‘Something that stretches during sex’
replacing the word 'hymen' with 'vaginal corona' to challenge patriarchal views on virginity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.31894Keywords:
feminist language activism, hymen, vaginal corona, patriarchy, sexual rightsAbstract
Although there is no scientific proof of a breakable membrane in the vagina, virginity controls are causing great suffering to women worldwide, and hymen (re) constructions are carried out in many countries. The hymen is called mödomshinna 'virginity membrane' in Swedish, which can reinforce the idea of a breakable membrane. In their work against female sexual oppression the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education launched a new term, vaginal corona. The aim of our study is to evaluate this initiative. By conducting a survey directed at youths and health professionals at youth clinics in Stockholm, we were able to show that knowledge of the new word had spread and that changes in the oppressive cultural beliefs connected to virginity and female sexuality in part can be connected to the word. The study thus supports the claim that initiatives aimed at changing vocabulary can be effective in changing cultural concepts. Feminist language activism initiatives are thus usable as part of feminist political work to promote women’s sexual rights and gender equality.
References
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Abboud, S., Jemmott, L. S. and Sommers, M. S. (2015) ‘We are Arabs’: the embodiment of virginity through Arab and Arab American women’s lived experiences. Sexuality and Culture 19(4): 715–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-015-9286-1
Andersson, Å. (2003) Inte samma lika [Not the Same or Alike]. Eslöv: Brutus Östlings bokförlag Symposion.
Awwad, J., Nassar, A., Usta, I., Shaya, M., Younes, Z. and Ghazeeri, G. (2013) Attitudes of Lebanese university students towards surgical hymen reconstruction. Archive of Sexual Behavior 42(8): 1627–35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-013-0161-6
Berger, P. L. and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday.
Cameron, D. (1990) The Feminist Critique of Language. London: Routledge.
Castro, O. (2013) Talking at cross-purposes? The missing link between feminist linguistics and translation studies. Gender and Language 7(1): 35–58. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v7i1.35
Christianson, M. and Eriksson, C. (2011) A girl thing: perceptions concerning the word ‘hymen’ among young Swedish women and men. Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health 56(2): 167–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-2011.2011.00027.x
Christianson, M. and Eriksson, C. (2013) Myths and misconceptions: an online study of midwives’ perceptions about the vaginal opening, the hymen and virginity. British Journal of Midwifery 21(2): 108–15. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjom.2013.21.2.108
Cinthio, H. (2015) You go home and tell that to my dad! Conflicting claims and understandings on Hymen and Virginity. Sexuality and Culture 19: 172–89. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-014-9253-2
Darvishpour, M., Lahdenperä, P. and Lorentz, H. (2010) Hedersrelaterad problematik i skolan – en kunskaps- och forskningsöversikt [Honour-based Problems in School – a Knowledge and Research Rview]. SOU 2010: 84. Stockholm: Fritzes.
Edlund, A.-C. (2004) Kan män vara sjuksköterskor och kvinnor brandmän? Om sambandet mellan yrkesbeteckningar och kön [Is it possible for men to be nurses and women to be firefighters? About the relationship between professional titles and gender]. In Den könsuppdelade arbetsmarknaden (Statens Offentliga Utredningar: Swedish Government Report 43) 263–80. Stockholm: Fritzes.
Essén, B., Blomkvist, A., Helström, L. and Johnsdotter, S. (2010) The experience and responses of Swedish health professionals to patients requesting virginity restoration (hymen repair). Reproductive Health Matters 18(35): 38–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0968-8080(10)35498-X
Fairclough, N. (2013) Language and Power (2nd edition). London: Longman.
Filipovic, J. (2011) Gender and poser in the language standardization of Serbian. Gender and Language 5(1): 111–31. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i1.111
Forsberg, M. (2006) Ungdomar och sexualitet – en forskningsöversikt [Adolescents and Sexuality – a Research Review]. Stockholm: Statens Folkhälsoinstitut.
Gagnon, J. H. and Simon, W. ([1973]2005) Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality. London: Aldine.
