Cheris Kramarae developed Muted Group Theory to describe how women and other marginalized groups have difficulty expressing themselves in public discourse dominated by men. As the dominant group, men have shaped language and communication norms in ways that disadvantage muted groups. Kramarae showed how women were muted in cartoons from the 1940s, depicted with vague language and as emotional. She has worked for over 25 years to address how muted groups can alter their muted status and gain more control over communication.

1. MUTED GROUP THEORY

2. Cheris Kramarae Muted Theory
“The language of a particular culture does not serve all its speakers
equally, for not all speakers contribute in an equal fashion to its
formulation. Women are not as free or as able as men are to say
what they wish,when and where they wish,because the words and
the norms for their use have been formulated by the dominant group
MEN”.

3. MUTED GROUP:
People with little power who have trouble giving voice
to their perceptions because they must re encode their
thoughts to make them understood in the public sphere
so, they must alter the way they communicate or they
become invisible.

4. • Kramarae was the professor of speech communication
and sociology since many years.
• She maintains that language is literally a man-made
construction.
• She began her research career in 1947 when she
conducted a systematic study of the way women were portrayed
in cartoons.
• Only 18 of the 60 cartoons contain female characters,
and only 11 of these women speak.
• She discovered that women in cartoons were
usually depicted as emotional, apologetic, or just plain wishy-washy.
• The words assigned to female characters were vague, flowery, and peppered with adjectives like nice and pretty.
• For the last 25 years Kramarae has been a leader in the
effort to explain and alter the muted status of women and other
marginalized groups.
• She realized that women live in a world where language has been constructed by men.
• As a result women's thoughts and opinions are disregarded because men, the dominant group, control
communication.

5. MUTED GROUPS: BLACK HOLES IN SOMEONE ELSE'S
UNIVERSE
• Kramarae described Muted Groups as “Black Holes In Someone Else's
Universe”
• Women's expressions were acceptable at home but not in public. This
muteness was due to lack of power.
• Kramarae is certain that men's dominant power position in society
guarantees that the public mode of expression won't be directly available to
women.

6. THE MASCULINE POWER TO NAME EXPERIENCE
• Women experiences things differently due to division of labor.
• Women eventually come to doubt their experiences.
• Women vary in many ways, in most cultures, if not all, women's talk is subject to male control
and censorship.
• Mead's symbolic internationalist perspective asserts that the extent of knowing is the extent of
naming.
• Kramarae notes that men's control of the dominant mode of expression has produced a vast
stock of derogatory, gender-specific terms to refer to women's talking-
catty,bitchy,shrill,cackling,gossipy,chitchat,sharp-tongued,and so on.
• Consider the variety of terms in the English language to describe sexually promiscuous
individuals.
• By one count, there are 22 gender-related words to label men who are sexually loose- playboy,
stud, rake, gigolo, Don Juan, lothario, womanizer, and so on.
• There are more than 200 words that label sexually loose women- slut, whore, hooker,
prostitute, trollop, mistress, harlot, jezebel, hussy, concubine, streetwalker, strumpet, easy
lay, and the like.

7. Men As The Gatekeepers Of Communication
• Some think it is because men do not put the effort to understand. Giving those without power
a voice relinquishing power.
• Kramarae describes a “good-ole-boys” cultural
establishment that virtually excludes women's art,
poetry, plays, film scripts, public address, and
scholarly essays from society's mass media.
• She notes that women were locked out of the
publishing business for 500 years.

8. Internet ? Solution or False Hope?
• Is It Just Another Gatekeeper?
• Internet is not female friendly
• Almost all the early designers and users of the internet in the 1970's and 1980's were
male.
• Kramarae concludes that the internet still has the potential to facilitate interaction
among women across time and space, but still it seems to be emerging as a man's
forum and playground.

9. GOAL- Change the language and change the dictionary
Defining sexual harassment meant giving meaning to an experience
that had previously allowed men to manipulate.
CRITIQUE: DO MEN MEAN TO MUTE?
Deborah Tannan a professor of education does not think they do.
Claims she is assigning blame where it may not necessarily be true.

11. Carol Gilligan's Different voice
• Carol Gilligan is professor of education in the Harvard Graduate School of education.
• Her book in a “ Different Voice” presents a theory of moral development claiming that
women tend to think and speak in an ethical voice different from that of men
• Gilligan's view of gender differences parallels Deborah Tannen's analysis of men as
wanting independence and women as desiring human connection.
• Gilligan is convinced that most men seek autonomy and think of moral maturity in
terms of justice
• On the basis of the quantity and quality of feminine relationships, Gilligan contrast
women who care with men who are fair.
• Gilligan is comfortable with the idea that men and women speak in different ethical
voices.

12. SEYLA BENHABIB'S INTERACTIVE UNIVERSALISM
• Seyla Benhabib who is a professor of government at Harvard University, wants to
maintain that a universal ethical standard is a viable possiblity.
• She also feels the force of three major attacks on Enlightenment rationality in general,
and Habermas, discourse ethics in particular.
• She sets out to defend the tradition of universalism in the face of this triple-pronged
critique by engaging the claims of
• Feminism,
• Communitarianism,
• and Postmodernism