they were in, were they naked, etc. The entire scenario must be
sketched in front of the judge. Allah through His infinite mercy does not
allow a woman to witness such filth because she is sacred. However,
among all the jurists, it is only Imam Abu Hanifah who allows a woman
to judge only on matters where she is allowed to bear testimony and
nowhere else.
A brief contrastive interpretation of both texts must do here. As men-

tioned earlier, LTE (9) is written by Safia Iqbal from Makkah. The name
indicates that the author is a woman. The address (Makkah) indicates
that she is a Muslim (as stated earlier non-Muslims are not allowed to
enter the two Holy Cities of Makkah and Medina). The name Safia Iqbal
is not a clear indicator of which ethnic background the writer comes
from. The name itself occurs frequently with Pakistanis, so the author
could be from Pakistan, but could also be from another Arab country or
even be a Saudi naturalized citizen. This is not of importance here. More
so is the fact that a native Saudi woman would probably not ask the
questions that the author of LTE (9) asks. One can assume that a Saudi
woman knows and/or would not ask why a woman cannot lead a
congregational prayer of men and why she cannot be a Shariah court
judge. A different question is whether if she really did not know, she
would ask it in public, in particular in an English-speaking newspaper.
This seems unlikely. There is no definite proof, however, that this is or
is not so.
The name of the author of LTE (8), Dale McIntyre from Dhahran,
indicates that the author is a woman with an English (US or British)
name and background, presumably from an Anglo-country and not
a native of Saudi Arabia. It is not definitely clear whether she is a
non-Muslim or a Muslim, though the former seems much more likely.
In terms of the textual status of the questions in LTE (8) and (9), it is
remarkable that LTE (9) asks very specific, rather brief and clearly stated
questions, whereas in LTE (8) there are no questions at all, but indirect
speech acts instead (though the Religious Editor (henceforth RE) puts a
‘Q’ for question in front of it). Obviously the LTE author does want to
get the RE’s comment. The reason for lack of specific questions is again
that the text is rather complex.
Another contrast of the two authors of LTE (8) and LTE (9) is that the
first is, in simplified terms, ‘a Western woman’, the latter ‘an Eastern
woman’. It seems that this is, together with Muslim versus non-Muslim,
the prevalent contrastive perspective under which the answers of the
RE are to be interpreted. The answers are about equal in size in LTE
(8) and (9) (the answer to the Eastern Muslim woman is only slightly
longer).
Below, a brief contrastive analysis of the two texts, LTE (8) by a
Western (probably non-Muslim) woman and LTE (9) by an Eastern
Muslim woman will be given in a very informal way, focusing: (1) on
some data of ‘message form’; (2) ‘message content’; and (3) text prag-
matic ‘function’, the latter pertaining to the argument structure and the
way the RE proceeds to get his points across.
As has been mentioned, the questions themselves contrast in form
and overall meaning: the question in LTE (9) by an Eastern Muslim
woman actually states two precise detailed questions: Can women lead
the congregation of prayer or deliver Friday sermons? If not, why? and Can a
woman be a Shariah court judge? If not, why? The fact that why-questions
are among the most frequently asked in LTE altogether is in itself an
interesting characteristic of LTE. LTE (8) by a Western, probably
non-Muslim, woman does not have specific questions, but rather offers
comments on the RE’s and of course Islam’s view of men and women.
She is not asking direct questions nor asking for a comment explicitly (as
in more complex LTE), but is making an indirect speech act May I suggest
then that the answer to whether Islam considers men and women equal should
be both ‘yes and no’. This will stress their equality in value, but not in rights
and privileges. This is an indirect request for a comment by the RE.
A striking difference as far as vocabulary and more general lexical data
are concerned, is that in the answer to LTE (9) towards a Muslim woman,
not surprisingly, a lot of Islamic religious terminology (if not jargon) in
Arabic occurs, whereas in the answer to LTE (8) directed towards a non-
Muslim reader, there is no word borrowed from Arabic in the text. There,
the RE uses English medical terms (dyslexia, dyslexic) in an argument
to support the notion of inequality of people. Obviously the RE wants to
suit the addressees and makes full use of his knowledge of terminologies
(maybe also to impress his readership).
The abundance of Arabic religious terms in LTE (9) may, in part, have
been triggered by the LTE author (Please refer to some ahadith in support of
your answer).
It is very likely that the Arabic words are understood by parts of the
readership (in different depth and to a varying degree): words like Imam,
salaah, hadith and others may be widely understood, even with non-
Arabic speaking non-Muslims. Other terms like surah, adhan and awrah
may not be. This shows that the RE is not really too much concerned
with the general comprehensibility of his answers towards the total
readership, but more with his LTE author and her question.
This may also be one of the main reasons for the fact that the RE goes
into some detail to contrast the various opinions of different Islamic
traditions and schools, introducing several names, with which
non-Islamic readership may not be familiar.
A rather unusual or even ‘modern’ way of speaking is revealed by the
fact that the RE introduces (as some kind of a special rhetoric device) the
term hermaphrodite. The controversial opposition of men and women in
leading the congregational prayers is somewhat neutralized argumenta-
tively by the introduction of hermaphrodite: the RE states that only a true
male can lead congregational prayer for men, not a hermaphrodite and
not a woman. It seems that this rhetorical device is successfully used to
minimize the controversial issue of women not being allowed the same
functions as a man in leading congregational prayer.
Interestingly enough, the second question, Can a woman be a Shariah
court judge?, does not use any Arabic religious or legal terms at all. So, as
far as the lexical repertoire is concerned, it is less variable than the answer
to the first question. The most interesting data are in terms of content
(the arguments brought forward for why a woman cannot be a Shariah
court judge) and the way these arguments are drawn up and presented.
A common trait of both LTE is that the RE uses metaphors and
metaphorical language to a large extent and also uses quotations from
the Qur’an in support of his theoretical statements or to convey some
authoritative power. The Western, non-Muslim author of LTE (8) points
out in her question (or statement) that the question concerning the
equality of men and women really results from a linguistic problem, the
fact that the adjective equal according to the OED has several meanings,
one of them being ‘identical in value’ and another ‘having the same
rights and privileges’.
So the LTE author states that the question, whether Islam considers
men and women equal, has to be answered according to the meaning of
equal. The RE does not really take up this linguistic question but rather
argues the matter itself.
The most interesting linguistic contrast of the two answers is the way
the LTE authors are addressed (or not addressed) by the RE and the way
he refers to them in the text. Whether or not the RE addresses the LTE
author by the second person pronoun you obviously depends on the
question asked in an LTE. If, for instance, the LTE author asks, Am I as a
wife responsible to settle my husband’s accounts?, then it is to be expected
that the RE answers by You should do … . If, as in LTE (9), a woman asks
a general information question, Why can’t women lead congregational
prayers … ?, the RE (as in most LTE, as far as I can see) answers without
direct address of the LTE author, just by referring to the question asked
by a certain person.
A very exceptional or even unique fact is that in LTE (8) asked proba-
bly by a non-Muslim Western female LTE author, the RE refers to her by
title and last name, while giving an evaluation of her LTE. He starts his
answer with, The case is certainly well argued by Mrs McIntyre, but I still
disagree with her. I have not seen any other LTE in a Saudi newspaper in
which the RE in his answer refers to the LTE author by her or his family
name. This violates a text type-specific rule, so-to-speak, excluding
reference by proper names to LTE authors. The reason here is obviously
to express some distance to the LTE author as (probably) a non-Muslim,
that is, a non-ingroup (or outgroup) member.
Another feature of formal properties in both answers is a rather
frequent use of parallelisms and other rhetorical figures. Also the fact
that certain attributes, appositions and other expressions are repeated in
almost stereotypic fashion, such as in LTE (9) in answering the question
why a woman cannot be a Shariah court judge, Also a woman, despite her
high degree of intellect and the high degree of her knowledge … ; irrespective of
their mother’s high intellect … . The editor is putting much emphasis on
the fact that women have a high intellect, so that one could almost
be tempted to assume that some part of the readership would tend to
assume the opposite.
Another remarkable linguistic fact is that the RE in LTE (9) inserts
some rhetorical or metacommunicative comment on the fact that a
why-question ‘could be asked’ (One may ask, why?), this being the very
question that is being asked in the LTE and he is answering. So in intro-
ducing the issue whether a woman can be a Shariah court judge, stating
the fact that women are not allowed to do so, the RE seems to give an
indication that ‘normally’ such a question is not asked or that the
answer to it is self-evident anyway.
An interesting ‘marked’ linguistic feature of LTE (8) is the use of
an expression to a Western non-Muslim woman relativizing the RE’s
judgement, which is not very frequent in the LTE investigated nor indeed
in the speech habits and style of the RE: To my mind, equality cannot be
administered unless … . Another lexical characteristic in LTE (9) is the

expression womenfolk as some kind of an old (-fashioned), unusual term,
addressing a totality of women, such as ‘congregation of women praying’.
Even more specific seems to be the textpragmatic argument behaviour
displayed in the RE’s answers, in particular the differences on the descrip-
tive level of textual or textpragmatic functions in the answers of the RE.
Several of the data mentioned noting differences in the component
‘message form’, in particular the lexicon, and ‘message content’ show
interesting cultural differences between the two items. They contain a
lot of culture-specific and religion-specific information on Islamic soci-
ety and the position of women in it. Differences in the vocabulary, like
the occurrence of the somewhat ancient term womenfolk (denoting the
women’s congregation during salaah) in LTE (9) directed towards a
Muslim woman versus LTE (8) with no such expression and directed to
a (likely) non-Muslim woman, are remarkable in their own right. Even
more significant are the differences in the language and argument
strategies used by the RE towards a Muslim woman from the East versus
a probably non-Muslim woman from the West. Following, a brief inter-
pretation of the argument structure of LTE (9) is given. Its aim is: (1) to
show how the (male) RE answers the question of the Muslim woman
from the East in LTE (9), what points he is making, and what strategies
of persuasion and argument are employed; and an interpretation will be
given (2) of what the differences between the two answers the RE gives
to LTE (8) and LTE (9) are in these terms. The results can be summarized
as follows:
1. Comparing the data of this corpus with these analysed for LTE by
men (Kniffka, 1994, 2002), there is little difference in the content and
argument strategies used by the RE in answering LTE by women and
by men. It is safe to say that, generally speaking, the RE uses the same
repertoire of communicative means and strategies to answer LTE by
women and by men.
2. Not surprisingly, but nevertheless highly remarkable for cultural
contrast and the role of women in it, there is a marked difference
between the RE’s answers to LTE (8) asked by a Western, probably
non-Muslim woman and his answer to LTE (9) asked by an Eastern
Muslim woman. It seems that, to put it in binary terms, the feature
[/ Muslim] is the most salient and prevalent ‘distinctive feature’
for the argument and the repertoire used by the RE. So it is this
difference in the addressee component ([ Muslim] woman from
the East versus [ Muslim] woman from the West) that constitutes
the major difference expressed by the linguistic (semantic and

pragmatic) means used in the RE’s answers. At any rate, the compo-
nent ‘audience’ (i.e., readership) and the impression the RE wants to
create on it by his answers is to be accounted for.
In the following, some data to illustrate this are given. It should be

added that the general perspective of the linguistic observer (i.e., my
own perspective) is that of a Western non-Muslim male reader. Though
I try to arrive at intersubjectively valid and reliable generalizations, it
goes without saying that the results would be different if the linguistic
observer were either a Muslim male from the East or a Muslim from the
West, or a female from the West or from the East. Methodologically, it is
necessary to have one specific receiver perspective to describe the differ-
ence in the sender’s or addressor’s component (the answers given by the
RE). It is this variation which is in focus here, not a variation in the
receiver’s or addressee’s perspective as such.
The first question in LTE (9) asked by a Muslim woman from the East
is answered by the RE in quite ‘simple and direct’ terms. After enumer-
ating the differences of various schools of thought in this regard, he
states that all schools agree that a woman cannot lead a congregational
prayer for men (same as a hermaphrodite cannot). If at all, she could
lead only the salaah for womenfolk (Imam Malik’s point of view). In
addition, the argumentation simply states that, as far as reading the
Qur’an and singing is concerned, a woman’s voice is regarded as awrah,
which would immediately disqualify her and … also evoke mixed emotions
from the male worshippers. A man’s voice is not regarded as awrah, the RE
continues, and that is the end of the argument. The reason, to which the
why-question of the LTE author alludes, is simply given as the religious
tradition in general and a particular attribute applying to the voice of
women versus men. That is it.
It goes without saying, that this argument may be sufficient to a
Muslim (woman), but hardly for a non-Muslim (man or woman).
The RE’s answer to the question whether or not a woman can be judge
of a Shariah court is even more interesting from a textpragmatic and
argument point of view. The RE states the answer first: A woman may not
be a judge in a Shariah court nor is a woman allowed to bear testimony on
certain matters in a court. The RE then proceeds to pose the question (see
above): One may ask, why? and also qualifies the answer to the question
(in a semi-‘performative’ act): The answer to this is very simple and very
logical. This is not really an argument at any rate, rather an abuse of argu-
ment. It is simply a claim (It is very simple and very logical). The RE does
elaborate on a few practical reasons for this in the following text. He says
that a judge must be well versed with everything that goes on outside, in
the marketplace, the mosques and so on, and a judge would need to have
discourse with other jurists in juridical matters, he would have to interview
witnesses and so on. All this, factually correct, is forbidden for women in
Saudi society: women are not allowed to sit with strange unrelated males
due to fear of temptation, which the RE adds in parentheses.
As mentioned above, the RE takes pains to clarify that in spite of
women’s high degree of intellect and high degree of knowledge, she is not
qualified anyway since she is still governed by a natural instinct, namely her
deep compassion bestowed on her by the creator and she can do nothing about
it. This quality, a woman’s deep compassion, disqualifies her as a Shariah
court judge, because in most cases she may have her judgement clouded. The
RE continues by giving the example of the case in which the death
penalty would have to be decreed as punishment: In most cases this
would be impossible for her to do because of her natural compassion, which
will cloud her logic (paraphrased). Needless to say, all these points that the
RE makes in his answer are not valid explanations. He does not really
give reasons for the fact that a ‘woman’s logic’ will be clouded, he simply
states that the degree of compassion women have (not men, which is
obviously implied) has that effect.
In other words (and in simplified terms), the RE does not give any real
explanation nor any reason why women have a natural compassion and
men do not, why this natural compassion will cloud a woman’s logic. He
simply states or claims that this is so. He does not offer any empirical
evidence to support this claim, but rather resorts to an example of every-
day life, which has even less relevance, let alone a convincing argument
in support of the afore-mentioned claims: The fact that a woman’s natural
compassion will cloud her logic comes to the fore very strongly where
children are concerned: Children know how to get to their mother (in spite of
her high intellect), unlike the firm father. A baby crying for months during the
night would not experience anything derogatory said by his or her mother. The
father, however, would lose his cool after a day or two, because that is the way
that Allah created him. The RE continues, because he must go to work and
therefore [sic] his reasoning is very logical [sic]. He does concede that the
mother also needs her sleep, but she has been strengthened by Allah with
inner strength and with such compassion, which overrides every rule of logic.
This ends the argument reasoning in this answer. The RE continues by
adding a verse from the Qur’an, in which is generally stated that some
things are reserved for men and others for women. The reason that in
cases of bearing testimony a woman is only allowed to do so in matters of
trade and personal law, and two women would be considered equal to one
man testifying, is explained by the fact that womenfolk generally do not
participate in such acts. Yet it is difficult to see why two female witnesses
would be considered equal to one male witness, if this really holds: if
women are not participating in such acts, then two women would be as
good as one. In some court cases, like for example adultery, women are
not allowed at all as witnesses (but only four men) since the details to
be reported to the judge would not allow for a woman witness, because
she is not supposed to report on such filth, because she is sacred. The juridi-
cal problem involved in being able to present four witnesses in case of
adultery would be a different matter, which cannot be discussed here.
To use the RE’s own words, one would have to say, as a distant neutral
observer, that ‘his reasoning is not very logical’, or not logical at all.
In conclusion, with due respect to the religious scholar who writes as
the RE here: as a Western observer one has to say that this argument
cannot be accepted as being logical in one way or any other. There is
no real valid explanation for anything, but rather an enumeration of
claims and statements which Muslims believe: A woman has a natural
compassion and therefore would not be suitable as a judge, whereas a
man does not have this natural compassion and therefore would have a
clear (unclouded) logic, so he can be Shariah court judge.
The argumentation in the other LTE is different in method, attitude,
speech style, and argument.
Several of the textpragmatic functions in the RE’s answer to LTE (8) by
a non-Muslim Western woman have been discussed already, such as the
unique feature that he addresses the LTE author by her last name or com-
plimenting the argument by this LTE author. The strategy in answering
her question is to even surpass her, that is, to be even more ‘generous’ in
the interpretation, implying that the semantic difference given by the
two meanings of the word equal in English does not imply that women
are equal in value only, but also are equal in rights and privileges accord-
ing to the Islamic view. His first point is, abbreviated, that even if people
get equal rights and chances, they cannot exercise them in the same way,
so that considerable differences in physical and material characteristics
are inevitable. As a special example from ‘real life’ (parallel to the answer
to LTE (9)) the RE chooses education, where the law requires all children
be given the same rights and privileges. However, in spite of these laws
some children have special needs, such as dyslexic children. So if they are
given special attention and more time on their tests and assignments,
then it seems the law would favour them as against other children who
do not get this special treatment. The RE rightly concludes that equality
cannot be administered unless these [dyslexic] children are given the facilities
necessary to learn at their own pace. The RE modestly puts a relativizing
expression to my mind in front of this statement, which is certainly a
special gesture towards a Western reader. The point of this argument, if
I understand it correctly, is that people are equal and yet they are not
equal, and some may need special treatment like in education. The exact
parallel between this example from education and the point asked by the
LTE author is not clarified any further by the RE, however, so that the
impression remains (with a Western reader) that in fact he more or less
confirms her point that they are equal in value, but not in terms of rights
and privileges, yet claims that they are equal in both.
In the next paragraph the RE states verbatim that men and women are
equal in God’s sight, both in value and in their rights and privileges. He then
enumerates the examples that former readers have cited, for example
that women are not allowed to marry four husbands, that they cannot
divorce at will, that they are disadvantaged in their inheritance, and
that two female witnesses may serve in place of one male witness. He
continues to say that this is a rather superficial argument which takes
things out of context, and in support of this he quotes a verse from the
Qur’an (surah 107), which says ‘Woe to those who pray’. He points out
(quite convincingly) that this verse of the Qur’an has to be taken in
context with the following, which says: ‘Woe to those, who pray, but are
heedless of their prayers; who put on a show of piety but refuse to give
even the smallest help to others.’ It is certainly a valid point that one
cannot take an expression out of context. But again it is not clear, how
this example is actually suited to confirm his view on the statement that
the LTE author wants to have clarified, what its argument potential
could be to support his claim. He does not explain how it can be used as
an argument in this case. More exactly, the point made by Mrs McIntyre –
women are equal to men in value, but not in rights and privileges – does
not necessarily result from an understanding or quotation of anything
out of context, which the RE fails to explain in convincing detail. Rather
he goes on stating that such a hasty and faulty judgement [sic] should be
avoided, and we should carefully consider these differences in the rights and
privileges of men and women.
The RE claims that to take adequate account of all this, one has to con-
clude that the differences in rights and privileges do not have any bearing
on the equality between them [men and women]. They are meant only to help
each of them to fulfil the role assigned to them. So, if I understand the point
correctly, there are differences in rights and privileges between men and
women, but these do not imply inequality of the two and they simply
result from the fact that different roles are assigned to men and women
which they are supposed to fulfil. These God-given different roles are
not open to argument and explanation it is implied. This reminds one
of a ‘deus ex machina’ explanation in medieval texts. The concluding
remark (not really applying to an explanation of the point made by the
LTE author) is that men and women have the same duties to believe in
God and to worship Him in the same manner and that both will have the
same reward for any act they do in fulfilment of their religious and community
duties, which all seem to sum up the assumption that because of that
both must be equal.
The overall impression of the contrast between this answer of the RE
towards a Western non-Muslim woman and his answer to an Eastern
Muslim woman is that much less, or none, of the statements about
women’s place and role in society given in LTE (9) are given in LTE (8).
A somewhat convincing example of the inequality of people in spite
of equal opportunities is given in LTE (8), which is not, however; an
appropriate point to show that women are equal both in value and in
rights and privileges. In other words, it fails to be an adequate explana-
tion of the RE’s thesis and does not apply to the case given.
The other argument supplied by the RE in his answer to LTE (8) that
one should not quote statements out of context is in itself very true, but
does not help to support his claim or to answer the implied questions by
the LTE author either, since he does not elaborate that Mrs McIntyre
does in fact consider things out of context in coming to her conclusion.
He fails to give sufficient evidence of why the LTE author is making such
a hasty and faulty judgement. Again, in much more elegant and
‘Westernized’ rhetorical terms than in the answer to LTE (9), he still fails
to rationalize the point made and to give an adequate explanation for
the correctness of his own view. Same as in the answer given to a Muslim
woman, the conclusion is derived from a general religious view which is
not suited as an explanation, but gives a sufficient answer in some kind
of a petitio principii which a strict Muslim would accept, a non-Muslim
probably would not. Both, women and men, have the same religious
duties and get the same rewards. So they are bound to be considered as
equal in value and in rights and privileges?
The answers of the RE to different LTE try to meet the expectations of
the LTE authors (and readers) from a different background in the best
possible fashion. The main contrastive aspect in this corpus is the con-
trast of the answers to a Muslim LTE author from the East versus a non-
Muslim LTE author from the West. One can say that the method of
argumentation, the use of textpragmatic means to get his point across,
are different, the ultimate aim and the basic argument structure in both
cases being much the same.
It goes without saying that the RE, within the bounds of his job, his
religious conviction, and trying to do optimum justice to both
authors/addressees, fails to really give a full-fledged explanatory answer
(at least by Western standards) to the questions asked. Eastern Muslim
readers may find his explanations very convincing though. At any rate,
this behaviour towards women by a male Religious Editor reveals culture-
specific and religious ingredients: how women are treated and addressed
in a religious context, how their arguments are handled by (male)
experts in an authentic culture-specific fashion.
Conclusion
Men’s and women’s LTE look very much alike in the culture and media
investigated. Topics addressed, message form, message content, text
type characteristics and other features are very similar if not the same in
both. Men and women both write about roughly the same topics or,
more exactly, the LTE printed in a newspaper do not reveal any major
differences in that respect for men and for women. This can mean that
as a ‘genus commune’ it shows in fact a common trait of the work of the
Religious Editor responsible for which LTE are printed in which form,
rather than of the LTE authors.
Men’s and women’s LTE published in Saudi Arabian newspapers do
show some significant differences in how the LTE authors are ‘identified’
or referred to by names in the paper. Men are the ‘unmarked’ class of
authors, for which abbreviations (initials) or first names are sufficient.
Women are identified by adding (Mrs) to the name. In addition to the
feature just mentioned, some text-internal and text-external data can be
stated as reflecting and expressing/carrying culture-specific features of
Saudi Arabian culture; for example, a ‘correlation’ of a particular topic
and the withholding of the name and address of an LTE author by the
Religious Editor.
LTE represent a structurally unique text type (in Saudi Arabian and
in other daily newspapers) of mass-media communication, in that at
least three structural criteria are involved:
1. LTE represent a ‘person-to-person’ dyadic interaction, between (many)

LTE authors and (one or more) ‘Religious Editor(s)’ within a large
and complex non-person-to-person communication dyad of the
newspaper’s staff and its readership.
2. Some receivers (readers) function as senders (LTE authors) in/for the

newspapers which gives them a unique status.
3. Both parts of the message form of the text type LTE, or this particular
sub-text type of LTE consisting of questions and answers appear in
print in the newspaper, that is, the original ‘person-to-person’ inter-
action appears in public, which may trigger further interactions and
recruit other newspaper readers as LTE authors.
This is the only text type of mass-media communication via newspapers

(possibly with the exception of personal ads) where the ‘voice of the
reader’ can be heard/read, which makes it a valuable source of culture-
specific data of critical importance.
This is the only place in Saudi Arabian culture in which the ‘voice of
women’ can be heard/read, be it ‘authentic’ or modified by the (male)
Religious Editor to varying degrees in various fashions. In this sense,
LTE by women in the 1980s and 1990s are certainly one of the most
important sources of data for identifying the culture-specific values held
in Saudi Arabia by and about women in this period.
Notes
1 See Hymes, 1962, pp. 13–53; Gumperz and Hymes (eds), 1972; Hymes, 1972,
pp. 35–71; Baumann and Sherzer (eds), 1974; Baumann and Sherzer, 1975,
pp. 95–119; Saville-Troike, 1982, 1989. One such adaptation of Gumperz and
Hymes, 1972 for the analysis of newspaper communication has been
described elsewhere (Kniffka, 1980, pp. 22–39).
2 A more detailed analysis of the semiotic status of the name reference is given
elsewhere (Kniffka, 2005).
3 FN First Name; LN Last Name; CN City’s Name.
References
Baumann, R., and Sherzer, J. (Eds). (1974). Explorations in the ethnography of

speaking. London: Cambridge University Press.
Baumann, R., and Sherzer, J. (1975). The ethnography of speaking. In: Annual
Review of Anthropology 4, 95–119.
Bell, A. (1991). The language of news media. Oxford and Cambridge, MA:
Blackwell.
Bucher, H.-J. (1986). Pressekommunikation. Grundstrukturen einer öffentlichen form
der kommunikation aus linguistischer sicht. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.
Herzog, C., Motika, R., and Pistor-Hatam, A. (1995). Presse und offentlichkeit im
Nahen Osten. Heidelberg: Heidelberger Orientverlag.
Hymes, D. (1962). The ethnography of speaking. In: T. Gladwin and
W. C. Sturtevant (Eds), Anthropology and human behavior. Washington, DC:
Anthropological Society of Washington (pp. 13–55).
Hymes, D. (1972). Models for the interaction of language and social life. In:
Gumperz and Hymes (Eds), Direction (pp. 35–71).
Gumperz, J. J., and Hymes, D. (Eds). (1972). Directions in sociolinguistics: The
ethnography of communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
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leadformulierung in amerikanischen tageszeitungen. Habilitationsschrift Köln
1980. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag ( Linguistische Arbeiten Nr. 94).
Kniffka, H. (1994). Letters to the editor across cultures. In: Intercultural communi-
cation. Proceedings of the 17th International LAUD-Symposium, Duisburg, 23–27
March 1992. H. Pürschel et al. (Eds). Frankfurt am Maine: Peter Lang Verlag (pp.
381–409).
Kniffka, H. (2001). Dialogical genres of newspaper communication across
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U. Fix, St Habscheid, and J. Klein (Eds), Zur kulturspezifik von textsorten.
Tübingen: Stauffenberg Verlag (pp. 255–89).
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perspektiven. In: E. Apeltauer (Ed.), Interkulturelle kommunikation: Deutschland –
Skandinavien – Großbritannien. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag (pp. 7–30).
Kniffka, H. (2005). Degrees of ‘anonymization’ of senders’ names in letters to the editor
in daily newspapers.
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23(1), 30–87.
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Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
7
A Cyber-Parish: Gendered
Identity Construction in an
On-Line Episcopal Community
Sage Graham
Technology has historically had a tremendous impact on religion, from

the invention of the printing press (which allowed the Bible to be read
by mass populations) to the Evangelical Christian movement (which
used radio and television to spread the word and preach to mass audi-
ences). Just as religion has historically had an enormous impact on soci-
ety, so also has the recent advent of the Internet changed our social and
organizational frameworks. In the twenty-first century, these two
powerful social forces have come together with the advent of online
religious groups ranging from Usenet discussion groups on religious top-
ics to virtual preaching and religious services. Participants in various
types of religious groups can request prayers, inquire about others’
beliefs and/or doctrine, and even receive sacraments and communion
via virtual blessings of bread and wine. The ability to worship and/or
form religious communities online has tremendous implications for
both participants and organized religion itself.
While some researchers have begun to explore computer-mediated
communication (CMC) and religion (e.g., Schroeder, Heather and Lee,
1998), and several linguistic studies address gender in a computer-
mediated setting (Herring, 1994, 1996a, 1996b; Hall, 1996), there has
been no research to my knowledge on how religious group identity and
community are influenced by gender in a computer-mediated setting.
Within the context of religious communities, an understanding of gen-
der as it intersects with computer-mediated communication is pivotal
for three reasons:
1. Previous research on CMC online (Herring, Johnson and

DiBennedetto, 1992) has indicated that cyberspace is just as
133
male-dominated as ‘real-world’ settings; women are frequently

marginalized in all types of e-settings (academic lists, in the case of
Herring). This is not the case on ChurchList, the email discussion list
which is the focus of this study, however. In this setting, women
occupy a pivotal role in clarifying and maintaining the group iden-
tity and community. It is important to research the strategies these
women employ to participate in this ‘cyber-parish’ community, since
their active participation runs counter to both the ‘real-world’ church
and the Internet (both traditionally spaces that have been dominated
by men).
2. Within the Anglican Church (the denomination of ChurchList), the
role(s) of women within the Church have been hotly debated since
the 1970s. If cyber-parishes offer women a means of active participa-
tion that they are denied in ‘real-world’ church settings, then they may
choose cyber-church over (marginalized) participation in ‘real-world’
church.
3. As religious groups depend more and more on online interaction as a
means of disseminating information and strengthening church ties,
the advent of computer church communities is at once potentially
empowering and (potentially) destructive to traditional ‘real-world’
church parishes.
It is the goal of this study to examine gender roles in an online Episcopal

church group (cyberparish) to explore the ways that women and men
participate in this cyber-community – ultimately trying to determine:
(1) if women are marginalized in this setting; and (2) what communica-
tive and linguistic strategies they employ to claim authority within the
group. I will employ interactional sociolinguistic analysis of empirical
data, exploring: (1) the frequency of participation among male and
female listmembers within the community; as well as (2) strategies
employed by community members to shape the group identity.
Through this analysis, I will show that women play an active role in the
formation and maintenance of the e-community, and, possibly, through
their participation it is likely that they also strengthen their roles (and
empowerment) within the ‘real-world’ church.
Previous research
Gender and religion

Radical [female clergy] are, but radical they must not appear to be.
(Lawless 1996b, p. 405)
A Cyber-Parish: Gendered Identity Construction 135
To date, there has been limited research focusing on the relationship

between gender and religion as it is manifested in language use and
linguistic strategies. Research on gender and religion does state, however,
that formal religion has traditionally been male-centred. As Clark and
Richardson (1977) note, ‘the Western Religious tradition … is unremit-
tingly patriarchal’. They go on to explain that ‘progress towards a more
enlightened view of women is … real, but it is also painfully slow and it
proceeds against a constant patriarchal opposition which has become
more outspoken with the passage of time’ (p. 1). Evidence of the resist-
ance to women occupying positions of power within this patriarchal
system can be seen in Lawless’s Holy women, wholly women (1993), which
examines life stories of female clergy members. Lawless explains that
women face particular challenges as they take on authority roles in
religious settings, and notes that ‘Quietly, women are invoking a new
religious era’ (p. xiii). She expands on this idea of female revolution
within religious structures in both ‘Images of God in Christian women’s
sermons: Finding God’ (1996a) and Women preaching revolution (1996b),
both of which examine differences between female sermons and more
traditional male sermon models, noting the inadequacy of sermon-
training for female clergy members who employ different tactics than
their male counterparts. She goes on to explore the differences in
approach between male and female clergy, stating that:
Women in the clergy create a space where shared power and author-
ity and collaborative learning about things spiritual and religious can
happen through free and unrestricted dialogue and respect for differ-
ence. Women in the ministry, in the pulpit, preaching, leading
prayers, healing, conferencing together are creating the framework
for [a] new dialogic paradigm.
(p. 168)
Despite these hints at change, women in the Anglican and Episcopal

Church (the Church which is the focus of this study) have not necessar-
ily been embraced in their attempts to occupy leadership roles (and
thereby take positions of power) within the Church hierarchy.
Although, as of the 1998 Lambeth convention,1 most Anglican provin-
ces ordained women and seven provinces allowed females to become
bishops,2 the subject of women as leaders in the church is still contro-
versial and is still debated within the Church today. As recently as 1999,
Episcopal bishop Jane Dixon was denied entry into a church in her
diocese because the conservative parishioners did not approve of
females being ordained as clergy. This tension regarding the power of

women within the structure of the Church begs the question of how
women achieve power (in what settings), what (linguistic) strategies
they use to maintain their positions of power/authority, and what
implications this has for women’s place in the world-wide Church. It is
one goal of this study to examine these questions, taking the parish
structure of ChurchList and examining the ways that female participants:
(1) take an active role in the formation and maintenance of the
cyber-community; and (2) thereby occupy places of power within
the cyberparish structure.
Conflict as a means of establishing power

In addition to examining the dynamics of women within religion, this
study also draws on previous research that examines the intersection of
conflict and gender. Conflict, as a social phenomenon, can be an impor-
tant tool in negotiating (group) identity, and can therefore be used as an
analytical focus for examining gendered power roles in establishing and
maintaining that group identity. Although there has been a great deal of
linguistic research on conflict in face-to-face settings (Goodwin, M. H.
and Goodwin, C., 1987; Corsaro and Rizzo, 1990; Eder, 1990; Goodwin,
1990a, 1990b; Grimshaw, 1990; Philips, 1990; Tannen 1990, 1994,
1998), studies which examine conflict in computer-mediated contexts
are much more limited. Herring (1994, 1996a, 1996b) and Herring,
Johnson and DiBennedetto (1995) show that, consistent with Tannen’s
(1990, 1994, 1998) findings, females who participate in e-conflicts cush-
ion their disagreements through the use of affiliative comments and
posing questions rather than making assertions. Male posters, on the
other hand, use a more adversarial style which establishes/reinforces
hierarchies through promoting their own views while knocking down
the views of others. Conflict is, nevertheless, an important focus for
study in examining gender and religion because, through conflict, inter-
actants can both establish camaraderie and negotiate status and power
within their relationships. The ability to use conflict as a means for
establishing power and authority is particularly important within the
cyber-parish of ChurchList; if women can assert their power by actively
negotiating the resolution of conflict, then they are also empowered to
enforce their active presence as participants within the community (and
might then extend that power to ‘real-world’ church settings). Within
this group, moreover, the ability to use conflict to establish community
ties is also pivotal; establishing connections is a central idea of church
groups. Females’ active participation in the negotiation of conflict in the
ChurchList setting, then, has two results: (1) it allows women to take an
active (and powerful) role in forming and reforming expectations for
group identity; and (2) it provides a means for the whole group to
reinforce their solidarity (male and female) as group members (while
simultaneously reinforcing the authoritative role of women in establishing
that solidarity).
Data and methodology
In order to more fully understand the interaction between gender,

computer-mediated communication and religion, I take an ethnographic,
interactional sociolinguistic approach to analysing a series of messages
sent to ChurchList, a self-organized, international discussion list that
exists to provide a forum for discussion of issues that affect the Episcopal
and Anglican Churches. In order to determine the impact of gender
on participation, I analysed all messages sent to the list between
28 December 1997 and 7 January 1998 (n 2135). As I show in Graham
(2003), the messages sent to the group during this time period are repre-
sentative of interactions on the list throughout the rest of the year. I
chose to more closely examine this particular time frame, however,
because it was during this time that a large conflict arose which threat-
ened the survival of the list. It is my claim that, through the negotiation
of large-scale conflicts like the one that is the focus of this study, female
participants take an active role in the negotiation of the group identity.
Building on Harré and van Langenhove’s (1999) theories of positioning,
I therefore examine the ways in which male and female subscribers
position themselves (particularly with regard to power and authority) in
relation to the cyberparish.
There are several important features of ChurchList that are worth men-
tioning here since they affect the negotiation of group identities and the
norms for interaction among listmembers (both male and female):
1. ChurchList is both ‘open’ (meaning that anyone can subscribe to the

list at any time) and unmoderated (meaning that all posts are distrib-
uted directly to subscribers without being ‘approved’ by a modera-
tor). In this setting, then, listmembers themselves determine and
control the development, content and flow of conversational topics
and take an active role in the formation of group goals and norms of
interaction.
2. Though the volume of daily messages and the number of individual
subscribers is quite high, a majority of the posts are actually sent by a
small percentage of the total subscriber population. This ‘core’ group

has a tremendous impact on communications and the community
structure; they socialize newcomers and, when conflicts arise, play a
large role in the resolution of the conflicts and the subsequent
negotiation of the group identity.
3. A final characteristic of this list that merits discussion is the commu-
nity orientation and ‘feel’ of the list. Traditional anthropological
definitions of community have been dependent on geographic
location (Hymes, 1974), but as researchers (Hamilton, 1998;
McWilliams, 2001) have begun to document, it is very common to
form a ‘community’ without geographic proximity as the defining
factor. It is not unusual, therefore, despite the fact that listmembers
are spread all over the world and may not encounter one another
face-to-face, that ChurchList is, in fact, a very closely knit community.
In order to examine gendered communication patterns within this

dynamic cyberparish, I first performed a quantitative analysis of the
posts to the list. This analysis (following Herring, 1996a) is driven by
two primary questions: (1) what is the average rate of participation of
males and females in this cyber-community?; and (2) are there differ-
ences in the kinds of messages that males versus females post? Using the
2135 messages sent to ChurchList between 29 December 1997 and
7 January 1998, I correlate gender with the total number of posts in an
attempt to determine variation in the amount of participation between
male and female group members.3
In addition to examining overall participation by males and females,
I also examine participation rates within the group of ‘core’ listmembers
mentioned above. Since core (versus non-core) members participate
more actively and more frequently within the community, I track male
and female participation inside the ‘core’ group to determine the impact
of gender within this sub-set group (which, because of their longevity
and long-term commitment to the e-community has a great deal of
power to influence norms of interaction and behaviour). For this study,
I identified members of the core group based on posting statistics that
were compiled (voluntarily) by one listmember and sent to the list each
month. In January, this same listmember compiled and sent posting
statistics for the previous year. For my purposes, I identify core members
as those who post over 100 messages to the list over the course of a cal-
endar year. I believe that this participation rate of 100 or more messages
per year indicates a stable list presence and a level of commitment to
the group that becomes pivotal in establishing norms of community
interaction and socialization of newcomers. In the following analysis,

core membership is also important because participation (number of
messages sent to the list) is greater (for both male and female listmembers)
among the core group.
Finally, I perform a qualitative analysis of messages posted during a con-
flict within the group. The primary goal of this qualitative analysis is to
evaluate types of female participation in conflict negotiation sequences,
since I would argue that conflict is one primary way that group identity is
negotiated. Those listmembers who actively participate in the negotiation
of the group identity and expectations are therefore empowered and active
members of the e-community. Participation by females in this context,
then, is a valid indicator of female authority and power within the group.
Analysis
Ratio of male to female overall participation

