#Julia Penelope

[haggishlyhagging]

English speakers have a set of [+ male] predicates for penile activities and what can be done to the penis: father, sire, beget, impregnate, penetrate, ejaculate, castrate, fertilize, deflower, inseminate and emasculate. There is no semantically symmetrical set of predicates for activities performed by or to the clitoris, labia majora or minora. Male perceptions and activities dominate the sex-marked predicates, which is, perhaps, the structural reason they are a fixed set, closed to women. The semantic structure reflects social reality: men take over whatever they like from the women's sphere with impunity. Indeed, they think of such acquisitiveness as their right and prerogative.

Shut out of agency in sex-marked predicates, women must rely on nouns and multisyllabic phrases to describe our experiences. What we have are nominals—clitoridectomy, infibulation, excision, and hysterectomy (since women's genitalia are categorized not as sexual parts of our anatomy but as reproductive "equipment," "plumbing")—or phrases in which the predicate is one of the helping or semantically empty verbs: to get/be aroused, to get/ be excited, to get/be hot, to have an orgasm. But none of those phrases is uniquely [- male]. If anything, they are sex-neutral, and both sexes use them. I would suggest, however, that as women have acknowledged they have sexual feelings and decided they want to talk about them, they have borrowed already available, formerly [+ male] terms. Thus, lacking a female-specific word like ejaculate, women have begun to use the noun orgasm as a verb: "I orgasmed all night."

In fact, a woman's sexual experience and feelings are nonexistent if we believe that the English vocabulary describes reality, because there are no [- male] words for sexuality. There are hundreds of words and phrases for male sexuality and what men do to women; the slang vocabulary of English reflects the male's obsession with his penis and its "'personality." Men even name their penises and talk about them as though they lead an independent existence. Men's obsession with their penises and its structural centrality in PUD is a given, rarely worthy of comment. Men are "supposed" to be obsessed with fucking women. (Men who aren't are deviant.) One can say of a woman, "She's oversexed," but we rarely hear that adjective used to describe a man. Instead, the categorial dichotomy—men have the predicates, women get nouns—again applies. There is a predicate for describing the male activity of fucking lots of women, "womanize," and a noun, "womanizer." A woman obsessed with letting men fuck her is a "nymphomaniac," not a "*mannizer." There is no such [- male] agentive noun; it would be a semantic contradiction because PUD assumes that agency is inherently [+ male]. Womanizer and nymphomaniac both express negative judgments, as Gary Hart, Jimmy Bakker, and Jimmy Swaggert could testify, but unless a womanizing man lives in the public arena, his "weakness" is more likely to be overlooked or tacitly condoned. A woman, however, once branded as a "nymphomaniac," is condemned to a more marginal life than most heterosexuals.

To the best of my knowledge, women have not shown the exaggerated regard for their clitorises men give to their penises. When women talk about their genitals, they say "'down there." Whereas men's genitalia are objects, women's are described as a location. In contrast to the penile vocabulary [- male] words and phrases focus on the place where men stick their penises or the end result of heterosexual coitus for women, having babies. An exception to this is the verb menstruate, which is intransitive (there is no object) and requires a [- male] agent. Other female biological processes, however, can be talked about only as states, as nouns. Women "go through menopause," we "have a climacteric," even though menopause is a process that continues for years, sometimes a decade or more. And, to avoid using the one verb we do have, women have an extensive vocabulary of euphemisms: fall off the roof, be on the rag, Aunt Jane is visiting, red Herbie has come, to be unwell, have a period, be on the mattress, it's that time of the month, and have the monthlies. Women do not act; we have a function: reproduction. PUD describes our lives as nouns, nouns, and more nouns.

-Julia Penelope, Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers’ Tongues

[ophelieverse]

Ready to defend Penelope Featherington from all of you haters:

[your-mums-nuts]

Shonda Rhimes and Julia Quinn: Colin and Penelope have a glow-up this season and become super cool and confident flirts with loads of swagger

Luke and Nicola: Colin and Penelope are LOSERS and they live in LOSER-TOWN where all the NERDS hang out

[lililovesthings]

I blame Bridgerton for unrealistic expectations of declarations of love...

