Language is Man-made, not “Human Made”!

This is a very simple title, yet a major loophole that our society is facing for many decades. This is not about giving rights to a specific gender but the suppressions which a language creates in the backdrop of society and makes it a center of concern. Never thought language can create such discrimination against two genders.

In colloquial context we see that every day we speak our language and communicate flawlessly yet we never recognized the ocean of problem which a language brings every day.

Profoundly, the title itself gives us the best example as to how we use the word “Manmade”, linguistically whenever a thing is made by a human it is denoted as manmade. But the question here arrives is that why don’t we spell it as human-made?

There are many endless words where the wordings are based on one gender-biased, for say: countrymen, mankind, etc and mostly these words denote men and women were often neglected or ignored since the formation of words.

“Language has always been a media through which many cultures and communities bounded and created a sense of harmony with each other”.

Whereas we can notice that Gender Discrimination has always been a core of fear since civilization. It has become one of the cliché topics when it comes to feminism and cause of this people are ignorant as they assume that the world is changed and there is no more discrimination in today’s society.

Taking back to the advent of the problem we can observe that many writers, critics have battled to always protect the women community as they are always considered the “weaker section of the society”. We can’t deny this fact but, inevitably, they are still subjected when it comes to literature and language.

  1. How Women are Neglected by Language  as Language reflects Patriarchal world:

She says, “Women can either read and choose to stay trapped in their bodies by a language that does not allow them to express themselves, or they can use the body as a way to communicate.”

Helene Cixous (in; “The Laugh of Medusa” )

This very quote is taken from the famous article written by a critic, writer, and feminist; Helene Cixous who has explained how a woman had gone through repression in history and how literature and language had given an upper hand to the men in society to suppress women.

In “The Laugh of Medusa”, she explains how women should find their voice and the Language is the symbol of how a person portrays themselves. “Writing is for you, you are for you, your body’s yours, take it”. This line highlights that it’s high time that women should raise their head and minds and be themselves by being flawlessly independent and break the walls which portray women as fragile and frail.

The author claims that there is a very close relationship between women’s bodies and their writings and both have been repressed by men for centuries. Literature, in particular, explains to us how women as a writer were hard for the audience to accept them due to cultural prejudices laid against them since ages.

Writers like Virginia Woolf show us the patriarchal world through one of her works namely “Room of one’s own” through the lens of all the women present in the world and the problems they go through.

“A Woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction”. This quote is quite relatable for the women of contemporary society, but this was a major issue which women of the 18th and 19th centuries were facing, to be independent they always needed acceptance to flourish in their fields and for that, they always needed acceptance which was a great hurdle in their lives. For their personal growth, they were bounded to be under 4 walls and do all sorts of wifely duties which gave the society that women are doing dutiful jibs under their husbands present.

But unfortunately, those women were never accepted who was unique and out of the box because society was not people’s perspective, rather it was the male perspective.

Even in “Room of one’s own”, Woolf mentions Judith Shakespeare ( was considered as Shakespeare’s real sister), her character portrays us the devastation a woman goes through while struggling for getting justice.

It also portrays us that many decades of literature didn’t accept women’s works as they were not considered as talented and rather, they were judged based on patriarchal society.

  •  Females were Disowned yet contributed best Literature:

As when we look into 18th century British literature, we can see that several female writers have given an immeasurable piece of works which is still remarkable to date.

It would be a disgrace if we forget to mention  Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Virginia Woolf, who were the pillars of 18th-century literature. Whether it is a broody romantic novel of wuthering heights or it is jane Eyre, every writer has spilled their hearts and provided the real situation of women in the era.

Some great writers are unforgettable like J.K Rowling who made us believe in fantasy and made childhood more fascinating by giving us Harry Potter which always provides us nostalgia going back to those days.

Unfortunately, these writers have always struggled to prove their identity to the world, that these immense writers like J.K.Rowling, Emily Bronte, had to change their names to get worldwide recognition. Even in the postmodern age, the situation didn’t change and the process of women hiding their originality, their names was like a custom they followed for ages.

But these female writers never let their readers down and always provided the best piece of art even having so many hurdles in their life.

It’s a long way to go, but still, the situation is better as women are gaining recognition and fame in society, the world, and literature through their masterpieces of works.