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Dale Spender

Dale Spender (born 22 September 1943)[1] is an Aus- Great Women Series (United Kingdom).
tralian feminist scholar, teacher, writer and consultant.
Today Spender is particularly concerned with intellectual property and the eects of new technologies: in her
terms, the prospects for new wealth and new learning.
For nine years she was a director of Copyright Agency
1 Early life
Limited (CAL) in Australia and for two years (2002
2004) she was the chair. She is also involved with the
Spender was born in Newcastle, New South Wales, a
Second Chance Programme, which tackles homelessness
niece of the crime writer Jean Spender (190170). The
among women in Australia.
eldest of three, she has a younger sister Lynne, and
a much younger brother Graeme. She attended the
Burwood Girls High School, in Sydney and she was a
Miss Kodak girl. In the early 1960s, as an MA graduate, 3 Personal life
she taught English at Meadowbank Boys High School, in
Sydneys north-western suburbs. In the latter half of the She has been in a relationship with Ted Brown for over
1960s she later taught English Literature at Dapto High three decades. They have no children. She consistently
School. She started lecturing at James Cook University dresses in purple clothes, a choice she initially made for
in 1974, before going to live in London and publishing its symbolic reference to the suragettes.[2] She currently
the book Man Made Language in 1980.
resides in Brisbane, Australia.

4 Publications

Work

Man Made Language (Routledge & Kegan Paul,


1980)

The book Man Made Language (1980) is based on


Spenders PhD research. Her argument is that in patriarchal societies men control language and it works in their
favour. Language helps form the limits of our reality.
It is our means of ordering, classifying and manipulating
the world (1980:3). Where men perceive themselves as
the dominant gender, disobedient women who fail to conform to their given inferior role are labelled as abnormal,
promiscuous, neurotic or frigid. Spender draws parallels
with how derogatory terms are used to maintain racism
(1980:6). Man Made Language illustrates how linguistic
determinism interconnects with economic determinism
to oppress women in society and provides a wide breadth
of analysis to do this. The book explores the assumed deciencies of women, silencing, intimidation and the politics of naming.

Invisible Women: The Schooling Scandal (1982)


Feminist Theorists: Three Centuries of Womens Intellectual Traditions (Womens Press 1983) Editor. From Aphra Benn (16401689) to Simone De
Beauvoir (1908 1986)
Theres Always Been a Womens Movement in the
Twentieth Century (1983)
Time and Tide Wait for No Man (ed., 1984)
For the Record: The Making and Meaning of Feminist Knowledge (Womens Press, 1985)
Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen (1986).

In 1991, Spender published a literary spoof, The Diary


of Elizabeth Pepys (1991 Grafton Books, London). Purportedly written by Elisabeth Pepys, the wife of Samuel
Pepys, the book is a feminist critique of womens lives in
17th Century London.

Series editor for Pandora Press Mothers of


the Novel series (19861989)
Scribbling Sisters (1987)

Spender is co-originator of the database WIKED


(Womens International Knowledge Encyclopedia and
Data) and founding editor of the Athene Series and Pandora Press, commissioning editor of the Penguin Australian Womens Library, and associate editor of the

Treats pioneers of the novel like Lady Mary


Wroath, Anne Weamys, Katherine Philips,
Anne Cliord, Lucy Hutchinson, Anne Fanshawe, Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn,
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Delarivire Manley, Eliza Haywood, as well as
the achievements of Sarah Fielding, Charlotte
Lennox, Elizabeth Inchbald, Charlotte Turner
Smith, Ann Radclie, Mary Wollstonecraft,
Mary Hays, Frances Burney, Maria Edgeworth, Lady Morgan, Amelia Opie, and Mary
Brunton. She also provides a list of 106
women novelists before Jane Austen.
Writing a New World: Two Centuries of Australian
Women Writers (Penguin Books, 1988)
The Writing or the Sex?, Or, Why You Don't Have to
Read 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

References

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


John Arnold, John Hay (page 409).
[2] Thompson, Peter: Dale Spender, Talking Heads (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), 15 April 2005.

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

EXTERNAL LINKS

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.1

Text

Dale Spender Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Spender?oldid=660241489 Contributors: Lquilter, Charles Matthews,


Markhurd, Dimadick, FunnyMan3595, Rich Farmbrough, 99of9, Azundris, Canley, SmackBot, Ohconfucius, Robosh, Collywolly, Cydebot, Spedding, Julia Rossi, SmokeyTheCat, Dsp13, Misarxist, Victuallers, Scribblingwoman, Steel1943, Mysticmedea, Krawi, Sterry2607,
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7.2

Images

7.3

Content license

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

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