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Gender Construction in Stereotype-based Metaphors: Women as Desserts and

as Animals

Research · June 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4038.4161

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 Gender Construction in Stereotype-based
Metaphors: Women as Desserts and as Animals
Alsu Shaydullina
Hye-Min Kang
Florida International University
ashay002@fiu.edu
hkang007@fiu.edu

Abstract

This study is aimed at verifying the findings of the articles by Caitlin Hines Rebaking

the Pie: The Woman as Dessert Metaphor (1994) and Foxy Chicks and Playboy Bunnies: A

Case Study in Metaphorical Lexicalization (1999) which claim that women tend to be

associated with baked desserts and animals. Conceptual systems of speakers are closely

connected to thought and social life, and they accordingly undergo changes overtime. The

current paper is a quantitative analysis of speakers’ perceptions and construction of gender of

the subject from the context of the sentence it is used in. It was expected that with the

changes in the society within over a decade, the conceptual metaphors would have less

implications towards women as powerless and inanimate objects. However, the results of the

survey demonstrated that in the situations when gender-unspecified person is used in a

sentence with woman-as-dessert metaphor or woman-as-animal, the participants are more

likely to assign feminine gender to the subject of the sentences.

1. Introduction

Most people think of a metaphor in a literary and poetic sense which is used as a

language tool. For the purposes of this paper, we will have to distinguish between such

understanding of metaphor and metaphor in conceptual sense which is the result of

interaction of our thought and conceptual system. Conceptual metaphors are pervasive in the

everyday life. They form the structure of the realities of the world within our thoughts.

Everything we experience reflects in our thought and, this experiences gain metaphorical

shape through the concepts of our mind. This cycle happens subconsciously, and there is no

other way to trace this process than by looking at the language we use (G. Lakoff, M.

Johnson, 1980, pg. 454).

Language is not a simple tool for exchange of the ideas between the speakers. There

is a great amount of non-verbal information and between-the-lines sense that permeate and

can be deduced through discourse. Language is loaded with conceptual metaphors, and

speakers actively make various implications. “Language is never innocent; words have a

second-order memory which mysteriously persists in the midst of new meanings” (Hines, pg.

152). As Robin Lakoff states in her work Language and Women’s Place, “Language uses us

as much as we use language” (1975, pg. 1).

There has been a continuous debate over ambiguous metaphors in the field of gender

studies, particularly sexist usage of such metaphors. Psycholinguists argue that meanings of

ambiguous words are activated by the listener. Feminist linguists think that the language itself

sets the boundaries between different genders and, thus, is offensive emotionally and

intellectually. Deborah Cameron, on the other hand, makes a good point that it is the minds of

the users of such language play crucial role in this issue. “In the mouth of sexists, language

can always be sexist.” (Cameron 1985, pg. 90)

 Gender is a common base for metaphors in different languages. In the context of sex-gender

systems based on male dominance, such metaphors also have to follow established patterns.

Caitlin Hines provides a well-supported discussion of this system along with numerous

examples which consequently will serve as a base for the experimental part of this paper.

2. Background

2.1. The Woman as Dessert Metaphor

In her article Rebaking the Pie, Hines provide the evidence of the underlying

conceptual metaphor of WOMAN AS DESSERT. Such metaphor reduces women to the

status of powerless and inanimate but desired objects. Moreover, women are portrayed as

sweet pieces and slices of a dessert. These concepts come from a generally unconscious and

undocumented association of women and desserts both “optional/inessential, frivolous,

perhaps even a waste of time” (Hines, 1996, pg. 148).

Hines’s research is a collection of such metaphors from different sources: from

academic literature to pop culture sources. She used the following criteria to determine

whether the item can belong to a certain group:

“1. It must have a nonmetaphorical sense—that is, it must refer both to a woman-

considered-sexually and to an actual dessert, which rules out the fanciful cutie pie,

honeybun(ches), sweetie (pie), and so forth and foods not primarily served as desserts, such

as muffin, pancake, tootsie roll.

