A Language of One’s Own: The Importance of Unique Spaces for Female Voices
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Authors
Brown, Anna
De Leo, Madeline
Dinard, Camille
Date of Issue
2025-04-25
Type
Presentation
Language
en_US
Subject Keywords
Other Titles
Abstract
The ability for women’s voices to be heard in society has been inadequate, often because of hetero-patriarchal structures that have enabled men to overpower these voices (Lugones and Spellman). This has resulted in women being silenced, ignored, and even misrepresented in their lived experiences. As Cherrie Moraga, a Chicana woman, wrote in her analysis of the feminist movement, “A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our lives — our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual longings—all fuse to create a politic born out of necessity.” Moraga argues that to better understand women’s condition in the world, society must look to uplift their voices, which embody each of their lived experiences. The novel Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and the memoir The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde attempt to reclaim women’s voices by challenging the dominant narrative. Both show the unique experiences of women in a hetero-patriarchal society and highlight how it is possible to create a space in language for women to express their lived experiences. Using these works, this paper will examine the need for society to better understand the experiences of women, which comes from a prioritization to create unique female spaces in language.