As I mentioned above, previous linguistic research on computer-mediated
communication has shown that males tend to post more messages to
online discussion lists on a regular basis than females (Herring, 1996a).
Furthermore, this same study also indicates that when female participa-
tion rates rise above approximately 30 per cent (which occurs during the
conflicts that Herring examines), male community members begin to
try to end the discussion by criticizing the females for talking too much
and taking the discussion too far. In the e-community that is the focus
of this study, however, females post close to 40 per cent of the total
messages on a regular basis. Moreover, when conflicts arise, female
participation stays at or above 40 per cent; females not only participate
this much in ‘regular’ interactions, they also play an active role in con-
flict negotiation which empowers them to influence and shape the
group identity and norms for interaction. Table 7.1 indicates the overall
ratio of male to female participation.
As Table 7.1 shows, the percentage of female participation on
ChurchList is higher than previous research on other discussion lists has
Table 7.1 Overall male and female participation

rates
Core Non-Core Total
Male 953 194 1278 (60%)

Female 663 325 857 (40%)
indicated. This rate of participation, however, is not adequate to

demonstrate the complexity of male and female roles within the cyber-
community. In order to more fully break down the complex participa-
tion rates of male and female listmembers, then, it is necessary to more
thoroughly examine the relationship of gender to core versus non-core
member status.
Male versus female participation within the core group

In my analysis of this e-community, I have identified two groups of par-
ticipants: Core and Non-Core. Although (as previously mentioned) the
subscriber rate of ChurchList is quite high, among the subscribers is a
much smaller ‘core’ group which posts the majority (approximately
75 per cent) of the messages to the list. Through active (and consistent)
long-term participation, this core group plays a key role in establishing
and maintaining the norms for interaction within the list community.
As previously mentioned, while Herring (1996) found that female par-
ticipation stayed below 30 per cent on the discussion lists she examined,
within ChurchList female participation is regularly closer to 40 per cent.
It is not enough to simply calculate the number of posts sent to the
e-community, however, since this type of calculation does not take into
account the fact that there is variation in the number of subscribers who
are male versus female. A single list, for example, might have a three to
one ratio of male to female subscribers. On this same list, one might
note that male listmembers post three times the number of messages
than females. Despite the fact that the participation rate of males is
75 per cent (of the total posts), however, this number does not take into
account the disparity in the number of male to female community
members. In a situation like this, it is conceivable that female commu-
nity members might in fact post MORE messages than the males, but,
because of their fewer numbers, still do not post a large percentage of
the overall number of messages. To track the rate of female postings
within the core group, therefore, I calculated the total number of male
and female core group members and divided that by the total number of
messages sent by the male and female core groups. This yields the aver-
age number of posts for each group (an important consideration since it
takes into account the fact that there are fewer female listmembers in
addition to there being fewer messages posted by females). Table 7.2
shows the ratio of participation among male and female core listmembers.
In this case, the average number of messages posted by female core
listmembers is actually greater than the average number of messages
sent by male community members. Although the number of female core
Table 7.2 Male and female participation rates within the core group
Number of Total Number Avg. Number of

Female and of Messages Messages Sent by
Male Core Sent by Core Each Core
Listmembers Females/Males Listmember
Females 45 663 6.78

Males 60 953 6.29
listmembers is smaller than that of males, the average number of mes-

sages sent by both males and females within the core group indicates
that individually, females in this core group participate as much as
males. This fact sets this list community apart from the ones examined
in most other linguistic studies (Herring, 1996a) and indicates a level of
participation and empowerment that females on other types of lists may
not experience.
Male and female participation in conflict as a marker of

empowerment within the cyberparish
Participation is only one component of establishing authority within
this community, however. In order to gain a more comprehensive
understanding of the dynamics of an e-community, one must not only
examine the number of posts, but also the content, purpose and quality
of those posts. As Tannen (1990) notes, men and women tend to employ
different strategies and work towards different goals in interactive
settings; women work to establish rapport, while men tend to report.
As Herring (1996a) further explains, Tannen’s schema for the types of
messages produced by males versus females does not necessarily apply
in a computer-mediated context. In Herring’s examination of two
academic e-mail lists, she found that communication was more often
governed by the norms of the list itself (some lists taking adversarial
posts as the norm) rather than gender. The concept of adversarial inter-
action being unusual for females is an important one for the purposes of
this study. When conflicts arise on ChurchList, messages sent by female
community members are frequently just as adversarial as those of male
contributors. The difference between male and female participation
tends to emerge in the type and goal of the posts sent by females versus
males. I will now examine strategies employed in specific messages to
identify communicative patterns employed by males versus females.
The conflict I examine here arose when a (male) listmember posted a
request for prayers (listed in Example 1).
Example 1
1 Subject: Miserable – Pray for Me
4 I feel miserable and lost. I wish I were dead. I am unemployed and so is

5 Carl. We are living on savings that will eventually run out. I am getting
6 to an age where people won’t want to hire me anyway. I have just been
7 turned down for the church administrator job I wanted. All this is making
8 me so depressed I have a hard time presenting myself well to a prospective
9 employed.4 I have just finished temping in a place I really liked. I can’t
10 practice the profession I am trained for. In fact, I am having a hard time
11 getting licensed to do it as a volunteer. I can’t do what I have the gifts
12 for, preaching and teaching, celebrating liturgy and the spiritual care of
13 people. Carl says he thinks of me more as a friend or parent than a boy
14 friend or lover and is seeking someone else. And I know that I can’t give
15 him what he wants and needs sexually anyway. He continues to
16 expect me to support him while he does this. But if I show an
17 interest in someone he
18 gets very jealous and angry at me. In addition, he is so emotionally
19 afflicted that he can’t work, and is totally dependent on me financially
20 and emotionally. I feel so lost and alone and unsupported. What is going to
21 happen to me. Will I end up on the streets or what?
22 Brad5 [email protected]
The first response to this prayer request was also sent by another core
listmember: Jane D. Her message is included in Example 2:
Example 2
1 Subject: Re: Miserable – Pray for Me
4 Brad wrote:
5 6 In fact, I am having a hard time

6 getting licensed to do it as a volunteer. I can’t do what I have the gifts
7 for, preaching and teaching, celebrating liturgy and the spiritual care of
8 people. Carl says he thinks of me more as a friend or parent than a boy
9 friend or lover and is seeking someone else. And I know that I can’t give
10 him what he wants and needs sexually anyway. He continues to expect
11 me to support him while he does this. But if I show an interest in
12 someone he gets very jealous and angry at me. In addition, he is so
13 emotionally afflicted that he can’t work, and is totally dependent on me
14 financially and emotionally. I feel so lost and alone and unsupported.
15 What is going to happen to me. Will I end up on the streets or what?
16 And people wonder at the gift of scripture’s dictate to confine sexuality

17 to heterosexual marriage. Perhaps scripture goes this way as an
18 attempt to reduce the overwhelming confusion of boundaries listed here.
19 Perhaps scripture is not the arbitrary authoritarian abuse it is seen as
20 today, but an expression of understanding of what people have to go
21 through in their lives
22 Jane
Jane’s response to Brad’s request began an ever-multiplying web of

responses which called the group expectations into question and ulti-
mately threatened the e-community itself. Like the other large-scale
conflict which I witnessed during my time as a ChurchList subscriber,
the progression of the conflict began with an examination of individu-
als’ roles within the e-community and then expanded to provide a
forum for the (re)negotiation of the group identity and expectations.
One important factor here is the impact of gender in conflict partici-
pation (and thereby group identity negotiation). In the next section,
I examine specific messages sent to the list during the conflict in an
attempt to determine what, if any, differences exist in messages posted
by males and females.
Of the messages that contribute to the negotiation of group identity,
113 address norms and expectations for list behaviour (i.e., whether Jane’s
response to Brad and the subsequent attacks on Jane by other listmembers
constitute appropriate and/or acceptable behaviour). Of these 113 messages,
61 (54 per cent) were posted by female core listmembers while the
remaining 52 (46 per cent) were posted by male core listmembers.
In the first stage of the conflict, which begins immediately after
Jane’s response to Brad (listed above), listmembers attack Jane for
behaving in an inappropriate way in responding to a listmember in
pain. These posts range from offering the suggestion that Jane’s response
was inappropriate or misplaced to vehement attacks which criticize
Jane for being insensitive (and worse) in her response to Brad’s initial
message. Some examples of these messages are included in Examples 3
through 6:
Example 3
[…]
18 Jane, I’m writing to Brad privately, but to you I say publicly: this
19 is crueler than I can imagine anything could be from someone
20 claiming to be a Christian …
21 surely
22 your call from God is not to inflict suffering on others. Do you not
23 know that when you write words, when you speak and act, you hold other
24 people’s hearts and souls in your hands? It is a great responsibility,
25 and one I beseech you to take more seriously.
26 Chelsea
[emphasis mine]
Example 4
[…]
33 My God in heaven … a dear listbrother is hurting … hurting in a way I
34 wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy … and he trusts us so much that
35 he bravely writes us a heart-wrenching note about his troubles.
36 What happens? He gets kicked in the teeth by a listmate in one
37 of the most ugly and vindictive pieces of dreck I’ve ever read
38 on ChurchList. I am horrified and damned near in tears. I
39 don’t know what kind of mind games Jane likes to play, but
40 when a person expresses the wish that they were dead ANY
41 reasonable and prudent person wouldn’t write the above
42 quoted … well, umm, feces.
[…]
48 Respectfully and humbly,
49 Jarvis A. Edwards
[emphasis mine]
Example 5
[…]
4 dear people of Church-L, especially Jane D.,

5 Jane, you responded to my friend Brad’s heartfelt plea for prayer and
6 understanding with this:
[…]
12 Perhaps scripture is not the arbitrary authoritarian abuse it is seen as

13 today, but an expression of understanding of what people have to go
14 through in their lives.
15
16 Jane
17 … and *perhaps*, Jane, you are a nasty piece of work so full of
18 her own agenda and looniness that you cannot see much of
19 anything at all …
20 Consider yourself filtered, JD – for ever … by this address. Life is
21 just too short to have to listen to anything else you might have to say.
[…]
32 Dora
[emphasis mine]
These examples are only a subset of the total responses to Jane’s reply to
Brad; these posts range from expressions of simple disagreement with Jane,
to direct attacks on her behaviour (Examples 3, 4 and 5). In these messages,
Jane is called cruel for inflicting suffering on others (Example 3), is accused
of ‘kicking a listmate in the teeth’ and sending ‘faeces’ in her messages
(Example 4), and called ‘a nasty piece of work’ (Example 5). These criti-
cisms of Jane are directly linked to her action of criticizing Brad after he
requested prayers and support. By criticizing Jane’s behaviour in this way,
these listmembers address a code of conduct in force within the commu-
nity. By criticizing Jane’s behaviour so directly, they make it known what
type of behaviour is acceptable (and what type of behaviour is not).
It is also important to note that Jane is not the only one criticized for her
list-behaviour. After Dora posts her response to Jane (Example 5), she also
becomes the object of criticism. In many cases, for example, listmembers
post messages which chastise Jane’s attackers (as well as Jane herself) – not
because of the views the messages espouse, but because the form of the
disagreement is interpreted as inappropriate (just as Jane’s original
response to Brad was viewed as inappropriate by many listmembers). Some
samples of these second-tier critical messages (which focus on the
(in)appropriateness of Dora’s actions) are included in Examples 7 and 8:
Example 7
2 Subject: The Filtering Game
[…]
31 … if I were to put on a filter, I’d do it quietly without any
32 announcement. And if I felt I needed to let the person know that I
33 wasn’t going to respond, I’d do it by a private e-mail note, not shout
34 it over the PA system.
[…]
39 Peace, Joel
[emphasis mine]
Example 8
2 Subject: The Filtering Game
[…]
12 Joel, I disagree with you on this one. At least in this particular case.
13 Sometimes we say we’re filtering publicly to slap someone down (I
14 know I’m guilty of this), and that’s not very nice. But sometimes it
15 seems to me
16 there’s a clear need to stand in solidarity with someone who’s hurting and
17 who has been cruelly attacked. That’s clearly what was happening here.
[…]
27 I appreciate your comment and respect your feelings. But I stand
28 with Dora, here.
29 Best,
30 Ashlie
[emphasis mine]
This series of messages was followed by a message from Dora, apologiz-

ing for the way she chastised Jane (although not apologizing for the con-
tent and criticism of her message). Dora’s apology is followed by another
series of messages justifying Dora’s actions and thanking her for taking
an active role in (publicly) educating Jane on appropriate list-behaviour.
An example of one of these messages is included in Example 9:
Example 9
(To Dora, in response to Dora’s explanation/apology for her message to
Jane (shown in Example 5, above))
4 I don’t think you have much to apologize for. Sometimes right is just
5 right, and wrong is just wrong, and it’s necessary for the health of a
6 community for someone to get up and say so.
7 … There’s no excuse for kicking someone when they’re down,
[…]
12 From a woman with decided opinions,
13 Margaret C.
[emphasis mine]
All of these messages demonstrate expectations about what is (or should

be) appropriate behaviour within this community. Not only is Jane’s
behaviour criticized, but also Dora’s response to Jane (Example 7). Dora
is called to task for being so public with her ire towards Jane, but is also
supported for her actions by other listmembers (Examples 8 and 9). This
ongoing dialogue about what constitutes acceptable behaviour within

the list community is not only important for the negotiation of the
group identity, it is also significant because female listmembers con-
tribute 54 per cent of the messages through which this negotiation takes
place. Moreover, rather than being told to stop posting on the subject (as
the females in Herring’s 1996a study were), the female participants in
this setting are thanked and validated for their role in reinforcing the
expectations of the community by other listmembers (Example 9, lines
4–6). In this way, the posters of these messages (the majority of whom
are female) make known their expectations for acceptable list-behaviour
and thereby contribute to shaping the norms and expectations of the
group. In this sequence of messages, then, the female listmembers:
(1) take an active role in determining and negotiating what expectations
exist for behaviour within the community; and (2) are validated in
taking on that role by other community members.
Conclusion
As this analysis has shown, on ChurchList, females occupy positions of

greater power on the list than has been evident in previous studies (both
in terms of their rate of participation and in terms of their power
to shape group identities and expectations). In this e-community,
females play a greater role (than in other cyber-communities) in defin-
ing appropriate behaviour and negotiating the norms and expectations
of the cyber-parish. Contrary to Herring’s (1996a) findings, on this list
females play an active role in shaping interactional expectations within
the e-community. Although this study gives valuable insights regarding
the influence of females within this e-community, the reasons are too
complex to be determined from this case-study. Further research on
other ‘cyber-parishes’ is needed to explore whether ChurchList is repre-
sentative of other church-oriented communities (as opposed to the
academically focused lists that Herring examined) or whether this
particular list-community is unusual in the rate of male and female
participation.
Further research on this topic is also needed because, not only will
further research provide insights into on-line interactional patterns and
strategies, it will also give further clues as to how empowerment in an
on-line setting impacts the structure of religious communities in the
‘real-world’. If females are empowered in on-line settings to contribute
actively to the identity of the group as a whole, they may feel empowered
to take a more active role in their ‘real-world’ parishes. If, on the other
hand, the participation of women in the Church hierarchy continues to

be controversial, women may be tempted to turn to e-religion, choosing
empowerment and (more) active participation in a cyber-parish over
controversy and marginalization in a ‘real-world’ parish.
Notes
1 This world-wide convention is held once every ten years so that church lead-
ers from around the world can discuss issues affecting the Church and vote
on proposed changes to doctrine.
2 The term Anglican includes the world-wide Anglican Church, the Church of
England, and the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA).
3 One methodological note is in order regarding my analysis of posts as being
sent to the list by males versus females. As I note in Graham (2003), identify-
ing the gender of the poster in an email context can be difficult, since males
and females frequently share email accounts and/or since names attached to
email accounts may or may not be gender-identifiable. In order to address this
difficulty, I drew on my knowledge as a participant observer as well as
analysing individual message signatures, photographs of individual members
posted to a ChurchList web site, and pronoun usage within individual
messages to determine the gender of each message sender.
4 This typographical error was present in the original message.
5 All names which appear in this study are pseudonyms.
6 A ‘’ symbol at the beginning of a line of an email message indicates material
that is quoted from a previous message. In this case, Jane hit the ‘Reply’
button when writing her response to Brad and his message is therefore
reprinted above her response. This type of quoting within email messages is
particularly important on a high volume list like ChurchList, since it provides
necessary contextualization information to help readers understand how to
interpret individual messages.
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8
Language Use and Silence as
Morality: Teaching and Lecturing
at an Evangelical Theology College
Allyson Jule
The feminist social critic Camille Paglia (1992) discusses the power
of American-style evangelical Christianity in her essay, ‘The joy of
Presbyterian sex,’ saying there are ‘Protestant looks, Protestant man-
ners, Protestant values’ central in US society today, and that being a
Protestant evangelical Christian is about being in and of a specific ‘tribe’
with a specific, strict code of behaviour, behaviour which includes
particular language habits and patterns (p. 29).1 She goes on to suggest
that all societies, including the United States, continue to need organized
religions precisely because of their ‘austere, enduring legacy’ (p. 37);
in fact, she sees it as a mistake for today’s American-style evangelical
Christian ‘tribe’ to attempt to be anything other than strict and austere
because the demands of belonging and the rules of exclusion and inclu-
sion are precisely why people, women in particular, continue to choose
Protestant evangelicalism. That is, Paglia, a radical liberal feminist, believes
the very austerity of religion is part of what drives many women to
current expressions of evangelical Christianity. Because of the continual
and rising popularity of evangelical Christianity in American life, this
paper explores one specific setting within it: life at an evangelical theology
college.
Laurie Goodstein (2004) of The New York Times reports that religion
has edged its way into the forefront of American life in the last 20 years
in particular. Though US history has been woven with religious issues
from its inception, the interest in religion and national concerns since
the 1980s has risen to now hold at 53 per cent of Americans citing religion
as the key to how they vote (up from 22 per cent in 1984 – an all-time
high at that point). It is now ‘a normal thing’ to discuss the role of religion
in American society (Goodstein, p. 2). Because of Canada’s proximity to
151
the United States and the vast influence America has in the world in
general, such sociological influences also impact on modern Canadian
society (Stackhouse, 2002).
It is within this highly religiously charged American era that I went look-
ing for intersections of religion, gender and language habits, specifically
within the evangelical Christian community, and I am focused here on
women’s use of linguistic space as indicative of their role and their place
in a Christian community. I locate my research in a Canadian evangelical
theological graduate college because such a location allows for a discussion
of religious identity and of lived practice, and of women’s silence as part
of currently experienced ‘Protestant manners, Protestant values’.
The study
One of the most observable influences of feminism on North American

Christianity in the last 30 years is the increase of women in theological
education (Mutch, 2003). However, their presence in co-educational
college lectures, such as the context examined here, reveals power discrep-
ancies, even amidst these modern egalitarian times. I want to suggest that
being female includes quietness as specifically demonstrative of feminine
morality. Historically, and until relatively recently, theological colleges
were the domain of men so that women in today’s theological education
have an unusual set of conditions if compared to those of the university
experience in general where women’s place and equality are perhaps
more solidly assumed.
Little more than a century ago women were not allowed into most
college classrooms. When protesting in 1910 at the admission of women
to the University of Michigan, the college president said, ‘We shall have
a community of de-feminated women and de-masculated men. When we
attempt to disturb God’s order, we produce monstrosities’ (in Frazier and
Sadker, 1973, p. 144). Gender and religion are connected, so that much of
‘God’s order’ is seen in the preservation of traditional masculine/feminine
roles. As such, taking sociolinguist scholarship into a Christian college
appeared to me an important place to explore how religion and issues of
religious identity influence gendered language practices.
Women enter theological training en route to ordination – that is,
en route to becoming ministers or pastors. However, many of today’s
American evangelicals see ordination as something still reserved for men,
with women limited to supportive roles in church life (Grenz and Kjesbo,
1995). While debates within evangelical Christianity concerning the ordi-
nation of women are vigorous and dynamic (Grenz and Kjesbo, 1995,
Language Use and Silence as Morality 153
are among a host of academics writing on the subject), it is interesting to

find more and more women pursuing theological graduate degrees.
Regardless of the range of views on women’s roles at home or in the
Church, women today enroll, complete theological education, and go
on to careers in many evangelical churches (Grenz and Kjesbo, 1995;
Busse, 1998; Mutch, 2003; Hancock, 2003). It is also worth noting the
growing feminist thought within modern evangelicalism in spite of
strong anti-feminist lobby groups on the religious right, such as Focus
on the Family or Concerned Women for America which promote and
push ‘traditional values’ as central to being Christian (Coontz, 2000).
For one year, I worked on a research project at a post-graduate college.
My project was to focus on the views of feminism among devout
Christians living in the area. The results of the interview study are
discussed elsewhere ( Jule, 2004c, 2004d). However, as one trained in
ethnographic methods and feminist linguistics, the year took on a
slightly different focus for me, one that worked alongside the interview
study. As a visiting scholar, I was able to sit in on any class of interest,
either as a regular attendee or as a drop-in/on-off visitor. As such, what
emerged was an ethnographic experience, one where I became a partici-
pant observer. What emerged quickly for me as a curiosity was the most
used style of teaching at the theology college: lecturing, as happens in
many university classrooms.
Lecturing as teaching method
Lecturing is a major part of university life. My need to appraise the

method emerged from my general interest in silence in classrooms and
in silence in public settings as something uniquely and most often expe-
rienced by those born female. My previous work has focused on primary
classrooms and explored which speech acts teachers use to propel boys
to speak more than the girls during formal-classroom language lessons
(2004a, 2004b). I identify this amount of talk as ‘use of linguistic space’
and highlight certain classroom teaching methods as legitimating par-
ticipation of the boys while serving to maintain silence among the girls.
Much research concerned with gender and its role in affecting classroom
experience points to males as significant classroom participants and
females as less so. Research, such as Walkerdine’s (1990), Bailey’s (1993),
Corson’s (1993), Thornborrow’s (2002), and Sunderland’s (1998), settles
on teachers’ lack of awareness of linguistic space and of how teachers
themselves overtalk in the education process and, in general, give more
attention to their male students (Mahony, 1985; Sadker and Sadker, 1990;
Jule, 2004a). Girls are seen as often ‘passive, background observers

to boys’ active learning’ (Spender and Sarah, 1980, p. 27). Other feminist
sociolinguistic work suggests that the linguistic space used by male
learners signifies and creates important social power and legitimacy
(Holmes, 2001; Baxter, 1999, 2004). Who speaks tells us something
about who matters inside the classroom. That men at this college partici-
pate more in question-answer time while their female classmates largely
serve in the role of audience members suggests larger expectations and
patterns of the community around them. That is, men contribute;
women support the contributions.
Teachers and college professors talk more to their male students,
beginning in the first years of schooling and on into post-graduate work.
In general, female learners of all ages are rarely called upon to contribute
and often find it difficult to interact with their professors. Sadker and
Sadker (1990) suggest that female college students are the invisible
members of the class. They suggest that one of the ways this invisibility
is reinforced is through male domination of speech and through continual
female silence. Kramarae and Treichter (1990) suggest that the reason
women experience a ‘chilly climate’ in most academic settings (the
college/university setting in particular) is male control of the linguistic
space. Women in many college classrooms are marginalized from dis-
course and their silent position demonstrates and reinforces their lack of
significance: they are marginal participants. That women in theology
may be further silenced because of their belonging to a particular religious
identity tells us something else, something more, about the relationship
of religion and gender and the influence of religious views on gender
performance.
Lecturing is a common teaching method at the college level.
Lecturing is often used in non-university settings as well, such as public
lectures held in neighbourhood libraries or art galleries. In any circum-
stance, lecturing is a formal method of delivering knowledge: an expert
prepares the lecture well in advance, allowing for considerable research,
study, and rumination as well as carefully thought through ideas and
organization. People attend such public lectures for a sense of shared
experience – one shared with the expert-lecturer as well as one shared
with others in the audience. Lectures in such places are called ‘celebra-
tive occasions’ by Goffman (1981). Frank (1995) articulates his amaze-
ment that people will disrupt their daily lives to come and hear such
lectures because they have ‘self-consciously defined themselves as
having emotional or practical needs; they arrive already prepared to be
affected in certain ways’ (p. 28).
However, university lectures are part of people’s daily schedules; both

the lecturer and the students are usually present for obligatory reasons.
The lectures are meant to disseminate knowledge for the set purposes of
fulfilling the requirements of a given course. Depending on the nature
of the course material, whether the course is mandatory or optional, and
the size of the student group, lectures may well constitute up to 30 hours
of a given course in one semester (up to three hours per week for ten weeks
of an undergraduate course in most institutions). These lectures occur
with such frequency that much emotional involvement is limited and
are not often experienced as a ‘celebrative occasion’, but as a necessary
practice in the university experience.
Barthes (1977) considered the university lecture in terms of politics,
belonging and a location to rehearse performance discourse. While the
lecturer is lecturing, the students are often silently attending to the ideas
and writing notes on specific new vocabulary or content pertaining to
the lesson material. The ideas expressed are in the hands of the lecturer.
Much freedom is allowed concerning his or her politics, his or her
power/ego issues, and his or her ability at discursive performance. As
such, the lecturer has enormous control over the mood and the dynamics
of the room. Lecturing as teaching method works by conveying informa-
tion through summary and through elaboration – both at the discretion
of the lecturer. The lecture itself is a gesture which presents the effect of
universal truth. In these ways, it remains a ‘celebrative occasion’. During
question-answer time, students may have opportunity to publicly inter-
act with the professor, briefly taking on the role of performer themselves
by signalling investment, interest and involvement.
Goffman’s (1981) ideas on the lecture differentiate between ‘aloud
reading’, which is often perceived as more scholarly, and ‘fresh talk’,
which is perceived as more informal though not necessarily more engag-
ing. Barthes (1977), Goffman (1981) and Frank (1995) all recognize the
lecture as a multi-layered performance. Of course, students reading
the lecture material would be faster, more time-efficient, than attending
class and listening to a fully performed lecture. (Perhaps listening to
a cassette of the lecture while driving or cleaning the house would also
be more time-efficient.) Nevertheless, the university lecture persists as
a marker of scholastic participation – both attending lectures and
performing lectures are part of the academic experience. Spoken delivery
is also taken as candid and dynamic, more ‘real’, than listening to a lec-
ture on tape or reading the notes of a lecture silently at home. Reading
A room of one’s own is one type of experience; sitting in Cambridge’s
Girton College’s lecture hall in 1928, listening and watching Virginia
Woolf present it, would be quite another. A valuable academic lecturer is

certainly one to be encountered if at all possible. As a result, the pedagogy
of the lecture is ‘intensely personal’, even if it is personal in precisely
impersonal, academic ways (Frank, 1995, p. 30).
Lecturing as power
A lecture is a mark of the lecturer’s authority. What fascinates me is the

way the participants themselves play the role of performers as well as
the role of audience members. Their performance is briefly seen during
the question-answer time of the lecture – a specific time where students
pose questions to the lecturer. Lacan (1968) and his work on ‘the other’
as the one observed with ‘the subject’ as the observer influence my
understanding of power relations in classrooms. His ideas propel these
questions: Who is observing? Who is being observed? Which action
signals and evokes power and belonging? Feminism offers various
responses to these questions but it may be fair to say, in light of the vast
feminist scholarship concerning pedagogy, that power largely lies in the
teacher’s hands. The teacher observes and the teacher performs; both
signalling power. Holding the floor is the teacher’s prerogative and is
something which demonstrates the room’s point of reference; that is, in
this case, power is revealed in and created through the language practices
of the lecturer. The lecturer is ‘the subject’ or, for Lacan, the lecturer is
the ‘presumed-to-know’. The lecturer is perceived as knowing and the
audience members, the students, are the ones seeking the knowledge;
they are the observed. What is said in lectures implicitly and explicitly
hints at the lecturer’s views, the lecturer’s opinions on a host of issues, the
lecturer’s personal life and choices, including religious and moral ones.
The students serve to support all of these.
Lectures in a theology college also reveal the particular context. I here
suggest that lecturing, followed by question-answer periods, as is the pat-
tern in this college, alienate the female students at this college because
the feminine/masculine tendencies in classroom settings are validated
and condoned by feminine/masculine patterns of behaviour within
evangelical Christianity itself. With the steady increase of female theology
students, it seems worthwhile to reflect on the continued high prevalence
of lecturing as a common teaching method in a theology college and
position it as a masculinist pedagogical tool, one that rehearses female
students in feminine patterns of silence. At the same time, lecturing
rehearses male theology students in masculine tendencies to dominate
and control linguistic space. That is, the use of lectures in this theology
college works to reinforce hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 1995) – a

masculinity which insists on feminine subservience and ‘reverent awe’
(Gilligan, 1982/1993). Because of the transference of information/
knowledge that lecturing presupposes, the silence of female students dur-
ing question-answer time (a time they could speak) affirms the possibility
that women behave quietly as a way of performing a specific and
understood role of feminine devout behaviour: women are quiet in such
a setting because their religion values their silence.
Morality as gendered
In 1982, Gilligan wrote In a different voice which explored various

themes of gendered language patterns: a woman’s place in society, gen-
dered patterns in dealing with crisis and intimacy, and gendered patterns
of expressing morality. To Gilligan, morality is closely if not entirely
connected with one’s sense of obligation and views of personal sacrifice.
She goes on to suggest that masculine morality is concerned with the
public world of social influence, while feminine morality is concerned
with the private and personal world. As a result, the moral judgments
and expressions of men tend to differ from those of women. In light of
Gilligan’s ideas, it may be reasonable to suggest that students of theology
invite the suggestion that masculine behaviour is particularly connected
to public displays of influence with feminine behaviour connected with
more intimate, private displays. Women are rehearsed into silence for
moral reasons; their silence demonstrates to others and to themselves
their devoutness to God by their ability to be supportive of others. Their
silence is their way of being good. Out of respect for others and for God,
women are quiet. (I think this suggestion is also supported by the extensive
work on silence by Jaworski, 1993.)
One would think that the current increased presence of women, the
rise in feminist theology and the growth of women’s ordination have
significantly changed the nature of theological education. Recent research
into the lives of evangelical women who chose theological education
indicates that the lived experiences of these women are often painful
and confusing (Gallagher, 2003; Ingersoll, 2003; Mutch, 2003). With
various other religious experiences possible (including none at all), some
women appear to remain in their evangelical subculture because they must
experience some support and solace in their church involvement. Women
who study theology say they are often dismissed as feminist for pursuing
theology and are marginalized as a result. Others feel marginalized and
limited and nervous about their possible future contributions; they
anticipate problems though have not experienced this yet (Mutch,

2003). Canadian women in theological education report that being a
woman in ministry requires ‘commitment of conviction’ which is carried
out within a ‘context of challenge’ (Busse, 1998). Most cite loneliness
and stress as part of their career choice and part of their theological
education experiences. Nevertheless, women continue to enroll and
to graduate and to go on to seek ordination in various evangelical
denominations.
Much debate in theological education settles on how or if a woman
can represent Christ in the church as some see the role of minister or
pastor to be: to represent Christ. As such, women who choose to enter
theological training at an evangelical college do so with a burden of
explanation. Unlike their male classmates, they will have had to grapple
with the possibility that their sex (being born female) will be a distraction
at best or a continual controversy and challenge at worst.
The theology college
The particular theology college explored in this paper is located on the

University of British Columbia’s large campus in Vancouver, Canada.2
The college advertises itself as ‘an international graduate school of
Christian studies’ (school website). It also advertises itself as a ‘transde-
nominational graduate school’, not affiliated to a specific Christian
denomination, though it clearly articulates evangelical Christian ideas
(such as ‘to live and work as servant leaders in vocations within the
home, the marketplace, and the church’).
Forty per cent of the student body is Canadian with an equal number
(40 per cent) from the United States; the remaining 20 per cent are from
other areas, including Britain and Australia as well as a few who travel from
parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. There are 350 full-time students
and approximately 350 part-time students. Because the college is for
graduate students, most are over the age of 25 and all have one degree
behind them. Their first degree need not be theology; students come
from a variety of fields, including education, medicine, law, arts, sciences.
There are roughly 40 per cent female to 60 per cent male students. There
are no student residences set aside for this college. Students are encouraged
to find their own accommodations through the university’s housing
office or to live off campus. The students I spoke to all lived off campus
and independently.
Students choose from a variety of Master’s programmes, including a
Masters of Divinity, the degree needed for ordination in most evangelical
churches. There are no doctoral programmes offered, though some

students continue on to pursue Doctor of Theology at larger theology
colleges, such as those at Oxford, Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Most, how-
ever, enter theology college to eventually gain ordination to serve as clergy
in the evangelical community. This they can do with a Master’s degree.
The college employs 19 full-time faculty members: 17 are male, 2 are
female. The first woman was hired in 1991; the other was hired in 2000.
The imbalance of male to female faculty members, particularly in light
of the male:female ratio represented in the student body, was my first
clue to particular gender issues in such a setting. It is my suggestion that
the religious views of this community have greatly influenced the low
numbers of females in faculty positions as well as women’s lack of
linguistic space in the classrooms.
The classes
In light of the specifics of this community, the college is a unique location

for sociolinguistic gender research. I spent eight months (one academic
year) at this college as a visiting scholar. The college provided me with
office space as well as access to all classes. Fifty-five classes are offered every
12 weeks (Fall term, Spring term, Summer term). The mandatory core
classes are held in lecture halls which take 200 students; however, some
elective courses fill at 10 or 12 and some classes run with 40–60 students.
I sat in on two of the large lectures, both consisting of approximately
200 students, both core courses. Both courses were held once a week
during the Fall term. Both classes ran for three hours with one or two
breaks. Both lecturers were male; the large lecture classes at the college
were all taught by male faculty. The courses taught by the two women
were smaller grouped classes and were not core requirements.
The male lecturers were known as senior scholars in their fields; both
were well published and well known in evangelical circles. All lectures in
the core courses held in the main lecture hall (such as the two in focus
here) are recorded on to audiocassettes and sold in the college bookstore;
hence, classroom lectures in this college serve the purpose of instruction
as well as supplementary income for and promotion of the lecturer and
the college.
It was clear that both lecturers, Dr Smith and Dr Jones,3 had lectured
on their material before, perhaps for years. Dr Smith was over 50 years
old; Dr Jones was in his late forties. Both were of British extraction and
their accents identified their ethnic background and their training. Both
lectured from prepared outlines given to students. I chose these two
classes because of the similarities in class size and in their use of lecture
style, but mainly I chose to examine these two classes because both rep-
resented the 40:60 ratio of female students to male students as seen in
the college more generally.
Dr Smith began each class with approximately five minutes of
announcements, such as where to collect marked assignments, before
beginning his lecture. Dr Smith had three tutorial assistants who marked
weekly essay submissions. Sometimes one of the tutorial assistants (all of
whom were male) would speak of these details before Dr Smith would
ascend the podium. A microphone was usually clipped on to the lapel of
Dr Smith’s suit by a sound technician so as to record the lecture as well as
to allow the entire lecture hall to hear adequately. The lecture would then
begin with a two or three minute prayer by Dr Smith. Dr Smith would
lecture without visible notes, though students followed along in the stu-
dent packs where each lecture was provided in outline form – something
purchased at the beginning of term. Most students appeared to use the
lecture outlines to follow along and to write study notes throughout,
filling in each section of the page. Dr Smith spoke in a clear, steady
voice; he rarely used humour or personal anecdotes. At the end of the
three hours (including one half-hour break), 20 minutes would be given
over to questions from the students. For the 12 weeks of lectures in
Dr Smith’s class not one woman asked a question. Three to five male
students would ask suitable questions, all higher order questions spoken
into standing microphones. Each week different male students would
ask questions. Their questions would last between one and five minutes.
Dr Smith’s responses would follow suit, generally running four to eight
minutes. No female students spoke the entire term.
Dr Jones’s class, however, appeared less formal than Dr Smith’s.
Dr Jones did not wear a suit and often arrived late and with scattered
papers. Nevertheless, Dr Jones also had the aid of three tutorial assistants
who often started off the class on time for him with announcements of
assignments or sometimes reminders of college activities (such as the
Christmas banquet ticket sales). Dr Jones usually began his lectures with
a joke or humorous anecdote from his family life. Eventually an opening
quick 30-second prayer was said, and Dr Jones would begin his lecture.
Dr Jones used PowerPoint images which would include particular Bible
passages under examination in the lecture or photographs of Biblical
sites or maps. Students took copious notes; the course outline indicated
the general lecture topic per week. Dr Jones gave a very long one-hour
break. During the hour, Dr Jones would retreat to his office; the students
ate their lunch or went to the library. Dr Jones also gave time for ques-
tions, often as long as ten minutes but averaging seven minutes most
weeks. In the 12 weeks spent sitting in on Dr Jones’s lectures, one

woman asked a 20-second question. It was brief and answered quickly,
but it stood out to me as indication of some accessibility for women in
the less celebratory occasion.
In my opinion, Dr Jones was the more engaging of the two lecturers,
though in my casual conversations with students, they noted very little
difference. The content of each course seemed of more significance to
the students than the personality of the professors, even though all
students were aware of the distinguished academics in their midst and
mentioned this often to me. When I asked both lecturers (casually and
privately) if they noticed that only men asked questions during question
time, Dr Smith said he had not noticed this; Dr Jones said he had
noticed this ‘years ago’. He also said, ‘Women don’t like to ask questions
in public.’
To highlight the discrepancy of linguistic space, Dr Smith’s and
Dr Jones’s classrooms are represented in pie-chart form in Figure 8.1.
DR SMITH'S LECTURES DR JONES'S LECTURES

