Talking Difference : On Gender and Language (Gender and Psychology)

Rating:
Summary: Crawford's Reframing of Gender
Review: Crawford's reframing of gender makes this text her landmark feminist theory contribution to feminist gender studies. By regarding gender as "processes by which differences are created and power is allocated"(13), Crawford offers the critical tool for decentering the primacy of gender as a system of domination in society, culture, interactions, and individuals. She deploys this tremendously useful framework to analyze popular talk and academic discourse.

If you're looking for the antidote to "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" or Tannen's equally sexist "Talking from Nine to Five," analyses of "sexes" talking, this text will likely provide the cure. Mary Crawford's feminist psychological critique of the essentialism of "sex" differences teases open the "complex system of classification and social control operating at social structural, interactional, and individual levels,"(xi) for all to easily see and appreciate.

Her presentation is engaging, humorous, right on point, and reader-friendly for a wide audience. Strongly recommended for graduate scholars in gender studies, psychology, feminist studies, women's studies, communication studies, and socio-linguistics. (But also for Tannen and Gray ::winking subversively::).