Food for thought: on cattiness and not only

In their book Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson claim that “what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor”. The scholars believe that “human thought processes are largely metaphorical.” The example of a conceptual metaphor they give in their book has become a classic example in cognitive linguistics. Thus, they show how the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR is reflected in everyday language, e.g. He attacked every weak point in my argument. / His criticisms were right on target. / I demolished his argument.

In her book You Just Don’t Understand, Deborah Tannen also mentions a conceptual metaphor, which can be formulated in the following way: A WOMAN IS A CAT. She gives the example of a news article which quoted a Ronald Reagan’s campaign aid calling Geraldine Ferraro (selected as the vice-presidential candidate by Walter Mondale) ready to “claw Ronald Reagan’s eyes out.” Undeniably the verb claw reflects the stereotypical perception of women as cats.

Being attributed the quality of “cattiness” is far from flattering to women. Being catty does not describe women in positive colors either. In her research paper Of Women, Bitches, Chickens and Vixens: Animal Metaphors for Women in English and Spanish, Irene López Rodríguez states that in English the conceptual metaphor of a woman as a cat is supposed to imply a malicious woman or a prostitute.

So, these metaphors are deeply rooted into our mentality and we might not even know how offensive we might be in the end. Maybe that’s why Mr. Trump wanted to “grab’em by their p****”, to avenge all the cattiness. Who knows?

The point is we should raise our awareness as to how offensive we can sound only by using the stereotypical perceptions imprinted on our minds. It’s high time we understood Carl Young’s idea that “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” We should be more conscious about the existing stereotypes, and language can help us detect and fix them.