Total Linguistic Space Total Linguistic Space
Linguistic space of
Linguistic space Linguistic space of female students
of male students male students 0.01%
12% 7.99%
Dr Jones's
linguistic
space 92%
200 students 200 students
60% male Dr Smith's 60% male
40% female linguistic space 40% female
88%
180 minutes of lecture per week 180 minutes of lecture per week
minus 30 minutes for break = 150 minutes minus 60 minutes for break = 120 minutes
incl. 20 minutes for questions incl. 10 minutes for questions
DR SMITH'S LECTURES DR JONES'S LECTURES

Student Linguistic Space Student Linguistic Space
Linguistic space of Linguistic space of

female students female students 4%
Linguistic space of
0%
male students
100% Linguistic space of
male students
96%
Figure 8.1 Dr Smith’s and Dr Jones’s classrooms

Discussion
Both Dr Smith and Dr Jones use most of the linguistic space during their
lectures. This is not surprising, considering the method of instruction.
However, of the remaining linguistic space, men used disproportion-
ately more. In Dr Smith’s lectures, the male students used all of the student
linguistic space: 100 per cent. In Dr Jones’s room, the male students used
much more than 60 per cent to 40 per cent, as is the population ratio.
Instead, the male students speak over 90 per cent.
When setting out the amount of talk in such form, it becomes clearer
that the linguistic space, the air-time, belongs to the powerful, respected
male lecturers. The male students seem to perform their masculinity by
posing questions during the question-answer times allowed them. The
female students are silent. Instead of talking, they appear as consisted
audience members to the male performers.
Given the prominence of evangelical voices in current North
American life, it is not surprising that social scientists like myself have
interest in exploring the intersection of gender and language alongside
religious communities. Many other researchers have undertaken numer-
ous studies on the relationship of evangelical faith and femininity, most
recently Gallagher (2003) and Ingersoll (2003). Both scholars offer
robust research on gender and the evangelical subculture. Both suggest
that evangelicalism appears a personally salient and robust religious
experience to many, even with (or perhaps because of) the high levels of
participation required and the necessary adherence to traditional
Christian teachings concerning a woman’s place in the home.
Evangelicalism’s ability to thrive in the midst of larger secularism and
current religious pluralism is in part because it is a religious subculture
that appears to accommodate cultural engagement along with theological
orthodoxy (Gallagher, 2003).
Evangelicalism and evangelical theological education thrive not
because they are effective in establishing a market niche (which they
have done, Gallagher, 2003) but because they are somehow relevant and
useful to the people involved. In spite of earlier feminist claims made by
many evangelical women, the Christian ‘right’ began to assert political
pressure on issues concerning the family and in direct opposition to
feminist causes. In short, evangelicals now articulate a view of society
which rejects modernity and relativism in favour of certainty and con-
trol. Their views emerge from a belief that men serve as ‘benign patri-
archs’ who insulate their families from the complexity of secular life
(Gallagher, 2003). As a result, both men and women achieve morality

and a resulting peace of mind by behaving in stereotypically masculine
and feminine ways (men to lead, women to submit to male leadership
and significance).
It may well be that women choose evangelicalism precisely as a way to
find meaningful communities and to reduce the stress of navigating more
complex gender roles at work and with family (Busse, 1998). Gallagher
(2003), in her discussion on women in evangelicalism, suggests that evan-
gelicals ‘accommodate feminism but do so selectively’ (p. 11). Gallagher
suggests women remain in evangelicalism precisely because of the set
roles for women. Such women find the clarity ‘empowering’ (p. 11). The
rhetoric of a strong masculine Christianity appeals to men as well as to
many women. Even organizations within evangelicalism which support
and promote female ordination do so within the set dogma, offering
differing interpretations of key scriptures concerning the role of women
but not differing interpretations of gendered behaviour; men are to be
strong and rational, women are to support male ‘headship’ even if they
are ordained.
These complexities within evangelical circles, specifically that one
could be a female ordained minister and still remain a woman commit-
ted to submission as a key moral and gendered behaviour, suggest that
women in this college must manage the contradiction within these
ideas. These women have proceeded to pursue theological education,
not for reasons of liberation or female emancipation from male domi-
nation in the Church, but as a way to serve the Church with their gifts
of service. Though some women may have difficulty in such a context,
many appear to remain and further invest themselves precisely because
of a sense of calling. They remain in their ‘context of challenge’ because
of their ‘commitment of conviction’ (Busse, 1998). They work out their
gender roles within a larger framework of male leadership and domina-
tion. Even if ordained, women see their roles as supportive and not
leadership-driven.
That lecturing is used in such old-fashioned ways within this theol-
ogy college (and my guess is in many others as well) suggests a clash of
conservative/spiritual masculinity with pro-feminist/social justice mas-
culinity within university education (Clatterbaugh, 1990; Skelton, 2001).
Such a domination of linguistic space is what Skelton calls ‘the school and
machismo’: that the ways males experience or exploit educational oppor-
tunities are ‘skills’ which males in society ‘learn to develop’ (p. 93). Men
are rehearsed into speaking roles; women are rehearsed into listening roles.
Conclusion
I agree with Paglia (1992) in that there are distinctive ‘Protestant looks,
Protestant manners, Protestant values’ and that these codes of belong-
ing to Protestant evangelical Christianity are attractive and seductive to
many men and women. That women choose to belong and to support a
religion which views stereotypically gendered roles as desirable might
explain their alarming silence throughout the courses I observed at this
evangelical theology college. The women remained silent all term. I
believe that such specific manners and values are part of their being seen
as devout in this community.
Women’s roles are supportive roles, even if appearing to reach for the
top levels of church governance by enrolling in Masters of Divinity
programmes. The ‘Protestant looks, manners, and values’ seem to include
feminine silence. Though the evangelical world has competing debates
within it concerning the role of women in the home, in society and in the
Church, it appears to be the case at this college that female presence has
not meant an upset in ‘God’s order’ and that women serve as supportive
listeners to the larger male-dominated linguistic space of the lectures.
If a century ago there had been a fear that women in theological educa-
tion would ‘de-feminate women and de-masculate men’, this fear appears
an unnecessary worry because, even when present, women continue to
behave in quiet, submissive, supportive ways in these college classrooms.
A masculine style of seeking public influence and participation as a way to
be moral seems also at work at this college; the men acted the part of
knowing, belonging to and participating in power, while the women
served the part of audience. These patterns are so commonly seen in other
pedagogical research in classrooms that the findings are not surprising.
What this research does point to is cultural and historical threads which
have appeared as patriarchal but which may reveal women consciously or
subconsciously colluding in such patterns. Many women remain in evan-
gelical Christianity; women participate in theological education; lectur-
ing as pedagogical tool is a popular teaching method at this college; and
women continue to serve well as audience members in their own educa-
tional experiences. These are the Protestant manners and values at work
in American society. The lecturer as performer is well-received and well-
supported by college life in general. The male privileging of this style is
one not well-interrupted and my guess now would be that both the men
and women who belong to specific religious groups would defend gen-
dered behaviour as ‘God’s order’. The popularity of evangelicalism, partic-
ularly in American life, gives rise to feminist scholarship in a search for
understanding women’s experiences in public life.
Notes
1 The term ‘evangelical’ is used to refer to those of Protestant faith who are
Pentecostal, fundamentalist or mainline liberal – terms articulated by Gallagher,
2003. She also suggests evangelicals are generally anti-feminist and anti-big
government; they hold these views because of their perceptions of what ‘the
Bible says’ and they promote the ‘Good News’ to convince others of their views.
2 There are several theology colleges on the University of British Columbia’s
campus. The one examined here will remain nameless for reasons of anonymity.
3 The names are fabricated to protect anonymity. Also, ‘Doctor’ is usually the
title used for professors in Canada, indicating a PhD as well as professor status.
To be called ‘Professor’ may indicate no PhD and, hence, less credentials.
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9
The Children of God Who
Wouldn’t, but Had To*
Annabelle Mooney
Writing about groups that are typically branded as cults is like walking
a high wire; except everyone wants you to fall. The group you choose to
examine will certainly never consider itself a ‘cult’ (neither should it).
Those who are interested non-members (often ex-members) see the
group as exactly a ‘cult’. In this chapter, I will not be engaging with the
question of what constitutes a ‘cult’. It seems to me, that according to
the usage to which the term is put, no group is actually a ‘cult’. I am not,
however, going to suggest that groups, especially perhaps religions, are
always positive experiences for members. It is clear that they are not.1
This chapter is in one way a historical account. The Children of God
no longer exist as such, having been re-formed and renamed The Family
(sometimes also known as The Family of Love). The question of whether
this has been a change in name only is not one I will address at length
here.2 The text under examination in this chapter, however, represents
women (or more correctly, the gendered female) as powerful and worthy
only in their giving up of self and power. They are only valid subjects
if they transform agape into eros; in turn, they need to transform them-
selves such that this is not a contradiction. That is to say, they are recog-
nized as subjects only when they sublimate agape into eros and love into
obedience.
It is difficult to know how life in The Family differs from that in The
Children of God. What is clear in this text is that part of agape is eros.
That is, the selflessness which is part of the love of agape extends to being
* I would like to gratefully acknowledge and thank the help of Mercy, an

ex-member, who guided me through doctrinal and historical issues, and
answered many questions. Her story can be read at www.exfamily.org. While this
account underpins some arguments here, specific help is referenced with
‘personal communication’ which took place July 2004 via e-mail.
168
Children of God Who Wouldn’t, but Had To 169
selfless when it comes to acts normally associated with eros. The self too
is discounted in favour of this selfless giving of emotional and sexual
favours. Salient in terms of gender is that it is the feminine and feminized
member who submits. Thus gender and power coalesce in the sexual frame.
Because of the witnessing (and arguably exchange) purposes to which
sex has been put in the group, I argue that it is possible to see the female as
commodity (in line with Irigaray, 1985). At the same time, the feminized
quality of sacrifice is both valorized and sexualized. It hardly needs stating
that it is sexualized for men (rather than women) and in particular
for the male leader (who is essentially divine). It seems to me that the
illustrations of women, in particular, are pornographic.
While the material here looks rather extreme, especially for a group
that sees itself as Christian, the logic of the position is not difficult to
understand. It is worth stressing the importance of understanding
groups that seem beyond the pale. In fact, it seems to me that a great
deal of harm is done (to women especially) if and when they choose
to leave a group which is dismissed as ‘cultish’ in main stream society
(see Boeri Williams, 2002).
It seems to me that it is also important to point out that this commod-
ification of the female body is not something that is limited to The
Children of God. Sexual and gender politics in mainstream society are
not radically different from the kinds of views put here. That is not to
say that these views should be endorsed, rather that, upon reflection,
they seem rather less radical than one might at first think. However, it is
well to bear in mind that the dynamics of a closed society (such as this
group) create different pressures on individuals; especially when the
leader is essentially divine.
History
Wangerin sees the Children of God as a ‘symbolic rebellion against

American capitalist culture’ (1993, p. 1). It was founded in 1968 by
David Berg, later called Moses or Mo or even ‘dad’; though by the second
generation (offspring of original members) he is referred to as ‘Grandpa’.3
Originally, Berg was merely an evangelical preacher, though it was not
long before he proclaimed himself a prophet and the group stood apart
from any traditional religion. After his death, his mistress Maria took
on the leadership of the church.4 The Family presents itself as a group dis-
tinct, though directly descended, from the Children of God. However,
ex-members maintain that the group is the same. Indeed, in Mo Letter
663, ‘Happy Birthday! – RNR5 Rules – A Compilation’ in paragraph 3,
Berg writes, ‘Try to get away from being called the “Children of God”
where the name is not helpful nor legally necessary. Simply call yourselves
the new Family of Love’ (1978b).
The Children of God were controversial because of their attitudes to sex.
Sexual enjoyment was seen as a part of life.6 They believed, for example,
that Jesus had sexual relations with Mary and Martha.7 The year 1976 saw
the introduction of the doctrine of flirty fishing (FF),8 though it was
discontinued in 1987 because of adverse public reactions and the sexual
health of the community.9 It involved young women of the movement
using sex as a form of religious outreach based on Matthew 4:19, ‘Follow
me, and I will make you fishers of men.’10 Because this flirting was to bring
people to God, it was considered acceptable. Sexuality is seen as a gift from
God and thus something which can be legitimately used to secure mem-
bers. It should be noted that ‘Though men were not as effective in FFing,
they did participate and occasionally were able to bring in new female
disciples’ (Chancellor, 2000, p. 16). Williams (1998) also points out that
while ‘Men were legitimately allowed to sexually recruit women into the
family, and although this happened sometimes, it seemed to be much
more time-consuming, and became a rare event’ (p. 133). Mercy concurs:
‘Although it [doctrine of FFing] was directed to the women and it was
the women who went to the bars dressed seductively, men could also do
it. However, it was really the women who were to bear the brunt of this
new “ministry” and the women who eventually were to bring in quite a
bit of money that propelled the work into a financial upswing during
the heydays of the late 1970s and 1980s until a member died of AIDS
and the practice was sharply curtailed’ (2000, on-line).
The text which I will be examining is one of a much larger collection
of texts called the ‘Mo Letters’. There are in excess of 2500 of these
letters.11 They are sent out to all branches of the movement and were
standard reading material for all members (Enroth, 1977, p. 43). In this
they serve to introduce members to Mo and also to give the group an
individual corpus of readings. They thus provide a unique text for the
movement and because of this a way for members from different com-
munities to speak to each other. These letters are the way in which the
particular beliefs of the movement are articulated and disseminated. The
letters are also available to the general public.12
Berg died in November 1995. At present, there are about 14,000 mem-
bers, a third over 21 years. Bozeman reports that morale appears to be high
in the group and ‘The Family appears to be well prepared to continue prop-
agating its distinctive doctrinal message and lifestyle for the foreseeable
future’ (1998, p. 129).
The text under examination here is a Mo letter from 1978 called

‘The Girl Who Wouldn’t.’ The letter was chosen because of its explicit
discussion of sex with respect to a female member who wouldn’t have
sex with another (senior) female member. The way in which the girl who
wouldn’t is spoken to and about suggests that what is at issue here is not
so much gender, but power; or rather the latter determines the former.
The letter: the girl who wouldn’t
This letter was sourced from an ex-member organization (see note 11).
Apart from two versions of the letter (one ‘full’ version and one con-
densed), the web site also provides a commentary. In this analysis I refer
to both the full version (FV) and the short version of the letter (SV). The
full version appears to have been circulated at the time (i.e., 1978) in
direct response to letters written to Berg by a senior member of the
group, Lori, and her assistant, Toni. These letters, with comments
inserted by Berg (to be discussed presently) are published at the start of
the full version. This version also includes an illustration. It is not clear
whether the letters from Toni and Lori were included in the condensed
version; though given that the shorter version is in many ways more
general, with no specific mention of the contents or authors of the orig-
inal letters to Berg, it seems safe to assume that they were not.
The long version is more than four times longer than the short.
It includes the initial letters and 100 paragraphs of responding text. The
short version is only 25 paragraphs long and does not refer to Lori and
Toni in the same way as the long version.
The letters from the girls

Lori reports that working with Toni has been good and ‘our communi-
cations have been excellent … THE ONLY THING THAT HAS MADE IT
KIND OF DIFFICULT IS THAT WE NEVER GOT TOGETHER PHYSICALLY.’
Toni’s letter laments that she has ‘failed Lori in a lot of ways by not being
able to be her mate’. Toni writes that she can ‘burn free’ with family work
and FFing (flirty fishing) but lacks the faith for being physical with Lori,
even though she sees nothing wrong with it. It is significant that both
letters are presented as being written in the style of Berg’s own Mo letters.
They all, for example, use capitals, presumably for emphasis.
The response from Berg, with some interjections from Maria, makes it
abundantly clear (even in the short version of the letter) that this refusal
is not appropriate. The terms in which this disapproval is phrased makes
it clear that Toni is disobeying the word of God and the word of Berg.
Toni’s refusal to have sex with Lori is also represented as symptomatic of

selfishness of a more general kind which is not acceptable within the
movement. While this is certainly a gendered issue, what seems to be
at stake here is power and a right to sex. Wanting sex is not selfish;
withholding it is. The former is gendered male; the latter female.
In this first part, the letter itself is under consideration. I deal first with
some aspects of orality present in the letter, including interjections from
Maria. The layout of the text and the attached illustration are then briefly
considered. The central argument of the letter relies on a minimizing of
the sacrifice that Toni should have made, and a maximizing of the error
that was committed in not making this sacrifice. This is cast in a familiar
‘all or nothing’ mode. A section focusing more on gender follows.
Orality and conversation
As noted, Mo letters are staple texts of the movement. It is not necessary to

look beyond this letter to see that this is the case. In several places Berg
exclaims that Toni hasn’t read ‘the Letters’ and isn’t following them. These
letters are Mo letters and appear to trump the other text of the movement,
the Bible. By this I mean that the Mo letters offer the official interpretation
of the Bible. It is an interpretation which is not open to question by those
in the group. Thus while the Bible may not be transparent to all, it is trans-
parent to Berg. It is worth noting the capitalization of ‘Letters’, which is
conventionally aligned with the capitalization of the ‘Bible’.
Even in a written form the letters manage to capture something of a
physical voice. This letter is no exception and uses the techniques com-
monly deployed by Berg. In this respect, it is interesting to note that the
letters were often read out loud to communities, adding another level of
‘vocal authenticity’ to the letters. Two strictly visual cues signal vocality;
exclamation marks and capitals. In the long version of the letter, which is
100 paragraphs long, there are 235 exclamation marks. In the short ver-
sion (which is only 25 paragraphs long) there are 73 exclamation marks.
Exclamation marks are common in Mo letters and part of Berg’s written
style. While their widespread use starts to look hysterical, this seems to be
exactly what Berg is after; ‘I’M A HUNDRED-PERCENTER! I CAN’T STAND
COMPROMISERS! I CAN’T STAND HALF HEARTED PEOPLE!’ (para. 17 LV;
para. 4 SV). Certainly there is nothing half-hearted about Berg’s typo-
graphical conventions here. Although his use of capitals is less pro-
nounced in the condensed version of the letter. In fact, in the letters posted
on the official website, this typographical convention has been removed.
In the long version, the first sentence or clause of every paragraph is
capitalized. In the shorter version, capitals appear to be used only for
vocal emphasis; roughly once every five paragraphs. Berg’s lexical and
syntactic choices also indicate a more oral style; repetition, rhythmic
structures, in-group and non-standard vocabulary (i.e., lexemes usually
used for speech are written, for example ‘cuz’ for ‘because’) as well as
sentence fragments all contribute to this.
This letter, however, also has some conversational structure in a number
of ways. First, Berg’s letter is a response to those of Toni and Lori.
However, in a later (though related) letter, ‘Women in Love’, Berg makes
clear that he will not continue to be a problem solver for the entire
membership (para. 22).
The second way in which the text is conversational (though not on
an equal and collaborative footing) relies on Berg’s editing of Toni and
Lori’s letters. These are reproduced at the start of the long version, and
Berg has inserted comments flagged with the tag ‘Dad’. Toni writes:
I’VE GONE THOUGH IT SO MUCH THINKING HOW SELFISH AND

WITHHOLDING I MUST BE and maybe I am. Please tell me if you
think I am. (Dad: Amen! – You are!). But most of all I just want to be
obedient to God’s will (Dad: So why weren’t you when it was needed?)
These insertions forestall any sympathy with Toni. Even before one can
read her letter in full, Berg’s voice has been inserted in bold italics. This
signals very clearly whose voice has priority. Further, the power that he
has to interject, and thus interrupt another’s text, is indicative of his
leadership power. Berg, as the ‘father’ of the group (‘Dad’), is at liberty to
reconstruct the letters in such a way as to control their message.
The third sense in which this is a conversation is the co-present vocality
of Maria (Berg’s mistress and now leader). This conversational structure
is more a co-production of text, and may be understood as code switching,
in the main part of the letter. In the letter itself, Berg speaks for himself
and Maria, explicitly including her in his opinions; ‘as far as Maria and
I are concerned’ (para. 6, LV) and so on. However, Maria sometimes also
offers her own voice, but none the less she only makes five short contri-
butions in the long letter, usually supplying Biblical support. Maria
argues, for example, that had Toni started to be physical with Lori, the
desire would have come:
(MARIA: AND I THINK THE LORD WOULD HAVE GIVEN HER THE
LOVE THEN, that’s what usually happens. ‘As they went they were
healed’. – Lk. 17: 14.)
(SV 7; LV 24)
Maria’s use of ‘usually’ suggests that she has some experience of this.
In terms of gender roles, however, Maria is clearly subordinate to Berg.
The fact that she has very little to say, that she is included in Berg’s
words and (perhaps most of all) that her contributions are enclosed in
parenthesis, demonstrates this clearly. Further, Maria usually contributes
words of the Bible. She is not speaking as such, she is speaking for the
authority which gives Berg his power.
Nevertheless, involving Maria in this exchange has the benefit of
making the argument not look like a gendered one. In terms of gender
and power, however, Maria as partner of the leader is part of the ‘royal
family’ of the movement.13
Indeed, Berg himself asserts that he has had to submit. In writing this
he attempts to occupy the female role. He writes:
9. A LOT OF THE TIME I DON’T EVEN WANT TO or like it or enjoy it

because I’m tired, and had enough, etc. Sometimes it’s even with
people whom I’m not even naturally very fond of or that I’m not very
crazy about their personality or their type or their shape or their
manner etc.
It is difficult to believe that as leader of the movement this is the case.
Format and illustrations
As noted, the arrangement of this Mo letter is similar to others. Each

paragraph is numbered sequentially. This form appears to capitalize on
associations with Biblical presentation and makes it possible to cite
portions of the letters, in the same way that Bible passages are quoted;
each letter also has a unique number code as well as a title. However
Wangerin also notes that it, and the general style of the letters, made
‘reading them, or following along while others read them aloud, easier’
(1993, p. 128).
The most striking thing about this Mo letter is the inclusion of
an illustration at the top of it. A line drawing with the capitalized title
‘THE GIRL WHO WOULDN’T!’, it shows two female figures in a bedroom.
A long-haired woman is standing in the foreground with her back to her
companion. She is wearing a short nightdress, has her arms folded
across her chest and her eyes shut; her chin is raised in a pose of defi-
ance. A short-haired woman is naked, in the background, on a bed sitting
with her back against the headboard and her arms stretched out to her
sides. One of her knees is bent.
It is clear that the woman in the foreground is the girl who wouldn’t.
It is also pretty clear from the picture (not least the clothing and lack
thereof ) what she wouldn’t do. While the picture quality (in the version
I saw) is not excellent, there is a case to be made for the woman in the
background being posed in a typical crucifixion position. Certainly the
raising of one knee means that the illustration is not x-rated, but it
is also a common representation of Christ’s position on the cross.
Additionally, with her arms stretched out to the side, the overall effect is
even more typical. This reading is given further credence by the way in
which Berg links the ‘Lord’s worker’ (Lori) to the Lord. ‘Don’t tell me
you’re good for His work if you’re not good for his workers’ (LV 36); and
‘When she refused you, she refused the Lord’ (SV 21). Thus essentially,
Toni is turning her back on the Lord. The nakedness of Lori is at once
sexual and vulnerable; again it evokes Christ’s nakedness on the cross.
But because of this link with the Lord, it is also a position of power.
In terms of the representation of women in the movement generally,
cartoons like this are extremely telling. While I have by no means seen
a complete set of Mo letters, of all that I have seen the representations of
men and women differ from each other, but are consistent in themselves.
In short, the men are nearly always clothed (and usually bearded), while
the women are always naked or in a state of undress (often with their
clothes ripped and hanging off them).14
Bainbridge writes that ‘The original Mo Letters and many of the later
publications carry lively illustrations like those found in comic books’
(2002, p. 75). Certainly the pictures are in the style of comic-book illus-
tration, being line drawn and so forth. But to call them ‘lively’ when
many are erotic representations of women dismisses this influential
mode of communication. This sustained representation of women is, it
seems to me, particularly significant and troubling. Not only are the
women usually represented in a way which reveals their bodies, they are
sometimes in situations of pain. In collections I have personally seen
‘cartoons’ of women crucified, their wounds dripping with blood, or
sitting naked on a large fish hook (as a representation of flirty fishing).
‘Heaven’s Girl’, a cartoon series directed at young people, was particularly
disturbing (though now withdrawn from circulation). If men are naked,
they will be embracing a woman. It seems to me that these illustrations
are pornographic. I will return to this at the end of the chapter. Further,
while men could FF, they were not asked to. Rather, they were asked to
be God’s pimps.15
While the sexual doctrines allegedly apply equally to the sexes, these
illustrations suggest that this is not the case. Further, ex-member
accounts also suggest that it was women who submit and men who desire.
It is a heterosexual dynamic that predominates (not withstanding this
letter). In fact, a later letter deals specifically with lesbians. Called ‘Women
in Love’ it states that while there is nothing ‘wrong’ (para. 8) with lesbian-
ism, and while it’s not ‘EXPLICITLY FORBIDDEN, SUCH AS IT IS WITH
MEN AND MEN’ (para. 2), it is ‘subnormal’ at least in as far as it can’t ‘bear
the physical fruit of children’ (para. 8). (This kind of argument was used
against Lori (by then known as Keda) in a letter called ‘Keda’s Problem’.)
The letter starts by saying that there doesn’t seem to be anything
wrong with women having sex together. And yet towards the end, Berg
writes, ‘ANY GIRL WHO DOESN’T LIKE RELATIONSHIPS WITH MEN AT
ALL AND ONLY LIKES GIRLS HAS SOME KIND OF A PERVERTED
SPIRIT!’ (para. 100). Such women are apparently ‘BORN WITH EXCESSIVE
MALE HORMONES AND CHARACTERISTICS, and are almost more male
than female, and therefore have an unusual desire for other women
rather than men’ (para. 101).
Indeed, the imperative to have (many) children can be seen as subju-
gation of women. It is a society such that ‘Woman lives her own desire
only as the expectation that she may at last come to possess an equivalent
of the male organ’ (Irigaray, 1985, p. 24). Further, the power of the male
can be understood as underpinning the forbiddance of male homosexual
activity. ‘Once the penis itself becomes merely a means to pleasure,
pleasure among men, the phallus loses its power’ (Irigaray, 1985, p. 193).
In ‘The Girl Who Wouldn’t’ it is women (in particular and in general),
not men, who are chastised for withholding sex.
IT REMINDS ME OF SOME OF OUR SELFISH SISTERS IN THE FAMILY

WHO HAVE GONE ALL THESE YEARS WITHOUT HELPING ONE
SINGLE BROTHER, not giving one of them a tumble, not once!
(para. 25, LV)
In terms of ‘The Girl Who Wouldn’t’ there is another point made in

‘Women in Love’, right at the beginning of the letter, which should be
noted. Berg writes that with lesbian relationships ‘All the same rules
apply’ (para. 3). That is:
It must be real love, not just a sexual lust. It must be love. You must
do it in love. It must be done with understanding. It must be done
by faith, not under condemnation, knowing your liberties in the
Lord. And it must be done with mutual consent.
(para. 3)
The ‘must’ may look like a requirement, but in fact it turns out to be a
command. The consent is not consent to the particular situation, but to
the authority of Berg to make commands.
Central argument
The main argument of the piece should already be clear. Toni should
have sacrificed herself to Lori’s sexual needs. The use of orality already
discussed, as well as the priming features of the illustration and Berg’s
comments inserted in the letters from Lori and Toni make it clear from
the start where Berg stands. He is emphatic about his views in the letter,
however. This is especially important for the shorter version which lacks
some of these priming features.
Essentially, the argument works by minimizing the sacrifice Toni has
to make and maximizing the cost of not making the sacrifice. This
devolves into a familiar all-or-nothing script which is closely related to
an us–them othering. In this case, the other is explicitly the Devil (with
whom Toni is aligned). The argument also works by turning the particular
to the general. The minimization of self is part of the minimization of
sacrifice and is clearly a strategy of control. Further, sexual desires are
treated as though they are requirements. Apart from a virtual collapse of
agape into eros, it is also clear that self can only be a source of action in
a limited range of spheres. Self can initiate sex, for example, but it cannot
refuse it.
Minimum and maximum

This letter is one which chastises. For the minimization of the sacrifice to
work in such a case, much has to be made of the bad consequences of not
having made the sacrifice first. Thus in the short version of the letter, it
isn’t until paragraph 17 (of only 25) that Berg makes small of the action
Toni had to commit (in the long version it is at paragraph 61 of 100):
Just because she didn’t want to do one little thing, make one little
sacrifice, one little moment of physical self-denial – surrendering her
mere flesh for a moment.
Not only is the action itself a ‘little thing’, her body itself is ‘mere flesh’.
Put this way, the act of sex starts to look like merely a physical act of
strength or endurance. In fact, in paragraph 6 (SV; 23 in LV) Berg writes:
Even if it rubbed her the wrong way and she didn’t like it at all, she
should have gritted her teeth and borne it, just like any husband or
wife or any mate or any FFer has to do sometimes, even if she

hated it!
It’s worth bearing in mind that Toni is an FFer and apparently has no
trouble surrendering herself to men for the purposes of outreach. We
can understand this as a distinction (for Toni perhaps, but not appar-
ently for Berg) between active and passive sexual sacrifice. It’s difficult to
see how in a lesbian sexual situation she could have ‘gritted her teeth
and borne it’. Indeed, Berg questions Toni’s commitment to flirty fishing,
remarking, ‘Then I heard she’s been an FFer. I wonder how far her FFing
went – if it went to the bed? I don’t know’ (LV 37: not in SV).
While the sacrifice is little, the cost of not making the sacrifice is
extreme. Berg is explicit about this. In the long version he is rather voluble.
In paragraph 22 of the short version he writes (81 in LV).
In this one ‘little’ thing she failed God and you and us and the
Family! But she never realized how important it was and what a big
thing it was, that God was testing her to see if she was willing to give
her all, and she wasn’t – so she failed!
In many ways here the point is sound. If we take sex out of the argu-
ment, many Christians would agree that to fail to do a little thing is
to fail God. Without paying a great deal of attention to this, it is worth
noting the absence of active forgiveness. It is possible for the sinner to
‘repent and stop’ (para. 24 SV; 93 in LV), but there is no active offering
of grace.
All or nothing/us them

Not only is there no active offering of grace, there is a complete banishing
from the group and from God. Berg says again and again in the long
version that he wouldn’t care to have Toni on his team. He compares her
to the Devil, calls her a ‘self-worshipper, a pride worshipper’ (para. 28 LV;
para. 9 SV), ‘selfish and independent and unsacrificial and disobedient
and rebellious and stubborn’ (para. 30 LV; para. 11 SV). It is clear, then,
that not to sleep with Lori is enough for all Toni’s good works to be
worth nothing. Berg argues that Toni can’t be good at caring for children
if she can’t sacrifice herself. In short, ‘there’s no excuse for not hav-
ing faith for anything!’ (para. 7 SV). Not being able to cope with the
demands of the movement is lexicalized as ‘stumbling’ and is due to
personal weakness.
Particular to general
In the short version especially, the particular case of Toni and Lori has
been translated into a more general case. Thus it can be read as a more
general warning that members should not refuse sexual advances, as a
request from a member is a request from God. Further, the letter can be
seen as more generally about following orders and following the Letters
in particular.
The second paragraph of the short version (para. 8 in LV) makes this
abundantly clear. Berg says that his mother used to say:
Don’t tell me you believe in something if you’re not doing it! You
believe in prayer as much as you pray and you believe in witnessing
as much as you witness!
Between the first and the second version, Toni becomes not just a girl
who wouldn’t sleep with a woman, but a girl who wouldn’t do anything
as set out in the Letters.
In the long version, the move from particular to general is similar.
It is clear that this is not just a chastising of Toni, but of anyone (women
in particular) who chooses not to sacrifice self. The public humilia-
tion of Toni doesn’t stop at her individually; it includes, for example, all
Scorpios:
39. SHE SOUNDS LIKE A TYPICAL SELFISH, SELF-CENTERED

SCORPIO! Many of the Scorpios I know are about as selfish and as
independent as they come! They don’t even like to get married! They
don’t like to have any obligations to anybody but themselves.
(LV)
It is not only Toni who is taken to task, but any members who are self-
ish and disobedient (Scorpios in particular beware).
Minimization of self and eros/agape

The obedience described in this letter is absolute. ‘Helping out’ other
members sexually is seen as a perfectly reasonable sacrifice to make
(para. 21 LV). There is no room for independence or freedom of choice.
Berg again makes this explicit:
AS FAR AS I’M CONCERNED SHE DOESN’T BELIEVE WHAT I WRITE

BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T OBEY WHAT I WRITE! She has withheld
herself selfishly and independently from you.
(para. 22 LV)
More interestingly, perhaps, this minimization of self appears to involve

a conflation of eros and agape. That is, if one loves another human,
then one should be sexually available to them. In the doctrine of
Berg, as every person is a neighbour, then everyone should be sexually
available. While in ‘Women in Love’ a careful distinction is drawn
between types of love, the realization that one usually leads to the other
is admitted:
35. ‘PHILEO’ OR BROTHERLY (OR SISTERLY) LOVE DOES

NOT HAVE TO ALWAYS WIND UP IN SEX! Brotherly love, Godly
love – these do not have to necessarily always wind up in each other’s
arms sexually. They’re inclined to, but let’s face it, if God’s forbidden
that between men, then they better lay off! But, if He hasn’t forbidden
it between women, I don’t see why not.
Brotherly/Godly love thus conflates phileo with agape; and this is

inclined towards eros. In ‘The Girl Who Wouldn’t’, the separation of the
sexual from the emotional (the eros from the agape) is illogical from
Berg’s point of view. As mentioned, every person should be treated as
though they are the Divine (God or Berg):
IF SHE WOULDN’T YIELD TO YOU WHEN YOU’RE REPRESENTING

US, HOW COULD SHE YIELD TO US PERSONALLY? How can she say,
‘I love and respect Lori with all (?) my heart’ when she’s unwilling to
give you her body too! Don’t tell me you can give your heart without
giving your body! Ridiculous!
(para. 58 LV)
Gender
Gender relations in this text can be understood as power relations. Even

without considering the ‘Women in Love’ letter, it’s easy to see that Lori is
given a masculine role. ‘As soon as she has any relationship with another
woman, she is homosexual, and therefore masculine’ (Irigaray, 1985,
p. 194). Lori is more senior, she desires sex, and is aligned semiotically
with Christ. Toni, on the other hand, is not only female, she is a ‘girl’.
In a sense, all members are gendered female as they are all brides of
the Lord. The ‘Loving Jesus Revolution’, a move begun in the mid-1990s
is explicit about joining sex and worship together. Amsterdam remarks:
Now, it is pretty easy for the women to say ‘You are my lover’ to
the Lord. But the men, well we are quite opposed to homosexuality.
The Lord told us in a prophecy that it is no big deal. He calls everyone

