Masculinist Metaphors, Feminist Research

This paper tests the cross-linguistic validity of Hines’s findings on English animal-based metaphors depicting women as objects of sexual desire. Data from printed and online sources reveal that comparable metaphors are available in French and Italian, but also that they have a wider range of applicability. Relevant metaphorical expressions may serve to represent women in a sexist way (via comparison to such categories of animals as livestock, game, pets, insects, and wild animals), but also to discriminate against other groups perceived as opponents or socially marginal (i.e. competitors like the police or inferiors like homosexuals) by the mainstream dominant group. Our data also show that not all metaphorical epithets are used the same way: some are reserved for talking to people, others for referring to them; some metaphorical address terms serve as expressions of endearment, others as insults; some lexicalised metaphors focus on sexual desirability, others on sexual denigration, still others on other types of trivialisation. Our findings suggest that the ideological significance of a metaphor (i.e. the mappings between its source and target domains and its specific lexical encoding) can be better assessed when explored in relation complementary or neighbouring domains of experience. Finally, our discussion indicates, more generally, a need to take into account the contextualisation of metaphors in providing an account of their linguistic, social and cultural import.