The Gender of Sound by Anne Carson

 genre: non-fiction

I first saw this essay/pamphlet on the counter in an English bookstore in Brussels. Just reading the back made me immediately purchase it and I'm so glad I did.  My brain is still swimming with some of the thoughts here.  I am relatively new to my study of feminism/the feminine divine and the patriarchy.  So it's possible that there is nothing new here for people who are far more advanced than I at seeing world history with open eyes as to the degradation of women.  But for myself, it is all still new enough to just make me feel both a blinding rage and a deep sorrow.   

The idea here is that amongst the intellectual and learned throughout classical times until the modern age, even the sound of a woman's voice (or the voice of anyone else who SOUNDS female) is cause to doubt the veracity of what is being spoken. Even the adjectives used to describe the speech of female voices have negative connotations.  It is hard to think about it but I also know that it matters that I see what is real and so I can speak up against it when it's in front of me.  

Let's end with a quote (which, by the way, is followed up with many examples): 

Putting a door on the female mouth has been an important project of patriarchal culture from antiquity to the present day. Its chief tactic is an ideological association of female sound with monstrosity, disorder and death.