Dale Spender

Dale Spender (born 22 September 1943)[1] is an Aus-tralian feminist scholar, teacher, writer and consultant.

1 Early lifeSpender was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, aniece of the crime writer Jean Spender (190170). Theeldest of three, she has a younger sister Lynne, anda much younger brother Graeme. She attended theBurwood Girls High School, in Sydney and she was aMiss Kodak girl. In the early 1960s, as an MA graduate,she taught English at Meadowbank Boys High School, inSydneys north-western suburbs. In the latter half of the1960s she later taught English Literature at Dapto HighSchool. She started lecturing at James Cook Universityin 1974, before going to live in London and publishingthe book Man Made Language in 1980.

2 WorkThe book Man Made Language (1980) is based onSpenders PhD research. Her argument is that in patriar-chal societies men control language and it works in theirfavour. Language helps form the limits of our reality.It is our means of ordering, classifying and manipulatingthe world (1980:3). Where men perceive themselves asthe dominant gender, disobedient women who fail to con-form to their given inferior role are labelled as abnormal,promiscuous, neurotic or frigid. Spender draws parallelswith how derogatory terms are used to maintain racism(1980:6). Man Made Language illustrates how linguisticdeterminism interconnects with economic determinismto oppress women in society and provides a wide breadthof analysis to do this. The book explores the assumed de-ciencies of women, silencing, intimidation and the pol-itics of naming.In 1991, Spender published a literary spoof, The Diaryof Elizabeth Pepys (1991 Grafton Books, London). Pur-portedly written by Elisabeth Pepys, the wife of SamuelPepys, the book is a feminist critique of womens lives in17th Century London.Spender is co-originator of the database WIKED(Womens International Knowledge Encyclopedia andData) and founding editor of the Athene Series and Pan-dora Press, commissioning editor of the Penguin Aus-tralian Womens Library, and associate editor of the

Great Women Series (United Kingdom).Today Spender is particularly concerned with intellec-tual property and the eects of new technologies: in herterms, the prospects for newwealth and new learning.For nine years she was a director of Copyright AgencyLimited (CAL) in Australia and for two years (20022004) she was the chair. She is also involved with theSecond Chance Programme, which tackles homelessnessamong women in Australia.

3 Personal lifeShe has been in a relationship with Ted Brown for overthree decades. They have no children. She consistentlydresses in purple clothes, a choice she initially made forits symbolic reference to the suragettes.[2] She currentlyresides in Brisbane, Australia.

4 Publications Man Made Language (Routledge & Kegan Paul,1980)

Invisible Women: The Schooling Scandal (1982) Feminist Theorists: Three Centuries of Womens In-

tellectual Traditions (Womens Press 1983) Edi-tor. From Aphra Benn (16401689) to Simone DeBeauvoir (1908 1986)

Theres Always Been a Womens Movement in theTwentieth Century (1983)

Time and Tide Wait for No Man (ed., 1984) For the Record: The Making and Meaning of Femi-

nist Knowledge (Womens Press, 1985)

Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Be-fore Jane Austen (1986).

Series editor for Pandora Press Mothers ofthe Novel series (19861989)

Scribbling Sisters (1987) Treats pioneers of the novel like Lady MaryWroath, Anne Weamys, Katherine Philips,Anne Cliord, Lucy Hutchinson, Anne Fan-shawe, Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn,

1

2 6 EXTERNAL LINKS

Delarivire Manley, Eliza Haywood, as well asthe achievements of Sarah Fielding, CharlotteLennox, Elizabeth Inchbald, Charlotte TurnerSmith, Ann Radclie, Mary Wollstonecraft,Mary Hays, Frances Burney, Maria Edge-worth, Lady Morgan, Amelia Opie, and MaryBrunton. She also provides a list of 106women novelists before Jane Austen.

Writing a New World: Two Centuries of AustralianWomen Writers (Penguin Books, 1988)

The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have toRead Womens Writing to Know Its No Good (1989)

Nattering on the Net: Women, Power and Cyberspace(Spinifex, 1995)

Women of ideas and what men have done to them:From Aphra Behn to Adrienne Rich (1992)

Living by the Pen: Early British Women Writers

5 References[1] The Bibliography of Australian Literature: PZ edited by

John Arnold, John Hay (page 409).

[2] Thompson, Peter: Dale Spender, Talking Heads (Aus-tralian Broadcasting Corporation), 15 April 2005.

6 External links Website of Dale Spender ABC Queensland prole of Dale Spender ABC 'Talking Heads interview with Dale Spender

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