His bride. It is not a visible thing, there is no male or female in Christ
Jesus. It is like role playing. The men will play the role of the bride.
(Chancellor, 2000, p. 147)
Whenever sex is involved, gender is an issue. The practice of flirty fishing

is a good example of how women are sexualized for the work of the
movement and men are not. Men are consumers and women are
providers. While free sex within the movement was freely practised too,
some materials (e.g., the Mo Letter ‘The Old Church and the New
Church’) suggest that women were less willing than men to participate.
This in itself is not problematic if the choice is possible. While theoretically
this was the case (as seen above), in reality much pressure was put on
women to submit. It is a pressure that emanates not just from peers, the
movement or Berg, it has its origin in the divine.
In ‘Revolutionary Women’ Berg encouraged women to ‘wear as little
clothing as possible, so as to both partially reveal and yet at the same
time partially and provocatively conceal her natural beauty and charm’
(see Wallis, 1997, p. 13, see also Williams, 1998, p. 76). The sexual subju-
gation of women was not always problematic it seems. Williams remarks,
‘What I did was in love and for love, and I think that faith is what pro-
tected me from the horrors and degradation that I witnessed in all the
highclass call girls whom I met during that period of time’ (1998, p. 44).
Having left the group, however, Williams concludes, ‘Clearly, the women
of the cult had suffered greatly’ (1998, p. 261). They were ‘forced’ to
have babies, subjected to sexual and physical abuse, and stripped of
their agency, especially with respect to sex (Boeri Williams, 2002,
pp. 343–54). ‘Children and women, although living in a “free-sex” envi-
ronment, did not consider themselves free to choose’ (2002, p. 354).
Mercy, for example, had nine children in her 20 years in the movement.
Bainbridge, in his preface to Chancellor (2000) writes that the move-
ment ‘continues to endorse erotic sharing among adult members, so
long as no one is harmed’ (p. x). I do not want to suggest that the group
set out to harm women. But what is endorsed and what happens are two
separate things.
Irigaray, in ‘Women on the Market’ writes, ‘The society we know, our
own culture, is based upon the exchange of women’ (1985, p. 170). The
power that Berg had, as direct line to God, is at least partly about his
authority to regulate the exchanges of all members.
Commodities thus share in the cult of the father, and never stop striving
to resemble, to copy, the one who is his representative. It is from that
resemblance, from that imitation of what represents paternal authority,

that commodities draw their value – for men.
(Irigaray, 1985, p. 178)
In a hierarchy with Berg and God at the top, all members are gendered
female. However, the finer grained hierarchy means that women gener-
ally, and those without positions of power, are gendered female in rela-
tion to their powerful male gendered (be they men or women) superiors.
Irigaray describes society in a way that also captures sex and power
within the Children of God: ‘The law that orders our society is the exclu-
sive valorization of men’s needs/desires, of exchanges among men’
(1985, p. 171).
In the ‘society’ of the Mo letters, the law that orders is the ‘exclusive
valorization’ of one man’s needs/desires. But because that man, Berg, is
God’s representative, this is seen as natural law. Kent argues that in the
Children of God ‘members misattribute divine authority to leaders
whom they relate to emotionally as demanding parents’ (2002, on-line).
It is important to remember that the demanding parent is the divine.
Kent points this out: ‘By representing himself as God’s mouthpiece, Berg
was able to equate the traditional Christian virtue of “surrender to Jesus”
with “surrender to Berg” ’ (2002, on-line).
Conclusion
I don’t want to suggest that sex is all The Children of God was about
(or indeed all The Family is about). Peter Amsterdam, partner of the
(now) leader Maria, comments:
I know our views on sex are a real problem; I just don’t understand
why it is such a big deal. It is all we ever hear. We are mostly about
Jesus, telling people about Jesus. Sex is only 2 percent of what we are.
I just don’t think it’s fair to make that much of it.
(Chancellor, 2000, p. 94)
It is not fair in another respect as well. The sexual politics of The

Children of God don’t seem to differ that much from contemporary
Western society. Women are subjugated to male desire. The miracle is not
that groups like The Children of God ever existed, but that it is so easy
to mark them off from the rest of society. King notes that ‘Social scientists
have frequently pointed out that religious systems both reflect and rein-
force cultural values and patterns of social organization’ (1995, p. 15).
It shouldn’t be surprising that we find similar dynamics in the rest of

the world. Irigaray’s work certainly deals with this. But perhaps analyti-
cally closer are arguments that pornography silences and subordinates
women. Apropos the ‘lively’ illustrations, and the imperatives for
women to be sexually available in the group, these arguments are
another way of framing Berg’s texts, even though ‘Pornography is not
always done with words’ (Langton, 1993, p. 296). The ability for words
(or other semiotics) to silence and subordinate relies on having the
power to perform the required speech acts (Langton, 1993, p. 298). It is
clear that Berg, as leader and divine, does.
While sex may only be a small part of the Children of God, it is
certainly a site of silencing. The letters examined chastise, rebuke and
silence not only words but actions. Given that sex has less to do with
this subject position than power, it would not be surprising to hear from
male ex-members that they had been subjected to similar controls. To be
powerful in the Children of God, that is, to be heard, one needs to
be properly aligned with Berg. To do this, one has to sacrifice the self.
It is a choice that individuals should be allowed to make; but they
should know that they are making it.
Notes
1 See ex-member accounts, especially ‘It’s My Life – Mercy’s Story’ at

www.exfamily.org
2 For recent work on the group see Bozeman (1998), Kent (2002), Chancellor
(2000), Boeri Williams (2002).
3 Thanks to Mercy for pointing this out to me. See also Chancellor (2000) and
Bainbridge (2002). For a history of the Children of God, see Wallis (1979).
Though there are some questions about Wallis’s involvement with the group.
4 Whether Berg and Maria ever married is doubtful. Further, it is not clear that
Berg’s first wife (Eve) was ever divorced; hence ‘mistress’ and not ‘wife’.
5 Reorganization Nationalization Revolution.
6 See Kent (1994) for a sexual history of Berg.
7 Religioustolerance.org
8 Flirty fishing (or FF-ing) usually involved young women using their sexuality
to ‘hook’ new members. The press called them ‘Hookers for Jesus’, while Berg
called them ‘God’s Whores’. See Barrett (1996), p. 113.
9 Religioustolerance.org. The site, exfamily.org, do report that they receive
letters from people with questions about sexual relationships with current
members. Thus FFing does still seem to be practised, albeit ‘in a limited and
somewhat clandestine way’ (Mercy, personal communication).
10 Religioustolerance.org
11 www.exfamily.org
12 See www.thefamily.org
13 This brings special privileges. See Williams (1998).
14 Thanks to Catalyst London for the ‘pleasure’ of seeing some of these

illustrations; also to material at www.exfamily.org. In keeping with pornogra-
phy, the women are always ‘young and beautiful’ (Irigaray, 1985, p. 199).
15 Personal communication.
References
Bainbridge, W. S. (2002). The endtime family: Children of God. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
Barrett, D. V. (1996). Sects, ‘cults’ and alternative religions: A world survey and
sourcebook. London: Blandford.
Berg, D. (1973). Women in love. Mo letter 292. Acquired through personal con-
tact via www.exfamily.org
Berg, D. (1978a). The girl who wouldn’t. Mo letter 721. www.exfamily.org
[accessed 23 March 2004].
Berg, D. (1978b). Happy birthday! – RNR rules – A compilation. Mo letter 663. Mo
letters, vol. 5.
Boeri Williams, M. (2002). Women after the Utopia: The gendered lives of cult
members. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 31(3), pp. 323–60.
Bozeman, J. M. (1998). Field notes: The family/Children of God under the love
charter. Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 2.1,
pp. 126–31, 134–5.
Chancellor, J. D. (2000). Life in the family: An oral history of the children of God.
New York: Syracuse University Press.
Enroth, R. (1977). Youth, brainwashing and the extremist cults. Exeter: The Pater
Noster Press.
Irigaray, L. (1985). This sex which is not one. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Kent, S. A. (1994). Lustful prophet: A psychosexual historical study of the children
of God’s leader, David Berg. Cultic Studies Journal 11(2), 135–88.
Kent, S. A. (2002). Misattribution and social control in the children of God.
http://www.theonet.dk/spirituality/spirit97–10/cog.html [accessed 16 July 2004].
King, U. (Ed.). (1995). Religion and gender. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Langton, R. (1993). Speech acts and unspeakable acts. Philosophy and Public Affairs
22(4), pp. 292–330.
Mercy. (2000). It’s my life – Mercy’s story. www.exfamily.org [accessed March 2004].
Wallis, R. (1979). Observations on the children of God. Sociological Review 24,
pp. 807–29.
Wallis, R. (1984). The elementary forms of the new religious life. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
Wallis, R. (1997 May/August). Moses David’s sexy God. New Humanist 93, pp. 12–14.
Wangerin, R. (1993). The children of God: A make believe revolution? Westport, CT:
Bergin and Garvey.
Williams, M. (1998). Heaven’s harlots: My fifteen years in a sex cult. New York: Eagle
Books.
Part III
Gender and Language Use in
Religious Identity
10
‘Restoring the Broken Image’: The
Language of Gender and Sexuality
in an Ex-Gay Ministry*
Amy Peebles
The ex-gay community of practice
In this chapter I explore the ways in which religious beliefs about

the nature of gender impact and affect both language and linguistic
practice in an ex-gay ministry. Specifically, I demonstrate how the inex-
tricable links made between sex, gender and sexuality within ex-gay
evangelical theology allow transforming expressions of gender to be
interpreted as transforming sexuality as well. While some of the changing
gender expressions are predictably towards more of what could be con-
sidered a traditional cultural norm, interestingly there is also the creation
and reception of a new freedom of gender expression within the ex-gay
community, as concepts of masculinity and femininity are constructed
that resist certain dominant cultural stereotypes and reframe what man-
hood and womanhood look like for these Christian men and women in
particular.
Ex-gay individuals are defined here as self-identified evangelical
Christians who have experienced or currently experience same-sex attrac-
tion, most of whom at one time understood themselves to be gay or
lesbian, but who are now attempting to transform their sexual identity to
conform with their understanding of traditional Christian theology and
sexual ethics, which for them includes a moral conviction against homo-
sexual practice. The term ex-gay can be problematic for a number of rea-
sons, and numerous participants in my study expressed that they do not
* This research project was generously supported by a Social Science Research

Council Sexuality Research Fellowship Program Dissertation grant, 2003–2004.
I would also like to thank Keith Walters of UT-Austin for his supervision, as well
as thank both him and Allyson Jule for comments on drafts of this chapter.
187
188 Gender and Language Use in Religious Identity
like being referred to by ‘what they’re not’ or by ‘what they used to be’;
however, it is the media-popularized and commonly accepted term for this
category of individual, and I use it here for ease of reference. While this
research addresses a particularly controversial aspect of human sexuality, it
represents one part of a larger study that deals with a plurality of possible
narrative negotiations and resolutions as individuals deal with perceived
conflicts between their religious and sexual identities. Thus, gay Christian
and ex-ex-gay narratives are also part of the larger project (Peebles, 2004).
Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (p. 95) define a community of practice as
an ‘aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement
in some common endeavor. Ways of doing things, ways of talking,
beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices – emerge in the
course of this mutual endeavor’ (p. 95). They also state that the ‘com-
munity of practice’ concept helps researchers overcome reductionist
assumptions common in language and gender research, such as genders
being seen as independent of other aspects of social identity relations and
an assumption that gender means the same across communities. The ex-
gay ministry community of practice provides an excellent opportunity
to note the ways in which understandings of both gender and sexual
identity are reconstructed through language and practices emerging
from ‘shared belief and symbolic systems’, especially because for ex-gay
individuals, these understandings are primarily determined by their
concurrent membership in another identity category: namely their
religious identity as evangelical Christians.
In the summer of 2002, I spent three months as a participant observer
at an ex-gay ministry, which I’ll call ‘Liberty’. During this time, I conducted
ethnographic interviews and collected the ‘life history’ narratives of
20 men and 17 women who were either past or present ministry partic-
ipants. I also attended and recorded a weekly women’s Bible study and sup-
port group meeting. With respect to the men’s weekly session, there was
concern that the presence of a female researcher might inhibit some of the
group members and keep them from feeling comfortable enough to share
freely and openly. Thus, I did not attend the men’s meetings, but arranged
for and recorded several focus group discussions among smaller groups
of the male participants. The data here are drawn from those corpora.
The ministry at Liberty offered what its creators described as a year
long ‘residential Christian discipleship programme’ that focused on
building the participants’ individual relationships with God and help-
ing them with their stated goal of dealing with the issue of same-sex
attraction in their lives. There were two men’s houses and one women’s
house, where between four and six ministry participants lived and
shared household responsibilities, with a ministry staff person either
present or available on-call at all times. It is important to note here that

all participants were at Liberty of their own will and desire and were free
to leave the programme at any time. Liberty has an ‘if you see this as a
problem in your life and want help, we’re here’ policy, does not recruit,
and has an application and acceptance process. For example, in my
study there was one woman who had been ambivalent about her partic-
ipation, and upon her arrival, she expressed that it was mainly her parents
who had wanted her to come. Ministry leaders then asked her to seriously
reconsider, and though she was welcome to stay, she was encouraged
not to participate if she herself did not truly wish to be there.
Liberty shares the distinctive features of a community of practice as
delineated by Holmes and Meyerhoff (1999); namely group members
share a set of required practices, define and construct membership
internally, and have an active awareness of the interdependence of their
personal and group identities. At the ministry, there was mutual engage-
ment and regular interaction in that both men and women had separate
study and support groups that met for two hours weekly, and members
participated collectively in Bible studies and other ministry functions
on other nights. Also, all members of the residential programme attended
the same non-denominational evangelical Christian church. Additionally,
group membership indicates participation in an active and situated
social process of learning (Lave and Wenger, 1991) as the participants
move towards the goal of sexual and spiritual identity transformation.
It should be noted that individuals in the ex-gay ministry seek a range
of differing outcomes within that goal, such as no longer engaging in
certain behaviours, no longer having proscribed desires, having hetero-
sexual desires, or being in a heterosexual relationship, often depending
on where they are in their ‘journey’ or ‘process’, as they would com-
monly phrase it. However, all shared the primary goal of ‘growing in
their relationship to God’ and in obedience to their understanding of
sexual morality; in fact, a key ministry slogan is: ‘You are not here to
overcome something; you are here to be overcome by Christ.’
Ex-gay theology and psychology
The religious beliefs concerning sex, gender and sexuality operative

within Liberty, and ex-gay ministries more generally, are primarily
drawn from their understanding of the Biblical account of creation
found in Genesis Chapters 1–2. This account, along with procreation
requiring one male and one female to reproduce human life, is inter-
preted as evidence that heterosexual partnerships are the ‘created intent’,
which is a frequently used phrase in ex-gay ministries. The impact of
this particular Christian worldview of gender and sexuality cannot be

overstated, for in many ways it provides both the basis and motivation
for the ex-gay identity transformation process and is alluded to or refer-
enced in every ex-gay narrative I collected. For example, in Excerpt 1
below, Henry remarked on created intent and established it as a standard
for ‘living normally’, thus implying a ‘created norm’ to which people
should conform:1
(1) Henry: I define normal as being created, so when I attempt to do

what I’m doing, when all of us attempt to do what we are trying
to do, changing our orientation, we are living normally,
because we are trying to align ourselves with what we are
created to be. God created me to be a man. I don’t believe that
God made people homosexuals.
In Excerpt 1, Henry linked being ‘created to be a man’ with his belief

that God did not ‘make people homosexuals’, a contrastive sequence
emphasizing his belief that being ‘made’ a certain biological sex is inex-
tricably bound up with the existence of an opposite sex as the only
appropriate and intended direction for sexual expression. As with most
religious and theistic traditions, Henry externalized agency to God, the
Creator, as the One who established and designed what is and is not and
with the power to ordain what should and should not be. However, in
keeping with evangelical Christian theology, Henry retained individual
moral agency by having a choice of response to God and His ways; in his
life narrative, Henry framed his story as one of exercising this responsive
moral agency by ‘trying to align himself with what he is created to be’.
Bart directly invoked the creation story and his understanding of it in
his narrative, as in Excerpt 2:
(2) Bart: I was born heterosexual, and I’m not in denial, that I’ve ever
struggled, but I was born a heterosexual. Christ called me from
the very beginning, God called me from the very beginning to
reproduce with a woman, that He saw E-, Adam alone, and He
sent Eve, a woman.
In Excerpt 2, Bart stated that he was heterosexual from birth, thereby

aligning himself with what he viewed as God’s objective intent for him
(i.e., ‘God called me’), despite his subjective experience of same-sex
attraction. This statement also indexed the ex-gay ministry tenet that
homosexuality is not an innate or genetically encoded trait. Thus while
Bart acknowledged having ‘struggled’ with homosexuality, he chose to

define his sexuality in terms of what he viewed as the intrinsic design of
creation, which in his understanding is a potentially procreative union
with a woman.
In terms of Critical Discourse (Fairclough, 1995), both Henry and Bart
naturalized heterosexuality and biological sex via an oppositional
denaturalization of homosexuality, thus reflecting their ideological
worldview. A final example is given in Excerpt 3, where Deborah denat-
uralized her experience of same-sex attraction (i.e., ‘anything that seems
to be natural’) in light of an objective ‘way it’s supposed to be’ that she
claimed emanates from the Creator:
(3) Deborah: Well, I would say to any-anyone who says I’m naturally
attracted to women, anything that seems to be natural, when
God touches, it’s the way it’s supposed to be. I used to think
that I used to be naturally born homo-homosexual, but God
showed me something different, God showed me the right
way to live. And when you know more about God, then you’ll
know more of who you are. And when you don’t know God,
you don’t know yourself. And so sometime we can get caught up
in hearing what people say, hearing what-what we think, but if
we don’t know God, then we really don’t know. You got to know
the Creator to know exactly who you are. And that was the
problem-the issue with me.
In Excerpt 3, Deborah claimed that only by ‘knowing the Creator’ could

she know herself, and that she had to go to God to find out whom
she was ‘supposed to be’. Thus Deborah reported a relinquishment
of her previous thoughts about being ‘naturally born homosexual’
and the authority to self-define, claiming to have sought the
One who knew her true identity and would tell her ‘the right way
to live’, which for her encompassed sexual identity, attraction and
behaviour. Here Deborah demonstrated the ex-gay belief that there is
a stable source of the self that originates outside the self, the Creator
God, from whom the self and all aspects of identity are received and
derived.
Andy Comiskey, a prominent ex-gay ministry leader and author of
several books used at Liberty, clearly laid out the ex-gay theology relevant
to the discussion here in the following quote, where both sex and gender
are ontologically rooted in the being of the Creator and therefore have
an origin and nature that transcend human beings. (I have bold-faced
certain items in order to emphasize the recurrence of relevant ‘terministic

screens’ within the text.2)
God’s intention for humanity is represented by the harmony of

man and woman together. But that freedom to be for another
requires security in one’s personal identity as male or female. Thus
gender security matters profoundly. In paradise, that security was a
given. But in the post-garden reality of a child’s development, one
can either grow or fail to grow into that confident posture. Whereas
biology determines one’s physical sex, gender identity involves
the more complex process of acquiring a sense of oneself as a male
or female. And that process can go wrong. Still, it remains true that
security in one’s own identity as a man or a woman precedes the
freedom to be for another. The compelling nature of the ‘otherness’
perceived in a member of the opposite sex results from the clarity
and security one experiences in his or her own gender identity. The
image of God, then, involves gender identity and complementarity.
God created gender in its duality as male and female. And he
created us as his representatives to discover that duality. In order to
be true to the divine command, a person must reckon forthrightly
and concretely with his maleness or her femaleness in relation to
the other. The ‘true self’ always includes one’s gender identity and
its relation to the opposite sex.
(2003, pp. 25–6)
As seen in the above passage, ex-gay evangelicals accord ontological

status to male and female because of their belief that the human dimor-
phism of biological sex was intentionally designed by God to reflect His
image.3 With respect to sex and gender, while these variables are not
entirely conflated, they are inextricably bound together in an implica-
tional relationship that involves a one-to-one mapping of biological sex
on to the traditional correspondent gender and gender on to heterosex-
uality. In addition, there is a binaristic understanding of gender, where
men and women are seen as ‘dual’ and ‘complementary’, having intrinsic
and fundamental differences; relatedly there is a heterocentric under-
standing of sexuality that inherently links sexuality with biological
maleness and femaleness and an intended pairing with the ‘other’, as in
the quote above where one sex is never mentioned without a collocation
or reference to a connection with its ‘opposite’.
Comiskey’s comments also reveal ex-gay beliefs about the psychology
of gender and sexuality. Whereas a biological determinism is expressed
concerning physical sex, gender identity is seen to involve a ‘more

complex process’ of development and coming to a secure ‘sense of oneself’
that corresponds with being male or female. ‘The post-garden reality of
a child’s development’ alludes to the Biblical story of Adam and Eve’s fall
into sin, loss of perfection and subsequent expulsion from the garden; in
short, ex-gays believe that all now live in a ‘fallen world’, one that is
marred by sin and in which children can either ‘grow or fail to grow’
into a ‘secure gender identity’ and the development process ‘can go
wrong’.
Crucially, the attainment of a ‘secure gender identity’ is seen as directly
related to the development of what ex-gays would consider healthy
heterosexuality; as above, ‘gender security’ is said to precede the abil-
ity to perceive the ‘compelling nature’ of the ‘otherness’ of the opposite
sex. Hence the ex-gay worldview characterizes homosexuality as a result
of ‘gender confusion’ and most often attributes same-sex attraction to
some type of disturbance in the process of child development. Thus a
ministry newsletter described Liberty as ‘a ministry for the man or
woman who is gender confused, has same-sex attraction, and wants
help due to the call of Christ in their lives’. Reflecting all of the beliefs
described above, ‘healing homosexuality’ has commonly been referred
to as ‘restoring the broken image’ (Payne, 1996a).4
The language of gender in ex-gay discourse
As with any worldview, the ex-gay belief system concerning gender and
sexuality affects the language of its holders in profound ways. Consider
Excerpt 4 from Ranni, where she described aspects of her behaviour
when she was self-identifying as lesbian and involved in same-sex
relationships:
(4) Ranni: Oh yeah, I wore only black, I was really into the scene, you
know, I had my hair spiked and I’d write really bad introspective
poetry. I would drink my coffee only black and I’d smoke
imported cigarettes, and I was acting out what, if you even look
at right now in the gay lifestyle, especially in the lesbian
lifestyle, you-you see a lot of these women acting out their false
masculine, and it was really tough, and it was a refusal to be
anything quote-unquote that a woman is in the eyes of society
or in the eyes of God because really it’s the eyes of God because
society reflects that. Some of it’s good and some of it’s bad, some
of it is caricatured and stereotyped; it’s not a full understanding of
it. But, you know, a woman is a woman because that’s who God
created her to be. And I think you could see that across the
cultural. It has nothing to do with how Western society mirrors it.
There are some things that a woman is, period, and in dressing
up the way I did and in acting out the way I did, I was basically
saying ‘no’ to all of that – of-to being a woman because I refused
to be victimized, and I refused to be like my mother, weak and
passive and indecisive and paranoid, fearful, and uh emotionally
a train wreck, and I couldn’t go there.
In Excerpt 4, Ranni’s language clearly reflects the ex-gay Christian

worldview concerning both gender and sexuality. First, phrases such as
‘the scene,’ ‘lifestyle,’ ‘acting out’ and ‘false masculine’ invoke images of
performance, of an enactment of an identity or a role that is a false char-
acterization rather than an emanation from her true identity. Notably in
this section of her narrative, Ranni’s description is not made in terms of
sexual involvement, but gender comportment, as she referred to the
semiotics and style markers of her self-expression at that time, such as
stereotypical ‘tough’ behaviours (i.e., drinking coffee only black, smoking
imported cigarettes) and dress styles (i.e., a ‘spiked’ hairstyle and wearing
only black).
In characterizing her behavior as a ‘refusal to be anything quote-
unquote that a woman is’, Ranni set up both a volitional choice and
an oppositional contrast. First, Ranni described herself as having chosen
to ‘say “no” … to being a woman’, which implied a volitional rejection
of her true gender identity. Second, Ranni stated that her ‘dressing up’
and ‘acting out’ was in opposition to ‘some of the things that a woman
is – period’; thus while stating that there can be societal distortions of
what women are (e.g. ‘some of it’s good and some of it’s bad’), Ranni
indicated her belief that there are some characteristics of a woman that
are essential and that transcend culture based on ‘who God created her
to be’. Thus, with a twist on Butler’s (1990) notion of performativity,
Ranni viewed her gender identity as having an essential reality, and then
discussed both her performance of gender and expression of sexuality in
terms of whether she was acting in accordance with, or in opposition to,
this reality.
Finally, Ranni linked her ‘refusal to be a woman’ with a ‘refusal’ to be
like her mother and enumerated several negative traits and characteristics
(e.g., weak, passive, indecisive) of her mother with which she would not
identify (‘I couldn’t go there’). In so doing Ranni referenced one of
the most common themes within ex-gay narratives; namely the etiology
of same-sex attraction in their lives. With respect to developmental

influences, the failure to bond or identify with the same-sex parent
is seen to inhibit attaining a ‘secure gender identity’ and is frequently
discussed within ex-gay ministries as a partial contributor to the devel-
opment of homosexuality. For example, in Healing Homosexuality, a
book studied at Liberty, Leanne Payne (1996a, p. 61) stated: ‘For a young
boy to seriously reject his own father (even with “good reason”) is often to
find that, as an adult, he has rejected his own masculinity’ (from a chapter
entitled ‘The Problem of Gender Identity’). Beth directly referred to ‘root
issues’ involving the same-sex parent and her ensuing gender identity at
the beginning of her narrative, as in Excerpt 5:
(5) Beth: I just said, ‘I give it all to You [God], including my sexuality
and my confusion with my sexuality’. And, of course, that
opened up the door then to get an introduction to Exodus [a large
support and referral organization of affiliated ex-gay ministries]
and the support group and to get now an understanding of those
root issues from Beth Smith that resulted in the choices,
whether consciously or unconsciously, that I made to go into the
lifestyle and pursue the behaviours that I pursued, you know,
and lived out. So with that then, with the Exodus ministry and
the support group, coming to see that the root issues that I have
is one, a lack of bonding with the same-sex parent.
In Excerpt 5, Beth discussed ‘confusion’ with respect to her sexuality and

the process of getting involved in an ex-gay ministry after her decision to
‘give it all’ to God. Beth framed her years of same-sex relationships and
lesbian identification as ‘choices’, ‘behaviours’, and a ‘lifestyle’ that
‘resulted’ from ‘root issues’, once again denaturalizing homosexuality and
describing a perceived disruption in childhood development (i.e., ‘lack
of bonding with the same-sex parent’). From this segment, Beth went
on to describe how she was ‘more kind of like the boy’ and discussed
primarily participating in activities as a child that are stereotypically
associated with male children. Thus again, Beth’s narrative clearly demon-
strated the one-to-one mapping of sex on to gender and healthy gender
development leading to an opposite directed sexuality within ex-gay
ideology.
Sociologist Christy Ponticelli (1993) described the ex-gay belief in
God as the perfect parent and Father who can heal traumas and make
up for deficits experienced in childhood to bring people into their
true identities, including gender identity (see also Erzen, 2002). This
belief is reflected in Payne (1996a): ‘A man, unaffirmed in his masculin-

ity, can fully integrate with it as he learns to come into the Presence of
God, the Father, the Master Affirmer. There, listening to Him, he begins
to “taste”, as it were, the divine Masculine that resurrects his own’ (p. 58).
Thus again gender is believed to be transcendent and can be called out by
the God of whose image it is a reflection. And due to ex-gay beliefs about
sexuality, there is an implicational relationship that to receive affirma-
tion in their gender will have an effect on ex-gays’ sexuality as well.
Consider Ranni’s post-narrative interview, during which she stated that
she no longer experiences same-sex attraction to any degree. In a follow-
up question about emotional attraction, she claimed again that she had
been ‘healed,’ as in Excerpt 6:
(6) Amy Peebles: Do you ever have to watch yourself with emotional
intimacy with women?
Ranni: No. I don’t anymore. That part has been healed. I don’t and
that’s amazing. That stemmed from not being affirmed by my
own mother, I think, and having that area affirmed in my life
through the Lord has really helped me.
Here again Ranni related aspects of her struggle with women to ‘not
being affirmed’ by her mother, and claimed that receiving God’s affir-
mation in those areas ‘really helped’ and led to ‘that part’ being ‘healed’.
Transforming the linguistic practice of gender
Ex-gay discourses often describe a process of accepting one’s sex and

gender in the journey of coming out of homosexuality; hence the linguis-
tics of self-reference is often described as changing with respect to gender
identification from a more neuter position to one embracing either male
or femaleness uniquely. For example, the women at Liberty studied
a book entitled Out of Egypt: Leaving Lesbianism Behind, in which the
author recounted such a process and concluded with the statement:
‘No longer would I refer to myself as a Christian person, as I had for the
past several years. From now on, out of obedience to God, I would call
myself a Christian woman’ (Howard, 1991, p. 178).
In Excerpt 7, Justin described his process of laying aside a gay identity
in the gendered terms of learning ‘how to act like a man’; similar to
previous examples he associated his manhood with God’s creative
action, to which he was then responding. Also, at 40 years old, Justin’s
statement of ‘I haven’t learned that yet’ implied that there had been
some disruption in the process of his male identity development and

maturation:
(7) Justin: I’m a man, God created me a man, and I’m going to learn how
to act like a man. I haven’t learned that yet. That’s what I’m
doing. You can say I’m gay, acting like a man. But that’s not what
I’m saying, you have your perception, and I’ll have mine.
Thus, due to the intertwined understanding of gender and sexuality in

ex-gay theology, transforming expressions of gender can be interpreted
as evidence of transforming sexuality as well. Consider the following
from Beth’s narrative in Excerpt 8:
(8) Beth: I was learning not to identify with ‘gay’, but I didn’t see myself as
a Christian woman [laughs], and probably at that time as a woman
maybe, you know. I really, it was like I couldn’t put a label on it. I
was in that wilderness in my own personal identity, and that was
probably part of that growing and that painful process, because I
was just kind of – I don’t want to say an ‘it’, but I didn’t, you know?
In Excerpt 8, Beth described going through a ‘wilderness’ (as with

Howard’s book above, a Biblical allusion to Israel’s journey out of slavery
in Egypt) in her personal identity where she did not identify as a
‘woman’ and yet did not know what to identify as, being in the process
of ‘learning’ to relinquish a gay identity. Notice once again that Beth set
up an opposition between ‘gay’ and ‘woman’, not ‘gay’ and straight,
indexing her belief that acceptance of a certain gender identity implicated
a non-gay sexuality. Beth went on to describe a process of becoming more
comfortable with herself as a woman and spoke of changes in hairstyle
and dress that took place slowly over time; with respect to these external
gender expressions, Beth said: ‘When the healing happens on the inside,
you’ll see the reality on the outside.’
Not surprisingly, many of these transformations move towards what
would be considered a more traditional gender expression. However,
within ex-gay discourse there is often a discussion of receiving a new
freedom of gender expression that does not necessarily have to corre-
spond with societal or cultural definitions of what a man or woman
should look like, as in Excerpt 9:
(9) Beth: Sometimes I find it hard to relate to a woman who’s very,

maybe exudes the feminine as prissy or something, because
I’m not that kind of woman, but I’ve come to a place in my life
at 48 and 49 that I’m content with who I am, and as long as I’m
continuing to grow in Him, and I’m the person and the
woman that He made me to be, that I’d be content with that,
because for a long time, I’ve tried to be what everybody else
wanted me to be – and so, that’s that performance, and, and you
can perform and perform and perform, but you’ll never make
everybody happy and satisfy everybody. For me, I’m content with
who I am, and I’m not the quote unquote very feminine – I’m
not the woman who walks on air, you know. I’m a little bit
more – uhn, uhn, uhn [claps hands 3 times in sequence with
short, abrupt sounds], [laughs].
Thus, in Excerpt 9, Beth contrasted herself with a ‘prissy’ or ‘very feminine’

woman, stating that she was ‘not that kind of woman’. She claimed a
contentment and freedom with her gender identity with respect to not
living up to certain ‘feminine’ standards or stereotypes and stopping trying
to ‘perform’ for everybody else to be what they ‘wanted her to be’. Again
she referenced identity and affirmation as coming from God, and stated
that as long as she was ‘the woman that He made her to be’, she would
be ‘content with that’.
During a men’s focus group discussion, I asked participants about
their concept of masculinity and where it came from. This led to the
following interchange in Excerpt 10, in which the group members set up
a contrast between what they viewed as contending concepts of manhood;
namely masculinity according to God versus the ‘the world’:
(10) Bart: I feel that God needs to show me who He wants me to be.
And His Holy Spirit needs to convict me and show me. I want
Him, through His Holy Spirit to show me what masculinity
is, you know? Because the world says a man should be sittin’
back, you know, holdin’ his crotch, watchin’ TV, you know,
you look at, what’s the guy’s name that, you know? Watch
TV, ???
Simon: ‘Married with Children.’/
Bart: [‘Married with Children’] you know what I’m saying? He sits
there in back [with his hand in his pants],
Jon: [that is no:t a good]/
Bart: /drinkin’ a beer, watchin’ pop porn, [you know what
I’m sayin’?]
Simon: [that’s my dad].
Bart: or, you know, and/

Simon: /that’s my role model/
Bart: /bein’ rude to the mo-you know, the wife, or you know
[just bein’] real passive.
Simon: [Controlling.]
Bart: You know, I mean just all these different things, you know,
that the world does./
Simon: /[Degrading.]
Bart: [And then] then the worl-the-a male watches football. A male
does this, a male does that./
Simon: /Yeah./
Bart: /Not necessarily. [You know what I’m saying? A male] does
not have to be a
Simon: [Not every single one.]
Bart: ‘hrooo hooo hooo.’ [Neanderthal-ish sounds]
Simon: And you’re made to feel if you don’t, then you’re not
a man.
As Excerpt 10 shows, Bart first stated that he wanted ‘God to show him’
what masculinity is. He then began describing what ‘the world says’ a
man should be and illustrated this via a negative TV image of manhood
from the sitcom Married with Children. Bart listed several features of the
stereotypical insensitive, boorish male and described the male protagonist
on the show as a beer-drinking, TV-engrossed, passive, rude man ‘sitting
back holding his crotch’ and watching ‘pop porn’.
After Jon agreed that the TV show and image was ‘not a good’ thing,
an interesting sequence occurred where Simon began a cooperative series
of latches and overlaps to both agree with Bart and identify the image
with his own father. Simon’s statements of ‘that’s my dad’, ‘that’s my
role model’ are a reminder of the ex-gay belief in the importance of
gender identification with the same-sex parent, but the ‘worldly’ image
being constructed here is negative and one with which Simon clearly
did not wish to identify and did not value. Simon’s overlapping negative
attributions of adjectives such as ‘controlling’ and ‘degrading’ further
indict this construction of masculinity.
Bart then vied against a monolithic concept of manhood by referring
to stereotypes such as ‘a male watches football’ that are ‘not necessarily’
the case, which Simon agreed with by his overlap of ‘not every single
one’. The interchange climaxed with Bart’s statement that ‘a male does not
have to be’ followed by his vocalization of ape-like, grunting noises, thereby
performing the Neanderthalish stereotype he had been constructing from
the TV show. Simon ended with the critique that if one doesn’t fit
certain stereotypes (e.g. watching football), ‘you’re made to feel like
you’re not a man’.
Thus, in Excerpt 10, Bart and Simon collaborated and displayed several
key beliefs about gender from an ex-gay perspective. Namely these men
believe that while there are different concepts of manhood according to
‘the world’, many of them are undesirable, distorted and not what God
intended. Bart believed that God could reveal to him ‘who He wanted
him to be’ and ‘what masculinity is’, and similar to Beth’s narrative, this
masculinity does not necessarily correspond with or live up to certain
cultural stereotypes.
A final example of the transformation of linguistic practices related to
gender and sexuality comes from the same focus group session above.
At Liberty, there is a ministry rule that prohibits camping, a stereotypical
gay male speech performance, among the ministry participants. The
men’s discussion of this rule is given in Excerpt 11, excerpted greatly due
to space limitations:
(11) Bart: Well, why is camping not allowed in the programme I just
feel is that, um, it’s just because of the fact that it’s glorifying the
old man …
Jon: It does glorify the old man. And that’s not why we’re here.
I think it’s easy to have the mannerisms and talk like we
used to talk in the lifestyle, but that’s what we’re growing out
of …
In Excerpt 11, Bart succinctly explained the reason for the rule by iden-
tifying camping with ‘the old man’,5 a phrase used frequently in the
New Testament as a metaphor for the self that is associated with sinful
behaviour and attitudes prior to conversion to Christianity. Jon agreed
with Bart and discussed a process of ‘growing out of’ certain mannerisms
and speech styles that were from ‘the lifestyle’, some of which were
described in the discussion as being inappropriately feminine. The men
thus cooperatively encouraged one another to lay aside camping as part
of their ‘old ways’, and as Mel later put it, to ‘start acting like men’, thus
again fluidly linking gender expression with sexuality.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I hope to have demonstrated how the ex-gay ministry

functions as a community of practice in which both sex and gender are
granted elements of an essential and transcendent status. Due to the

direct implicational relationship accorded between sex, gender and
heterosexuality in the ex-gay Christian worldview, the modification of
gender expression can be interpreted as evidence of change and healing
with respect to one’s sexuality as well. While shifts towards more tradi-
tional cultural norms of femininity and masculinity often occur, interest-
ingly there is a significant resistance to certain cultural stereotypes as well.
Ex-gay men and women search for and discover alternate constructions of
heterosexual masculinity and femininity, which in some ways approxi-
mate cultural norms and in other ways directly resist or repudiate them.
The ex-gay ministry becomes a community of practice in which
participants encourage each other with respect to their linguistic enact-
ments of both gender and sexuality, all flowing from what they believe
to be an ontological truth about their identities as men and women
made in the image of God. Thus religious beliefs about gender pro-
foundly affect the way ex-gay individuals both talk about and live their
lives, especially as they pursue a largely theologically motivated sexual
and spiritual identity transformation.
Notes
1 All names are pseudonyms.