2. It must be multiply cited, which rules out available jelly [roll], cream puff, fortune

cookie, and so forth.” (Hines, pg. 149)

Hines described some historical insight into these metaphors and discussed semantic

shifts such as pejoration and amelioration. In addition, she elaborated on certain features that
woman-as-dessert metaphors share. One of such features is semantic isomorphism. The

dessert terms are all “firm on the outside, soft and juicy in the middle” (Hines, pg. 152) and

can be divided into pieces or are a part of an implied batch. Women are reduced to “syntactic

objects” and deprived of uniqueness. The adjectives used to describe desserts are similar to

those used when referring to a woman, therefore, the lexical domains of these items also

overlap. Moreover, these metaphoric expression share phonetic shape: each stressed syllable

begins with any of the three possible English voiceless stops. Finally, Hines concludes that

“awareness of the underlying cognitive metaphors… brings this metaphoric derogation of

women to a conscious level” (Hines pg. 157).

2.2. Woman as Animal Metaphors

In her work Foxy Chicks and Playboy Bunnies: A Case Study in Metaphorical

Lexicalization (1999), Caitlin Hines continues the idea of perception of women as objects

along with arguing that language is a highly structured system of conceptual and linguistic

features. She states that there is “overlapping motivation” for creation desired-women-as-

small-animal metaphors. The common metaphor in English encompasses a widely-accepted

notion “People are animals”. Along with the perception of women as desired or conquered

objects, the general metaphor “people-as-animals” undergoes narrowing and metaphors

“women-as-small-pets” become quite popular.

Hines used the same procedure discussed in her previous work. Her aim was to

gather as many such metaphors as possible from different types of literature. She came up

with a list of metaphors which express both attraction and insult. The choice of one or the

other depends on phonosemantic constraints. Terms of explicit sexual attraction such as

bunny, fox, quail follow the phonetic pattern of labial or velar onset. The terms of overt abuse
(bitch, nag, shrew) do not follow this pattern. However, Hines mentions that this factor is

necessary but nor sufficient. As a result, Hines came up with the list of words that were not

mapped as suitable for metaphors. Some words failed semantic criterion (for example,

monkey, wolf, pig, etc.), some failed phonetic criterion (raccoon, otter, sparrow, etc) and

some fit neither phonetics nor semantics (fish, snake, dragonfly, etc.).

Hines also provides the discussion of the idea that women when they are spoken of I

terms of sexuality are usually grouped into flocks, nests, ranches, etc. This is specific and

exclusive for talking about prostitutes.

Finally, Hines reiterates that there are many associations between animals and

humans who own and hunt them. Animals are thought to be lower status than humans, and it

is common tendency that the metaphors about women’s sexuality contain the names of small

hunted and possessed animals.

3. Hypothesis

It has been almost 20 years since Hines (1994) did her academic research. According

to Hines, such metaphors wer generally used for women. As status of women has improved

compared in the last decades, what we expect is there would be also a change in gender

assigning based on perception of gender stereotype metaphor. Expanding the domain of

metaphors discussed in the article by Hines , we observed not only metaphors for desserts,

but also included those related to animals.

4. Experimental Design

We investigated the prediction by conducting a Self-Paced Reading Task with

program named Qualtrics which is offered by FIU (Florida International University). 30

participants are displayed twenty sentences one-by-one on their own computer screen. They

were asked to choose the number “1” to “5” which represents the degree of femaleness and

maleness (“1” means absolutely female, “3” means either male or female, and “5” means

absolutely male”). The way of answering is moving the pointer on the scale among 5 scale

points. For the answer choices, we provide “3” which means neutral (can be used as either

male or female) just to make sure female and male is not only the answers. In processing of

the presenting the sentence on the screen, we designed the program to show the whole one

entire sentence instead of presenting the sentence word-by-word, so that participants can see

or go back easily to the original referent.

4.1. Experimental Stimuli

Twenty sentences in total were given to the participants, ten sentences for animal-related

metaphor and another ten sentences for dessert-related metaphor was used in the experiment

as in (1)-(6):

Experimental Sentences

Animal-related metaphors

(1) The historian who I met yesterday is such a bunny.