Ghadimi, M. (2007) Om kravet på oskuld: en studie av flickors respektive pojkars föreställningar [On the requirement to be a virgin: a study on girls’ and boys’ notions]. Socialvetenskaplig tidskrift 14(1): 20–46.
Juth, N. and Lynöe, N. (2015) Zero tolerance against patriarchal norms? A cross-sectional study of Swedish physicians’ attitudes towards young females requesting virginity certificates of hymen restoration. Journal of Medical Ethics 41: 215–219. https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2013-101675
Kakabaweh, A., Tarhan, G. and Lundgren, J. (2016) Elvahundra: En studie om kartläggning av förekomsten av diskriminering och förtryck i hederns hamn bland 1100 ungdomar och 50 tals föräldrar [Eleven Hundred: A Study on the Mapping of the Existence of Discrimination and Oppression on the Part of Honour among 1100 Adolescents and about 50 Parents]. Retrieved on 23 June 2016 from https://preview.tinyurl.com/uploads-2016-03-PDF.
Lamotey, B. A. (2015) Language reform: a critical look at its chances of success in the Spanish context. Gender and Language 9(3): 435–460.
Ledin, P. and Lyngfelt, B. (2013) Olika hen-syn: om bruket av hen i bloggar, tidningstexter och studentuppsatser [Different accounts: on the use of hen in blogs, newspaper texts and student essays]. Språk och stil 23: 141–75. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v9i3.18506
Liddicoat, A. J. (2011) Feminist language planning. Current Issues in Language Planning 12(1): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2011.548314
Lipovsky, C. (2014) Gender-specification and occupational nouns: has linguistic change occurred in job advertisements since the French feminisation reforms? Gender and Language 8(3): 361–392. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v8i3.361
Marcuse, H. (1969) An Essay on Liberation. Retrieved on 16 June 2016 from www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/1969/essay-liberation.pdf.
Meldrum, R., Liamputtong, P. and Wollersheim, D. (2014) Caught between two worlds: Sexuality and young Muslim women in Melbourne, Australia. Sexuality and Culture 18(1): 166–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-013-9182-5
Milles, K. (2011a) Feminist language planning in Sweden. Current Issues in Language Planning 12(1): 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2011.541388
Milles, K. (2011b) Snippa: a success story of feminist language planning. Gender and Language 5(1): 89–109. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i1.89
Milles, K. (2011c) Snippa – a new word for girls’ genitals in Swedish: gender-neutral or patriarchal? In D. Majstorovi? and I. Lassen (eds) Living with Patriarchy: Discursive constructions of gendered subjects across cultures 69–80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Milles, K. (2013) En öppning i en sluten ordklass? Den nya användningen av pronomenet hen [An opening in a closed word class? The new use of the pronoun hen]. Språk och stil 23: 107–40.
Motschenbacher, H. (2014) Grammatical gender as a challenge for language policy: the (im)possibility of non-heteronormative language use in German versus English. Language Policy 13(3): 243–61. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-013-9300-0
Myhre, A. K., Berntzen, K. and Bratlid, D. (2003) Genital anatomy in non-abused preschool girls. Acta Paediatrica 92: 1453–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1651-2227.2003.tb00831.x
OED (undated) hymen. Oxford English Dictionary online. Retrieved on 16 June 2016 from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hymen.
Pauwels, A. (2001) Non-sexist language reform on generic pronouns in Australian English. English World-Wide 22(1): 105–19. https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.22.1.06pau
Pauwels, A. (2003) Linguistic sexism and feminist linguistic activism. In J. Holmes and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of Language and Gender 550–70. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756942.ch24
Rubin, G. (2004) The traffic in women. In J. Rivkin and M. Ryan (eds) Literary Theory: An Anthology (2nd edition) 770–94. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage.
Teso, E. and Crolley, L. (2013) Gender-based linguistic reform in international organizations. Language Policy 12(2): 139–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-012-9241-z
Vera, H. (2016) Rebuilding a classic: The Social Construction of Reality at 50. Cultural Sociology 10(1): 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975515617489
Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds) (2009) Methods for Critical Discourse Analysis. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Wojahn, D. (2015) Språkaktivism. Diskussioner om feministiska språkförändringar i Sverige från 1960-talet till 2015 [Language Activism: Discussions on Feminist Language Change in Sweden from the 1960s until 2015]. Uppsala: Uppsala University.