2 Kenneth Burke (1966) developed a notion of ‘terministic screens’, whereby
one’s choice of terms acts as a screen or filter. Once the terms are in place, the
resultant ‘filter’ directs the attention of speakers in particular ways, thereby
affecting their observations and perceptions of reality.
3 This belief is based on their interpretation of Genesis 1: 26–27: ‘God created
man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female
He created them’ (New American Standard Bible).
4 Note that evangelicals believe all humans are ‘broken’ from sin. ‘Homosexual
behavior is merely one of the twisted paths this fallen condition in man
takes. … We are all fallen, and until we find ourselves in Him, we thrust about
for identity in the creature, the created’ (Payne, 1996a, p. 125).
5 For example, ‘Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man
with his deeds’, Colossians 3:9 (New King James Version).
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California (pp. 89–99).
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Baker House.
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prayer. Grand Rapids, MI: Hamewith Books, Baker House. (Original work pub-
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ex-ex-gays: Narrating a new self. PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.
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problem. PhD dissertation. University of California, Santa Cruz.
11
‘Assalam u Alaikum. Brother I have
a Right to My Opinion on This’:
British Islamic Women Assert
Their Positions in Virtual Space
Fazila Bhimji
This chapter explores linguistic practices of second- and third-genera-

tion young Muslim women in a specific context: an Islamic on-line
community based in Britain. This particular chapter is part of a larger
ongoing study of British Islamic women’s identities in multiple spheres
such as Islamic study circles, Islamic Magazines, Public Speech and
Television Documentaries. This study examines particular linguistic
practices of Muslim women who participate in discussion threads along
with Muslim young men. The study will demonstrate that these young
women argue and debate with other on-line participants, contest main-
stream notions and depictions of Islam, and display their knowledge
during on-line discussions. In doing so the study aims to contribute to
the theoretical discussions on language and gender, where gendered
identities are conceptualized in ways that do not always set women
apart from men. Furthermore, the study shows that even women who
express themselves in Islamic ways can have varied identities such that
they can be religiously inclined and assertive in the same instance.
Additionally this chapter focuses on commonsense understandings of
Muslim women as passive, subordinate and having limited access to
knowledge.
As women’s agency, choice and voice have replaced earlier feminist
preoccupations with passivity, oppression and silence (Bucholtz, Liang
and Sutton, 1999), this study draws on what is known as feminisms’ sec-
ond wave. There has been much scholarship on language and gender,
and there has been substantial interest in second- and third-generation
Muslims in the United Kingdom. However, little attention has been
203
given to the ways in which Muslim women use discursive forms to

subvert beliefs which position the women in subordinate positions.
There has been much focus on Islam and Muslims in scholarship in
recent years. Given the attention given to Islam post-9/11 and the
subsequent rise in Islamophobia, several scholars have devoted much
space to explaining the diversity of Muslims (in regard to ethnicity,
religious and political practice) residing in the West as well as Muslims
living in Asia and the Middle East. Given that Islam has been perceived
in the mainstream as a religion which restricts women’s rights, many
scholars have sought to challenge these historical and modern stereo-
types. For example Bullock (2003) challenges the Orientalist notion of
Islam where Islam is constructed as barbaric, violent, medieval and
backward. In her study, Bullock relying on in-depth interview data and
testimonials of some 15 Muslim women, presents an alternative per-
spective, where women do not always view the ‘veil as oppressive’, but
rather perceive it to be liberating from a capitalist culture dependent
upon cosmetics and the ideal thin women. Pnina Werbner (2002) in
her ethnographic work with the Pakistani Muslim Diaspora in Northern
England contests Orientalist perceptions of Islam as she discusses
Pakistani/Islamic/Mancunian/British/South-Asian/Punjabi women’s par-
ticipation in a wide range of spaces which she defines as simultaneously
public and familial, Islamic and culturally open. She traces Islamic women’s
participation in the public sphere, where the public sphere is defined
as a series of interconnected spaces in which the pleasures and predicaments
of Diaspora are celebrated and debated (p. 15). While these scholars
examine the role of Muslim women within a national and institutional
framework, where there are less limitations, others have elected to
examine women’s roles in contexts where there are greater state imposi-
tions on expressions of Islamization. For example, Raudvere (1998)
examines the resurgence of Islam among urban women in Turkey, where
women challenge facts concerning secularism, religion and modernity.
Other scholars have examined the ways in which participation in
religious life acquires political dimensions (e.g. Kamalkhani, 1998;
Mahmood, 2003; Gole, 2003). Gole (2003) in her study of identity
formation of Muslim women argues that a transformation from Muslim
to Islamite is the work of a collective counter-cultural movement.
Because Islam is no longer transmitted by their social, family and local
settings, these Muslims reappropriate, revisit and re-imagine collectively
a new religious self in modern contexts (p. 815). However, little atten-
tion has been given to the linguistic practices of these social actors as
they seek not only to challenge existing stereotypes but also struggle for
British Islamic Women Assert Positions On-Line 205
their political rights. It becomes particularly crucial to examine linguist

features when asking questions concerning identity formation. A study
of linguistic resources can provide an important focal lens in compre-
hending the ways in which individual speakers present their individual
identity and negotiate their social roles within a large community.
Gender and language
Much scholarship on language and gender has focused on examining

gendered features such as markers of cooperativeness and interactional
supportiveness. However, recent scholarship has shifted from presenting
limited descriptions of gendered speech and style. More recently scholars
(e.g. Goodwin, 1990, 1999; Mendoza-Denton, 1999; Orellana, 1999)
debunk the myth of female submissiveness and show ways in which girls
use strong language in varied naturally occurring contexts and texts.
For example Goodwin (1999) demonstrates that Latina girls during play use
oppositional stances to assert their respective position. Similarly Orellana
(1999) shows how Latina/Latino student writers construct brave and even
‘bad’ selves through stories. Mendoza-Denton points out the ways in
which the turn initial no can have properties of strict semantic negation,
mark oppositional stance, and create certain elements of collaboration.
In a similar vein, while examining discursive practices of Islamic
women such as rhetorical questions, strong assertions and conflict talk,
this study will join researchers who conceptualize gender in complex
ways. As Holmes and Meyerhoff (2003) suggest, these researchers under-
stand gender identity as a social construct rather than a ‘given’ or ‘fixed’
social category to which people are assigned, where gender in their view
is understood as the way individuals ‘do’ or ‘perform’ their gender iden-
tity through interaction with others, while an emphasis is placed on var-
ious aspects of interaction. More importantly, these scholars point out
that not only do people speak differently in different social contexts, as
sociolinguistic analyses of different styles have demonstrated. More rad-
ically, talk itself actively creates different styles and constructs different
social contexts and social identities as it proceeds. Hence such under-
standings of gender, language and aspects of identity offer alternative
ways of understanding gendered identities that go beyond the essential-
ist notion that gendered identities are inevitable, natural and fixed.
On-line Islamic groups

In recent times there has been much activity, discussions and debates
on-line about a wide range of topics pertaining to everyday Islamic
practices, Islam and citizenship, Islam and identity, and the current state
of Islamophobia in the West.
There are over 100 Islamic groups on-line, which serve as a site for
both men and women to articulate their positions on many of these
ongoing debates. Many of these on-line communities tend to be geo-
graphically based, while others tend to cross national boundaries. Both
men and women participate in these discussions. As the following para-
graphs will illustrate, much of the time female participants are equally
vocal in these virtual spaces.
A growing body of research has found that females and males display
different participation patterns on-line, where females tend to partici-
pate less and receive less attention than males in mixed-sex on-line
discussions (Herring, 1993, 1996). However, much of this research has
concentrated on examining filtration behaviour (e.g. Panyametheekul
and Herring, 2003) and on-line discussions where current issues/debates
have yet to be examined. In on-line Islamic communities, I found that
much of the time, as I mentioned above, the young men and women
discussed a wide variety of topics where Islamic women were equally
(if not more in certain cases) forceful in controlling the conversational
floor. The following paragraphs illustrate some of the participation
patterns and discourse styles found among Islamic-British chat-room
participants.
Some features of computer mediated conversations
When speakers are on-line they do not have the advantages of face-to-
face conversation. They cannot, for example, indicate through sustained
eye contact where turn changes are likely to occur. In order to circum-
vent the coherence problems caused by lack of non-verbal cues and dis-
rupted forms of turn-taking, participants use various means such as
addressing others by name and engaging in conversations with
the group at large rather than targeted individuals. According to
Panyametheekul and Herring (2003) turn-allocation behaviour during
on-line conversations is not necessarily different from ordinary conver-
sations, since participants can self-select their turns at any time by adher-
ing to a variety of strategies. Similar to ordinary conversations, issues of
social appropriateness remains at the forefront and are determined in
part by speaker identities and roles. Panyametheekul and Herring found
systematic differences in participation patterns and discourse styles of
males where males tended to dominate in amount and manner of com-
munication, using confrontational and self-promotional talk while
females tended to be attenuated, self-deprecating, and supportive of

others.
Some of the features of gender differences as pointed out by
Panyametheekul and Herring include males posting longer and more
messages, using assertive language, rhetorical questions, showing opposed
orientations and using evaluative judgments; and conversely for females,
posting shorter messages and receiving fewer messages, using hedges
and qualifiers, and showing support and agreement with others. This
chapter examines the use of discourse styles among Islamic women and
demonstrates that the gender lines are not so neatly divided and that
women also show opposed orientations, use assertive language, post
long messages and use rhetorical language.
Data and methodology
The data were collected from the website ‘The Revival’.1 The Revival
describes itself as an Islamic on-line youth group concerned with issues
facing the Muslims of today from sex, drugs and rock’ n’ roll to politics,
arranged marriages and alien nations. The website was formed in 2001.
Although, there are a number of websites where young people participate
to discuss a wide range of issues, I selected this site because it was
UK-based and I am interested in examining the ways British Islamic
Women articulate their language and identity. Many of the other sites were
based in the United States or were worldwide. Moreover, the site appeared
to be very active and popular and the range of topics explored was very
wide. Some of the titles include: ‘hijab and jeans’, ‘ban on hijab’, ‘head-
scarf hypocrisy’, ‘women’s prayer’, ‘why no female prophets?’, ‘racism in
the UK’, ‘British or Muslim how does it differ?’, ‘What is our identity?’.
Many of these topics pertained to young women growing up in Britain
and I was interested in examining the ways in which the young women
participated in these conversations.
As a South Asian (secular) Muslim I was in a position to recognize
many of the Arabic names and terms employed by the on-line partici-
pants. Hence I was in a position to identify the female and male partici-
pants based on their names as well as some of the nicknames they used.
Moreover the participants often used Arabic terminology which I was
familiar with since I had been raised Muslim in Pakistan. There were
some cases where I was not familiar with the Arabic terminology that
the participants used. In such instances, I asked some of my Muslim
students at the University (where I am currently teaching) in Britain to
translate for me.
Conveying Islamic identities on-line
While the veiling is explicitly symbolic of an Islamic identity, the

question then arises as to what ways the young women convey their
Islamic identity on the web during discussion threads. A close examina-
tion of on-line discussion groups show that one of the principal ways
that young men and women express their identity is through the use of
Islamic/Arabic language. The young men and women in their greetings
employ the Islamic/Arabic greeting: Assalam u Alaikum (Peace be on
you) Assalam u Alaikum wr wb (Peace be on you as well) Salam to
Muslims (Peace Muslims), ‘Peace’ to Non-Muslims, and Assalaam
u’alaikum wa rahmutullah (Peace be on you as well). These greetings
clearly explicate an Islamic identity since the more common forms of
greetings in Britain include ‘Hiya’, ‘Hey’, ‘Hi there’, and simply ‘Hi’. I did
not come across any of these greetings in the on-line texts. Similarly,
closings include Arabic words such as Wa Salaam (Peace). In certain
cases, many of the participants select to employ the Arabic word
Jazakallah (May Allah Reward You) rather than ‘Thank you’. One prac-
ticing Muslim in Manchester informed me that even his 8-year-old niece
insists on using the word Jazakallah as symbolic of an Islamic identity
whereas the English ‘Thank you’ is perceived to be used by non-
Muslims. This is particularly interesting when South Asian Muslims use
this term because South Asian Muslims frequently use the Arabic greet-
ing Assalam u Alaikum particularly to greet elders and the term Jazakallah
is seldom used to express gratitude. In fact, it was among British
Muslims that I first heard the term and it was explained to me that
British Muslims purposefully elect to use this Arabic word to express
their Islamic identity and that many believed that by employing certain
Arabic words in place of English words they were following the Sunnah
(The prophet’s lifestyle). In addition to employing Arabic words in their
greetings and closures, on-line participants also used Arabic words in the
midst of their texts. For instance, the word Alhamdulilla (with God’s
blessing) was frequently used in texts. The use of the word Alhamdulilla
is commonly used among Muslims in order to convey gratitude to God.
Apart from the use of Arabic/Islamic words in texts, in many instances
the young men and women elect to self-identify as Muslims by using
icons such as mosques or Islamic calligraphy alongside their names.
In certain instances, where the young men and women who do not always
wish to self-identify themselves by their names often use terms which
show that they are Muslims. Some of these self-identifications include
names such as ‘Shia Sister’, ‘Cat Stevens’, ‘Muslimah’, ‘Sister’, Nikaabi.
It appears that young women often select to use the word ‘sister’ since
Muslims often address each other using the kinship terms ‘sister’ and
‘brother’. Although these Islamic/Arabic words occur frequently during
on-line talk, much of the time the discussions are carried on in English
and in many cases the language the young people use shows that they
are young British English speakers. For example, the young men and
women employ informal language and abbreviations which are fre-
quently used in Text messaging in Britain such as 4 rather than ‘for’, 2 in
place of ‘to’, gr8 rather than ‘great’, thgt in place of ‘thought’, y’all rather
than ‘you all’, tho instead of ‘though’, u for ‘you’, ur for ‘your’. However,
it is particularly significant that the young people elect to employ a pan-
Islamic identity and there is virtually no reference made to their ethnic
identity. None of the participants use language or markers whereby one
could identify their ethnic identity. This Islamite identity can be under-
stood as a form of ‘new identity’ for many young British Muslims where
they may distance themselves from their ethnic identity in favour of a
pan-religious identity. In doing so, the young men and women are in a
position to widen their social networks and meet Muslims from varied
backgrounds in different situations since they do not have to restrict
their networks to their own ethnic community. In these on-line discus-
sions the common themes that emerge revolve around Islam rather than
ethnicity. For women, these discussion threads could become quite
significant as it allows them to argue, debate, discuss and explore issues
related to Islam. The following paragraphs will discuss the ways in which
young Islamic women employ language in these on-line discussions.
Using assertive language
The discourse styles that Islamic women select to adopt during online
discussion threads reflect their complex social worlds. The women as
the following examples will illustrate initiate topics, argue, strongly
disagree, use collaborative language, and assert their respective positions
on a wide range of issues. As several scholars (e.g. Goodwin, 1990;
Mendoza-Denton, 1999) have demonstrated, the linguistic devices that
speakers select to use display their stance where ‘stances reflect and
construct aspects of social identity as speakers take up positions associated
with particular social categories and groups’ (Mendoza-Denton, 1999,
p. 273). The following excerpts selected from an on-line discussion
thread reveal that young women deploy linguistic devices (such as overt
disagreement and disaffiliation) such that their choices reflect their
multiple worlds and debunk the stereotypical characterizations of
passive and silent Muslim women. In many instances, these young

women use argumentative language which lends evidence to the fact that
these young women can be assertive, articulate and Islamic at the same
time. However, importantly, even as they display opposition, the young
women use linguistic devices which exhibit their friendship towards one
another thus revealing their multiple identities in their on-line interac-
tion. The following segments show some of the ways in which they
invoke argumentative talk:
(1) Omrow: Salaam Aliyah.

I don’t think you know what the hell you are going to reply if
someone asked you where you’re from. Tell you what. Why don’t
you sit down. Touch the ground below you, and name it. Then
remember that answer. It will help you answer that question.
Aliyah (Female): Assalaamu’alaikum brother Omrow
I found that kind of rude … but I guess that is just how you
are … why would I say I’m from England if I’m not? I have dif-
ferent origins and was born in a different country … you could
consider England as my third country. And if somebody asked
me where I was from, England would be the last answer that
I would give!!
Wa Salaam
Aliyah.
(2) Sister: Re: Have Salafis taken over the Muslim world? No
Reply on: 26 Dec.
On 25 Dec., 2003, 11:33pm, NBZ wrote:
The wahaabi are deviated as they are not willing to accept the
truth. They have discarded rules of Ahadith, and fiqh to reach
new conclusions which are AGAINST opinions of earlier scholars!
And you’re willing to accept the truth? Where’s your proof that
they’ve discarded rules of hadith?
They do their best to stick to Qu’ran and Sunnah as class as
possible.
How many of you done that?
(3) Sister: Re: Have Salafis taken over the Muslim world?
On 26 Dec., 2003, 11:37am, Guest-Abu T wrote:
The above posts regarding ibn baz and uthaymin are in error.
They did err and did go against the jama’a
Abdulwahab’s own brother and father wrote books refuting his

misguidance. Note that islam-qa is not the most reliable website.
Where’s your proof mister?

As far as islam-qa, I’ve done my research on that and sheikh of
this site do not go against Qu’ran and Sunnah.
(4) Ambarin (Female): Re: Music Video

Assalamu Alaikum
Music … such a waste of time.
Abu T (Male): why write provoking comments ambarin?
Music is permissible, especially the nasheed type and I find that
if you do not waste time listening to it, there is no harm.
Ambarin (Female): Re: Music Video
Assalam u Alaikum
Brother with all due respect I have a right to my own opinions on
this. I am not alone in not liking music. I did not mention and
nasheeds did I? I was speaking about music. Nasheed with duff
I would consider listening to, but anything other than that I
disregard.
The reason why I do not like music is because apart from lyrics,
instruments etc it can take away some of the beauty of hearing
the Qu’ran recited. If a person listens to popular music all the
time, hearing Qu’ran recitation without instruments would in
comparison seem bland to them. Their heart would not be cap-
tured by it, and most likely after a few minutes they would lose
interest. Also its human nature when you hear a track to hum it,
as you walk or do your daily activities. I’d rather listen to Qu’ran
and have that in my memory, rather than a few tunes that take
me away from the remembrance of Allah.
So that is one of the reasons I dislike music, including nasheeds,
I do not see how that disrespects you brother.
KM: … if a person listens to popular music all the time, hearing
Qu’ran recitation without instruments would in comparison
seem bland to them …
By contrast i would say that after listening to the blandness of
music all day, people would rejoice by listening to the diversity of
(qaari) Recitation of the Holy Qu’ran.
(5) Ambarin (Female): Re: Music Video

Assalamu Alaikum
That is up to you, I have a right to my own thoughts. One cannot

deny that a person will remember Allah more if he/she takes up
their time in Islamic activities and subjects rather than non
Islamic ones.
I don’t like music, and the best thing I ever did was destroy my
cd’s. I don’t need such diversions.
p.s. Why is it that ppl give up music for the ramadhan period?
There must be a reason behind it.
In the above excerpts the young women voice their perspective in

assertive ways. In Segment 1 when Omrow confronts Aliyah regarding
her place of origin, Aliya responds immediately and asserts her position
strongly. The shape of the turn shows that Aliya does not in anyway
mitigate her position, but rather emphasizes her position by using
a rhetorical question: ‘Why would I say I am from England when I’m
not?’ Panyametheekul and Herring (2003) in their study of chat rooms
observed that it was males who were far likelier to employ rhetorical
questions and women generally used questions as a means to elicit
responses. However, in this context, Aliyah employs a rhetorical question
in order to display her position. Moreover, Aliyah continues the dialogue
by justifying her opinion: ‘I was born in a different country and have
different origins.’ Finally, she concludes by showing her affective reaction
by using two exclamation marks.
Similarly in Segment 2, a female participant who identifies herself as
‘sister’ displays her position. In this segment she actively challenges the
participant by repeating part of the talk that is being opposed:
NBZ: the wahaabi are deviated as they are not willing to accept the
truth.
Sister: And you’re willing to accept the truth?
As Goodwin (1990) points out, through partial repeats ‘the speaker is able
to caricature a prior speaker by portraying his/her actions as ridiculous or
inappropriate and the current speaker is thus able to both build a small
effigy of the party being opposed, and thus display his/her own affective
alignment to the actions that such a person performs’ (p. 147). Similarly
in this case, the on-line participant conveys her strong opinion by repeat-
ing prior talk rather than simply disagreeing with something in prior talk.
In Segment 3 a female participant responds by asking a rhetorical
question: ‘where’s your proof mister?’ By employing a pejorative person
descriptor ‘mister’ the speaker further emphasizes her oppositional
position where she not only opposes the participant’s prior talk but also
the person who produces the talk.
In Segment 4, the speaker, Ambarin once again actively disagrees with
the prior speaker, KM. But rather than simply confronting the participant
she justifies her response, explaining her reasons for disliking music.
Furthermore, when KM continues to disagree with Ambarin, Ambarin
continues to strongly adhere to her position: ‘I have the right to my own
thoughts.’ In doing so, Ambarin makes the prior speaker’s talk insignifi-
cant since she displays that his views do not affect her own viewpoint.
In other words, Ambarin manages to show that she remains unaffected
by the prior participant’s point of view and that she is in a place where
she can make her own judgment.
Mixed versus single-sex exchange
The above examples showed the ways in which Muslim women expressed
oppositional stances. More importantly, the young women articulated
their viewpoints in mixed-sex exchanges. Much of the literature discussing
language and gender (e.g. Goodwin, 1990; Mendoza-Denton, 1999)
shows that young women often use strong language in single-sex set-
tings. For example, Goodwin in her study of second-generation Central
American girls at play argues that the girls use verbal as well as embod-
ied gestures to display their stance during hopscotch games. In this
instance, the women contest and argue with men in virtual space. The
following examples illustrate this:
(6) Oldham Dude: Re: NO TOPIC

cigs are no good. but i got some sufis dudes in the area they use
marijuana Smoke it
Dawud: Re: NO TOPIC
Assallamu Allaikum.
Oldham Dude,
You really need to get a grip on reality. Your posts are almost
always offensive. The ‘joke’ you posted is just inane. If that is the
kind of thing that you feel is funny and feel has a place on a
Muslim site then you need to go and speak to your ‘molvi’ again.
I’m sure that the Revival editor will remove that
angry inspector: Assalam-u-Alaikum
I have been on this forum for ages but I haven’t ever posted on here
but now I have lost my temper so I’m posting a complaint that you
shouldn’t delete because it’s for the forums own good and I know
your temper so please don’t but if you do then you will keep this
thread the same state ! Please get rid of that post and other offen-
sive post’s. This forum is getting worse by the minute and it is very
unfair
Sis: I completely agree!! and I’m also very angry but I’m not as
patient as ‘angry inspector’ because I’m leaving for good now!!
??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
Wassalam
Segment 6 shows that a young man who self-identifies himself as Oldham

Dude makes a derogatory remark about Sufis which in turn invokes angry
reaction among other on-line participants. However, it is a woman who
identifies herself as Muslim Sis who expresses most anger. She uses inten-
sifier adverbs such as ‘completely’, ‘very’, followed by several exclamation
marks and angry faces. Her tone is not only angry but there is also an ele-
ment of finality to it since she threatens to leave the virtual site. Segment
7 illustrates another example of a mixed-sex exchange:
(7) Shabana: Re: NO TOPIC

How come men are allowed to marry up to 4 wifes; aint that a bit
greedy? Whats wrong with one?
Salam
Shabana (Female): Omrow wrote:
Men can handle four women thats why.
nah …
Omrow wrote:
Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslims because children adopt the
religion of the father
Hey, I thought if a child was born by a muslim mother, it is

muslim …
Omrow wrote:
A Muslim woman would not wish her babies bowing to the Pope.
No way. Therefore, its all for the future of children.
Yeah, I agree with you there, but this happens most of the time
anyway, muslim man marries jewish/christian women, child
grows up and dont want to be brought up as a muslim … and
that does happen most of the time anyway …
In this example, Shabana initiates a question concerning polygamy in

Islam. A male participant responds to the question (not shown in the
text) and Shabana contests some of his positions by quoting portions of
his argument. Note that she quotes him in a small font whereas employs
a larger font when presenting her own viewpoint. By quoting the male
participant in this manner she is able to highlight exactly the points she
wishes to contest and thus show her own agency as a female contesting
a male participant.
The segments above show the ways in which British Islamic women
express oppositional orientations. They use linguistic devices such as
rhetorical questions, strong disagreement, strong assertions and terms of
address which show that Islamic women cannot be viewed in monolithic
terms as subservient, female and Islamic.
However, these young women do not simply engage in argumentative
talk with each other, they also use this virtual space to counter mainstream
perceptions and representations of Islam. The following segments show
some of the ways the young women achieve this:
(8) Nikaabi (Female): Re: Chirac: Hijab is oppression

Personally I think it’s ridiculous … what harm are these girls
causing anyone by wearing their headscarf?? … does this mean
they will put a ban on other items of clothing like bandannas,
caps etc? … i think not … why is the headscarf any more threat-
ening that other clothes … whatever happened to ‘freedom of
expression’?
interesting to note that the leaders of a country feel ‘threatened’
by a group of young girls . …
Shezaadi (Female): Re: What is our Identity?
yep you guys are correct … there was mostly women in niqaab!
there was one particular scene in it showing girls in all white
including niqaab, all which was revealed were their eyes and
they were doing exercises … but from the angle it was shown
it seemed as if these girls were doing vigorous exercise for
‘jihad’ – and it was only P.E.!!!!!
As the segment above shows, the young women do not employ miti-
gated language in order to express their views, but rather assert their
position in strong ways. Nikaabi, for instance, employs a number of
rhetorical questions followed by an assertive response, ‘I think not’,
which is then followed by a series of rhetorical questions.
In the second part of the segment Shezaadi voices her concerns about
the ways in which Islamic women are portrayed on television. Initially
she employs collaborative language demonstrating that she is in agree-
ment with other on-line participants: ‘yep you guys are correct’, but then
Shezaadi continues to give her personal experience with the specific pro-
gramme: ‘there was one particular scene …’ Hence she expands the dis-
cussion by bringing in her own interpretation of the show. Shezaadi
concludes her statement by using five exclamation marks thus convey-
ing that she feels strongly about her particular point of view. In addition
to using strong language and exclamation marks in order to index affect,
these young women additionally include icons in their segments such as
sad, happy or thoughtful faces. The next segment illustrates this:
(9) Aisha: (Female) Re: Where are the weapons of Mass Destruction?
Well we all know that they’re just going after all the muslim
countries and rulers one by one. We keep hearing about the
‘roadmap’ for the palestinians but thats never gonna
happen … only muslim countries with WOMD are a threat to
world peace …
thats why theyre now threatening pakistan and syria and com-
pletely ignoring India and Israel. And besides we know they’re
just gonna plant some weapons in Iraq anyway …
… This is there war against Islam after all because they start shak-
ing every time a muslim stands up and says ‘ALLAHUAKBAR’
In the Segment 9 above Aisha speaks against the narratives used to jus-
tify the war in Iraq. As Aisha expresses her point of view, she punctuates
her statements with a thoughtful face ( ), then an unhappy face ( ),
and concludes with a strong note ‘because they start shaking every time
a muslim stands up and says “ALLAHUAKBAR” (God is great) and a
happy face ( ). Note also that Aisha uses capital letters which once
again serves to display assertion.
These young women do not simply use these discussion threads to
explore, argue and contest. The women often share their knowledge
regarding various issues concerning Islam. The following excerpts show
the ways in which they convey this.
Women as agents of knowledge
One of the ways in which the young women frequently exhibit

their knowledge is by reference to varying websites and television and
radio programmes:
(10) Sara (Female): Re: Hijab March on 17 June

Did anyone attend this march?
Hamza (Female): Re: Hijab March on 17 June
On the subject of hijab, a programme is coming on Channel 4
Called Islam Unveiled on Sunday at 12:10.
The presenter of the programme Samira Ahmed, said that the
Qu’ran says that the women should cover their beauty but not
wear hijab.
She says this towards the end of this audio clip.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/12_01_04/
wednesday/ram/item3.ram/C.
(11) Shia sister Re: Feminism

Assalam u alaikum
Islam gives more rights to women then west. I cannot list all of
them here. I will give a link to an excellent book on women’s
right by a great scholar of Islam
http://www.al-islam.org/WomanRights/index.html
(12) Maryam (Female): Documentary Tonight

Assalam u Alaikum
Just thght of informing you guys about a documentary tonight,
should be interesting, one not to be missed especially for non-
muslims, and muslims of weak faith like myself. Channel 4,
6pm, Turning Muslims In Texas. It is only 30 mins long so try
not to miss 15 mins of it.
Here’s an insight into the programme:
http://www/Channel4.com/culture/microsites/B/believeitornot/
texas1.html
These excerpts show that these young women are very well informed
and knowledgeable about the various sites and spaces which carry rele-
vant information. In doing so, they index self-empowering identities
which challenge dominant discourses concerning women which often
view Muslim women who live behind the veil as having no access to
information. Moreover, the fact that these on-line participants accessed
information outside formal classroom contexts further demonstrates
their agency in their quest for knowledge and education.
In addition to providing information about various websites and

links, these participants also display their knowledge by using Islamic
vocabulary:
(15) Khadijah (Female): Re: Hijab enforcement

Assalam u Alaikum
Yeah I agree actually it can’t really be forced because what happens
is the girls take it off at school so what is the point In that. Islam
does start at home with the right tarbiyyah and guidance.
InshaAllah girls will wear hijjab out-side and in One should use
Hikmat.
(16) Maryam (Female): Assalam u Alaikum Wr Wb

Surely an essential aspect of Islam is to enjoin the good and forbid
the evil? If we as muslims fail to do this then fithna will prevail
and will become the truth and truth will become falsehood.
(17) Eazy D (Female): But not all punishments are from the hudud.
There are other punishments, which come from other principles
of the Islamic penal code like ta’zeer and jineeyat. Like the
punishment of those who do not pray is based on ta’zeer. Ta’zeer
in essence is a type of punishment within the shar’ee which is left
to the discretion of the Khalifah. So punishment of those who do
not wear the Hijab in Public will fall into ta’zeer.
The use of Arabic words such as ‘tarbiyyah’, ‘hikmat’, ‘fithna’, ‘Khalifah’

and ‘jineeyat’ convey that these young women are knowledgeable about
Islam at a deeper level than the merely cursory. In many ways the use of
such Islamic terms in addition to the questions initiated by young
women reveal their intention to explore Islam in serious ways. In other
instances, young women display their knowledge by including quota-
tions from various sources in order to justify their particular position.
The following is an excerpt from a rather long segment. The participant
voices her opinion against the recent ban on hijab:
(18) Maryam: Re: Chirac and the Hijab

Furthermore Jacques Chirac like many other ignorant people
made the all too common mistake, that secularism was built on
honouring women, but Islam was built on dishonouring women:
‘A society’s level of civilization is measured first and foremost
by the position that women occupy in it’, Chirac said last week.
(http://www.mpacuk.org/mpac/data/9c4bb9dc/9c4bb9dc.jsp)
If the position of women does directly reflect her high status in

society then only Islam is the most supreme and unequalled in
the honor and dignity it showers upon them. I will briefly men-
tion a few examples. Firstly women are honored with the law of
the hijab:
Say to the believing men that they cast down their looks and
guard their private parts; that is purer for them; surely Allah
is Aware of what they do … (Surah 24, 30–31)
Thus Maryam includes several voices in this segment, Chirac’s voice,

then her own, and then God’s. Thus, by including several sources to
articulate her position, she shows that she not only has a strong position
but that she is also able to counter some of the rhetoric by citing various
sources in a convincing fashion since the next participant compliments
Maryam, ‘Well said’, and the discussion comes to a close.
Conclusion
This chapter explored the discursive practices of young Islamic women

during on-line discussion threads. By examining the linguistic practices of
these women, the study shows that they convey their identities in a vari-
ety of ways such that they are assertive, knowledgeable, young, female and
Islamic. In showing the varied types of identities that these young women
invoke in interaction with other female as well as with male participants,
the study aimed to debunk many of the stereotypes that position these
women as subordinate and submissive. Furthermore, the study contributes
to scholarly work on language and gender which does not always concep-
tualize women’s speech and men’s speech in dichotomous ways. Last, the
study shows that women, who self-identify themselves as religious
(Islamic) through language in this particular context, may have complex
identities and need not be understood in monolithic ways.
Note
1 Located at www.TheRevival.co.uk
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12
‘Inshallah, today there will
be work’: Senegalese Women
Entrepreneurs Constructing
Identities through Language
Use and Islamic Practice
Shartriya Collier
The linkages between religious and economic growth and development

have been irrefutably established. Indeed, it is often asserted that the
shift from Catholicism, and an accompanying worldview that con-
demns materialism, to Protestantism served as the foundation for the
Industrial Revolution. Likewise, Islam is often viewed as a religion that
supports trade and commercial exchange. This study is an ethnographic
sojourn that uncovers how a group of Senegalese-American women
entrepreneurs construct their identities through language use and
Islamic practices. Set within the context of a hair-braiding shop in
Philadelphia, this study utilizes in-depth interviews, participant obser-
vations, focus groups and other qualitative research data collection
methodologies to illustrate the power relations and cultural balancing of
identity that characterize this immigrant population.
Embedded within the Feminist post-structuralist theoretical frame-
work, the study reveals how the hair-braiding shop serves as an enclave
for the merging of two cultures, American and Senegalese. Moreover, this
unique employment niche is examined as a means of gaining greater
insight into a Senegalese female’s identity transformation process as she
journeys from one culture to another. More specifically, it reflects the lin-
guistic negotiation of self that occurs through the participants’ blending
of English, Wolof, French and Arabic – based upon religious beliefs.
221
Upon entering the Astou hair-braiding salon, there is an oversized

poster of a man dressed in striking white garb, who stares at the public
through dark piercing eyes. His eyes are distant as if contemplating the
hardships experienced by mankind. The man – Sheikh Amadou Bamba –
is a political and spiritual figure in Sufi Islam. Bamba, the founder of
Muridiyya Islam, is considered to be the most powerful Muslim to
assume a stance against colonial rule in Senegal. Bamba was exiled from
Senegal to Gabon by French officials for 33 years. It is the presence of
this poster that first suggests that Islam remains a critical influence in
the lives of these female entrepreneurs.
In modern-day Senegal, it is common practice to hang Amadou
posters in local businesses. Most often hung next to doorways, this prac-
tice represents Bamba’s role as a gateway to divinity. Although the African-
American clientele who patronize the salon often ignore this subtle
dedication to Islam; for the Senegalese-American workers and store owner,
the poster is a constant reminder of religious devotion, struggle and
power. The poster is symbolic of colonial oppression, success and freedom
in a new, yet alienating country, the United States. Bamba’s teachings
espouse the virtues of pacifism and hard work – traits that are the very
foundation of entrepreneurship. Although the entrepreneurial life
provides more freedom of expression for many immigrant women, their
lives are still fraught with difficulties for it is difficult to build and
sustain a strong client base.
‘Inshallah, today there will be work’ encompasses the women’s daily
struggle to survive when the shop’s clientele dwindles. In the midst of a
discussion in Wolof, one is likely to hear the word ‘Inshallah’ – a phrase
that means ‘God’s will’ in Arabic. ‘Inshallah today there will be work’
serves as a plea for customers. In the absence of customers, Marie and
Selah, the store owners, will receive no money. Thus the entrepreneurial
effort of these women is buttressed through religious faith.
Marie and Selah are not outliers. Currently, there is a rapidly growing
population of immigrant women who are using culturally based prac-
tices such as hair braiding as the basis for entrepreneurship. Yet these
entrepreneurial efforts serve a role beyond the realm of the economic.
Specifically, the ownership and operation of culture-based businesses
serve as community networks that allow for the preservation of traditional
Senegalese-based Islamic practices and cultural traditions. Additionally,
within this enclave the Astou hair-braiding shop offers a religious and
cultural community network for other Senegalese immigrants and
speakers of Wolof, the most commonly used language in Senegal. These
networks provide a perfect context that can be used by Feminist
Senegalese Women: Identity, Language Use and Islam 223
Postructuralists in order to gain a greater understanding of the way that

bilingual, religion-oriented women negotiate new ‘discourses’ as English
language learners.
Although immigrant women often experience conflict as they journey
between their two worlds – the mother culture and the host culture – the
African women presented in this study are able to exert power and
control over their daily linguistic, cultural and religious practices.
However, perceptions of what it means to be Muslim and practise Islam
vary between the older participants and the younger participants. More
concretely, it appears that the facility with which the women adopt the
English language is directly linked with the strength of their commit-
ment to Islam. In particular, the use of English by the younger partici-
pants reflects a partial transition to an American identity, and with it, a
shift towards a less conventional perspective of Islam. In the following
sections, the implications that the study of women entrepreneurs and reli-
gious identity has for Postructuralist theory is highlighted. Additionally,
an analysis of the manner in which the participants construct their
religious identities and the role that the use of English plays in the
process is described. Last, the implications of this study for researchers
and educators in Gender Studies, Language Education and Religious
Studies are outlined.
Feminist post-structuralism: power, agency and

religious freedom
Communities of practice, whether in the workplace, church or home

require that speakers understand the norms of interaction that will
allow them to participate as members of a specific community (Holmes
and Meyerhoff, 1999). While women in workplace discourses have been
studied extensively (Tannen, 1994; Norton Pierce, 2000; Goldstein,
2001; Holmes and Meyerhoff, 2003), most findings reveal that immi-
grant women in the workplace are viewed as triply disadvantaged. That
is, they are stigmatized by their gender; they are viewed as incompetent
because they are second-language learners; and, in many cases, these
women are considered as inferior because they are racial minorities.
Feminist Postructuralism focuses upon power and agency. It therefore
offers an illuminatory framework that can be used to further conceptu-
alize how identities are constructed within the hair-braiding salon.
Language as a social practice means that language is a place ‘where our
sense of ourselves, our subjectivity is constructed’ (Weedon, 1987,
p. 21). The discursive practices in workplace settings represent the
power relations between people of diverse races, ethnicities and genders.

