Gender language

[Juan Cires Martinez]

Diana says:

> Does this discussion of authentic vs. half-baked (the Pynchon/King bout)
> mean Elvis Presley is a hack Hitler? (cf _White Noise_).  BTW when
> discussing prejudice inherent in language let's not forget its fundamental
> phallocentrism..."Women's social inferiority is reinforced and complicated
> by the fact that woman does not have access to language, except through
> recourse to 'masculine' systems of representation which disappropriate her
> from her relation to herself and to other women.  The 'feminine' is never
> to be identified except by and for the masculine, the reciprocal
> proposition not being 'true.'" From Luce Irigiray's _This Sex Which Is Not
> One_, p. 85.      Diana

Being a man, and not versed in gender studies, I have difficulty trying 
to understand these arguments.  Could you elaborate a bit, and present 
some specific examples of "masculine systems of representation which 
disappropriate her from her relation to herself and to other women?"

Saludos, Juan.