Telling Women's Lives

Unfinished Business Reader Response

One issue in the book, Unfinished Business that came up in the eighth chapter, “Change the Way You Talk” that is subtle but significant is how the small, structural cues of our language can have large implications on how women and men are viewed. For example, before reading this book, I thought Miss and Ms. were the same but spelled differently. I never even thought about how the way women are addressed—”Mrs.” vs. “Miss”—solely depends on whether or not she is married, whereas men are just called “Mr.” either way. Now, from reading the book, I know that “Ms.” and “Miss” have an important distinction because “Ms.” addresses a woman as herself, not in relation to her marital status. As Slaughter points out, this difference may seem trivial, but it has an impact, on how we interact with people of different genders.

Slaughter also talks about her law professors who deliberately changed gender messages by using the pronoun “she” when mentioning a judge, doctor, or engineer. This year, I have also noticed my professors switching off between “he” and “she” when talking about examples. My philosophy professor last semester switched off between “she” and “he” both in examples of general people or in examples of philosophers. It felt weird to hear a philosopher described as “she” because all of the philosophers we studied (except for one) were male. Similarly, my art history class last semester, which covered Western Art from the Stone Age to the rise of Abstract Expressionism in the U.S., mentioned a total 2-3 female artists (I know there were more than that! We didn’t even cover the big ones like Georgia O’Keefe or Frida Kahlo). Switching off between “he” and “she” when talking about hypothetical examples of professionals is a step in the right direction, but I think professors do need to work on covering more actual real-life women from their field in class so that women have more than hypothetical female artists and philosophers to look up to.