Postructuralists view language from an interesting perspective. This
framework relies upon the conclusions of Bourdieu (1991) who argues
that language is a form of symbolic capital which can be converted into
economic capital. In institutional settings where women are working in
subordinate positions, they are forced to succumb to many of the
American cultural practices that have been dictated by society at large.
For example, the management of workers occurs in English. Workers are
also forced to conform to American workplace dress codes, and American
cultural perceptions are used to define proper conduct. Such an environ-
ment does not, of course, allow many Muslims the time required for
prayer. In contrast, business ownership provides immigrant women with
the power to control their cultural practices in clothing, language use,
and religious behaviour. For the Senegalese women presented in this
study, the power to construct social meaning rather than have social
meaning constructed for them manifests itself in when they choose to
pray, the right to wear traditional Senegalese clothing, and the power to
hang posters of religious figures upon the walls of their workplace.
Weedon (1987) argues that Feminist Postructuralism must ‘pay full
attention to the social and institutional context of textuality in order to
address power relations in everyday life’ (p. 25). Thus, within entrepre-
neurial settings such as the hair-braiding salon of the Senegalese-
American women used in this study, power relations were manifested in
their everyday interaction with predominantly English-speaking
customers and with their Wolof/French/Arabic-influenced workers.
While the use of Wolof, French and Arabic may not be viewed as lin-
guistic capital by these customers, competence in these languages for
the central participants in this study was directly correlated with main-
taining ties to their Islamic religious practices and involvement in the
community of other Muslims. The qualitative data described below
reveals the role that language played in the Islamic practices of the sub-
jects. The discursive spaces of the three women – Marie, Selah and
Fatima – also illuminate the contrasting hegemonic practices of the
older and younger participants. However, before examining the data it is
necessary to briefly review how language use is dictated by colonialism
and religious practice.
Senegalese women, Islamic practice and language use
Sufi Islam contrasts greatly with the Islam practised in the Middle East.
Most Senegalese are associated with three Sufi brotherhoods: Tijaniyya,
the Mourides and Qadiriyya. The founder of each brotherhood is

believed to possess extraordinary spiritual powers also known as ‘baraka’.
However, Islamic practice in Senegal is integrally linked to the use of
Wolof and Arabic. Most importantly, ‘Wolof nationalism, African tradi-
tional religion and Sufi Islam have all been combined together in the
hothouse of French colonialism to produce the unique folk Islam of
Senegal’ (Jackson, 2004). Thus, with regard to the African women in this
study, it was necessary to determine whether the impact of colonialism
created attitudes of resistance towards speaking English. Additionally, the
study sought to determine how the women in this case study negotiate
their religious practice in order to maintain connections to Senegal.
Literature on African history reveals that Africans in general appear to
embody contradictory attitudes regarding the learning and use of English.
This is not surprising given that traditions regarding language policy in
Africa are highly complex. Thus colonialism has left many Africans with
a resistant attitude towards using English, French and/or Portuguese since
these were the dominant colonial languages in Africa. Alexander (1996),
in his discussion of English use in South Africa, argues that English is asso-
ciated with ‘all of the baggage of colonialism and apartheid’. In response
to this association, there have been multiple movements to advocate for
a native language as the lingua franca for the entire continent. The under-
lying notion for this ‘native tongue’ advocacy is that it will help to unify
the people. Nonetheless, Africa has more than 1200 spoken languages or
dialects. Senegal alone uses French and Wolof as the lingua franca.
However, there are at least three other languages spoken, Siegel (1999,
p. 2) best describes the dichotomy of language acquisition and use in her
discussion of English teaching in Senegal by saying: ‘Imagine an infant in
Dakar, with Serer or Fulani speaking parents, sisters and brothers who
speak Wolof, their parents’ language, and neighbors who speak Wolof and
listen to French on the radio and television.’ Thus, for the African women
who are the subjects of the current study, even before immigrating to
North America the acquisition and use of English had political, social and
economic stigma attached to it.
Methodology
This qualitative study took place over a period of three years. The pri-
mary source of data collection was six hours of weekly observation at the
Astou African hair-braiding shop. In addition to using extensive field
notes, the main participant of the study was shadowed outside of the
hair-shop setting. Thus interactions that occurred on the street, at
the market or at home were analysed to gain greater insight into the
individual’s use of language and her religious and cultural identity.
Second, the subjects for the study were interviewed in order to gain
detailed information regarding the circumstances of their migration to
the United States and the cultural stressors that may have impacted their
learning of English and their religious identity. Two formal interviews
and many informal interviews allowed the personal voice of the partici-
pants to be fully examined. The non-English-speaking women were
interviewed using a translator. The interviews were later transcribed.
Finally, observation was used to identify changes in English fluency
among the women and to identify efforts to maintain Senegalese culture
and Islamic practices.
The interviews and observations were reviewed and coded in order to
analyse the reoccurring trends that arose in the study. Moreover, a number
of approaches were used in order to further triangulate the outlined
research questions. As mentioned, targeted secondary data was collected
and content analysed in order to uncover background information
about Senegalese migrants in general. This data was collected from the US
Immigration Service and from the Senegalese Embassy located at 2112
Wyoming Avenue, NW in Washington, DC, 20008, (202) 234-0540.
Other research tools that were used were an analysis of an African immi-
gration exhibit at the Balch Institute and a symposium on African
Women at Temple University. Also the participants interacted in a focus
group with other Senegalese women aged 20–27. This provided insight
into diverse perceptions of cultural identity amongst these women.
Participants
The central participant in this study was Marie. Marie is a 22-year-old
Senegalese immigrant. Marie had been in the United States for three
years at the time of the study. She has lived in various cities throughout
the United States including New York, Philadelphia in Pennsylvania and
Baltimore in Maryland. Of three siblings, she is the only one who fol-
lowed her mother to this country. Her older sister remained in Senegal
to take care of her home and the rest of the family. Last year, Marie mar-
ried a man from Senegal. She does not have any children. Prior to com-
ing to the United States, Marie studied English in high school. Marie
studied in college for one year.
Another participant in this study was Marie’s mother, whom I refer to
as Selah. Selah was 47 years old at the time of the study. She came to
America five years ago to be with her husband, who left Senegal a year
earlier. Marie’s mother speaks very little English. She also travels
frequently to Baltimore and New York City. Selah owns the hair-braiding
shop, but primarily allows her daughter to run it.
Last, Marie’s Aunt Fatima is an additional participant in the study.
Fatima is an extremely tall woman in stature. She had been in this
country for three months at the time of the study. Fatima began braid-
ing hair professionally upon her arrival to the United States. Fatima
speaks Wolof and French.
Data analysis
Astou hair-braiding shop: a community of practice

Based upon various observations of the shop, a focus group interview,
and individual interviews with the central participant, Marie, a number
of observations can be made regarding the degree to which the business
served as a community of practice. (Unfortunately, Wolof translations
and transcriptions were not available. Therefore, most data involving
Selah and Fatima are based upon observations.) The observational data
were analysed using Content Analysis and Ethnography of Speaking
based upon Dell Hymes (1972). This method is useful for gaining greater
insight into the community environment and the norms of interaction
in the salon. Interviews were analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis
according to Fairclough (1995). Critical discourse analysis allows for the
examination of power within this context. A brief account of the norms
of interaction in the shop has been provided. Marie’s use of English
is then examined as it correlates to her identity and perceptions of
religion. Finally, various observations of Selah and Fatima that demon-
strate how they practise religion within the context of the shop and how
this correlates with their use of English are described. The following is
a brief description of the salon:
A small white couch is angled against the wall facing the television.
There are three customer chairs with leather stools placed directly
behind them. On an average day, Marie will have three to four
customers, primarily African American, who solicit a variety of hair-
braiding styles. The common language of business exchange with
customers is English. Nonetheless, one may often hear the sounds of
traditional Senegalese music or tapes of music imported from Dakar.
The women, Marie, Fatima, and transient family members, discuss
life in their native language, Wolof. Upon entering, the store family
members greet each other in French and/or Wolof.
(Field note, 3 October 2001)
Marie: maintaining an African identity through

minimal use of English
Marie, as the most dominant English speaker, has a different customer
interaction from her mother and Fatima. To explore this it is necessary
to look at Marie’s daily interaction with customers. The following are
three different excerpts from field notes:
Customer: How much for box braids?

Marie ((Stands up and walks to the display)): What size? We have this
one, this …
Customer: That size is good.
Marie: 150
Customer: Are you open on Fridays?
Marie: Yes. ((responds walking back to her stool))
Customer: Can I come in at 10:00?
Marie: That’s fine.
Customer: How long will it take?
Marie: About five hours.
The phone rings. Marie reaches to her side to pick up the phone. ‘Yes,
What’s wrong? It’s coming out? No, don’t take it out. You come here;
I’ll fix it for you. No, o.k. Then Thursday.’
(Field note, 1 November 2002)
((A woman with a blue-jean dress and long hair walks into the store))
Marie: Hello
Customer 2: How much for cornrows straight back?
Marie: With extensions?
Customer: Yes
Marie: 85$ (The girl with the long hair turns to walk) take
a Card.
All three of these data demonstrate that Marie’s interaction with her cus-
tomers is limited solely to style and price negotiation. In each segment,
the customer initiates the interaction with an interrogative such as ‘How
much’ or ‘Can I’. Marie’s utterances are limited to two and three phrases
that are solely responses. (Except in the last segment where Marie tells
the customer to ‘take a card’.) Even in the telephone call, there is no
introduction such as ‘Hello, how are you’. Thus, Marie’s access to
mutual engagement is very limited (Wenger, 1998). Yet, even though
Marie is not mutually engaged through shared history or relationships
that span beyond the business arena, she is experiencing a trade-off of

engagement that allows her to negotiate power and define herself as the
shop’s owner and lead stylist. For example, in the excerpt above Marie’s
use of commands such as ‘take a card’ and ‘no, don’t take it out’ reveal
that she must position herself as an expert in her field who has
knowledge of what the customer should and should not do.
As this section reveals, although Marie has limited opportunity to
practice English, it demonstrates her self-positioning. By positioning
herself as an entrepreneur, Marie simultaneously establishes an
American identity. The concept of imagination as defined by Wenger is
‘the ability to expand ourselves by transcending our time and space and
creating new images of the world and ourselves’ (1998, p. 176).
Thus imagination is exemplified through these exchanges. These
abridged interactions assume additional meaning when compared with
conversations that take place in Wolof and French:
The phone rings. ‘Ca va’, Marie answers. ‘Jirry gif’. Her eyes widen
and she raises her voice. Her voice is now growing louder and the
intonations in her speaking are flowing up and down. She begins to
move her fingers and shoulders as if receiving exciting news. She
hangs up the phone. ‘That was my sister.’
Marie answers the phone using the French greeting, and the Wolof
phrase ‘jirry gif’ for thank you. Marie’s expression and use of Wolof and
French serves as a bond to her home culture. Nonetheless, the loneliness
that distance creates cannot be defined by any one action. Yet, it can be
expressed through a language that one relates to childhood and to
home. Marie’s language, Wolof, connects her to her past in Senegal and
to her present life. One evening while eating dinner, Marie was referring
to a story that she learned in her childhood. Yet, she could not find the
words to properly translate the story:
Marie looks at her husband and speaks in Wolof: ‘You know after the
lion takes that boy to the village, there is a lesson to the story, but I
don’t know how to explain it in English.’ Marie’s husband looks up,
‘the boy had to learn to live with himself before he could learn to love
someone, something like that.’
(Field note, 12 December 2002)
Marie had trouble fully translating concepts outside of the business arena.
Therefore, she is unable to translate many of her childhood experiences.
Thus, Wolof becomes the link that is a focal tool for her Senegalese life.
Hoffman (1989) explains the void that English acquisition can create, as
a gap not fully closed. ‘But I begin to trust English to speak to my child-
hood self as well, to say what has so long been hidden, to touch the ten-
derest spots’ (p. 274). Possibly, Marie’s journey of self-transformation
will eventually lead her to negotiate meaning as she begins to invest in
becoming an English speaker. Without her English, she would not have
a successful business.
The question that arises is how can Marie extend her English-language
practice in the hair salon? As the only English speaker in the shop, Marie
is forced to interact with her customers and negotiate prices for the
other stylists. This analysis suggests that Marie serves as a cultural
broker. Most importantly, this trade is a cultural tradition that has been
passed down from mother to daughter for centuries. The current immi-
grant studies on power reflect (McGroaty, 1996; Mckay and Wong, 1996;
Heller and Martin-Jones, 2001) the subjects’ standpoint as ‘participating
from the peripheral’. Marie, her own boss, is able to position herself
from a powerful vantage point.
Selah and Fatima: when religion intersects with tradition

Selah and Fatima’s experiences vary due to their limited English. This
conclusion is revealed in the following, an interview between Selah and
the researcher:
R: So who is that man?

S: She great leader, um, she fight
R: He
S: He go to Gabon to fight for, mum (trying to find the words)
To fight for the people he know want to be (uses hands gestures
like an explosion) they kill him. He went to Gabon.
R: So he was a leader for the people against the French, he’s dead
now?
S: They kill him. But every year we people come, all de Muslims
people dey come from all de cities to Dakar.
In reviewing Selah’s struggle to convey the story in English, it is impor-

tant to focus upon the use of the pronouns he, we and they. While it is
clear the ‘he’ is referring to Bamba and ‘they’ refers to the French, the
use of ‘we’ allows the participant to position herself as a Muslim.
Additionally, Selah’s efforts to use English reveal how the colonial
conflict appeared to the Wolof people of Senegal. Pennycook (2001)
provides additional understanding of this response in his discussion of

resistance as a response to power in the postcolonial area. The author
defines colonialism as not simply economic or political but also as ‘a
state of mind’ (Pennycook, 2001, p. 67). Inevitably, when discussing
African immigrants and language learning, the impact of colonialism
must be considered. Rampton (1995) discusses the use of language as a
tool of oppression. The concept of ‘belonging’ often places the speakers
of English as a second language with a group to which he or she may not
necessarily ‘belong’. For example, many African immigrants are
assumed to be African American and learn African-American Vernacular
English. Selah’s sense of belonging in the United States is largely con-
nected to having her own business and remaining a Muslim. The fol-
lowing is a telephone conversation in English that took place between
Selah and a Sudanese man:
S: Yes the women, she is Moroc, Moroc, Moroccan. She’s a good

Muslim woman. Do you have a house? Good credit? I tell her
that … no just good Muslim man. OK. Asalaamilakum
After the conversation took place Marie informed me that the Sudanese
man wanted Selah to find him a wife. The connecting factor between
Selah, the man from the Sudan and the Moroccan woman is their devo-
tion to Islam. Selah’s inquiry into the man’s financial matters demon-
strates that she is conducting a negotiation although not necessarily
economic. The man’s response to her inquiry about his financial success
is that it is irrelevant. She reaffirms this by a brief ‘OK’ and a farewell in
Arabic, the language of Islam.
In contrast, the following are excerpts of Selah interacting with
African-American, non-Muslim customers:
An African-American woman wearing a black coat walks in the shop.

She looks Selah in the face, ‘How much for cornrows going back with
a part in the middle?’ Selah looks over and points to Marie. ‘No
English, ask her’, she responds.
Selah is sitting in the door closest to the entrance. An older woman

with a long black wig walks in with her child. She looks at Selah,
‘I wanted to get my daughter’s hair braided with no extensions.’ Selah
responds, ‘You pay 60$’. ‘But she’s not getting extensions, it’s her
own hair’, the woman answers. Selah responds, ‘You wait for my
daughter’. The woman sits down. Marie returns to the room.
(Field note, 6 February 2002)
Marie is working on a customer’s hair. A new customer, a young black

male, walks into the room. ‘How much for cornrows?’ ‘50$’, Marie
responds. When can I get it done? ‘Now’, Marie answers. She speaks
something in Wolof to Selah. Selah waves the male over to take a seat.
In the first excerpt, Selah quickly refers the customer to Marie. However,
in the second excerpt, she attempts to use English by quickly establishing
a price. When the customer asks for further clarification in both interac-
tions, Selah refers the client to Marie for negotiation. However, when
Marie is questioned about this, it is discovered that her mother is ‘tech-
nically’ the owner of the shop. However, as witnessed in the excerpt
above, Selah refers all customers to Marie.
Generation discontinuities in English acquisition

As previously mentioned, Senegalese women immigrants arrive in this
country already fluent in two or more languages. With Wolof as their
first language and French as the official language of Senegal, Senegalese
women have personal knowledge of the dynamics and varied contexts
of language, speech and identity. Many of the hair braiders who arrive in
this country have already had exposure to the English language. This
section will explore the varied use of language between Marie, Selah and
Fatima. For Marie, English was used out of necessity, but for Selah and
Fatima, English was used out of choice. For example, the following
excerpt occurred between Marie and Fatima:
The phone rings ‘Ca va’, Marie answers. ‘Hold on’, Marie holds the
out to Fatima. ‘Fatima, telephone’, Marie calls. Fatima stands up smil-
ing. ‘Hello, Hello … What?’, Fatima gets on the phone and sits down.
She then switches back to Wolof.
(Field note, 1 October 2001)
This was the first time Fatima had been observed using English. This
field note is dated 1 October 2001. When this speech act occurred,
observations had been taking place for a period of six months. This was
a similar situation with Marie’s mother Selah. Throughout the duration
of the study, Selah only spoke English randomly. However, these
occasions revealed that Selah had a greater knowledge of English than

she revealed:
‘Did your mother used to work on 125th Street in Harlem?’, I ask

Marie. Before Marie can answer, her mother shakes her head, ‘yes,
yes’, she answers. ‘Does your mother still live in Philadelphia?’, I ask
looking at both Marie and Selah. ‘Yes’, Marie’s mother again begins
answering.
Although on both occasions, Selah and Fatima answered with a simple

‘yes’ or ‘no’, this dialogue indicates that there is some level of English
comprehension on behalf of both of the women. In Fatima’s case, she
may have understood the meaning according to context. However,
Selah demonstrated through body movement and responses that she
understood what was occurring. These behaviours can also be viewed as
correlating with religious devotion on behalf of the older women. All
three women are in fact Muslim. However, Marie was never witnessed
actively partaking in the act of prayer or Salat. The following data reveal
displays of religion for Fatima and Selah:
Fatima takes the mat in her hands. She fixes the scarf wrapped around
her neck so that it completely covers her hair. She says something in
Wolof to Marie. ‘Should I leave?’, I ask noticing that she’s about to
pray. ‘No, she was just asking which way was east’, Marie responds.
Marie’s mother comes out of the bathroom with a straw mat and
Fatima’s scarf wrapped around her shoulders. She covers her hair, I
see her stand up, kneel, and put her head to the floor. She stops and
sits quietly for a moment.
(Field note, 18 January 2002)
In contrast, this is an excerpt taken from an interview with Marie regard-

ing religion:
R: Marie, I noticed sometimes when I’m here your mom and your
aunt are praying. Do you do that too?
M: Yes, in the morning, but not five times a day. What about you,
what’s your religion?
R: Well, I was raised a Christian but I’m non-denominational.
M: Where I’m from, we believe in Allah and the prophet Mohammed.
R: How come you don’t cover your hair?

M: Not everybody does that in my country.
R: But your mother prays five times everyday.
M: But she’s very religious. The older women do that more.
This interview is revealing in several ways. Marie, as related to her

religion, is devoted. However, she may not be as traditional as her
mother. In some respects, her relaxed attitude toward the religion is
symbolic of her positioning as an American woman and as a Senegalese
immigrant. Marie’s English also allows her to interact with fellow
American Muslims. This opportunity broadens her access to the
language. For her mother and her aunt, English has an impact on their
religious devotion between non-Wolof speaking Muslims. On the other
hand, code switching between Arabic and English commonly occurs.
Fatima and Selah do not have the same motivation to learn because it is
not a necessity for their survival. Although both women live in the
United States, they have Marie and her younger, more fluent family
members to speak for them. Yet members of their own linguistic group
most commonly surround them. Thus Marie is the nucleus of the Astou
hair-braiding shop. Simultaneously, she has the task of mediating her
identity as a young Senegalese woman in America. Clearly, community
for these participants is deeply embedded in their sense of community
as Senegalese women.
The following is an excerpt from a focus group with Marie, her cousin
Fatou and Danjou. This demonstrates the way the younger women
positioned themselves as Americans in contrast to Selah and Fatima.
Marie: Yes, they stick more to the way we do things in Senegal, but
the young girls, we like to look pretty and dress anyway.
Marie: I miss my family and friends in Senegal, but I like shopping
and all the things we don’t have in Senegal.
Fatou: Yes, some things we can’t do in Senegal, but we can do here.
Marie: You can make more money here in a week than you can in
two weeks in Dakar.
Community for Fatou and Marie is using all of the advantages they did
not have in Senegal, but have in the United States. Marie supports this
statement in her quote above, ‘You can make more money here in a
week than you can in two weeks in Dakar.’ Being Senegalese represents
community for the women who were involved in this focus group.
This level of acculturation is represented by the women’s interest in
‘shopping and making money’. Marie confirms this statement again by

stating, ‘Yes, they stick more to the way we do things in Senegal, but the
young girls, we like to look pretty and dress up.’ However, looking pretty
and dressing up violates traditional Islamic values for a female.
When relating to Senegal, her main complaint involves missing her
family. Yet her preference for material prosperity allows her to function
as an American in the United States. Marie also relates this American/
Senegalese identity to traditional versus non-traditional dress and reli-
gious practices. Marie finds that she has the personal power as an
American to choose how she practises. The imported cultural trade of
hair braiding allows her to use a traditional trade in a manner which is
beneficial to her financial success in this country. It is clear that Marie
has a strong sense of control over her own life. Control is one of the
reasons why Marie prefers to work for herself rather than someone else.
Linguistic resistance
Why don’t Selah and Fatima choose to speak English? Morrow (1997),
Kouritzin (2000) and Wong (1991) would conclude that these women
have not been provided with an opportunity for equal access. Moreover,
they found that older immigrant groups show resistance to learning
English because if they give up their language, they perceive themselves,
in many ways, as giving up their culture. These feelings are manifested
as attitudes of ambivalence. Fatima and Selah’s attitudes of ambivalence
impact their English acquisition. Thus Marie is relied upon as a translator.
This trend is revealed in the interactions described below:
A woman walks into the room, holding a paper bag. ‘Do you want any
products today?’, she asks looking at Marie. Marie translates this to her
mother. Marie’s mother looks from where she is sitting on the couch to
the bag; she hesitates and says something in Wolof. Marie looks at the
woman, ‘Come back tomorrow. Today it’s slow’. The woman answers,
‘Well I won’t be able to come back until next month.’ Marie translates
this to her mother. Her mother moves her eyes around as if contem-
plating. ‘Come back’, she says in a thick accent.
Once again, this excerpt reveals that Marie’s mother has the ability to
understand English. However, she uses Marie as a translator. Swigart
(2000) explains this occurrence by arguing that younger generations
have the ability to adapt more quickly to a new society. The younger
generations are often called upon to help parents understand American
culture and language. Considering this explanation, one must reflect on
language motivation. Spolsky (2000) would argue that Selah and

Fatima’s linguistic resistance reflects a fear of anomie, or succumbing to
an American identity. Do Fatima and Selah feel threatened or simply
uninterested? Kerswill (1996) verifies that older adult groups face more
difficulties when acquiring a new language. Tabouret-Keller (1997) also
addresses parental dependence on children for linguistic survival as a
multilingual/multicultural person. However, negotiation (Pavlenko,
2001) of her identity will, hopefully, be a painless process that allows
Marie to determine her own identity. Marie’s attainment of multiple
registers (Koven, 1998) provides identity alternatives for Marie within
the context of the shop as well as outside of the shop.
Discussion
This study tells the story of the complex transformation that Senegalese
American Muslim immigrant women undergo not only while working
in hair-braiding shops, but also in acculturating into American culture
in general. Yet, it appears that one price that Marie pays is a reduction in
her adherence to the tenets of Islam. Nevertheless, the hair-braiding
shop is a community of practice whose success is contingent upon
Marie’s investment in the English language. These circumstances do
indeed place her in a position of power. Although researchers such as
Koven (1998), Davies and Harré (1990) and Tabouret-Keller (1997) iden-
tify and explore the dynamics of identity from a transformative posi-
tion, they do not view them from the perspective that power positions
can and are already established by certain immigrant groups. Further-
more, cultural maintenance occurs on a daily basis through language,
religion, trade and customer relations. This study demonstrates that
the women have a very strong sense of their Senegalese identities. Yet,
depending on generational patterns, they may negotiate a more pro-
nounced American identity. This correlates to the findings of Spolsky
(2000), Kouritizin (2000) and McKay and Wong (1996) whose theories of
ambivalence, motivation and access are applied to explain the resistance
of the older women to English acquisition.
Implications
This study also has implications for both the fields of Second Language
Acquisition and Religious Studies. It reaffirms the notion that older
immigrant groups are often resistant not only to language learning, but
to the host cultures to which they have migrated. This research also
examines how language learning in the context of the working environ-

ment and religious identity are fluid due to engagement, alignment and
negotiation. Furthermore, as Marie’s linguistic registers evolve, her
identity will continue to transform.
The hair shop as an enclave for family meetings, worship and
extended family is crucial to these Senegalese women. It provides a safe
haven for generating income and networking with other women. Life in
the shop is a challenge due to low customer interaction. Nonetheless,
the women realize that by working together, they can be more success-
ful. The vivid story that remains constant in this research is that
language and religion in practice are dependant upon a plethora of
social, cultural and even generational factors. Marie is striving to engage
in linguistic and cultural negotiations in her shop. Through these
efforts, she can redefine her position in this society. For Fatima and
Selah, their devotion to their Senegalese past, present and future are
consistent patterns that maintain their Senegalese identity but place
boundaries on their American transformation process.
The phrase ‘Inshallah, there will be work’ draws attention to the
long-ignored experience of a growing American cultural group. The
unique trade and cultural practices that occur within African hair-braiding
shops may serve as a maintenance model for future immigrant groups.
Marie’s linguistic and diverse cultural identity allowed her to successfully
navigate in two worlds. As educators, we must seek ways to further assist
immigrants to acquire English for the workplace and beyond. Additional
questions that may be initiated from this exploration are:
● What are ways that we can motivate older generations of immigrant

groups to expand their English repertoires?
● How can we create entrepreneurial opportunities for the other immi-
grant groups who are rapidly populating this country?
● Can customer relations between immigrants and non-immigrant
groups be improved?
● Are English language studies within the social context of work useful
for future teachers?
The observational study described in this chapter is designed to serve as

a starting point for further inquiry into these issues.
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13
Gender, Hebrew Language
Acquisition and Religious Values
in Jewish High Schools in
North America*
Debra Cohen and Nancy Berkowitz
The present study examines gender differences in Hebrew language

performance, and attitudes towards learning Hebrew in different groups
within the North American Jewish community. The chosen groups
differ in their religious affiliation (non-Orthodox vs. Orthodox) and
gender class composition (co-ed vs. segregated). These groups range
from the non-Orthodox groups, which see gender equality as a central
modern-Jewish value (Fishman, 2000), to certain Orthodox groups
which see gender inequality as a Jewish traditional value that should
be preserved. Segregated education usually indicates agreement with the
latter. We found a significantly wider gap in language performance,
learning goals and attitudes between boys and girls, in favour of
the girls, in the Orthodox/segregated group than in the other two
groups (non-Orthodox and Orthodox/co-ed). This finding supports the
poststructuralist approaches which view gender as a social, historical
and cultural construct that mediates between culture and language
behaviour (Gal, 1991; Piller and Pavlenko, 2001). We also showed that
learning goals of the learner play a central role as mediators between
gender and language behaviour.
* The preparation and publication of this article was made possible by a grant
from The Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture. We also wish to thank the AVI
CHAI Foundation, Hebrew College and the NETA project for giving us permission
to collect information on the process of Hebrew learning from the NETA curricu-
lum students. We wish to thank the school principals, NETA coordinators at the
schools, teachers and students for giving from their time and thought for this
important initiative.
240
Gender, Hebrew Language and Religious Values 241
Theoretical background
One agreed fact is that in second language college courses female students
outnumber males at all levels, with the numeric gap widening at the more
advanced levels (Chavez, 2001). Other research projects show that girls in
second language courses are higher achievers, more motivated, have a
more positive attitude, and report greater overall strategy use than boys
(Gardner and Lambert, 1972; Burstall, 1975; Politzer, 1983; Boyle, 1987;
Oxford and Nyikos, 1988; Spolsky, 1989; Ellis, 1994; Huebner, 1995; Baker
and MacIntyre, 2003). Critics claim that the superiority of women in the
area of second language acquisition reflects only the gap in performance
on written tests, whereas in oral tests the opposite is true (Chastain, 1970;
Boyle, 1987; Brecht and Ginsberg, 1993). Others found that women also
outperform men on oral tests (Nyikos, 1990; Shiue, 2003), or found no
differences between the genders (Bacon, 1992). The search for a deeper
understanding of variables that affect achievement brought upon a shift
in the area of second language learning and general learning, from focus
on achievement to focus on motivation, learning goals and self-efficacy
as mediating variables between gender and achievement. These variables
depend highly on culture (Pajares and Giovanni, 2001). In the same vein,
recent poststructuralist approaches view gender as a social, historical and
cultural construct, which mediates between culture and language behav-
iour (Gal, 1991; Piller and Pavlenko, 2001). Here the locus of study shifted
to ideologies of language and gender across cultures as well as over time
within a culture (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 1992; Bonvillain, 1997;
Holmes and Meyerhoff, 1999; Piller and Pavlenko, 2001). To date, most of
the research that was aimed at investigating the cultural hypothesis of
language acquisition focused on adults in separate immigrant societies.
Research showed that within immigrant communities, gender differences
in use of heritage language and English are strongly connected to the
cultural context (Sole’, 1978; Klee, 1987; Zentella, 1997; Lynch, 2004).
In this study we looked into possible gender differences in achieve-
ment, motivation, self-efficacy and general satisfaction with the Hebrew
language course. The motivation of the student was tested according to
achievement goal theory, which focuses on the distinction between
mastery versus performance goals, broadly defined as the attempt to
develop, improve or acquire skills, proficiencies and understandings ver-
sus the strivings to maintain self-worth through the demonstration of
ability and avoidance of incompetence (Dweck and Elliott, 1983; Spence
and Helmreich, 1983; Nicholls, 1984; Butler, 1987; Dweck and Leggett,
1988; Maehr, 1989; Ames, 1992). We also looked into heritage goals,
which we believe are specific to learning subjects such as Hebrew lan-

guage, which are connected directly to the heritage of the learner
(Spolsky, 1989). We checked the academic efficacy of the learner, and
his/her general satisfaction with the Hebrew language course. Past
research found that boys showed a higher level of performance-
approach goals and a lower level of mastery goals than girls (Nolen,
1988; Middleton and Midgley, 1997; Pajares and Giovanni, 2001).
Another factor which should be taken into account is the possible effect
of the gender composition of the classroom. Past research found that
some girls are higher achievers in all-girl classes than in co-ed class-
rooms (Sadker and Sadker, 1994; US General Accounting Office, 1996).
This study includes some participants who are learning in co-ed class-
rooms and others learning in segregated classrooms.
The most important innovation of this study was the cross-cultural
aspect that demonstrates how religious values and classroom setting
mediate the effect of gender on achievement and motivation when all
are learning according to the same curriculum. In our research we chose
to compare three subcultures within the Jewish North American
community. All participants are Jewish students learning Hebrew
language as part of their Jewish education. The three groups differ in
their religious affiliation and class gender composition, which is
strongly connected to their perceived gender roles. The first subculture,
to which most of the participants belong, is comprised of the Reform
and the Conservative communities. These communities, from their
beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, saw equality between
men and woman as a basic value for Judaism in the modern era (Meir,
1999). The second subculture is the Modern Orthodox community. This
community is well integrated into the general American society, and as
such, in their non-religious existence hold the same feministic views as
the rest of the middle-upper white American class. However, in their
religious activities there is a strong commitment to the traditional
inequality between man and woman, which gives the men a much more
dominant role in religious public life. Changes in the role of women in
religious activities are happening, but this is done slowly and within
the boundaries of Orthodox religious laws (Sheshar-Aton, 1999). One
indication of this group’s belief in gender equality is their support of co-ed
education. The third subculture is that of the right-wing Orthodox
community. In this community equality between men and woman is
seen as ‘anti-value’. The differences between the genders are seen as
a basic Jewish value, which should be preserved (Fishman, 2000). One
way in which it is preserved is through segregated education for boys
and girls from aged 3 or 5 years till they complete their education. Our
sample includes only the most liberal from this community. We hypoth-
esized that the different gender roles in the three communities will be
reflected in a different gender pattern in Hebrew language achievement
and motivation. It should also be noted that as we move from the non-
Orthodox groups to the right-wing Orthodox group there is a greater
emphasis on religious/Jewish studies in the school setting in general and
that in the majority of the schools Hebrew language is seen as part of the
religious/Jewish curriculum of the school.
The purpose of our research was to examine the differences in atti-
tudes towards Hebrew language learning and learning outcome (i.e.,
achievement) between girls and boys from three groups within the
Jewish North American community. It was expected that we would find
in general a higher level of performance and more positive attitudes
towards learning Hebrew as we advance from the non-Orthodox group
to the right-wing Orthodox group. We also expected to find a different
gender gap pattern in performance and in attitudes in the three groups.
Method
Participants
The 735 students in this study were all North American youth, in
grades 7–12, learning in Jewish schools. They were all using the same
curriculum for learning Hebrew as a second language (NETA). There
were 388 girls (52.79 per cent), 333 boys (45.31 per cent) and 14 who did
not indicate gender (1.90 per cent). Twenty-seven of the students iden-
tified themselves as having no religious affiliation (3.6 per cent), 81 as
Reform (11.2 per cent), 303 as Conservative (41.22 per cent) and 256
as Orthodox (34.83 per cent). Sixty-eight students did not indicate their
affiliation (9.25 per cent). Out of the 256 students who identified them-
selves as Orthodox; 103 learned in a co-ed Jewish setting (40.23 per cent),
and 153 learned in a segregated Jewish school (59.77 per cent), in which
there are separate buildings for boys and for girls. However, the two
buildings share the same curriculum and teachers.
Materials
Classroom goal structure student’s academic efficacy evaluation
of the learning situation
The survey as a whole concerns the student’s experience from his/her
learning situation. It consists of 24 items that focus on the classroom’s
goal structure (performance-avoidance, performance-approach, mas-

tery, heritage). The survey utilizes a five-point Likert-type scale (from
strongly disagree to strongly agree). The sub-scales referring to percep-
tion of classroom achievement goals were taken from the PALS survey of
Carol Midgley et al. (2000). The ␣ for these sub-scales ranged from 0.757
to 0.858. We added four items concerning the heritage goal (␣ 0.78) of
the classroom and seven items in which the student was asked to rate his
level of academic satisfaction from his/her Hebrew class (␣ 0.82). We
also included in this questionnaire the Academic Efficacy sub-scale of
Midgley et al. (2000). The sub-scale includes seven items. The alpha for
this sub-scale is 0.89.
Learning outcome
A multi-choice, 60-item Hebrew language proficiency level test
(Kobliner, not published) was given to the research sample. The tests are
built of 60-items in increasing levels of Hebrew language proficiency,
from the preparatory level, through the beginners, intermediate and up
to the advanced level. The test examines only the level of Hebrew language
proficiency in the area of reading comprehension. Both versions of the
test were shown to be reliable (␣ of test #1 is 0.95, alpha of test #2 is 0.93).
Procedure
The students were tested during their regular class time in their class-
rooms towards the end of the school year. They were given the attitude
survey at the middle of the school year.
Results
The objectives of the study were to:
1. Verify the connection between attitudes and achievement.