(2) I think, the new club member is such a pussy.

(3) This artist had a lot of contacts, and the reputation of a social butterfly.

(4) The journalist who made the comment was a fox.

Dessert-related metaphors

(5) My pumpkin is working on weekends; I get so lonely.

(6) A: What do you think about this celebrity?

 B: Ah, such a buttered bun.

(7) That student is such a sugar plum.

(8) Last night, my muffin stayed at my place.

4.2. Participants

The total number of subjects participated in this experiment was thirty in total, eighteen for

female participant and twelve for male. To get explicit data in processing sentences including

with metaphors, we used people who stayed in the States enough time to recognize the

metaphors that are mentioned in the experimental sentences. Participants were Americans or

other foreign students who stayed for at least 2 years in the States, and the age range of the

participants were between twenty to fifty years old either who works or studies in the United

States of America.

5. Experimental Task

First of all, we did not use binary analysis answer choices in perception of metaphor

to avoid participants considering metaphor only as either female or male. By setting answer

choices in scale option which is female-neutral-male, it helped us to see the reaction of

subjects explicitly. We eliminated the result for the sentences, as in (9), which would cause a

bias of the participant towards one of options.

(9) I would not trust this nurse. What a beast!

The online survey program “Qualtrics” offered by Florida International University was

used in seting up the experiment as a Reading Task Study. The speed of the experiment is

controlled by participants themselves. All subjects were instructed to move the scale bar point

which has five degrees of the answers, and click the Next-key to go to the next experimental
sentences. When subjects press the next button, the program will not only saves the answer

but also will save the time it took them to respond to the question.

6. Results

6.1. Women’s Reaction in Metaphor

First of all, the average reaction in the animal-related metaphor is presented in Table 1, and

average reaction in the dessert-related metaphor in Table 2.

(10) Table 1.

In Table 1, 62% of female participants considered the animal-related metaphor as female,

12.5% for neutral gender, and 25% for male. However, the result becomes quite interesting

when it comes to the dessert-related metaphor.

(11) Table 2.
Instead of having responses concentrated in female dominantly, more than half goes to the

neutral.

6.2. Men’s Reaction in Metaphor

The average reaction of male subjects in the animal-related metaphor is presented in Table 3,

and average reaction in the dessert-related metaphor in Table 4.

(12) Table 3.

In Table 3, 50% of male participants considered the animal-related metaphor as female, 25%

for neutral gender, and the other 25% for male. Comparing to the both reaction data of male

and female, there are similar trends existing. Even though more than half or half of
participants considered female for animal-related metaphor, the one-fourth choose male.

(13) Table 4.

As it was the same result in women’s reaction in dessert metaphor, especially related to

metaphors of desserts, the perception these days seems still haven’t changed significantly.

Though half of the participants choose for neutral, but still there were none who choose the

male for the dessert-related metaphor.

7. Discussion

According to the previous works, metaphors were used only for woman usually before twenty

years. However, what we found was the tendency of perception of metaphors slowly moving

towards to the neutral, and for animal metaphors especially to the male. As we controlled to

use non-gender-specified pronouns or names to giving clue to the participants to have explicit

result, we can strongly claim on our results. One thing we also want to mention is that the

response was not drastically showed only for one gender side, either male or female as shown

in below two graphs (14)-(15);

 (14) Graph 1. Men’s reaction in desserts

Metaphor MinValue MaxValue Mean Variance SD

fox 1 5 2.08 1.72 1.31
bunny 1 4 2.09 1.09 1.04
pussy 3 5 4.33 0.61 0.78
grouse 3 5 3.75 0.75 0.87
kitten 2 5 2.75 0.93 0.97
butterfly 2 3 2.75 0.20 0.45
cow 1 4 2.17 0.88 0.94
Alley cat 3 5 4.33 0.61 0.78
Buttered bun 1 4 2.58 0.63 0.79
Sweetie pie 1 5 2.50 1.18 1.09
peach 2 4 2.83 0.33 0.58
cookie 2 4 2.75 0.39 0.62
pumpkin 1 5 2.83 1.24 1.11
tart 1 4 2.33 0.79 0.89
dish 2 3 2.67 0.24 0.49
muffin 2 4 3.17 0.52 0.72
Sugar plum 2 4 3.00 0.55 0.74

