Pronoun Envy: Literary Uses of Linguistic Gender

by Anna Livia

Controversy over gendered pronouns, for example using the generic "he," has been a staple of feminist arguments about patriarchal language over the last 30 years, and is certainly the most contested political issue in Western feminist linguistics. Most accounts do not extend beyond policy issues like the official institution of non-sexist language. In this volume, Anna Livia reveals continuities both before and after the sexist language refore movement and shows how the creative practices of pronoun use on the part of feminist writers had both aesthetic and political ends. Livia uses the term "pronoun envy" ironically to show that rather being a case of misguided envy, battles over gendered language are central to feminist concerns.

Livia examines a broad corpus of written texts in English and French, concentrating on those texts which problematize the traditional functioning of the linguistic gender system. They range from novels and prose poems to film scripts and personal testimonies, and in time from the 19th century to the present. Some withhold any indication of gender; others have non-gendered characters. Livia's goal is two-fold; to help bridge the divide between linguistic and literary analysis, and to show how careful study of the manipulation of linguistic gender in these texts informs larger concerns. This fresh and highly interdisciplinary work lies at the intersection of several vital areas, including language and gender, sociolinguistics, and feminist literary analysis.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Gender, Queer

248 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

Anna Livia was a lesbian feminist writer and linguistic theorist. Born in Ireland, she grew up in London, England and Swaziland. As a professor, she taught at the University of Illinois and the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

[Cameron Coombe · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thorough and attentive account of alternative approaches to pronoun usage and linguistic gender in French and English. The book was reasonably accessible, but without any formal linguistic training I found it helpful to have Wikipedia and Google handy. Livia explores strategies used by different authors, such as pronoun avoidance; consistent use of feminine nouns, verbs, and adjectives (French); the use of non-gendered pronouns (*on* in French, neologisms in English); and "transsexual" and "hemaphrodite" people or characters alternating between masculine and feminine pronouns. She demonstrates both the (unintended) effects and limits of these various strategies. This is the key strength of the book, applying expert linguistic analysis to content that would typically only be treated through feminist, queer, or literary approaches (all of which Livia also employs, to varying extents).

Unfortunately, Anna Livia passed away in 2007. I would love to have seen a second edition of this book, with updated language and less conflation of sex and gender--more focus on people's and character's identity than what might or might not be in their pants--and some engagement with more recent examples that were not available to Livia at the time of writing. In any case, the book will remain a classic in providing an important history of pronoun (and linguistic gender) experimentation in French and English literature, anticipating those of our present time--from the widespread acceptance of epicene *they* in formal writing, to the increasing acceptance of neologistic pronouns among non-binary and genderdiverse people.