Vanuit het oogpunt van psychoanalyse, antropologie, taalwetenschap en literatuurkritiek, wordt de discussie over gender en taal gevoerd. De discussiepunten zijn o.a. of vrouwen anders praten dan mannen, of taal patriarchaal is, of taal verworven wordt in de oedipale fase en identificatie met de vader, of dat kleine kinderen taal ontwikkelen via hun moeder in de preoedipale fase. De volgende bijdragen zijn opgenomen: Deel 1: Female sexual drives, subjectivity, and language: the dialogue with/beyond Freud and Lacan. Femininity / door Sigmund Freud: The signification of the phallus / door Jacques Lacan: The semiotic and the symbolic / door Julia Kristéva: Mama's baby, papa's maybe: an American grammar book / door Hortense J. Spillers: The laugh of of the Medusa / door Hélène Cixous: This sex which is not one / door Luce Irigaray: French feminism in an international frame / door Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Deel 2: Object relations and women's use of language: readings from British and American psychology. The theory of the parent-infant relationship / door D.W. Winnicott: Gender differences in the preoedipal period / door Nancy Chodorow: Empathy and self boundaries / Judith V. Jordan: The first bond / door Jessica Benhamin: The sense of a verbal self / door Daniel N. Stern: Communication and cooperation in early infancy : a description of primary intersubjectivity / door Colwyn Trevarthen: Feeling, form, and intention in the baby's transition to language / door John Dore: Sex differences in parent-child interaction / door Jean Berko Gleason. Deel 3: Who says what to whom? empirical studies on language and gender. Language and woman's place / door Robin Lakoff: Instigating / door Marjorie Harness Goodwin: Gender, politeness, and confrontation in Tenejapa / door Penelope Brown: Jury instructions worded in the masculine generic: van a woman claim self-defense when 'He' is threatened / door Mykol C. hamilton, Barbara Hunter, en Shannon Stuart-Smith: The disappearing agent: gender stereotypes, interpersonal verbs, and implicit causality / door Marianne LaFrance en Eugene Hahn: rethinking 'sex differences' in conversational topics: it's not what they say but how they say it / door Candace West: Power, and miscommunication / door Nancy M. Henley en Cheris Kramarae: Between speech and silence: the problematics of research on language and gender / door Susan Gal: Think practically and look locally: language and gender as community-based practice / door Penelope Eckert en Sally McConnell-Ginet.