In the 1920s male linguists came up with a name for this process of giving an object a human pronoun; they called it âupgrading,â as if by calling these things âshe,â they are elevated to human status. They couldnât quite see that it simultaneously downgrades women to the status of toys and property. In practice, what these metaphors of women as nature, territories, and technologies do is place feminine gender in that same distant category of âother.â According to Romaine, by comparing her to things like storms and seas, âwoman is symbolic of the conflict between nature and civilization, tempting men with her beauty, attracting men with her charms, but dangerous and therefore in need of conquest.â Woman is a continent to colonize, a fortress to siege. These sentiments are reflected not only in English; in languages all over the world, from Italian to Thai, a nationâs government is labeled as having âfounding fathers,â while the land itself (âMother Nature,â âvirgin territoryâ) is perceived as a feminine entity. In grammar as in allegory as in life, women are considered reckless places outside the civilized male worldâwild things meant to be tamed into the weak, delicate flowers weâve traditionally wanted women to be.
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