As I stated in the Introduction, it is difficult to analyse sexism in the way that Second Wave feminists did in the past, because of changes in gender relations and in sexism itself. However, it is nevertheless important to be able to describe the forms that overt sexism takes, since it is clear that sexism does make an impact on the lives of women and men. There have been changes in the way that people use language in the public sphere so that sexist language and other discriminatory forms of language are no longer tolerated, or at least are less tolerated than they were.1 However, it seems as if it is no longer possible to agree on what constitutes overt sexism, even when it is clear to the hearer/reader that sexism was intended. Pauwels (1998: 67) notes: The alleged existence of a male bias in language use and its discriminatory and detrimental effect on women as language users are not (at all) unanimously acknowledged or accepted by the speech community at large. Whilst people still use language to be sexist, they perhaps do not always do so using the terms which have been used in the past and they may use these terms ironically or humorously to deflect the responsibility for sexism (see Chapter 5). Most models of sexism in the past have assumed that sexism is intentional; as Zwicky (1997: 25) argues: ‘By their choice of words, people are actively negotiating conceptualisations as personal and political acts.’ It is essential to maintain a balance between recognising the institutional nature of sexism and recognising that individuals can intervene in the way that sexism develops. If we characterise language as ‘a sort of triffid: an organic growth that develops a life and will of its own’, then it will not be possible to describe the human agents at work in perpetuating sexist ideas, and sexist elements within the language will be seen as unchallengeable by human intervention (Cameron, 1990: 18). If however sexist language is viewed as the result of human intervention in negotiation with discursive norms, it may be possible to bring about change. Sexism is still a form of language use which affects conversations, one’s views of other people and one’s own place within society. However, we need to ask ourselves what is it we are claiming about the force of sexist language and what actions feminists are proposing to counter sexism. As Butler asks: When we claim to have been injured by language, what kind of claim do we make? We ascribe an agency to language, a power to injure, and position ourselves as the objects of its injurious trajectory. We claim that language acts and acts against us and the claim we make is a further instance of language, one which seeks to arrest the force of the prior instance. Thus we exercise the force of language even as we seek to counter its force, caught up in a bind that no act of censorship can undo. (Butler, 1997: 1) However, surely it needs to be understood that when we make accusations of sexism we are not simply claiming to be ‘injured by language’. What we are injured by is a system which seems to condone such discrimination, and viewing this particular instance of sexism as indicative of wider social discrimination. Butler seems here to be arguing that any attempt to challenge sexism is simply ‘a further instance of language’ which will not change the way that language is used or the way people behave. And yet, feminist campaigns about language have done more than ‘arrest the force of the prior instance’; they have, in fact, challenged the conventionalised thinking which informs such utterances and those discursive structures within society which condone sexist statements. Feminist interventions call not only for a change of usage but also they call for critical thinking about gender relations, and as such they should be seen as more than an attempt to ban certain usages. Thus, I would disagree with Butler that we are simply caught up in language if we attempt to call for reform or change of usage; our interventions are calling for more than language change. In the introduction, I mentioned Sunderland’s (2004) notion of ‘damaging discourses’. Rather than assuming that individual language items injure an individual, she focuses on the effect of discourses which are potentially damaging both to the individual and to the group who are being maligned. However, she stresses that ‘even if a word is agreed to be sexist in a particular context – for example a derogatory term intended to be abusive by a speaker and taken as abusive by a hearer – “damage” may not be a result’ (Sunderland, 2004: 192). Instead, she insists that we consider the way that the individual abusive term must be seen in the context of the discourses within the society as a whole which either affirm or contest sexism: ‘any potential “damage” from a given gendered discourse within the nexus must be seen in the light of these discoursal relations’ (Sunderland, 2004: 194). So damage cannot accrue from one usage but will only happen in the light of the combined effect of links between discourses and the position of institutions in relation to those discourses. Sexist statements categorise you as belonging to a group which you do not associate yourself with or associate you with a set of values which you do not value and which you