Muted Group Theory

As explained by West & Turner (2010), Muted Group Theory is "provocative and causes us to think about biases in language." (p. 499)

According to Cheris Kramarae, language is a 'man made construction'. For Kramarae and other feminist theorists (Griffin, 2012) "women's words are discounted in our society; women's thoughts are devalued. When women try to overcome this inequality, the masculine control of communication places them at tremendous disadvantage. Man-made language "aids in defining, depreciating and excluding women."

The idea of women as a muted group was first proposed by a social anthropologist of Oxford University - Edwin Ardener. He and his co-worker Shirley Ardener believe that muteness is the result of the lack of power that besets any group in occupying the low end of the totem pole. People with a small amount of power have trouble giving voice to their perceptions. Mutedness does not mean low-power groups are entirely silent. Simply, the main point is whether people can say what they want when and where they want to say it.

For this theory, I will just use a very simple example by supporting Kramarae as she discovers that "women in cartoon were usually depicted as emotional, apologetic, or just plain wishy-washy. Compared with the simple, forceful statements voiced by cartoon males, the words assigned to female characters were vague, flowery and peppered with adjective like 'nice' and pretty'".

Another example:
As a Disney Classic lover, I have decided to use Alice In Wonderland (1951) and Cinderella (1950) as an example. Even from the images above, we can see that they show 'emotions' - here they depict confusion and sadness. This proves Kramarae's statement.

References:

Ayla Malai Abdullah, S. (2012). Lecture Notes. AC-1201 Introduction to Communication. Universiti Brunei Darussalam

Griffin, E. (2012). A First Look At Communication Theory (8th Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill

West, R., & Turner, L., H. (2010). Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application (4th Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill