Girl Power in The Written Word
New series alert! Books. With my love of reading reignited via Audible, I have quickly dove back into books - and I am so excited to share and talk about them with y’all. Lets start with one that made me second guess a lot of my own language and speech patterns - Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back The English Language by Amanda Montell. Audible facts: this book is a 7 hour listen and comes with an accompanying PDF of relevant and funny doodles - love me a freebie.
I consider myself a feminist and a word nerd, in all honesty. I am very guilty of correcting grammar, harshly judging spelling errors and very careful with my word choices (especially in an argument). You can only imagine my reaction to learning that a lot of my language is not very feminist - which if you would’ve told me that before reading this, I would have fought you about it.
I originally heard about this book via TikTok, finding an interview with the author mid-swipe. In the clip, she explains how the word ‘penetration’ is from a male’s perspective, being that if it was from a woman’s, it would be something closer to ‘envelop’ etc. That immediately caught my attention, as I had never thought about it that way, but it made complete sense. It made me wonder what else was hiding right under my nose. I knew I had to read more to find out, Amanda was onto something. I don’t love finding out that I’m wrong per se, but I do love a good surprise, and that video made me think I had many more in store that I’d never even considered.
Amanda Montell is a feminist, a linguist and reporter. She is direct in her delivery and provides plenty of examples to ensure the message gets across - she is my hero. Clever too, look at these chapter titles:
Slutty Skank Hoes and Nasty Dykes: A Comprehensive List of Gendered Insults I Hate (But Also Kind of Love?)
“Mm-hmm, Girl, You’re Right”: How Women Talk to Each Other When Dudes Aren’t Around
Women Didn’t Ruin the English Language - They, Like, Invented It
How to Confuse a Catcaller (And Other Ways to Verbally Smash the Patriarchy)
Fuck It: An Ode to Cursing While Female
“Cackling” Clinton and “Sexy” Scarjo: The Struggle of Being a Woman in Public
Time to Make This Book Just a Little Bit Gayer
Cyclops, Panty Puppet, Bald-Headed Bastard (And 100+ Other Things to Call Your Genitals)
I didn’t even name them all, but they were just too good to leave out - I couldn’t narrow it down! This book broke down many facets of the english language and how without noticing, we are reinforcing a male-dominated language. From breaking down how the slang ‘y’all’ has been misguided and incorrectly ostracized to explaining where the infamous vocal fry (i.e. Kardashian Voice) came from and why its not so bad, this book is a laid back yet informative read that will really make you do a double take before speaking.
Did you know that bitch, before even referring to a female dog was a gender-neutral reference for genitalia? If a fact like that one blow your mind, this is the book for you. While our current language is primarily male-dominated, this book shows that history and our language has evolved immensely, and there’s no knowing where it’ll go next - but ladies, we have much more control than we think, that’s for damn sure.
