Demonstrates how French dictionaries from the seventeenth century onwards have used elimination or definition to censure certain words unacceptable to the bourgeois ideology of the times.

Discusses the movement toward androgyny based upon and fostered by an increasing societal emphasis upon "femininity" in its maternal (as opposed to its heterosexual) aspects. Argues that the masculine paradigm promotes differentiation between the sexes, especially the sex objectification of women. (Author/RK)