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Ardener, Shirley. (1978) Defining Females-The Nature of Women in Society. Halsted Press.

The muted group theory was first presented by Edwin Ardener in 1968. The discussion of this concept was brought up to encourage anthropologists and others to focus more on spheres of communication and modes of expression of women and other groups that are often overlooked. The mutedness of one group can be inversely thought of as the deafness of the group that dominates. An important issue in the theory of mutedness is how the muted group is able to express themselves. The may have to re-encode their thoughts to make them understandable. The tendency of women to nag may show evidence of women's supposed "greater verbal fluency" combined with their inability to express themselves adequately in the dominant forums. Women generally have had to possess better verbal skills than men, but society gives more respect to the greater physical strength of men. The theory of muting does not have to do with only spoken language, but with all areas of communication as well. Instead of ignoring the dominant group or just tolerating the demands of that group, muted groups may maintain thier own system.

Craig, Robert T. (1998) Muted Group Theory Cheris Kramarae. Online: http://spot.colorado.edu/~craigr/Muted/

Different sexes see the world differently because of their different experiences rooted in the division of labor. The public vocabulary reflects male experiences because males have political dominance. "Lexical bias" in public language can be seen in cartoons, metaphors, terms for women's speech, and terms for sexual activity. Women are not represented enough in textbooks, media, and on the internet. When in public they must use male systems of expression. The use private "back channels" to talk about their own experiences. Goals of the muted group are to change the male oriented linguistic system and overcome such things as sexual harassment and the glass ceiling.

Watson, James and Hill, Anne. (1997) A Dictionary of Commuication and Media Studies. St. Martins Press.

A muted group is a group within a society whose mode of expression is not that of the dominant group(s). Members of the muted groups have to express themselves in the dominant mode of expression. They so this so the dominant group will hear them and take notice of them. This disadvantage makes them relatively mute.

Boles, Janet K. and Hoeveler, Diane Long. (1996) Historical Dictionary of Feminism. Madison Books.

Shirley Ardener was an English anthropologist. She began an ongoing influential discussion in Women's Studies at the Center for Cross-Cultural research on women at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford University in the 1970's. She has presented women as a "muted class," a group whose expression isn't heard by the dominant class.

Wall, Celia J. and Gannon-Leary, Pat. (1999) The European Journal of Women's Studies: A Sentence Made of Men-Muted Group Theory Revisited. Online: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journals/usdetails/ab007381.html

Muted group theory has a broad applicability. The theory can be applied to gain understanding about how men and women communicate with each other. Their needs to be research done to examine the context in which the conclusions are drawn. Basically, in order to let muted group theory branch out to cover more ground, more research must be done to prove it.

Senner, Laura. (1999) Muted Group Theory. Online: http://spot.colorado.edu/~craigr/App_../papers/Senner.htm

"According to Kramarae groups within our society are muted, or go incompletely heard due to the lack of an effective means to express certain groups of ideas, experiences, or thoughts." Kramarae's Muted groups show up in many places such as television, the workplace, and societal roles. Kramarae's philosophies aid to the incorporation of female influence into dialogue. Women can benefit greatly from studying Kramarae because the theory is: Strong and useful on a daily basis.

Bente, Anne. (1999) Muted Group Theory. Online: http://spot.colorado.edu/~craigr/App_../papers/Bente.htm

"Muted group theory was designed to explore the experience of a subordinate group, particularly women, and therefore, the majority of the general public does not recognise it." Basically, the lack of common knowledge about muted group theory is an example of muted group theory. Because men and women communicate differently, a person of one gender may not always understand the statements made by a person of the other gender. Women, in being part of this "muted group" have a hard time expressing their thoughts. Males encounter more problems understanding females. Females express themselves differently than male-monopolized mediums. Muted group theory contributes to empowerment of women. "This is a critical stregnth of the theory. It validates and explains the experiences and perceptions of women."

Gilligan, Carol. (1995) Hearing the Difference: theorizing connection. Found online at: http://www.elibrary.com/

Gilligan explains her work surrounding her 1982 book, In a Different Voice. "It was startling then to discover that women for the most part were not included in research on psychological development, or when included were marginalized or intrepreted within a theoretical bias where the child and the adult were assumed to be male and the male was taken as the norm," she says. Women are conditioned into selflessness at adolescence. Women learn not to hope for change, because often, hope leads only to disapointment.

Griffin, Em. (1991) A First Look at Communication. McGraw-Hill, Inc. Online: http://www.afirstlook.com/docs/Gilligan.html

Carol Gilligan's book, In a Different Voice, says that men and women think and speak differently. Griffin examines Gilligan's theory in the context of Janet Lever's research at Northwestern University about the play habits of children. Boys and girls play habits are different. "Gilligan belives that this difference carries over into adult life. Women change the rules in order to preserve relationships; men abide by the rules and see relationships as replaceable." Women describe themselves in terms of the relationships they are in while men defind themselves individually.