Abboud, S., Jemmott, L. S. and Sommers, M. S. (2015) ‘We are Arabs’: the embodiment of virginity through Arab and Arab American women’s lived experiences. Sexuality and Culture 19(4): 715–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-015-9286-1
Andersson, Å. (2003) Inte samma lika [Not the Same or Alike]. Eslöv: Brutus Östlings bokförlag Symposion.
Awwad, J., Nassar, A., Usta, I., Shaya, M., Younes, Z. and Ghazeeri, G. (2013) Attitudes of Lebanese university students towards surgical hymen reconstruction. Archive of Sexual Behavior 42(8): 1627–35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-013-0161-6
Berger, P. L. and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Doubleday.
Cameron, D. (1990) The Feminist Critique of Language. London: Routledge.
Castro, O. (2013) Talking at cross-purposes? The missing link between feminist linguistics and translation studies. Gender and Language 7(1): 35–58. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v7i1.35
Christianson, M. and Eriksson, C. (2011) A girl thing: perceptions concerning the word ‘hymen’ among young Swedish women and men. Journal of Midwifery and Women’s Health 56(2): 167–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-2011.2011.00027.x
Christianson, M. and Eriksson, C. (2013) Myths and misconceptions: an online study of midwives’ perceptions about the vaginal opening, the hymen and virginity. British Journal of Midwifery 21(2): 108–15. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjom.2013.21.2.108
Cinthio, H. (2015) You go home and tell that to my dad! Conflicting claims and understandings on Hymen and Virginity. Sexuality and Culture 19: 172–89. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-014-9253-2
Darvishpour, M., Lahdenperä, P. and Lorentz, H. (2010) Hedersrelaterad problematik i skolan – en kunskaps- och forskningsöversikt [Honour-based Problems in School – a Knowledge and Research Rview]. SOU 2010: 84. Stockholm: Fritzes.
Edlund, A.-C. (2004) Kan män vara sjuksköterskor och kvinnor brandmän? Om sambandet mellan yrkesbeteckningar och kön [Is it possible for men to be nurses and women to be firefighters? About the relationship between professional titles and gender]. In Den könsuppdelade arbetsmarknaden (Statens Offentliga Utredningar: Swedish Government Report 43) 263–80. Stockholm: Fritzes.
Essén, B., Blomkvist, A., Helström, L. and Johnsdotter, S. (2010) The experience and responses of Swedish health professionals to patients requesting virginity restoration (hymen repair). Reproductive Health Matters 18(35): 38–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0968-8080(10)35498-X
Fairclough, N. (2013) Language and Power (2nd edition). London: Longman.
Filipovic, J. (2011) Gender and poser in the language standardization of Serbian. Gender and Language 5(1): 111–31. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i1.111
Forsberg, M. (2006) Ungdomar och sexualitet – en forskningsöversikt [Adolescents and Sexuality – a Research Review]. Stockholm: Statens Folkhälsoinstitut.
Gagnon, J. H. and Simon, W. ([1973]2005) Sexual Conduct: The Social Sources of Human Sexuality. London: Aldine.
Ghadimi, M. (2007) Om kravet på oskuld: en studie av flickors respektive pojkars föreställningar [On the requirement to be a virgin: a study on girls’ and boys’ notions]. Socialvetenskaplig tidskrift 14(1): 20–46.
Juth, N. and Lynöe, N. (2015) Zero tolerance against patriarchal norms? A cross-sectional study of Swedish physicians’ attitudes towards young females requesting virginity certificates of hymen restoration. Journal of Medical Ethics 41: 215–219. https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2013-101675
Kakabaweh, A., Tarhan, G. and Lundgren, J. (2016) Elvahundra: En studie om kartläggning av förekomsten av diskriminering och förtryck i hederns hamn bland 1100 ungdomar och 50 tals föräldrar [Eleven Hundred: A Study on the Mapping of the Existence of Discrimination and Oppression on the Part of Honour among 1100 Adolescents and about 50 Parents]. Retrieved on 23 June 2016 from https://preview.tinyurl.com/uploads-2016-03-PDF.
