“A woman who knows her place":
Heterosexual Men seeking
Relationships and Sexist Discourse
Paul Baker
Lancaster University
Personal adverts
• A quest for a romantic partner or perfect mate
(Nair 1992)
• Can contain descriptions of the self, other and
desired relationship (Erfurt 1985).
• Earlier research characterised such adverts as
a minimalist genre (Nair 1992), with nonessential items such as function words being
omitted (Bruthiaux 1994). This is not so much
the case now.
Craigslist
• Set up in 1995 by Craig Newman originally just
San Francisco, now a global website
• Free to access, no firewalls
• Easy to follow categorisation system – e.g.
Asia > Singapore > men seeking women
• Basic style and layout
My research questions
1) how do males relate to gender when advertising to
meet women on Craigslist?
2) to what extent are there differences or similarities
between advertisers from different countries?
I was not looking for sexist discourse, although it was the
key feature which “emerged” during the analysis.
Creating the corpora
• Criteria for choice of
countries:
– English spoken
– distinct societies
– enough data
• Collection in
November 2012
• HTtrack used to get
copies of the website
• 554 – Australia
• 511 – India
• 827 – Singapore
A sample advert
Some corpus findings
• Australian men tend to refer to themselves as
“nice guys”, focus on likes/hobbies, very
suspicious of scammers.
• Indian men stress their good jobs and orient
to marriage in various ways
• Singaporean men more focus on ethnicities,
promise discretion, meet involves food and
drink
Concordancing women
• Searches of woman, women, girl, girls, lady,
ladies, female, females carried out on all corpora.
• Other searches gender*, equal*, femini*, sexis*,
lib* brought up nothing
• Identification of gendered discourses (ways of
thinking about gender viewed as common-sense)
Sunderland 2004
• Focus on:
– generalising statements ‘all/most women are…’
– reference to societal norms ‘women should…’
– gender comparisons ‘woman are x, men are y’
Women’s sexuality suppressed
• women tend not to talk about their needs …
Women who are very open about their needs are
"still labelled and judged"… (India)
• …a woman's sexual power is one of her greatest
assets and I can't understand why society judges
the use by woman of that power. If a woman
disclaims a source of her own power, I think
that's as foolish as a man would be if he refused
to use his physical strength. (Singapore)
The gentle sex
• All I need is to feel the soft hands of a woman
on my body to soothe my body to help relieve
the soreness. (Australia)
• I have been single for a while now and I really
miss the soft touch of a woman. (Australia)
Crazy Women
• I was told crazy women come round to CL looking
for husbands... (Singapore)
• I've always wondered what it'd be like to date a
mature women quite unlike the nutcases I get in
my age group. (Singapore)
• Absolutely not into drama queens, mentally
unstable/immature females, hookers, escorts,
strippers, gold diggers. I've met all types of
women through this Internet odyssey. Many of
whom belonged in a mental ward, prison, or
strapped to a lethal injection table:) (India)
Women, know your place
• Frankly, I am looking for a woman who knows her place.
The fact is, what with this feminist shit that society is
putting up, the real women who know their place aren't
proudly admitting it. I am looking for a female who knows
she is just that, a female. And knows her place in front of a
male. Write to me. (India)
• I don't mind if you complain about things. I actually think
it's cute sometimes. But acting like a man is NOT CUTE. In
fact it's fucking annoying which is why I hate 99% of
Australian women. They try to be the boss. I'm the
motherfucking boss-- I'm the guy. You're the girl. If you are
some raging fucking feminazi, now is the time to stop
reading and live alone forever. (Australia)
Women, know your place
• Well I don't look forward to dating those
aggressive girls at work no matter how
gorgeous they look. (Singapore)
• I believe in sexual equality - why is that bad?
Cos i like women who pay for their own shit,
well if you want sexual equality, you need to
act that part right? (Singapore)
The exception
• Do you agree that guys are often afraid of
successful, beautiful, independent woman?
No matter if its true or not, I have to say that I
am extremely attracted to women who are
super educated, who know what is
happening around the world, who has their
own opinions, who are creative, who are
actively interested in various aspects of life
and arts… (Sinagpore)
Treat her like a queen
• I treat women with care and appreciation. (Australia)
• I am a professional, who knows how to treat an
women as Queen, please her and make her smile.
(Singapore)
• I'd love a mature gf who I could spoil and treat like a
queen. (Australia)
• I'm 6' 4" tall medium build and treat a lady like a
queen. (Australia)
…or a princess or goddess
• I am a Man who treats the girl like a girl. They
are to be treated like princess (Australia)
• In bed -- perceive women as Goddesses Goddesses - creatures that ought to be
worshipped, pampered, made to feel special
and sometimes downright shagged hard
(Singapore)
I know what to give you…
• I love when i take a woman out on a date.
(Australia)
• All ladies truly deserved to be doted, pampered,
and fulfilled through good, warm intimacy.
(India)
• I'm skilled at making ladies squirm with pleasure.
(Australia)
• I know its selfish of guys to always cum first so I
always make sure the girls cums first (Singapore)
Ambivalent sexism
• Traditional sexism theory focussed on hostility
towards women e.g. “know your place”
• Glicke and Fiske (1996) argue for two types of
sexism: hostile and benevolent e.g. “treat her
like a queen”
• The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory measures
both
Keeling and Fisher (2012)
• Interviews with women who had been subjected
to domestic violence by male partners
• Several women noted that at the start of the
relationship prior to the man becoming violent,
‘the woman was made to feel like royalty,
removed from the normality of life and all its
associations with feelings of being placed on a
pedestal.’ (2012: 1562).
• A grooming process, designed to subjugate the
partner.
Conclusion
• The ASI is a self-reporting questionnaire.
Naturally occurring language use is arguably
better at eliciting discourses and showing how
language structures support them
• Despite the differences in cultures, men accessed
similar sexist discourses
• ‘Male superiority’ was a higher-order discourse
• Hostile and benevolent sexism found
• Few references to equality discourses
References
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Baker, P. (2005) Public Discourses of Gay Men. London: Routledge.
Baker P. (2014) Using Corpora to Analyse Gender. London: Continuum.
Bruthiaux, P. (1994) ‘Functional variation in the language of classified ads’,
Perspectives: Working Papers of the Department of English, City Polytechnic of
Hong Kong, 6:2, 21-40.
Erfurt, J. (1985) ‘Partnerwunsch und Textproduktion: Zur Strujtur der
Intentionalitat in Heiratsanzeigen’, Zeit für Phonetik, Sprachwiss und
Kommunikforsch 38(3): 309-20.
Glick, Peter and Fiske, Susan T. (1996). "The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory:
Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism". Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology 70 (3): 491–512.
Keeling, J. and Fisher, C. (2012), ‘Women’s early relational experiences that lead to
domestic violence.’ Qualitative Health Research 22(11): 1559-1567.
Nair, B. R. (1992) ‘Gender, genre and generative grammar: deconstructing the
matrimonial column’, in M. Toolan (ed.) Language, Text and Context: Essays in
Stylistics, London and New York: Routledge, 227-54.
Sunderland, J. (2004) Gendered Discourses. London: Palgrave.