Kramarae, Cheris. (1997) Technology Policy, Gender, and Cyberspace. Duke Journal of Gender Law and Policy. Found online at: http://www.elibrary.com/

Cyberspace is not seen as a "hospitable" climate for women. Computer labs are dominated my males and male oriented dialogue. Women who receive harassing messages online or are attacked when posting to lists usually give up. Some just stop posting, others leave the Internet totally. Most electronic networks were and are being built by men. These men tend to overlook the communication style of women.

Roiphe, Katie. (1993) Tell Me What I'd Say? Excerpt from "The Morning After". Found online at: http://www.elibrary.com/

This provides examples of male/female miscommunication including those that lead to date rape and sexual harassment. Most examples involve college students. This also explains inherent problems because different women also express themselves differently; therefore making it even more difficult to break the barrier in cross-gender communications.

Author Unknown. (1998) AC-"Fire": Latin American, Feminist and Interactive. Women's Health Journal. Found online at: http://www.elibrary.com/

The Feminist Interactive Radio Endeavor, AC "FIRE", is based in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica. It is a non-profit organization that is not affiliated with the government. It was born out of the Feminist International Radio Endeavor, which was created in May of 1991. FIRE was inspired by the Women's Peace Tent in Nairobi in 1985, where there was a focus on the need for women's communication networks. FIRE wanted to create a communications channel on short-wave where women's voices could be heard. These radio productions are re-broadcast to stations around the world to extend the outreach. The goals of AC "FIRE" include promoting non-sexist communications and inclusive language in media, while attempting to help bridge the gender gap.

Bordo, Susan. (1998) Twilight Zones; Feminism and Film; Feminism, Media and the Law. NWSA journal. Found online at: http://www.elibrary.com/

Women are not only underrepresented in the media, but they are usually misrepresented. Basically, this article refers to film. It explains the application of Kramarae's theory that women do not recieve the right kind of recognition in the male dominated media to film.

Duggan, Lisa. (1998) Theory in Practice-The Theory Wars, or, Who's afraid of Judith Butler?. Journal of Women's history. Found online at: http://www.elibrary.com/

Gives examples on how the communication world is changing to accomidate feminist theory. "...developments in literary theory and film studies, philosophy, linguistics, and communications that were revolutionizing feminist theory." Women are forcing feminism into the media.

VanGorp, Ericka. (1998) Muted Group Theory. Online: http://spot.colorado.edu/~craigr/App_../papers/VanGorp.htm

Women and men are given different characteristics in the media. Kramarae studied female cartoon characters and found that they were "vague and flowery." Women must use language unusual to them to communicate with men. Traditionally, men have had the prominent positions in society, and women had to modify their speech to fit theirs.

Baer, Joanne. (1998) Muted Group Theory by Cheris Kramarae. Online: http://spot.colorado.edu/~craigr/App_../papers/Baer.htm

Women and men communicate differently. Stereotypes of women keep their language out of the mainstream media. Through conditioning and socialization women grow into their gender roles as adults.

Hegde, Radha. (1998) A View from Elsewhere:Locating Difference and the Politics of Represenation from a Transnational Feminist Perspective. Communication Theory. Online: http://icahdq.org/publications/ct_aug98.html

New feminist, postmodern and postcolonial thought make for increased coverage of women in media and increased oppurtunity for study in this area. Criticisms on cross cultural women's communication are made. Postmodern and postcolonial thought will extend possiblilties and applications of feminist communication theory which will aid to it's transition into the mainstream.

Wells, Jennifer. (1997) Stuck on the Ladder. Macleans. Found online at: http://www.elibrary.com/

This gives examples of the glass ceiling theory that explains why there are so few women in high-power business positions. Working women are kept in their staff positions. This relates to Kramarae's theories that women are kept out of traditional men's positions.

Bates, Barbara. (1978) Nonsexist Language Use in Transition. Journal of Communication.

It has been said by critics of sex bias in language that the English language contains demeaning and inaccurate images of females. There are generic male terms which may convey sex bias. Examples of these terms include "chairman" and "mankind".

Ardener, Shirley. (1975) Perceiving Women. Halsted Press.

Edwin Ardener says that a group is considered muted if it does not form part of the dominant communicative system of the society. Charlotte Hardman is credited for the term "muted". Besides women, children and criminals are also considered to be muted groups.

Kramarae, Cheris. (1981) Women and Men Speaking. Newbury House Publishers.

Kramarae uses a 1902 quote by Carrie Chapman Catt that says "This world taugh woman nothing skillful and then said her work was valueless. It permitted her no opinions and said she did not know how to think. It forbade her to speak in public, and said the sex had no orators." One example of a communication problem for women would be a nun describing her "marriage" to Christ. The usual term for marriage is not appropriate for this. The discussion of muted group was first inspired by a debate about the methods of social anthropologists. Males have a harder time than females in understanding members of the other gender. Women are not as likely to coin words that are widely used by both sexes. The sense of humor of the two sexes differ.