Lamotey, B. A. (2015) Language reform: a critical look at its chances of success in the Spanish context. Gender and Language 9(3): 435–460.
Ledin, P. and Lyngfelt, B. (2013) Olika hen-syn: om bruket av hen i bloggar, tidningstexter och studentuppsatser [Different accounts: on the use of hen in blogs, newspaper texts and student essays]. Språk och stil 23: 141–75. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v9i3.18506
Liddicoat, A. J. (2011) Feminist language planning. Current Issues in Language Planning 12(1): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2011.548314
Lipovsky, C. (2014) Gender-specification and occupational nouns: has linguistic change occurred in job advertisements since the French feminisation reforms? Gender and Language 8(3): 361–392. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v8i3.361
Marcuse, H. (1969) An Essay on Liberation. Retrieved on 16 June 2016 from www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/1969/essay-liberation.pdf.
Meldrum, R., Liamputtong, P. and Wollersheim, D. (2014) Caught between two worlds: Sexuality and young Muslim women in Melbourne, Australia. Sexuality and Culture 18(1): 166–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-013-9182-5
Milles, K. (2011a) Feminist language planning in Sweden. Current Issues in Language Planning 12(1): 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/14664208.2011.541388
Milles, K. (2011b) Snippa: a success story of feminist language planning. Gender and Language 5(1): 89–109. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v5i1.89
Milles, K. (2011c) Snippa – a new word for girls’ genitals in Swedish: gender-neutral or patriarchal? In D. Majstorovi? and I. Lassen (eds) Living with Patriarchy: Discursive constructions of gendered subjects across cultures 69–80. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Milles, K. (2013) En öppning i en sluten ordklass? Den nya användningen av pronomenet hen [An opening in a closed word class? The new use of the pronoun hen]. Språk och stil 23: 107–40.
Motschenbacher, H. (2014) Grammatical gender as a challenge for language policy: the (im)possibility of non-heteronormative language use in German versus English. Language Policy 13(3): 243–61. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-013-9300-0
Myhre, A. K., Berntzen, K. and Bratlid, D. (2003) Genital anatomy in non-abused preschool girls. Acta Paediatrica 92: 1453–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1651-2227.2003.tb00831.x
OED (undated) hymen. Oxford English Dictionary online. Retrieved on 16 June 2016 from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hymen.
Pauwels, A. (2001) Non-sexist language reform on generic pronouns in Australian English. English World-Wide 22(1): 105–19. https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.22.1.06pau
Pauwels, A. (2003) Linguistic sexism and feminist linguistic activism. In J. Holmes and M. Meyerhoff (eds) The Handbook of Language and Gender 550–70. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756942.ch24
Rubin, G. (2004) The traffic in women. In J. Rivkin and M. Ryan (eds) Literary Theory: An Anthology (2nd edition) 770–94. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Skeggs, B. (1997) Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable. London: Sage.
Teso, E. and Crolley, L. (2013) Gender-based linguistic reform in international organizations. Language Policy 12(2): 139–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10993-012-9241-z
Vera, H. (2016) Rebuilding a classic: The Social Construction of Reality at 50. Cultural Sociology 10(1): 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1749975515617489
Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (eds) (2009) Methods for Critical Discourse Analysis. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.
Wojahn, D. (2015) Språkaktivism. Diskussioner om feministiska språkförändringar i Sverige från 1960-talet till 2015 [Language Activism: Discussions on Feminist Language Change in Sweden from the 1960s until 2015]. Uppsala: Uppsala University.
Published
2018-10-22
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Milles, K., Holmdahl, J., Melander, I., & Fugl-Meyer, K. (2018). ‘Something that stretches during sex’: replacing the word ’hymen’ with ’vaginal corona’ to challenge patriarchal views on virginity. Gender and Language, 12(3), 294-317. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.31894