(15) Graph 2. Women’s reaction in desserts

Metaphor MinValue MaxValue Mean Variance SD

fox 1 4 2.56 0.97 0.98
bunny 1 4 2.00 1.08 1.04
pussy 1 5 3.47 1.51 1.23
grouse 2 4 3.24 0.44 0.66
kitten 1 5 2.24 1.32 1.15
butterfly 1 3 2.41 0.38 0.62
cow 1 5 2.00 1.25 1.12
Alley cat 2 5 3.94 0.81 0.90
Buttered bun 1 4 2.65 0.87 0.93
Sweetie pie 1 5 2.13 1.18 1.09
peach 1 3 2.56 0.40 0.63
cookie 1 5 2.81 0.70 0.83
pumpkin 1 5 3.31 0.90 0.95
tart 1 5 2.31 1.96 1.40
dish 2 4 2.81 0.43 0.66
muffin 2 5 3.19 0.83 0.91
Sugar plum 1 3 2.38 0.38 0.62

What we can claim from our data including above two graphs is that no longer one-side tilted

perception about metaphor is preferred. As time goes by ,perception of both women and men

is being neutral.
8. Conclusion

The third wave of feminism that started in the 1990s and continues to the present

brought some slowly developing but groundbreaking adjustment in the structure of the

society. The language is the direct reflection of the communities, and it changes along with it.

Numerous works in the sphere of gender and language are concerned with the ways that

sexism is built into a language. As Claudine Herrman noted on women-as-dessert metaphor, it

is “a micro-language filled with winks and allusions specifically aimed at women” (1989).

Being a feminist linguist, Hines conducted a valuable observation on the use of

metaphors which are mostly used when spoken of women. Such observation is presented in

the form of a collection of metaphors from various sources. The current research could

benefit from the comparison of the quantitative data of the speakers’ perceptions at the time

Hines wrote her work. Although only the data from the appendices of her work could be used,

the current study was an attempt to verify the finding is the aforementioned work and prove it

with a quantitative analysis.

The result of this preliminary research indicates the possibility of changes within the

conceptual systems of the speakers, although these results have not yet been tested for

statistical significance. There is a possibility that gender-stereotyped metaphors acquire more

neutral perception in the conceptual system of the speakers. Further research on this issue

will involve a larger number of participants and extended experimental material.

 References

 Lakoff, George/Jonhson, Mark (1980): Metaphors We Live By, Chicago, Chicago

University Press.

 Lakoff, Robin (1975): Language and Woman’s Place, New York, Harper.

 Herrman, Claudine (1989). The tongue snatchers. Trans. Nancy Kline. Lincoln:

University of Nebraska Press. (Original work published 1976).

 Hines, Caitlin (1999): “Foxy chicks and Playboy bunnies: A case study in

metaphorical lexicalization”, in: Misako, K. Hiraga/Sinha Chris/Wilcox, Sherman

(edd.): Cultural, Typological and Psychological Perspectives on Cognitive Linguistics,

Amsterdam, Benjamins, 9-23.

 Hines, Caitlin (2000): “Rebaking the Pie: The ‘WOMAN AS DESSERT’ Metaphor”,

in: Bucholtz, Mary/Liang, Anita/Sutton, Laurel (edd.): Reinventing Identities: The

Gendered Self in Discourse, New-York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 145-162.

 Cameron, Deborah. 1985. Feminism and linguistic theory. London: Macmillan.

 Eckert, Penelope/ McConnell-Ginet, Sally (2003): Language and Gender, Cambridge

University Press, 213-227.

Special thanks to Dr. Carter and all the participants.

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