2. Assess the effect of gender on attitudes and achievement.
3. Examine differences in gender effect in different groups within the
Jewish North American community.
4. Examine possible reasons for the different gender effects in the
various groups.
For the analyses to follow, the Type I error rate was set at p 0.05 unless
otherwise stated. For the analyses of variance all post hoc tests were
conducted using the Scheffe method.
Connection between attitudes and language achievement

In order to investigate which of the variables predict the student’s level
of Hebrew language proficiency we conducted a regression analysis.
Three out of the four learning goals (Mastery, Performance Approach,
Heritage), one attitude scale (Academic Efficacy) as well as religious
affiliation and gender class composition, and gender were found to pre-
dict 21.4 per cent of variability on students’ Hebrew language achieve-
ment scores. Results of the regression analysis are summarized in the
following table. Thus, in the following analysis of attitudes towards
Hebrew language learning we will take into account only the four
attitude variables that were found here to be connected to language
performance.
Effects of gender and group on language achievement and

attitudes towards language learning
At the univariate level there was a significant effect of gender on
achievement (F(1,408) 28.66, p 0.0005). Inspection means show that
girls (M 31.30) are significantly higher in Hebrew language perform-
ance than boys (M 24.82).
Table 13.1 Results of regression analysis
Adjusted R Square F Change Df Sig. F Change
Academic efficacy 0.056 24.348 1390 0.000

Mastery 0.118 26.099 1389 0.000
Gender 0.158 21.503 1388 0.000
Religious 0.176 9.694 1387 0.002
affiliation co-ed/seg
Correctness of 0.192 8.447 1386 0.004
placement
Performance 0.205 7.161 1385 0.008
Approach
Heritage 0.214 5.476 1384 0.020
Table 13.2 Achievement test score by gender
Number of Mean SD
students
Girls 328 31.30 14.17

Boys 279 24.82 14.85
This tendency of girls to outperform the boys was found also when
looking at placement of students according to level of learning material
instead of score on a Hebrew language proficiency test. Also here we see
that a higher percentage of boys are placed in the lower levels of lan-
guage learning, whereas a higher percentage of girls are placed in the
higher levels. The gap in placement between boys and girls was greater
at the extremes. The correlation between gender and level of learning
found here is higher than the correlations found between gender and
language achievement because of a stronger tendency to place the girls
in a learning level that is above their test score than to do the same with
the boys.
Table 13.3 Learning level by gender
Percentage Percentage
of girls of boys
Preparatory 10.8 22.9

Beginners 31.6 36.6
Intermediate 28.0 22.2
Advanced 29.5 18.3
Total 100.0 100.0
Percentage of girls and boys by NETA levels

Percentage from total boys/girls
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
y
te
d
or
er
ce
ia
at
nn
ed
an
ar
gi
rm
v
ep
Ad
Be
te
Pr
In
NETA levels
Girls Boys
Figure 13.1 Learning material level by gender

Attitudes by gender
4.5
4
1 (strongly disagree) to 3.5
5 (strongly agree) 3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
.
.I.
ge
pp
.
.E
oi
r
al
te
Av
ita
A
ic
er
as
P.
em
P.
er
en
M
H
ad
G
Ac
Attitudes
Girls Boys
Figure 13.2 Attitudes towards learning Hebrew by gender
The differences of percentage of girls and boys by NETA level was found
to be significant (␣2 25.45, df 3, p 0.0005).
In addition, we also found corrections between gender and the way the
student perceives his/her learning environment. Girls tend more than
boys to believe in their ability to succeed in the Hebrew language course
(t 2.355, df 445, p 0.019), were more satisfied in general with the
course (t 2.844, df 441, p 0.005), and tended more to see the
course as aimed towards mastery (t 2.748, df 420, p 0.006) and
connection to heritage (t 1.98, df 453, p 0.048). Girls, compared
to boys, tended less to see the course as aimed towards demonstration of
ability (t 2.947, df 506, p 0.003). Boys and girls did not differ in
their tendency not to see the course as aimed towards avoidance of fail-
ure. These differences are similar to those found in learning in general
(Nolen, 1988; Middleton and Midgley, 1997; Pajares and Giovanni, 2001)
and in language learning in particular (Gardner and Lambert, 1972;
Burstall, 1975; Politzer, 1983; Boyle, 1987; Oxford and Nyikos, 1988;
Spolsky, 1989; Ellis, 1994; Huebner, 1995; Chavez, 2001).
Effects of student’s group (religious affiliation ⫹ coed/seg)

on gender differences in language achievement and
attitudes towards learning
The gender gap in achievement and in attitudes described above might
represent the majority culture in the North American Jewish community
and overlook the patterns found in the minority subcultures within

this community. Since 41.2 per cent of the sample is Conservative,
11.0 per cent is Reform, 3.7 per cent is non-affiliated, 14.0 per cent is
Orthodox-co-ed and 20.8 per cent is Orthodox-segregated, these results
might not reflect the Orthodox groups in general or the right-wing
Orthodox group in particular. Thus we looked into the three subcultures
(non-Orthodox-co-ed Orthodox-co-ed and Orthodox-segregated) and
the connection between them and the differences between gender in
Hebrew language acquisition and attitudes.
Effects of student’s group on language achievement

To investigate the effects of gender and group on Hebrew language
performance, the four goals, academic efficacy, and general satisfaction
towards learning Hebrew, a 7 2 MANOVA was conducted. At the
multivariate level, there were highly significant main effects for group
(Wilks’s Lambda 0.855, F(14, 804) 4.688, p 0.0005) and for
gender (Wilks’s Lambda 0.874, F(7402) 8.301, p 0.0005) and also
for the interaction between group and gender (Wilks’s Lambda 0.873,
F(14,804) 4.034, p 0.0005).
Inspection of the relationship between gender and group with scores
and various attitude scales were assessed with analyses of covariance. To
assess differences in performance in Hebrew language, performance was
entered in analysis of covariance as the dependent variable with group
and gender as covariates. The main effects for gender, F(1600) 6.30,
p 0.012 and for group, F(1601) 19.43, p 0.0005 were found to
be significant. Interaction for gender by group was highly significant,
F(1602) 59.95, p 0.0005. Inspection of means indicate that
among the Orthodox/segregated group the gap in performance
between the girls (M 40.72) and the boys (M 21.22) was much
larger then in the Orthodox/co-ed group (Girls: M 33.82, Boys:
M 30.40) and in the non Orthodox group (Girls: M 27.03, Boys:
M 24.66).
Table 13.4 Achievement test mean score by gender and group (religious affiliation/
gender class composition)
Non-Orthodox Orthodox Co-ed Orthodox Seg.
Girls 27.03 (sd 14.612) 33.82 (sd 11.476) 40.72 (sd 8.563)
Boys 24.66 (sd 15.619) 30.40 (sd 14.123) 21.22 (sd 12.156)
Hebrew language profficiency by
Score on test (0–60)

gender and religious affiliation
50
40
30
20
10
0
ox
ed
eg
od
o-
S
o.
C
r th
r th
o.
O
r th
O
on
O
N
Religious affiliation and class

composition (Co-ed./Segregated)
Girls Boys
Figure 13.3 Achievement test mean score by gender and group (religious
affiliation/gender class composition)
Effects of student’s group on attitudes towards learning Hebrew

To assess differences in attitudes towards learning Hebrew language, the
attitudes scores were entered into an analysis of covariance with the atti-
tudes as the dependent variable and the group as the independent vari-
able and gender as the co-variant. ANOVAs were also done on girls and
boys separately. The following includes only the results for the attitude
scales that were found to be related to achievement.
Academic efficacy. In an analysis of covariance with Academic Efficacy

as the dependent variable and religious affiliation as the independent
variable and gender as a covariate, the interaction of affiliation and gen-
der was significant (F(1465) 6.44, p 0.011). ANOVAs were done sep-
areately for the boys and the girls. A significant effect for religious
affiliation was found only for girls (F(1251) 4.72, p 0.031).
Mastery. In an analysis of covariance with Mastery as the dependent

variable and religious affiliation as the independent variable and gender
as a covariate, the interaction of affiliation and gender was again signif-
icant (F(1466) 14.25, p 0.0005). ANOVAs done separately for the
boys and the girls were not significant.
Heritage. In an analysis of covariance with Heritage as the dependent

variable and religious affiliation as the independent variable and gender
Table 13.5 Academic efficacy mean score by gender and religious

affiliation/gender class composition
Girls 3.59 (sd 0.688) 3.74 (sd 0.785) 3.86 (sd 0.735)
Boys 3.45 (sd 0.896) 3.49 (sd 0.928) 3.57 (sd 0.773)
Table 13.6 Mastery mean score by gender and religious affiliation/gender class
composition
Girls 3.91 (sd 0.579) 3.97 (sd 0.598) 4.03 (sd 0.505)
Boys 3.78 (sd 0.717) 3.83 (sd 0.725) 3.40 (sd 1.035)
Academic efficacy by gender and

1 (strongly disagree) to
religious affiliation
3.9
5 (strongly agree)
3.8
3.7
3.6
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
o.
ed
.
eg
rth
o-
S
-O
o.
o.
rth
on
rth
N
O
O
Religious affiliation and class composition

Girls Boys
Figure 13.4 Academic efficacy mean score by gender and religious

as a covariate, the interaction of affiliation and gender was again signif-

icant (F(1464) 9.99, p 0.002). ANOVAs were done separately for the
boys and the girls. A significant effect for religious affiliation was found
only for girls (F(1251) 6.44, p 0.012).
Performance-approach. In an analysis of covariance with Performance

Approach as the dependent variable and religious affiliation as the inde-
pendent variable and gender as a covariate, gender was significant
251
Mastery goals by gender and religious

affiliation
5
4.5
5 (strongly agree)
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1 o.
ed
.
eg
r th
o-
S
-O
o.
o.
r th
on
r th
N
O
O
Religious affiliation and class composition

Girls Boys
Figure 13.5 Mastery mean score by gender and religious affiliation/gender class
composition
Heritage goals by gender and religious

affiliation/class composition
5
5 (strongly agree)
1
o.
.
eg
e
rth
o-
S
O
o.
-
o.
rth
on
rth
N
O
O
Religious affiliation/class composition

Girls Boys
Figure 13.6 Heritage mean score by gender and religious affiliation/gender class
composition
Table 13.7 Heritage mean score by gender and religious affiliation/ gender class
composition
Girls 3.14 (sd 0.850) 3.09 (sd 0.882) 3.68 (sd 0.772)
Boys 3.03 (sd 0.934) 3.21 (sd 0.946) 2.55 (sd 1.189)
Table 13.8 Performance-approach mean score by gender and religious affiliation/

gender class composition
Girls 3.21 (sd 0.806) 3.22 (sd 0.919) 3.11 (sd 0.730)
Boys 3.36 (sd 0.870) 3.45 (sd 0.716) 3.49 (sd 0.624)
Performanceapproach goals by
gender and religious affiliation/class
composition
5
5 (strongly agree)
1
o.
ed
.
eg
rth
o-
S
-O
o.
o.
rth
on
rth
N
O
O
Religious affiliation/class composition
Girls Boys
Figure 13.7 Performance-approach mean score by gender and religious

(F(1464) 7.97, p 0.005). ANOVAs done separeately for the boys and
the girls were not found to be significant.
As seen above, two out of the four attitude scales (Mastery and
Heritage) that were found to be related to language achievement showed
a pattern that is similar to that found in achievement.
Discussion
This study found that the Orthodox/segregated (OS) group had a

different gender gap pattern than the two other groups (non-
Orthodox/co-ed NOC, Orthodox/co-ed OC). This different pattern
was apparent in level of Hebrew language performance and in attitudes
towards Hebrew language learning. In the OS group we see a signifi-
cantly wider gap between boys and girls in favour of the girls in
performance and in attitudes.
These differences between the groups can be explained by a combina-

tion of a cultural effect and learning environment effect (class gender
composition), or perhaps the dominant effect of one or the other. As to
the cultural effect, the OS group is the most right wing group of the
three. This includes a basic belief that differences between genders are a
Jewish value, which should be preserved. Males are the ones that hold
public roles in religious public life and are the ones that are allowed and
required to devote a large percentage of their Jewish education to the
study of certain religious law texts (Talmud). Surprisingly, this domi-
nance of boys in religious education and practice correlates in Hebrew
language learning with a wider gap between boys and girls, in favour of
the girls. This can be explained by the fact that the girl’s education his-
torically is under less religious restriction, which results in less resistance
to innovative methods of teaching and teaching materials. In addition,
since the girls are not allowed to learn Talmud, but they still are expected
to devote half of each long learning day to Jewish studies, they are left
with much more time and energy for studies such as Hebrew language.
As to the learning environment effect, the success of the girls in the
OS group can be attributed to the known positive effect of segregated
settings on performance of girls (Sadker and Sadker, 1994; US General
Accounting Office, 1996). It should be noted that past research on the
effect of gender class composition did not find a negative effect of
segregated settings on the achievement of boys. In order to determine
the separate effects of the culture and the learning environment we
would have needed to add to our sample a non-Orthodox segregated
school. Such a school does not and probably would not exist since the
idea of segregated education by gender contradicts the basic values of
the American-Jewish Non-Orthodox communities. Another group,
which could have enriched our understanding of cultural effects on
gender differences, is the Ultra-Orthodox community. This group,
which is more conservative in their religious values and practice and less
open to American culture than our sample, has not agreed up to now to
introduce the NETA curriculum in their schools, and thus are not
included in this study.
It should be noted that although we also expected a larger gap
between genders in the OC group, in comparison to the NOC groups,
this was not found. This finding supports Fishman’s (2000) claim that
the Modern Orthodox North American community holds more liberal
views then expected. It might also reflect the fact that once education is
‘co-ed’ boys and girls receive the same learning opportunities which can
override cultural values of inequality.
Conclusion
The results of this research support the general known findings regarding
the slight superiority of girls in second language learning as tested through
written tests. It also supports the claims that girls have a more positive
attitude towards the second language course, and are aimed more
towards mastery of the language and less towards demonstration of abil-
ity. This study also succeeded in applying the achievement goal theory
to second language learning and to show that there is a connection
between attitudes and achievement.
The innovation of this research is that the general pattern above,
which was found in research projects in the past, seems to be a correct
reflection of the majority culture in North America, but overlooks
gender patterns found in minority subcultures. This different gender
pattern of achievement and attitudes towards second language learning
was found here in the most right-wing Orthodox group in the sample.
This group holds values regarding gender roles in religious practice and
education which differ from the values that are dominant in the major-
ity culture. Surprisingly, in those communities, which generally give
boys more dominant roles in the process of religious socialization, we
find a wider gap between boys and girls in language performance and
attitudes towards learning in favor of the girls. This might result from
different characteristics of this group, such as more time and energy that
girls devote to language learning or from the overriding effect of gender
segregated education on the achievement and attitudes of boys and
girls. This study is the first cross-subcultural study with school-aged
students which supports poststructuralist approaches, viewing gender as
a social, historical and cultural construct, which mediates between
culture and language behavior (Gal, 1991; Piller and Pavlenko, 2001). It
also succeeds in showing that gender mediates between culture and
language via attitudes.
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14
Speaking Our Gendered
Selves: Hinduism and
the Indian Woman*
Kalyani Shabadi
This chapter explores the construction of the Hindu Indian woman and
how language formalizes and ritualizes a particular way to be. It
approaches the questions of how a gendered self is linguistically shaped
by religious traditions and shows how the ascription of positive
and negative values in religion leads to gender discrimination and
asymmetry.
The topic of the self dealing with personhood, gendered identity, the
body and selfhood of women has become a major issue in the feminist
philosophy. Feminist theorists have interpreted gender as the experi-
ence of sexed embodiment, a set of internalized norms, a set of tradi-
tional roles, a performance, a social position or class. A constructive
view of gender like that of Butler (1990) and others proposes that ways
of talking and behaving that are associated with gender are a matter not
of identity but of display. Butler says: ‘There is no gender identity
behind the expressions of gender; … identity is performatively consti-
tuted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results.’ For
constructionists, ‘gender is doing, not being’, and thus they emphasize
that each individual must constantly negotiate the norms, behaviours
and discourses that define masculinity and femininity for a particular
community. In this context, we will discuss how language is used in a
speech community in performance that indicates the social identities of
men and women. How do particular linguistic practices contribute to
the production of people as ‘women and men’?
* I give my sincere thanks to Dr Rajashekhar Shabadi for the data in Kannada and
Dr Thomas Chacko for the data in Malayalam.
257
This chapter explores the construction of gender identities in Indian

society with relation to Hinduism. It shows how gender identity is for-
malized and ritualized through language and how different socio-religious
contexts are intertwined with understandings of gender dynamics. It
describes how a gendered self is shaped by religious traditions, which is
reflected in the language of the society. It shows how gender identities
have been invented and valued in different socio-religious and regional
contexts in India. I focus on religious traditions attributed to men and
women in India and discuss the dis/advantages of religious practices
that have been rooted in the Hindu culture in which we conceive of
belief systems in contemporary society. For this purpose, I consider a
natural-gender language like Oriya along with some examples from
some other Indian languages like Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam.1
This chapter gives a brief description of the Indian socio-cultural setup,
and discusses how selfhood is realized in Hinduism. I then present how,
as a product of social reality, language reflects the socio-cultural behav-
iour of a community. I discuss linguistic, psychological and sociological
issues in the use of gendered terms in language and show how generic
masculine terms, taboo expressions and certain other words used in daily
life indicate the gender bias in the society. Finally, I conclude with some
plausible solutions to bring social change.
Men and women in the socio-cultural set-up
Men and women are socially different because of the different social
roles (along with the biological roles, of course) imposed upon them by
the society. If we consider the status of men and women in Indian
society, we find that the status of women is far below the status of men.
In Indian society, the gender-based division of labour is rigid among
different caste and class groups. It is observed that middle-class as well
as higher-caste people have more gender segregation.
According to the official law in India, women have the same rights as
men. There are places reserved for women in the professional and
educational fields. A number of government organizations as well as
non-government organizations like mahiLaa samaaja ‘women society’,
mahiLaa kendra ‘women centre’ are designed to work for the welfare of
women in the society. There is a strong group protest against alcoholism,
as men usually squander money in drinking irrespective of their finan-
cial condition, and they protest against discriminating family laws, rape
and dowry laws and violence too. A number of magazines give enough
space for articles on women’s issues. In spite of all these legal rights of
Gendered Selves: Hinduism and the Indian Women 259
women, there is much discrimination against women. Dowry-murders

and violence against women are common in many parts of India.2
Women are confined to household and reproductive work. Their mobil-
ity is restricted both in rural and urban areas of India. Their position is
further disadvantaged due to lack of property rights. Patrilineal inheri-
tance and patrilocal residence makes women dependent on men.
More often culture has been seen closely associated with religion, and
other social systems such as marriage, eating habits, way of living; and
this association has brought tremendous impact on the lives of women.
The Hindi word purdah/ghungaT ‘veil’, or the seclusion and segregation
of women, is a cultural norm on the Indian subcontinent, although it
has been reduced these days. Beginning at puberty, ghungaT controls the
interaction between females and males. Cultural constraints on women
writers make it more or less taboo for women to tackle certain topics like
sex, religion and politics. Cultural constraints on women are often
rooted in religion. However, Hinduism has become part of the culture
within India and if one deviates from these accepted practices one is
looked down upon by the society. As a product of social reality, language
reflects the socio-cultural behaviour of its speakers, it reflects the
thoughts, opinions, attitudes and culture of its users. Gender bias is
reflected in various parts of life, including language, in Indian society.
Hinduism and ‘selfhood’
In India, Hindu society has often been divided on the basis of caste,
region, gender, language and belief. Hinduism recognizes social and
economic inequalities among human beings as inevitable constituents of
society because of the individual differences in the nature of their karma
‘one’s own doings’, and often it is related to the karma of one’s previous
birth. If a person is rich, happy, good looking or born into a higher caste,
it is because of his karma; and if someone is suffering, poor or born in a
low caste, he has to blame himself and his previous actions. Each indi-
vidual who lives in this world is a continuation of his/her past and is
fully responsible for his or her present reality. This is the ‘selfhood’
assigned to each individual by God. Therefore, none can blame others for
his/her own suffering. Brought up in a society that is organized on the
basis of a caste system and on social values that are centred around the
concept of karma, an average Hindu is more obsessed with the problems
of his evolutionary impasse that is his selfhood.
Religion works at many different levels in the lives of women. At one
level, religion has often been used for reinforcing patriarchy and the
existing caste and class divisions in society. Pativrata ‘devoted to one’s

husband’ is the ideology or specific dharma ‘religion’ of the Hindu
wife by which women accept and aspire to chastity and wifely fidelity as
the highest expression of their selfhood.
Right from the time when she is a little girl, a female is brought up
with the idea that marriage and motherhood are her final legitimate
destinations, even at the expense of sacrificing and neglecting her own
needs and aspirations. The dread offence a woman is guilty of is not to
bear children. Her life is reduced to violence, rejection and misery. The
childless woman, and not the man, is harassed, beaten, insulted, threat-
ened by remarriage of her husband or deserted. She is called names like
banjh ‘barren’ or sookhi kokh ‘dry womb’ in Hindi. All these beliefs seem
to be designed for a man’s advantage.
In traditional societies, specific traits were assigned to men and women.
Indian culture had set up strict social norms for the sexes. Attributes like
‘knowledge’, ‘mental ability’, ‘determination’, ‘firm decision’, ‘faith’ and
‘confidence’ were ascribed to males, whereas ‘shyness’, ‘ignorance’,
‘fear’, ‘timidity’ are the qualities ascribed to females. Man was entitled to
get knowledge, wisdom and strength whereas woman lacked all that,
thus indicating the superior and inferior status of men and women
respectively. Education, visiting abroad, possession and demonstration
of valour, earning fame, participation in decision-making meetings and
giving charity were the sole privileges and goals of a man and no such
privileges were available to women. Women and Sudras ‘low-caste
people’ were declared to be unfit for study of the Vedas.
Tradition does not allow a woman to remarry or break the marriage, but
allows a husband to abandon his wife. A divorced woman is labelled as
chaaDuri in Oriya, a very derogatory term that is seldom used for a man.
The matter of description of human qualities is based, for instance, on
this double standard. A bold man is interpreted as rokaDaa ‘courageous’,
but a bold woman is rokaDaa ‘aggressive’ in Oriya. A woman can be
discarded by her husband easily, as in Kannada he is the yajamaana ‘the
one who owns her.’
In law, in customary practice and in cultural stereotypes, women’s
selfhood has been subordinated and in certain cases such subordination
is accepted by law. A woman’s personhood is absorbed into that of her
husband when she marries. The wife assuming her husband’s name/
surname symbolizes this revocation of her separate identity. Irigaray
(1993) has rightly said that man seems to have wanted, directly or indi-
rectly, to give the universe his own gender as he has wanted to give his
own name to his children, his wife, his possessions. Women are defined
by their relation to men. A married woman is usually referred to or

addressed as ‘Mrs husband’s name’ or the ‘mother of the child’s
name’. Women adopt the family name of their husbands, children are
given the family name of their male parent. Male offspring are considered
as heirs. A query about a child such as kaahaa pua/jhia ‘whose son/
daughter’ in Oriya is referred to by stating the name of the child’s father
(not the mother). She loses her right to property as her husband is enti-
tled to control her earnings. The highest dharma ‘religion’ of woman is
to worship her husband. In childhood she is in the custody of her father,
in youth she is in custody of her husband, and in old-age she is in
the custody of her sons. In Oriya, the popular saying goes binashraye
nabanchanti kabitaa, banitaa, lataa, that is, ‘poetry, creeper and women
need support to survive’.
The son is seen as the uttaraadhikaari ‘heir’ to the family name and
fortune whereas the daughter is seen as a liability, whose parents
must find her a husband to secure her future. These beliefs pervaded
Indian society leading to the dowry system, where the family of the
woman paid her husband to ‘take her off their hands’. Slowly the Hindu
religion incorporated these principles through commending the birth of
a male. Women are often blamed or shamed for giving birth to a daughter.
‘Son preference’ reveals the dynamic by which the status of women can
have a profound, even fatal, impact on the health of women and girls.
There are also many reports of female infanticide which occurs because
the raising of a girl can often be a financial burden. The problem of
female infanticide and its resulting gender imbalance is deeply rooted in
India’s subjugation and subordination of women.
In Hinduism the woman’s role is often seen within the context of the
family. Often women are killed for having sexual relations outside mar-
riage, choosing their own husbands against parental wishes or seeking a
divorce. A husband (as well as his kin) could at any time accuse his wife
of infidelity and she would have to pay with her life for her husband’s or
elders’ mere suspicions. Even goddess Sita had to pass through the fire
ordeal after her return from Sri Lanka, as she was required to by her
spouse Ram, the ‘ideal husband’ of the ‘Hindus’.
Devadasi ‘god’s slaveFem’ – the practice of dedicating young low-caste
girls (mahars, Mangs, Dowris and Chambhar) at childhood to a god and
their initiation into prostitution when they attain puberty continues to
thrive in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and other parts of South India. The
girls from poor families are married to God Krishna and are sold after
puberty at private auctions to a high-caste master who initially pays
a sum of money to the families of the girls. This link between religious
culture and child prostitution is largely due to social backwardness,

poverty and illiteracy.
Religion has also prescribed many dietary restrictions on women,
especially on widows. Widows are not supposed to eat good food items
like non-vegetarian food items, onion, garlic and so on. The idea is that
without their husbands around, they are not supposed to eat tamasika
‘aphrodisiac’ food as it may stimulate their sexual desires. Widows are
not supposed to wear coloured clothes other than white, or wear make-
up to look gorgeous, they are not supposed to attend auspicious
ceremonies like marriages. The idea is that without the man in her life,
the woman should lead a life of renunciation and spirituality. Similar
restrictions are there for a divorcee also. A divorced woman cannot take
active part in the rituals of a marriage ceremony, and for that matter, nor
in any auspicious occasions. On the other hand men are exempted from
any such restrictions.
The ideology of the good wife and the good mother demands that the
woman eats last and eats what remains after her children and husband
are fed. In situations when there is limited availability of food, sons are
fed before daughters. Even if women do the earning, their incomes are
placed in the hands of male decision-makers in the family. The woman
learns early her lessons of sacrifice by giving priority to the requirements
and likings of other members in the family. As Khokle (1995) puts it, the
(ideal) husband is devoted to his work and that, for him, his duty is as
dear as his life, whereas for the wife, who is confined to her home, her
sole life is her husband.
However, in certain cases women are given importance and respect as
well. Unlike many other religions, in Hindu religion female deities are
very important. In India, it is said that there is a goddess in every village
graama devati ‘village deity’, known as the protector of the villagers from
any sort of evil. Hindu philosophy interprets the goddess as the Shakti,
or cosmic energy, and therefore the most immediate creative or destruc-
tive force, to be thanked or placated. Many of the manifestations of the
goddess Kali or Durga are capricious or violent, and she is often seen as
a warrior who destroys demons on her own. As Mariammaa in Kannada
or ThaakuraaNi in Oriya, she used to bring smallpox, and she is still held
responsible for diseases of the hot season.
The women’s role is not simply to cook food and keep the home
running but also to make sure the family keeps the religious rituals
and celebrations important to the Hindu faith. As such, women have
a very important role to play and certain rituals like yagna, wedding
ceremonies, funeral rites cannot be performed without women. So it
could be said that women have been given a status and respect in spiri-
tual matters. The concept of universe as union of the female (prakruti)
and male ( purusa) principle gives the female equal status with the male.
Women like Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi, Jayalalitha and so on have
gone to the top position in their careers irrespective of the religious
category or caste they belong to.
Gender and language
In spite of the fact that Oriya is a natural gender language (Sahoo, 2003),
(Beames, 1966),3 (Priestly, 1983),4 gender bias is reflected in the language
of everyday life in Oriya society. A comparison of the qualities ascribed
to both the sexes in and across languages would reveal actual values put
on males and females in society.
Generic masculines
Generic masculine words like aadimaanaba ‘prehistoric man’, purba
purusa ‘forefather’, saata purusa literally ‘seven man’ meaning ‘seven gen-
erations’ assume the inherent superiority of the male over the female. As
Clark and Clark (1977) puts it, the unmarked category represents both
maleness and femaleness, while the marked represents femaleness only.
Certain masculine adjectives are used generically, for example budhiaa
‘intelligent’, kuhaaLiaa ‘outspoken’, gyaani ‘wise’, chaalaaka ‘clever’,
chatura ‘intelligent’, raagi ‘angry’, bekaara ‘unemployed’, lobhi ‘greedy’,
bokaa ‘fool’, krupaNa ‘miser’, chandaa ‘bald’, priya ‘dear’, siaaNiaa
‘clever’, nicha ‘mean’, amaaniaa ‘disobedient’, dhani ‘rich’, gariba/daridra
‘poor’ and so on. Generic masculine adjectives like dhani ‘rich’, gariba
‘poor’, bad-kharchi ‘spendthrift’, daani ‘donor’, krupaNa ‘miser’ and so
on show the male-oriented financial dealings of the society. It is usually
the man who earns the livelihood, the woman takes care of it only. Man
is responsible for the financial condition of the family. In most cases,
money is earned and spent by the male members of the family. Property
is inherited in the name of the man. The financial status of a woman is
usually based on the financial status of her husband.
Certain male nouns like lakhyapati ‘owner of lakhs of rupees’, koTipati
‘owner of crores of rupees’, niyutapati ‘millionaire’, jamidaara ‘landlord’,
saahukaara ‘money-lender’, kiNaaLi ‘buyer’, bikaaLi ‘seller’ and so on are
also used generically.
Some derived nominals (deverbal nouns) associated with certain
professions and certain types of activities, which carry masculine gender,
are also always used generically as women are not supposed to do these
kinds of jobs. For example bulaa bikaaLi ‘hawker’, paahaaDa chaDhaaLi

‘hill climber’, ghaasa kaTaaLi ‘grass mower’, kaaTha kaTaaLi ‘wood cutter’.
Terms like bikaaLi ‘seller’ and kiNaaLi ‘buyer’ are always masculine,
because it is always men who are involved in buying and selling activities.
Quantifying expressions like kie/kehi jaNe ‘someone’, jaNe loka ‘a man’
are used generically. However, occasionally one finds the use of
feminine gender in a generic sense. For example, one has the maatrub-
haasaa ‘mother tongue’, but has no pitrubhaasaa ‘father tongue’. Here,
maatrubhaasaa ‘mother tongue’, is used in a generic sense (the language
which a child acquires first in childhood).
Taboo expressions and gender terms of abuse

Taboo expressions reflect the gender bias of Oriya society. Certain words
of abuse do not have a female counterpart and they are usually used
generically. For example, udhata ‘proud’, bajaari ‘loafer’, dhurta
‘cunning’, abibeki ‘having no conscience’, agyaani ‘unwise’, amaNisa
‘not a human being’, murkha ‘dull’, gajamurkha ‘dull to the core’, ghusuri
‘pig’, amaaniaa ‘disobedient’. Man only can be qualified or disqualified
for all these things.
Taboo expressions concerning ‘death’ also reflects the gender bias of
the society. Terms like baaDikhiaa ‘die of cholera’, saapakhiaa ‘be bitten
by a snake’, baghakhiaa ‘be killed by a tiger’, bhenDaabansiaa ‘all the
people/members of the family should die young’, gajaa bayasiaa ‘die in
young age’, adhaa bayasiaa ‘die early’ and so on are used exclusively for
men, which shows the importance attached to a man’s life. It gives the
impression that such terms are not used for women as there is little
importance attached to the lives of women in the society. Similarly,
expressions like pua khaai ‘to be sonless’ (literally, ‘the woman who eats
her own son’) or ghaitaa khaai ‘to be a widow’ (literally, ‘the woman who
eats her own husband’) are used as terms of abuse for a married woman.
But terms of abuse for the expression ‘to be a widower’ are rarely
employed for men. Also, jhia khaai/khiaa ‘to be daughterless’ hardly
occurs as a term of abuse. And again this indicates that very little impor-
tance is attached to the life of a female child. The male term amaNisa
‘worthless/hopeless person’ is used in a generic sense, which includes
both male and female.
Terms like raanDa/bidhabaa ‘widow’, daari ‘whore’, besyaa ‘prostitute’,
baanjhuNi ‘barren’, chhaaDuri ‘divorcee’, bedhei ‘having pre-marital
affairs’ are usually used as words of abuse, and are applicable only to
women. There is hardly any masculine counterpart of these words. The
reason would seem to be that in a male-dominated society like that of
Oriya, it is believed that misfortunes which arise in the course of

marriage, like barrenness, widowhood, divorce, along with socially
unacceptable conduct such as prostitution, pre-marital affairs are events
or acts associated only with the female gender. A word like rakshitaa
‘kept woman’/‘mistress’ does not have a masculine counterpart. Words
like DaahaaNi ‘witch’, kuLaTaa ‘having extra-marital affair’, patitaa
‘fallen woman’ (usually used for women having extra-marital relation-
ships) do not have masculine counterparts as these terms are not
considered to be serious misconducts if committed by men.5 So, there is
no name or word for a man for doing the similar thing.
These taboo terms have some emotional effect on the hearer, since
these terms diminish his/her status as a human being (Agyekum, 1996).
Asymmetry in lexical meaning with reference to gender

Asymmetry in lexical meaning is linked to perception of gender roles in
a socio-cultural setting. In Oriya, certain words have been lexicalized
along gender lines.
In certain professional as well as other fields of life, only men are
supposed to work and thus one does not find female counterparts. For
example kaarigara ‘carpenter’, bindhaaNi ‘smith’, sainika ‘soldier’, daarogaa
‘constable’, raasTrapati ‘president’, jaguaaLa ‘watchman’/‘security
guard’, Daaka piana ‘postman’, laainmyaan ‘electrician’, niaan libhaaLi
‘fireman’, byabasaayi ‘businessman’, saapuaa ‘snake-charmer’, myaane-
jara ‘manager’, raajyapaaLa ‘governor’, rakhyaka ‘saviour’, draaibhar
‘driver’, Dakaaeta ‘dacoit’, dasyu ‘robber’, jaLadasyu ‘pirate’, mukhiaa
‘leader’, haLiaa ‘labourer’, graahaka ‘customer’, mahaajana ‘business-
man’ or ‘money-lender’, jamidaara ‘landlord’, chelaa ‘follower’, majuriaa
‘day-labourer’, roseiaa/pujaari ‘cook’ and so on. Although it is the
woman who always cooks at home throughout her life, there is no term
for a female cook! One also does not find a female cook in a hotel or in
a public place in Orissa and for that matter in India too.
Conventionally, women are not supposed to smoke or drink alcohol.
So terms like maduaa ‘drunkard’, biDiaa ‘smoker’, ganjeiaa ‘hashish-
addict’, aapuaa ‘opium-eater’ and so on are always in the masculine
gender and are used exclusively with reference to men. Even if a woman
were to qualify as a drunkard, smoker or drug-addict, a periphrastic
expression would be used, but never the masculine term in the
language.
Terms related to knowledge – panDita ‘learned person’, murkha ‘stu-
pid’, gyaani ‘wise’, agyaani ‘dull’ and so on are assigned to men only.
Nouns like harijana ‘a person from low caste’, girijana ‘a tribal man’,
haLiaa ‘labourer’, mahaaprabhu or mahaapru ‘god’6 and so on are male

terms which do not have a feminine counterpart. Man has not forgotten
to assign his own gender to his belief system, of ‘god’ even. So, although
gods and goddesses are available in the Hindu belief system of god, still
ThaakuraaNi ‘goddess’ or bhagabati ‘goddess’ is never used generically.
Terms with reference to god, such as, ishwara ‘god’, parama pitaa ‘the
great father’, srusti kartaa ‘the creator’ are treated as masculine. Baapa
ghara ‘father’s house’ is used generically for ‘parents’ house’, and there is
no term like ‘mother’s house’.
For certain compound nouns, Oriya strictly follows a [NMasc NFem]
order and the reverse order is not possible. For example, bhaai bhauNi
‘brother sister’, baapaa maa ‘father mother’, pua jhia ‘son daughter’,
swaami stri ‘husband wife’, bara kanyaa ‘bridegroom bride’, bhaai
bhaauja ‘brother sister-in-law’, ajaa aai ‘maternal grandfather and
grandmother’, maamu maain ‘maternal uncle and aunt’, daadaa khuDi
‘paternal uncle and aunt’ and so on.
Eka patni vrata ‘to have a single wife’ is associated with the religious
epic Ramayana where lord Rama had taken an oath to have a single wife
in his life. This indicates that the practice of polygamy was allowed to
men but not to women, so a word like eka pati vrata ‘to have a single
husband’ is never found in the literature.
Words borrowed from English like polis ‘police’, is always considered
to be masculine, and nars ‘nurse’ is assumed to have feminine gender on
the default basis. The idea behind the perception of the respective
gender roles of these terms is that the police are portrayed as the main-
tainers of discipline in the society and so it has to be a man. On the
other hand, a nurse, who takes care of patients/people, has to be a
woman. This relates to the fact that man is strong and powerful, while
woman is loving and mother-like. So, one also finds words like maaiki-
naa polis ‘female police’, and anDiraa nars ‘male nurse’ as a feminine or
masculine counterpart of the terms, respectively.
It is obvious that the male counterpart of sati ‘pious woman’ does not
exist in the language as the piety of a man is an ignorable factor, and in
sati ‘rites’ a man has never followed his dead wife in to the fire. Similarly,
certain expressions do not have any female counterpart, for example
manara maNisa (literally, ‘mind’s man’ or ‘the man of one’s heart’), pati
parameswar ‘husband is the sole God’. As Hasan (1997) explains, the
husband is the sole god for his wife, iha kaaLa para kaaLara devataa ‘the
god of her life in this life as well as in her afterlife’.
Aggressive and obscene idioms like puliyaadi mon ‘son of a whore’ in
Malayalam and raanDipua anantaa ‘son of a widow’ in Oriya shows the
importance of a father for a child. Expressions of benediction like