Edit: I beg your pardon George and Charlotte in their rightful place :)

[arishatistic]

“Your servant, Mrs. Bridgerton. Always.”

Penelope and Colin in anticipation of Bridgerton Season 3!

[rainingriversofyou]

Romancing Mister Bridgerton - Julia Quinn

Artist: littimmm

[iiilllsam]

baby agatha with her mama this time 🫶 (of course i have to make a penelope version who do you think i am?!)

[booksydaisy]

Kate Bridgerton, I see you and respect your decision to extend your honeymoon with your hottie, simp husband. Like. I get it girl. But also. 𝘎𝘦𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘨𝘪𝘳𝘭.

[sophiekarim]

CLAUDIA JESSIE as ELOISE BRIDGERTON

Bridgerton Season 2 — Bloopers

[hughgrants]

guys im sorry but this is literally so funny!!! let's have the comedy part of romcom in addition to the longing stares <3

[mrs-jamesbbarnes]

I love that they kept The Kiss. It was the moment in both the book and the show where Colin had a life epiphany while Penelope mentally prepared herself to let go of Colin forever.

The beauty of it is that when she thought she could be ready to resign herself to a life without him, she did the one thing that made him realize he could never let her go.

[haggishlyhagging]

The English words related to tool follow the patriarchal dichotomy of sex-based task assignment: the inside of a house, the female realm, and the outside, male sphere of activity. Housework, tasks performed inside a house, are "women's work," while tasks performed outside are "men's work." This division of labor is meaningful to English speakers even though they may not be conscious of its existence. Men use tools, instruments (with the exception of a few musical instruments), implements, machines, and gizmos outside. Women use utensils, appliances, and gadgets inside. In English, we speak of kitchen utensils, kitchen appliances, and kitchen gadgets—used by women, they are not considered tools. A search of the tools listed in Roget's International Thesaurus (1977) reveals only a few items stereotypically used by women (tweezers, nail file, bread knife, scissors), but numerous names for equipment reserved to the male sphere specifying types of drill, clutch, saw, plane, hammer, and wrench. Recently, though, KitchenAid has begun to advertise one of its mixers as a POWER TOOL, a tactic that blurs the boundary between the two experiential domains. Its actual effect, however, reenforces the barrier. Because women are leaving their interior domain for the male domain of "real" work, the ad imports the [+ male] phrase, power tool, and applies it to the equipment women use in a kitchen. Nothing has to change but the label applied to the objects women use; our "domain" remains the kitchen.

Man, the anthropologists tell us, distinguishes himself from other animals by his use of tools. Any object restricted to male use and ownership is a "tool," whether it's language, a hammer, or a penis. Men speak of their penises as tools, and describe their activity in heterosexual intercourse as "screwing," "nailing," "banging," "reaming," "drilling," and "hammering." So intense is the male obsession with their "tools" and females as containers or holes they penetrate that any two objects suggestive of that description, for example, electrical outlets and plugs, nuts and bolts, will have the metaphor imposed upon them. The essential distinction of PUD [Patriarchal Universe of Discourse] is the one which identifies the FUCKER and the FUCKEE.

-Julia Penelope, Speaking Freely: Unlearning the Lies of the Fathers’ Tongues

[ophelieverse]

The series’s name may be “Bridgerton” but the real main character has always been Penelope Featherington i don’t care what y’all say.

[agrippinaes]

NICOLA COUGHLAN as PENELOPE FEATHERINGTON in Bridgerton, Season 3

[lilithafrodite]

Thomas *holding a spoon*: I’m the king of the kitchen!

Penelope: And what does the king decree?

Thomas: That there shall be biscuits for everyone!

Colin *whispers to Penelope*: I think he’s my favorite monarch so far.

[lovelylildepressedsoul]

Rewatching Bridgerton seasons 1 & 2 for the zillionth time and am wondering if anyone else has caught this??!

When giving bb Simon advice, Lady Danbury tells him, “I attempted to dissolve into the shadows” and then goes on to say “I knew I would have to step into the light someday”

Out of the Shadows and Into the Light are the names of the first and last episodes of season 3!!

Just more evidence of Lady D & Pen’s similarities🥹