Phallogocentrism
Phallogocentrism – also understood as gender asymmetry in language or the androcentrism of language – refers to the unequal representation in language of persons of different sexes, a phenomenon identified by feminist language criticism as well as by major postmodern theorists.
The term was introduced by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Phallogocentrism is a compound term: phallus denotes the symbolic principle of fertilizing power and a representative symbol of being; logos denotes universal order or law in materialist philosophy and the spiritual first principle or divine reason in idealist philosophy; centrism refers to a center or point of concentration.
The following features of linguistic androcentrism may be identified:
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The identification of the concepts human being and man. In many European languages, they are expressed by the same word: man in English, homme in French, and Mann in German.
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Feminine nouns are, as a rule, derived from masculine nouns rather than the other way around. They are often accompanied by negative evaluative connotations. The use of a masculine designation for a female referent is permissible and may raise her status. Conversely, the nomination of a man by means of a feminine designation carries a negative evaluation.
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Masculine nouns may be used in an unspecified way, that is, to denote persons of any sex. The mechanism of “inclusion” in the grammatical masculine operates here. Language prefers masculine forms to designate persons of any sex or groups of persons of different sexes. Thus, if both male and female teachers are meant, it is sufficient to say “teachers” in the masculine form. According to feminist language criticism, in a large number of cases women are therefore ignored by language altogether.
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Agreement at the syntactic level follows the grammatical gender of the relevant part of speech rather than the actual sex of the referent.
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Femininity and masculinity are sharply separated and opposed to one another, both qualitatively, in terms of positive and negative evaluation, and quantitatively, in terms of the dominance of the masculine as the universal human norm. This leads to the formation of gender asymmetries.
See also: Feminitives.
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