Lakoff : women :: Herring : the internets

Lakoff 1975 was the first big work on women's/gendered language, and is still often cited despite some serious flaws, lack of connection to current context, and lack of any meaningful content.

Her generalizations may have been true at the time, but certainly aren't now, and were only correlated with rather than caused by gender even at the time, although that point isn't really stressed.... The vast majority of Lakoff's signals arose simply because of her time period: women were powerless and/or had little to use their attention or brains on but "vapid" topics (which itself buys into a sexist trope when positioned as such). She also focuses entirely on upper-class white women, although clearly "women's" language was much broader even in the early 1970s. Yet Lakoff is still cited and recommended....

My favorite parts of her "womanly" language: Women tend to...

1. Lack a sense of humor/be poor at telling jokes
2. Use empty adjectives (e.g., "charming" and "adorable")
3. Use specialized vocabulary for things like colors
   
4. Speak in italics (e.g., "sooooo" and "verrrry")
   
5. Use direct quotations (e.g., "Hannah said that he said ...")
6. Invoke question intonation in declarative contexts
   

And they say things like:

1. Oh fudge, I've put the peanut butter in the fridge again!
2. Isn't that absolutely diviiiine?
3. Dinner will be ready... around 6 o'clock?
   
4. I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't please close the door?

Even if these factors were actually intrinsic to how "women" speak, Robin Lakoff phrases them in very anti-feminist ways (women are poor at telling jokes?). And then she actively argues women are "deficient" in their linguistic behavior as compared to men.

I flail at the memories.

And it reminds me all too much of how academics (especially linguists) and the media portray The Internets for their audiences. Oh, academia, why do you cause me this pain? Just because someone was "first" in a subject area doesn't make their work relevant or insightful -- usually it means their work is simply cited often, whenever other people have (un)interesting insights and need to cite someone to get taken seriously. Yes, this means you, Herring.