The Role of Women in Linguistic and Narrative Change: A Study of the Hebrew Pre-State Literature

AbstractThis article investigates gender stereotyping in the Hebrew literature in Palestine during the 1930s in order to find out the extent to which a new ideology effects linguistic and narrative changes. On the assumption that the foundation of the new society was motivated by an egalitarian ideology, the article examines the ideology's reflection in the literature of the period. To this end, three types of analysis were performed: an analysis of the linguistic devices for the introduction of female and male characters, a content analysis of the literary texts, and a quantitative analysis of the personal traits characteristic of women and men. Results support recent claims that the revolutionary ideology of the time hardly applied to women. The results further show that both male and female authors treat women stereotypically, though female authors are significantly less male biased than male authors. The female authors of the 1930s introduced androgy-nous characters, although those authors remained quite conservative at the linguistic level. We attempt to account for the inability of female authors to exercise a complete breakthrough. (Linguistics)