Women, Language and Politics

On the 7th February 2017, Senator Mitch McConnell read the statement below in an attempt to justify the silencing of Senator Elizabeth Warren's earlier speech in the US Senate: Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted. (Senator Mitch McConnell, U.S, Senate on 7th February 2017)1 This statement and subsequent reactions to it encapsulate many of the issues raised in this study of women, language and politics. First, it is a statement made by a man in a political institution referring to invoking formal rules to justify the collective and institutional silencing of the speech of a woman politician, having already silenced her on the floor of the chamber by a series of interruptions. Second, it is about the interpretation and application of institutional rules as a controlling mechanism with which to silence. Elizabeth Warren's speech had criticised the appointment of Jeff Sessions as US Attorney General by reading out previous objections to his appointment as a federal court judge in 19862. The citing of these objections to Sessions' appointment was deemed to have broken a rule3 which prohibits ascribing to a Senator any 'conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator'. However, the application of these rules is not clear-cut and involves subjective judgements, with this particular rule being conventionally viewed as an edict that is rarely enforced (Jacobson 2017). Further doubt about theenforcement of the rule rested on the fact that a male colleague of Warren's subsequently read out the same objections from 1986 on the floor of the senate - in full and without censure4--