A Man's Language
Since the early 19th century, American history is laced with the oppression of women and their subsequent fight to reverse it. But was it always that way? Did, in ancient civilizations, women feel the same pang of inequality? Leonard Shlain, in his novel The Alphabet Versus The Goddess, suggests quite the opposite and attempts to explain in three simple words why a drastic change occurred: the written language. His thoughts seem to hover around the idea that the medium is the message, in other words, that the linear and logical makeup of language produces increased importance of the rational. Even when painting pictures with words, those images are still constrained within the framework of the structural written language. In the words of William Irwin Thompson, "Even a positive thing casts a shadow...its unique excellence is at the same time its tragic flaw." It may seem, at first glance, rather absurd to partially blame patriarchal society on the invent of the written language. Our language, after all, is pervasive in our daily lives and necessary to the function of women and men alike. Upon closer inspection, however, the negative effects of the written language are apparent. One way in which it is possible to see the
The foundation of Shlain's argument lies in the differences between the woman and man's way of experiencing the world. Women are more right-brain inclined and have greater integration between the right and left brain than men. Shlain writes, "The right brain, more than the left, expresses being - that complex meshing of competing emotions that constitutes our existential state at any given moment (19)." The right brain is more focused on emotional and relational levels than the logical left-brain. Therefore, the written language, which is left-brain focused, is a bit biased towards the judicious tendencies of men. As Shlain points out, the word "left" has several negative connotations in America including "left-out", and "left-overs". The right-brain understanding of the world is seen as superiour to the left. As a result, logic has essentially replaced intuition. In each human exists both a feminine and masculine "brain", but one is more predominant than the other. Shlain explains, "Any society can accentuate one or the other of these two ways of interacting with the world, depending on the demands of the environment or the shaping influences of its inventions (27)." To explain th
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Approximate Word count = 809
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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