A close-reading of Deborah Cameron’s, ‘False Dichotomies: Grammar and Sexual Polarity’, in Feminism & Linguistic Theory 2nd Ed, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1992), p.83.
Cameron’s argument in False Dichotomies is a simple one: the attribution of gender is purely ‘relational’. The term ‘masculine’ couldn’t possibly exist without the term ‘feminine’, and thus the two co-exist. There are not independent ‘essences’ as she describes. I believe Cameron’s argument to be one saying that gender illustrates a difference rather than a hierarchy as other feminists argue. We will further explore Cameron’s argument further, with an attempt to try and understand her stance on the role of gender within language.
Cameron introduces us to a term called ‘metaphorical gender’ and she does so through the mention of Jack Rosenthal’s thought experiment in which ‘people were presented with the following pairs of words:
Knife/fork
Ford/Chevrolet
Salt/Pepper
Vanilla/chocolate.’
They were then asked to attribute a gender to each word in the pairs. Cameron narrates that without difficulty, there was almost a natural association of gender to each word in the pairs. ‘Knife, Ford, Pepper and Chocolate’ were masculine whilst the remaining words were classed as feminine.
We come to understand three significant points about the term ‘metaphorical gender’. Firstly, that there is no natural relationship between gender and words as objects/substances are un-gendered. Secondly, that there is no single, logical principle, which explains the classification of certain words to a gender. Here we can refer to the various reasons as to why particular words were associated with a particular gender. ‘Knife’ for example, was gendered masculine due to its associations with aggression. ‘Pepper’ and ‘chocolate’ were classed as masculine terms due to their strong flavours. Thus one can see there is no constant logic behind classifying words in terms of gender. And finally, that whilst the attribution of gender is relational, it remains dependent ‘on the contrast between two terms’. Instead of knife and fork as a contrast where fork was feminine, if fork were compared to spoon, the latter would be classed as feminine. It’s interesting that Cameron uses the word ‘metaphorical’ to describe this phenomenon. The word ‘metaphorical’ refers to something not literal, figurative – even artificial to a stretch. The title ‘false dichotomies’ also explicitly puts forth the idea that the dichotomy between masculine and feminine, is constructed, far from real or natural. This viewpoint is reiterated throughout her essay.
Cameron goes onto begin the next part of her argument in the passage by saying that:
In societies organised around sexual differentiation (which means all known societies) we are led to believe that masculine and feminine are simple categories of the natural world…
It’s interesting that she begins the sentence in such a way when all societies are organised around sexual differentiation. It gives off the impression that some societies are exempt from the belief that masculine and feminine are ‘simple categories of the natural world’. But this is indeed wrong, for no society dismisses sexual differentiation. Her use of the word ‘simple’ is highly ironic as ‘gender’ is far from a simple concept with various interpretations of the term. It remains a grey area as many dispute how it can be defined.
Even more intriguing is the simile she uses to liken the existence of masculine and feminine as simple categories in the world – ‘like plants and animals or lions and tigers’. Just as plants and animals have a very natural position in the world, and are not disputed to be constructs, the categorical terms masculine and feminine function in the same way. The latter part of her simile ‘or lions and tigers’ is also a very particular one, which serves an important function in the bigger picture of her essay. Naturally, many of us associate lions and tigers together, despite their many differences. We look to the fact that they come from the same family and thus, often the mention of one leads to mention of the other. Similarly, ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are two terms that are associated together, regardless of the countless differences between them. Cameron’s argument is that we’re made to believe that such terms sit so naturally within society, just like the natural association of lions and tigers.
For Cameron, gender isn’t a hierarchical entity. With focus on the given passage, gender only asserts a difference and this difference is ‘the only thing that is constant’. This idea pertaining to ‘difference’ is repeated throughout the passage. ‘Defined not by their essence, but by their difference’ perfectly sums up Cameron’s argument. The terms ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are not ‘unchangeable’ qualities – they are not set in stone. Cameron refers to feminists like Luce Irigaray, and agrees with Irigaray’s viewpoint that it is ‘totally reductive’ to define the feminine as the ‘not masculine’. Indeed they are different, but not opposites.
Cameron argues that ‘feminist theorists have argued that this (belief that masculine and feminine are natural terms) is a mistake; or less politely, a con’. The word ‘con’ allows us to draw some conclusions about this supposed ‘dichotomy’ between masculine and feminine. Firstly that we have been deceived: tricked into thinking that the terms have a natural position in the world when rather, they are constructs. And secondly, a subtler conclusion is that for so long, the terms have been believed to be natural, so the question arises, can we ever get rid of this notion? Can we ever accept them to be constructed and imposed terms? Can we see them as a cultural phenomenon as Simone De Beauvoir argues?
The core of Cameron’s argument is that sexism in language, this idea of a ‘hierarchy’, with positive masculine terms and negative feminine terms, has not been ‘built into our language itself’. Rather linguistics and sexist western thinkers have imposed this dichotomy between both genders. For Cameron, they remain unnatural terms.