Sanskrit putravati bhava ‘may you have sons’, but not kanyaavati bhava
‘may you have daughters’ show the preference for sons over daughters.
The inferior status of a woman is further revealed in the non-reciprocal
usage of the forms of address. In Oriya, the three variants of ‘you’: tu,
tume and aapaNa, which correlate with the three levels of honour and
intimacy reflect the gender-bias of the society (Sahoo, 2003). For exam-
ple, a child uses the tume ‘you[honorific]’ variant to address his/her father,
but uses the tu ‘you[honorific]’ variant for the mother. Like Oriya, Hindi
which has a three-tier system of second-person pronouns (tu, tum and
aap) and Kannada, which has a two-tier system of pronouns (ni:nu and
ni:vu) also follows a similar pattern. In Kannada, a husband generally
addresses his wife by name or he uses a non-honorific pronoun, namely,
ni:nu ‘you[honorific]’, while a wife uses ni:vu ‘you[honorific]’ or ri ‘a term of
respect’. While a husband uses a non-honorific or less honorific refer-
ence pronoun avaLu ‘she[honorific]’ to refer to his wife, she refers to him
by a honorific pronoun avaru ‘he[honorific]’. As non-naming denotes
respect in many cases, she follows this pattern of address as well as
reference. Assuming a superior status in the society, a man commands
his wife by using non-honorific singular imperatives like ba: ‘come’, and
koDu ‘give’. However, a woman uses the honorific form like banri
‘come[honorific]’, koDi/koDri ‘give[honorific]’.
So, linguistic practices reflect all these gender related hierarchies
prevalent in the society and thus demonstrate an unmistakable
asymmetry between men and women.
Conclusion
The nature of gender differences in Oriya clearly reflects the social and
cultural factors responsible for the discrimination prevalent in Orissa.
Similar vocabulary differences on the basis of gender bias exist in other
Indian languages. These differences are the result of the differences in
the position and the status of the two genders in society. When these
conditions change, the differences are bound to modify. Hence the
results of this research can be easily attested in many of the Indian
languages.
Plausible solutions would be gender empowerment or gender devel-
opment. Such an attempt has a role to play in strengthening the
position of women in society. There is a need to remove the gender bias
in language (i.e., to bring oral equality among men and women), which
gets translated into other spheres of social, economic and political
activities, to create awareness among both men and women about the
consequences of gender bias.
Many non-governmental organizations are trying to bring broad
social change. These programmes include assistance to mothers with
childcare support, projects to improve women’s access to education, and
to educate women about their subordination within a patriarchal soci-
ety. Along with these steps, it is necessary to implement policies and
programmes for the promotion of equality for women in political, legal,
economic, educational and social spheres. Efforts should be made
towards shifting the social attitudes and long-standing traditions that
contribute to gender-structured social beliefs.
However, we shouldn’t assume that being a woman means never
disagreeing, never contesting or never asking for evidence. Similarly,
being a man does not always mean being aggressive and disagreeable.
A typical woman is sometimes empathic and compassionate, and some-
times analytic and withholding. It is not only the gender but also the cir-
cumstances that dictate the behaviour of a person. To be female (or to be
male) involves an entire way of viewing the world, of relating to people,
of thinking, of communicating. That difference must be taken seriously.
Although Hinduism has become an integral part of our culture, in a
way the Hindu religion seems to contradict the culture or vice versa
much of the time. However, within the Hindu religion there is no
defined authority with recognized jurisdiction. A man, therefore, could
neglect any one of the prescribed duties of his group and still be
regarded as a good Hindu. In Hinduism, none is therefore regarded as
having forsaken his or her religion, even if he or she deviates from the
usually accepted doctrines or practices.
Notes
1 Oriya and Hindi belong to the Indo-Aryan language family, while Kannada
and Malayalam belong to the Dravidian family.
2 Bride burning is often related to dowry, when the bride’s family cannot pay
the amount demanded by the in-laws. When the deadline specified for paying
runs out, the bride is burned and the incident is often passed off as accident.
3 Beames (1966) claims that Bengali and Oriya have no linguistic gender at all,
except in the pure Sanskrit Tatsamas, which retain the form of the Sanskrit
genders.
4 Priestly (1983) maintains that many Indic languages (e.g., Assamese, Bengali,
Nepali, Oriya) have lost gender.
5 Of course, there is a word patita ‘fallen man’, but the meaning associated with
it does not denote the sin of extramarital affair committed by man.
6 Mahaapru is the contracted form of mahaaprabhu ‘the great master’ or ‘god’.
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Index
Note: The notes at the end of chapters have not been indexed.
abbreviations 209 Arishvarar, A. 16

Abdel-Jawad, H.R. 42, 47, 48–9, 50, 54 Arluke, A. 77
aboriginal languages 88, 90–1, 92, 95 Asia 158
Abu Hanifah, Imam 120 assertions, strong 215
Abu-Haider, F. 42 assertive language 207, 209–13
academic efficacy 244, 249 asymmetries of male/female
address, terms of 50–2 representation within Arabic 41–61
addressee 110, 111–13 avoidance 43–4
addressor 110, 111–13 incongruence 44
Adhan 119 morphological gender 44–6
Africa 158 personal names 46–50
African traditional religion 225 referential terms 52–9
age 93–5, 96–8 shift 44
agency 203, 223–4 titles and terms of address 50–2
Agyekum, K. 265 asymmetry in lexical meaning 41,
Alexander, N. 225 265–7
aloud reading 155 Ataque de nervios 69
ambivalence 235 Athena 19, 21
American women: cursing habits and attractiveness 78
religiosity 63–82 audience 110, 111–13
1986–1996 64–5 Augustine, Saint 31
cross-cultural comparisons 65–9 Australia 158
past and present 63–5 Austria 33
power and taboo language 76–81 avoidance 43–4, 47, 48, 49, 52
religion, learning and language name 43, 46
restrictions 69–72 negative 53–6
religious personality and cursing positive 52, 53–6
72–4 awrah 119, 125
sexual anxiety, guilt and repression
74–6 Bacon, S.M. 241
Ames, C. 241 Badawi, E.S. 54, 58
Amsterdam, P. 180, 182 Bailey, K. 153
ancestry 78 Bainbridge, W.S. 175, 181
Anglican Church 134, 135, 137 Baker, S.C. 241
animal terms 66, 68 Bakir, M. 42
anti-sexual group 73 Bamba, Sheikh A. 222
anxiety, sexual 74–6 ‘baraka’ 225
Aphrodite 19 Barthes, R. 155
Aquinas, T. 31 Baxter, J. 154
Arabic 88, 99 Beames, J. 263
see also asymmetries of male/female Berg, D. 169–70, 171–80, 182, 183
representation within Arabic Berkowitz, N. 5, 240–54
270
Index 271
Bernard, E. 32 Butler, J. 257

Bernini 13 Butler, R. 241
Bhimji, F. 5, 203–13 buttocks 78
Bible 70
blasphemy 70, 71 Cambodia 99
body: Campbell, J. 18, 20
parts 68 Campbell, W. 91
products 66, 68 Canada 4, 5, 151–2, 158
Boeri Williams, M. 169 Canadian English 66
Bonvillain, N. 241 Canon Law (1983) 32
Børresen, K. 14 Caravaggio 13
Bourdieu, P. 224 Cardoso, F. 67
Boyle, J. 241, 247 Catholicism 33, 34, 35, 70, 221
Bozeman, J.M. 170 Taiwan 89–90, 95, 96, 98
Brabant, S. 79 celebrative occasion 155
Brahma 17 censorship 70, 71
Brahmanism 15, 34 Chancellor, J.D. 170, 181
Brass, M. 21 Chastain, K. 241
Braun, K. 81 Chavez, M. 241, 247
Brazil 67, 69 Chen, M. 87, 88
Brecht, R.D. 241 Chen, S. 68
Britain 65–6, 158 Children of God 168–84
British Islamic women asserting all or nothing/us them 178
positions on-line 203–19 format and illustrations 174–7
assertive language 209–13 gender 180–2
computer mediated conversations ‘the girl who wouldn’t’ letter 171–2
206–7 history 169–71
conveying Islamic identities 208–9 minimization of self and eros/agape
data and methodology 207 179–80
mixed versus single-sex exchange minimum and maximum 177–8
213–16 orality and conversation 172–4
on-line Islamic groups 205–6 particular to general 179
women as agents of knowledge choice 203
216–19 Christ, P.C. 27, 31, 35
Britto, F. 4, 25–36 Christianity 1–2, 3, 4, 10, 11,
broadcast language 73–4 12–14, 169
Bruner, E. 77 God and gender, overview of 10, 14
Bucholtz, M. 203 language use and silence as
Buckley, G.A. 28 morality: Evangelical theology
Buddha 17 college 151, 152, 163, 164
Buddhism 1, 3, 4, 18–19, 106 Saudi Arabian English newspaper:
God and gender, overview of 9, letters to the editor 104,
10, 11 105, 106
Taiwan 87–8, 89, 90, 91, 92–4, sexuality in ex-gay ministry
95–6, 97–8, 99 187–9, 190, 196, 200
Bullock, K. 204 Taiwan 87, 88, 89–90, 91, 92–3,
Burkent, W. 20, 21 94, 95, 97, 98, 99
Burstall, C. 241, 247 see also Judeo-Christian feminist
Busse, C. 153, 158, 163 debates
272 Index
Christle, D. 81 data and methodology 137–9

Chung, S.Y. 68 gender and religion 134–6
Clark, B. 32 male/female overall participation
Clark, E. 135, 263 139–40
Clark, H. 263 male/female participation in
Clatterbaugh, K. 163 conflict as marker of
closures 208 empowerment 141–7
clothing 224 male/female participation within
Cohen, D. 5, 240–54 core group 140–1
collaborative language 216
Collier, S. 5, 221–37 Daly, C.B. 27, 31
Collins, M. 27 Daly, N. 81
Collins, S. 26 Daraqutni, Imam 118–19
colonialism 225, 231 Daugherty, S. 81
Comiskey, A. 191–3 Davies, B. 236
communities of practice 187–9, de Oliveria, J. 67
223, 227 defensiveness 75
compassion 126–7 Denmark 68, 69
Concerned Women for America 153 derogation 44, 48, 56, 57–8
conflict 136–7, 141–7 Derrida, J. 12
Confucianism 87, 91 Devi 15, 17
Congregation for Divine Worship and DiBennedetto, T. 133, 136
the Discipline of the Sacraments disaffiliation 209
in Rome 34–5 disagreement, strong 215
congregational prayer see women discourse styles 206–7
leading congregational prayer Dixon, J. 135
Connell, R. 157 doctrine of flirty fishing 170, 171,
Conservative community 242–3, 175, 178, 181
248 dominance 81
Content Analysis and Ethnography of double entendre words 75, 76
Speaking 227 Duncan, T. 69
conversation 172–4 Dweck, C.S. 241
Coontz, S. 153 dyslexia 117, 127–8
Cope, G. 13
Coprolalia: (compulsive cursing) east Asia 69
65–6, 67, 68, 69 Eckert, P. 188, 241
Corsaro, W.A. 136 Eder, D. 136
Corson, D. 153 education (literacy) 89–90, 105, 117,
Coser, R. 81 127–8
Cox, H. 81 Egypt 11, 22, 42, 44
Critical Discourse Analysis 227 Ancient 9, 19–23
cross-cultural comparisons 65–9 Eid, M. 43–4, 51
cult see Children of God Elaide, M. 71
culture-specific facts 114–16 Elliott, E.S. 241
cursing see American women: cursing Ellis, R. 241, 247
habits and religiosity Emanuel, G. 75
Cyber-Parish: on-line Episcopal empowerment 141–7
community 133–48 Emswiler, S.N. 26
conflict and power 136–7 Emswiler, T.N. 26
Index 273
English 43, 44, 45, 50, 51, 58, 67, Frank, A.W. 154, 155–6
68, 69 Frank, F. 26
Taiwan 91, 92, 95, 96 Frazier, N. 152
Enroth, R. 170 free-association research 75–6
Episcopal Church 4 French 51
see also Cyber-Parish: on-line fresh talk 155
Episcopal community Fussell, P. 80
equal rights 115, 116–18
equal value 115, 116–18, 121, 128–9 Gal, S. 240, 241
‘Ethnography of Communnication’ Galbraith, G. 75
101–3 Gallagher, S.K. 157, 162, 163
euphemisms 41, 71–2, 80 Gardner, R.C. 241, 247
Euripides 19, 20 generation discontinuities in English
Europe 26, 106 acquisition 232–5
evangelism see language use and generic masculines 263–4
silence as morality: Evangelical genitalia 66, 68, 78
theology college genre 110–11
exclamation marks 216 genteelism 80
Executive Yuan 88 Germany 33, 105–6
expletives 80–1 Gilchrist, M. 34
extraversion 72 Gilligan, C. 157
Giotto 13
Fairclough, N. 191, 227 Giovanni, V. 241, 242, 247
Falungong 97 God and gender, overview of in
family home, what to avoid in 108 religion 9–23
Family of Love see Children of God Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt
Farwaneh, S. 4, 41–61 19–23
Feinberg, T. 65–6 Buddhism 18–19
Feisal, King 105 Christianity 12–14
femininity 187, 201 Hinduism 15–18
feminism 153, 156 Islam/Muslims 14–15
second wave 203 Goffman, E. 154, 155
see also Judeo-Christian feminist Gold, V.R. 34
debates Goldenberg, N. 26, 31, 32, 33
feminist poststructuralism 221, Goldstein, T. 223
222–4 Gole 204
Ferguson, C.A. 43 Gombrich, E.H. 13
Ferreira, C.R. 30 Goodstein, L. 151
fighting words 77–8 Goodwin, C. 136
Filteau, J. 34 Goodwin, M.H. 136, 205, 209,
Finley, M. 32 212, 213
Fiorenza, E.S. 26, 27, 33 Gornick, V. 25
Fishman, S.B. 240, 242, 253 Graham, S. 4, 5, 133–48
Flexner, S. 70 Greece, Ancient 3, 9, 11, 19–23
Flores, A. 19 Greek 10
Focus on the Family 153 Greenberg, J. 54
Fog, R. 68 greetings 208
forms of address 51 Grenz, S. 152–3
Four Noble Truths 18 Grey, A. 74
274 Index
Grimshaw, A. 136 hermeneutics of suspicion 30

Grosser, G. 74 Herring, S. 133, 134, 136, 138–41,
Guillemette, N. 32 147, 206–7, 212
guilt 74–6 Herrmann, D. 72–3
Gumperz, J.J. 102 Hersh, K. 81
Hindi 258
Haddon, G.P. 26, 31, 33 Hinds, M. 54, 58
Hadith 55, 60 Hinduism 1, 3, 5, 34, 106
Haeri, N. 42 God and gender, overview of 9,
Hahn, K. 75 11–12, 15–18
Hakka 88, 90, 91, 92, 95 see also Hinduism and the Indian
Halkes, C. 31 woman
Hall, K. 133 Hinduism and the Indian woman
Hamilton, H. 138 257–68
Hancock, M. 153 asymmetry in lexical meaning
harassment 77–8 265–7
at work 81 generic masculines 263–4
Hargrave, A. 73, 74 selfhood 259–63
Harré, R. 137, 236 socio-cultural set-up 258–9
Hasan, K. 266 taboo expressions and gender terms
Heather 133 of abuse 264–5
Hebrew 10, 42, 54 Hitchcock, H.H. 34, 35
see also Hebrew language Hoffman, E. 230
acquisition in Jewish high Hole, J. 26
schools in North America Holland, D. 78–9
Hebrew language acquisition in Holmes, J. 81, 154, 189, 205, 223
Jewish high schools in North Holmes, L. 241
America 240–54 Homer 19
classroom goal structure, student’s homosexuality 78
academic efficacy and learning Hong Kong 65–6, 68–9
situation evaluation 243–4 Hooft, W.A.V. 12
language achievement and language Horus 11, 22
learning, effects of gender on Howard, J. 196
245–7 Hsue, C. 99
learning outcome 244 Huang, S. 90
participants 243 Huebner, T. 241, 247
procedure 244 Hughes, A.C. 34
religious affiliation and Hughes, G. 63
coeducation/segregation effects Hughes, S.E. 80–1
247–52 Hurcombe, L. 25
theoretical background 241–3 Hymes, D. 102, 111–12, 138, 227
Helen of Troy 19, 20
Heller, M. 230 I-kuan Tao 90
Hellinger, M. 46 icons 208, 216
Helmreich, R.L. 241 identity 3, 206, 208–9, 217
Henley, N. 79, 81 see also Senegalese women and
Hera 19, 21 identity
heritage 249–50 Imamah 118
hermaphrodites 122, 125 inclusive language 33–5
Index 275
incongruence 44, 46, 48, Jordan 42

49–50, 58–9 Jordanian Arabic 49
India 106 Judaism 1, 3, 10, 14, 106
see also Hinduism and the Indian see also Judeo-Christian feminist
woman debates
Indonesia 99, 114 Judeo-Christian feminist debates 4,
Industrial Revolution 221 25–36
informal language 209 feminist alternatives 32–3
Ingersoll, J. 157, 162 feminist involvement in Church
inheritance usurped 107 affairs 25–7
insults, gender-related 78–9 inclusive language 33–5
intensifier adverbs 214 male metaphors, feminist
International Commission on English objections to 30–2
in the Liturgy 34 male metaphors, traditionalist
interviews 92 defence of 29–30
Iran 48 maleness of the Judeo-Christian
Iraq 42 God 27–8
Irigaray, L. 169, 176, 180, Jule, A. 1–6, 151–65
181–2, 260 Julian of Norwich 28, 30
Isis 11, 21, 22 Jung, C. 20
Islam/Muslims 1–2, 4, 9, 10,
14–15, 26, 71, 88 Kaczor, C. 27, 29–30
in Britain 5 Kalki 17
Muridiyya 222 Kamaljkhani, Z. 204
Saudi Arabian English newspaper: Kanfer, S. 34
women’s letters to the editor Kannada 258
103–4, 105, 106, 114, 116, karma 259
122, 124 Kaufman, I. 30
Taiwan 91, 99 Kelly, C. 30
see also British Islamic women Kelson, J. 77
asserting positions on-line; Kent, S.A. 182
Qu’ran; Senegalese women and Kerswill, P. 236
identity through Islamic Khokle, V.S. 262
practice King, K. 69
Italian 51 King, U. 17, 182
kinship terms 45
Jackson, M. 225 Kjesbo, D.M. 152–3
Jainism 106 Klee, C. 241
Japan 28, 65–7, 69 Kniffka, H. 4, 5, 101–31
Jaworski, A. 157 knowledge, women as agents of
Jay, T.B. 4, 63–82 216–19
Jensen, J. 35 Kobliner, H. 244
Jerome 31 Kouritzin, S. 235, 236
Jews 5 Koven 236
see also Hebrew; Judaism Kramarae, C. 26, 154
Johnson, D. 133, 136 Kutakoff, L. 77
Johnson, E. 10, 11, 12, 28, 29, 31,
33, 35 laboratory studies 74
joke telling 77, 81 Labov, W. 91
276 Index
Lacan, J. 156 Loving Jesus Revolution 180

LaCugna, C.M. 27, 30, 31 Lynch, A. 241
Laczek, W. 74
Lakoff, R. 26, 41, 56 Maalej, Z. 57
Lambert, W.E. 241, 247 McConnell-Ginet, S. 188, 241
Langton, R. 183 McCormick, R.A. 32
language, strong 213, 216 McFague, S. 13
language use and silence as morality: McGroaty, M. 230
Evangelical theology college MacIntyre, P.D. 241
151–65 McKay, S. 230, 236
classes 159–61 McLaughlin, E. 30
lecturing as power 156–7 McWilliams, E.M. 138
lecturing as teaching method Maehr, M.L. 241
153–6 Mahabharata 18
morality as gendered 157–8 Mahmood, S. 204
study 152–3 Mahony, P. 153
theology college 158–9 Malayalam 258
Lansborough, M. 91 male metaphors:
latah 69 feminist objections 30–2
Latin 10 traditionalist defence 29–30
Latin America 69, 158 male/female representation see
Lave, J. 189 asymmetries of male/female
Lawless, E. 134, 135 representation
laxity 73 Malik, Imam 119, 125
learning restrictions 69–72 Mandalam, S.S. 12
Lectionary of the Mass 34 Mandarin 88, 90, 92, 95, 96, 99
lecturing 153–7 Manisha 17
Lee, P. 68, 133 Mankowski, P. 27, 34
Lees, A. 65–6, 67, 68 marginalization 56
Leggett, E.L. 241 Maria 169
Legman, G. 70 Marlowe, M.D. 34
Leiberman, H. 75 Martell, K. 81
Leonard, W. 77 Martin, F. 26
lesbian relationships see Children Martin, J.H. 27
of God Martin-Jones, M. 230
Levi-Strauss, C. 19 Martines, L. 27
Levin, J. 77 Martyna, W. 31
Levine, E. 26 masculine:
lexemes 44 form before the feminine 41
lexical asymmetries 41, 265–7 generic 263–4
Liang, A.C. 203 pronoun 41
Liao, C. 4, 5, 87–99 masculinity 187, 198–9, 200, 201
liberality 73 mastery 249
Lieh-Mak, F.L. 66, 68 media stereotypes 79
linguistic: medicines while fasting 109
resistance 235–6 Mendoza-Denton, N. 205,
space 161–2, 163 209, 213
Lissner, A. 28, 33 Menelaus 19
Long, R. 72–3 Mercy 170
Index 277
message: obituaries 43–4

content 110, 121, 124 objectification 57
form 110–11, 121, 124 O’Brien, E. 28
long 207 obscenities 64–5, 66, 67, 71, 73, 81
metacommunicative comment 123 occupation 82
metaphors 13, 122 Oddie, W. 29
see also male metaphors O’Faolain, J. 27
Metz, J.B. 31 offended group 73
Meyerhoff, M. 189, 205, 223, 241 offendedness 72–3
Middle East 66 offensiveness 66, 72–3
Middleton, M.J. 242, 247 on-line religion see British Islamic
Midgley, C. 242, 244, 247 women asserting positions
Millet, K. 25 on-line; Cyber-Parish: on-line
Milner, J. 75–6 Episcopal community
Missal 34 oppositional orientations 207, 215
Mitchell, C. 77 orality 172–4
Moloney, G. 35 Orellana, M.F. 205
Mooney, A. 4, 5, 79, 168–84 Orientalism 204
morality as gendered 157–8 Oriya 258, 263, 264–5, 266–7
Moran, B.K. 25 Orthodox Christians 25, 242–3, 248,
Mormons 71 252, 253–4
morphological: Ostling, R.N. 30
features 59–60 others doing wrong 108
gender 44–6 overt disagreement 209
Morrow, N. 235 Oxford, R. 241, 247
Morton, N. 26
Moses, T. 75–6 Paglia, C. 151, 164
Mosher Forced-Choice Guilt Scale 75 Pajares, F. 241, 242, 247
motivations 96–8 Pakistan 114
Mourides 225 Pakkenberg, B. 68
Muhammad, Prophet 55 Pakkenberg, H. 68
Murad, A.H. 10, 11, 14 Palestine 50
Mutch, B.H. 152, 153, 157–8 Panyametheekul, S. 206–7, 212
paradigmatic asymmetries 41
name avoidance 43, 46 paralellisms: superficial 52–3
neuroticism 72 parallelisms 123
Newman, B.M. 34 superficial 52–3
Newton, J. 81 Parashurama 17
Nicholls, J.G. 241 Paris (Prince) 19
Nirvana 19 parochial school 74
Nolen, S.B. 242, 247 partial repeats 212
Nomura, Y. 66–7 participant observation 92
non-anatomical group 73 participation:
Nora, L.M. 81 patterns 206
North America see Hebrew language rates 139–41
acquisition in Jewish high schools Parvati 11
in North America Pauwels, A. 41, 44
Norton Pierce, B. 223 Pavlenko, A. 236, 240, 241
Nyikos, M. 241, 247 Payne, L. 193, 195
278 Index
Pederson, V. 75 Qu’ran (Koran) 2, 70, 99, 122

Peebles, A. 5, 187–201 asymmetries of male/female
pejoration 57 representation in Arabic 55,
Pennycook, A. 230–1 59, 60
performance approach 250–2 God and gender, overview of 10,
permissive respondents 73 14, 15
Persian 43 Saudi Arabian English newspaper:
personal names 46–50 women’s letters to the editor
personality, religious 72–4 105, 119, 122, 125, 128
Philippines 106
Phillips, S. 136 racial/ethnic prejudice 106
Phoenician 54 Ramayana 18
Piller, I. 240, 241 Raming, I. 13
Pius XII, Pope 32 Rampton, B. 231
Plaskow, J. 27, 31, 35 Ranke-Heinemann, U. 27, 31
Politzer, R. 241, 247 Raschke, C. 12
Ponticelli, C. 195–6 Raudvere, C. 204
pornographic illustrations 175–6 receiver 110, 111–13
Portugese 44 referential terms 52–9, 60
poststructuralist approach 240–1 avoidance, positive and negative
see also feminist postructuralism 53–6
power 80, 81, 82, 136–7, 223–4, incongruence 58–9
230, 235 semantic shifts 56–8
Children of God 171–2, superficial parallelism 52–3
174–5, 182 Reform community 242–3, 248
and lecturing 156–7 Regeur, L. 68
see also power and taboo language religion 66, 73
power and taboo language 76–81 religious:
harassment and fighting words freedom 223–4
77–8 names 47
insults, gender-related 78–9 police 104
joke telling 77 protectors 73
jokes and harassment at work 81 studies 236
media stereotypes 79 repression 74–6
sexual terminology 77 research, free-association 75–6
working-class women 80–1 resistance 225
Presbyterianism 91 responsivity 75–6
Preston, K. 78 Revised Standard Version of the
Priestly, T.M.S. 263 Bible 34
profanities 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 80, ‘Revival, The’ website 207
81, 82 Revolutionary Women 181
Protestantism 91, 151, 152, 164, 221 rhetorical:
psychology 189–93 comment 123
public sphere 204 language 207
publicity 73 questions 212, 215
Richard, D. 77
Qadiriyya 225 Richardson, H. 135
questionnaire analysis 92–5 rights and privileges 128–9
questions 212, 215 see also equal rights
Index 279
Risch, B. 78 sender 110, 111–13

Rizzo, T.A. 136 Senegalese women and identity
Robertson, M. 66 through Islamic practice
Robinson, J.L. 241 5, 221–37
Robinson, W. 77 community of practice 227
roles 206 English, minimal use of 228–30
Romaine, S. 43, 44, 56, 58 feminist poststructuralism: power,
Rome, Ancient 3, 9, 11, 19–23 agency and religious freedom
Ruether, R.R. 27, 31 223–4
Ruth, S. 26, 27, 31 generation discontinuities in
English acquisition 232–5
saalah 118–19, 125 linguistic resistance 235–6
Sabalaskey, B. 34 methodology 225–7
Sadker, D. 153, 154, 242, 253 religion and tradition, intersection
Sadker, M. 152, 153, 154, 242, 253 of 230–2
Sahih: sensitivity 78
Bukhari 55 sensitization 75
Muslim 55 Serapis (Osiris) 11, 22
Sahoo, K. 263, 267 sex, right to 172
Said, E. 56–7 sexual:
samsara 19 anxiety 63, 74–6, 82
Sanders, J. 77 graffiti 77
Sanskrit 88 looseness 78
Santini, S. 28 terminology 77
Sarah, E. 154 sexuality 73, 78
Saudi Arabian English newspaper: see also sexuality in ex-gay ministry
letters to the editor 4, 5, 101–31 sexuality in ex-gay ministry 187–201
corpus 107–10 community of practice 187–9
‘Ethnography of Communnication’ discourse 193–6
101–3 theology and psychology 189–93
socio-cultural setting in 1980s and transforming linguistic practice of
1990s 103–6 gender 196–200
see also socio-linguistic analysis Shabadi, K. 5, 257–68
Schill, T. 75 Shakti 16–17
Schillebeeckx, E. 31 Shapiro, A. 65–6
Schneider, L. 75 Shapiro, E. 65–6
Schneiders, S. 34 Shariah code of justice 104
Schroeder, M. 133 Shariah court judge see women
seaminess 73 leading congregational prayer or
Second Language Acquisition 236 being Shariah court judge
second marriages 108 Sheshar-Aton 242
Segawa, M. 66–7 shifts, semantic 44, 46, 48, 56–8
self-empowering identity 217 Shiites 48
self-identity 208–9 Shiue, C. 241
selfhood 259–63 Shiva, Lord 11, 16–17
semantic/semantics 45 Siegel, M. 225
derogation 41 Skelton, C. 164
features 59–60 Skinner, D. 78–9
shift 44, 46, 48, 56–8 Smith, C.R. 34
280 Index
Smith, P.M. 26 Taiwan 5, 87–99

social appropriateness 206 education and religion 89–90
social class 63, 80–1, 82 interview and participant
socially offensive words 66 observation 92
socio-cultural set-up 103–6, 258–9 languages and religions 90–1
sociolinguistic analysis 110–30 languages used in places of worship
culture-specific facts 114–16 95–6
equal rights or equal value for motivations 96–8
women 116–18 questionnaire analysis 92–5
‘message form’ and ‘genre’ 110–11 Talbot, M. 57
‘sender’, ‘addressor’, ‘receiver’, Tannen, D. 98, 136, 141, 223
‘addressee’ and ‘audience’ Tantric tradition 12, 15
111–13 Taoism 87–8, 89, 91, 92–5, 96–8
see also women leading I-Kuan 88
congregational prayer or being Tekcan, M. 3–4, 9–23
Shariah court judge terms:
Sole, Y. 241 of abuse, gender 264–5
Spain 67–8, 69 of address 50–2, 215
Spanish 51 of reference 53, 54
Spence, J.T. 241 Terry, R. 77
Spender, D. 26, 31, 154 Tertullian 31
Spolsky, B. 236, 241, 242, 247 textpragmatic argument behaviour
Stackhouse, J.G. 152 121, 124, 125, 127
Stanley, K. 78 Thailand 99
Stanton, E.C. 26 theology 189–93
Starhawk 26, 33 Thornborrow, J. 153
status 82 Tijaniyya 224
Steichen, D. 30 titles 50–2
stereotypes 57, 199–200 Tiwanak, G. 81
media 79 touchiness 112–13
Stone, M. 26 Tourette Syndrome 65–6, 67,
Stubbe, M. 81 68, 69
Sufi 14–15 tradition 230–2
Islam 224, 225 Trautman, D.W. 32, 34
Sulla, L.C. 11 Treichler, P. 154
Sullivan, G. 81 Trimble, M. 66
Sunderland, J. 153 Tripitaka 19
Sunnah 208 Turkey 204
Sunnis 105 Tzu Chi 89, 90
Sura 14
Sutton, L. 203 ulema 105
Swigart, L. 235 United States 4, 5, 26, 106, 207
Swindler, A. 26 language use and silence as
Switzerland 33 morality: Evangelical theology
symmetry 53 college 151, 152, 158
Senegalese women working in 5
taboo language 47, 63, 74, 264–5 Upanishads 18
see also power and taboo language Urda, J.A. 34
Tabouret-Keller, A. 236 Ushijima, K.C. 71
Index 281
Vamana 17 woman’s appearance and dress 109

van Langenhove, L. 137 women centre 258
Vasquez, A. 27 women leading congregational prayer
Vatican 34 or being Shariah court judge
Veado, C. 67 118–30
Vedas 17–18 compassion 126–7
Vedic 15 education 127–8
veiling 208 equal in value 121, 128–9
vertical inclusive language 34 message content 121, 124
Vietnam 99 message form 121, 124
Vishnu 17 metacommunicative comment
visual cues 172 123
voice 203 metaphors 122
parallelisms 123
Wachowiak, D. 75 Qu’ran (Koran) 122
Wahhabites 103 rhetorical comment 123
Walker, B.G. 26, 33 rights and privileges, differences in
Walker, D. 81 128–9
Walkerdine, V. 153 textpragmatic argument behaviour
Wallis, R. 181 121, 124, 125, 127
Walsh, A. 74 women society 258
Walsh, R. 77 Wong, F. 230, 235, 236
Wang, C. 88 word-association test 75
Wangerin, R. 169, 174 working-class women 63, 80–1
Weedon, C. 223, 224 workplace harassment 81
Wells, J. 77
Wenger, E. 189, 228–9 Yassin, M.A.F. 50
Werbner, P. 204 Yisikakafute, Y. 91
Williams, M. 170, 181 Young 65–6
Wilson, L. 19
Wisnesky, R. 34 Zentella, A.C. 241
Wober, J. 73 Zeus 21
Wolof nationalism 225 Zheng-yen, S. 89

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Gender and the Language

GENDER, PARTICIPATION AND SILENCE IN THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM:

Notes on Contributors vii

Introduction: The Meeting of Gender, Language and Religion 1

Part I Gender, Language Patterns and

1 An Overview of God and Gender in Religion 9

2 The Gender of God: Judeo-Christian Feminist Debates 25

3 Asymmetries of Male/Female Representation in Arabic 41

4 American Women: Their Cursing Habits and Religiosity 63

Part II Gender and Language Use in Religious

5 Women and Men: Languages and Religion in Taiwan 87

6 Women’s Letters to the Editor: Talking Religion in a

7 A Cyber-Parish: Gendered Identity Construction in an

8 Language Use and Silence as Morality: Teaching and

9 The Children of God Who Wouldn’t, but Had To 168

Part III Gender and Language Use in

10 ‘Restoring the Broken Image’: The Language of

11 ‘Assalam u Alaikum. Brother I have a Right to My

12 ‘Inshallah, today there will be work’: Senegalese

13 Gender, Hebrew Language Acquisition and Religious

14 Speaking Our Gendered Selves: Hinduism and the

NANCY BERKOWITZ, PhD, is an independent consultant in research,

FAZILA BHIMJI, PhD, is Lecturer in Humanities at the University of

FRANCIS BRITTO, PhD, is Professor of Linguistics at Sophia University in

DEBRA COHEN is a doctoral candidate at the Hebrew University,

SHARTRIYA COLLIER is a doctoral candidate in Language Education at

SAMIRA FARWANEH, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and

SAGE GRAHAM, PhD, is Assistant Professor of English and Linguistics at

TIMOTHY JAY, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Massachusetts College of

ALLYSON JULE, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of

HANNES KNIFFKA, DPhil, is Professor of General and Applied Linguistics at

CHOA-CHIH LIAO, PhD, is Associate Professor of English and Linguistics at

MIRIAM MEYERHOFF, PhD, is Reader in Theoretical and Applied

ANNABELLE MOONEY, PhD, is a Research Associate at Cardiff University in

AMY PEEBLES, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Truman State

KALYANI SHABADI, PhD, is a Researcher at the Resource Centre for Indian

MÜNEVVER TEKCAN, PhD, is Assistant Professor in Turkology at Kocaeli

The contributors in this collection are to be recognized for their massive

Most people in the world today claim to be the follower of an organized

the more experimental paradigm of social psychology some provide

Understanding the role of religions in the world is not at all a matter of

growing, shifting awareness of femininity and masculinity. Issues such as

Why the connection

Religious people themselves have a varied reputation. For some,

Gender, language patterns and religious thought

The four chapters in Part I introduce the reader to some foundational

suggesting that the various interpretations of ‘God’ have been influenced

Gender and language use in religious communities

All the chapters in Part II seem to agree that, regardless of the

Gender and language use in religious identity

Part III is a collection of chapters, each exploring the role of religion in

Religions share the ideas of icons, symbols, sacrifice, behaviour, attitudes

general agreement among the contributors of this volume that gender,

There are many different languages and ways to communicate and,

domain, there are five possible concepts of gender for a godhead:

1. ‘God’ has no gender

To Buddhists, the gender or even the existence of God is not as important

connected with letters and language. Within the Tantric tradition,

Christianity has been using patriarchal language for centuries. On the