recognise as negatively evaluated, for example when an insult term such as ‘slag’ is used about you which positions you in a role which you do not recognise. Butler (1997: 4) argues: To be injured by speech is to suffer a loss of context, that is, not to know where you are. Indeed, it may be that what is unanticipated about the injurious speech act is what constitutes its injury, the sense of putting its addressee out of control. This sense of sexism or racism ‘putting [you] out of control’ is important as you are not defining yourself but being defined. However, it is clear that, although the unexpectedness of sexist comments is crucial (for example, one does not expect sexual comments in the workplace), I would take issue with Butler that this means that the addressee ‘[does not] know where you are’. In a sense, this is precisely the problem, because you know exactly the position to which you are being relegated, but this position is not one that you recognise for yourself – you do not identify with this position. Butler argues that we are constituted in language and we rely upon interpellation (that is, the process whereby we are incessantly called upon by language to recognise ourselves as a particular type of person) in order to be an individual. Sexism and racism have an impact on us since we are ‘dependent on the address of the Other in order to be’ (Butler, 1997: 26).2 However, this view of interpellation, whereby we are called into existence by the address of the Other, in strict Althusserian terms, does not capture the complexity of our constitution as subjects and individuals. The role of discourse in the process of the constitution of the subject is not a simple one and what Althusser (1984) and Butler have not considered is the way that we are constituted by different discourses. Feminism, anti-racism, gay and lesbian campaigns and disability rights discourses have all played a role in the constitution of our identity and what we think is permissible to say. The discourses of sexism, racism and homophobia are all in conflict with these more progressive discourses. We negotiate with those discourses, challenging some and affirming others, but rarely simply taking discourses on board wholesale (Benwell and Stokoe, 2006). Intervention by activists to change language is productive social action. Sunderland (2004: 199) argues: ‘If gendered discourses can and do damage, the feminist project entails attempting to redress this. Feminism recognises the possibility of change and strives for it, including through explicit contestation of the existing social order through language’ (original emphasis). Thus, feminist anti-sexist interventions should not be seen as trivial tinkering with language, but as political action. In the 1970s and 1980s, it seemed very clear to many feminists what sexism was. Sexism was defined as language which discriminated against women by representing them negatively or which seemed to implicitly assume that activities primarily associated with women were necessarily trivial (VetterlingBraggin, 1981). The aim of feminists therefore was to call attention to the way in which the use of certain language items seemed to systematically discriminate against and cause offence to women, by compiling lists of such language items in dictionaries and calling for people and institutions to avoid such language use (Kramarae and Treichler, 1985; Doyle, 1994; Miller and Swift, 1982/1989; Mills, 1989; Mills, 1995b; Schultz, 1990; Graham, 1975/2006). That lexicographical work has been important in calling attention to overt sexist language, but perhaps it needs to be made more complex, so that overt sexism is seen as only one type of sexism, meaning that we need to analyse the other types of sexism which have arisen more recently in response to these feminist campaigns.

1 For example, in the UK, homophobic abuse is something which is treated much more seriously by the police than before, and some police forces (for example Greater Manchester Police Authority) have issued guidelines and protocols on how to deal with such language, which it labels clearly as ‘hate speech’. They have also clarified the police’s role in defending the victims of homophobic abuse. The UK government has tried to introduce legislation about racist abuse and has thus given an institutional basis for anyone complaining about racism. Racist abuse of football players is now something which the British football regulatory body FIFA acts upon, by imposing financial penalties on clubs who do not act against racism and whose fans abuse players using racist terminology.

2 For Butler, the notion of the Other, that is, a being almost diametrically opposed to yourself against whom you define yourself, is very important. The Other was developed within psychoanalytic theory to describe the process whereby the Self developed in relation to this Other. However, although it is difficult to engage with such concepts briefly, I would argue that it is not a useful concept, since the self is clearly constructed from a range of experiences with many different types of other individuals, some of whom are characterised as similar to oneself and some of whom are seen as different, some of whom are important for one’s development and some of whom have little impact.