for example, the fable oral gory, a form used by american women writers from the 18th century to the present including writers as diverse as katherine sedgwick, edith wharton, alice dunbar nelson, mary austin, shirley jackson, i could go on and on. and i want to conclude by reading one of these fables. it's quite short. called "she unnames them." how many of you know this piece? yes, my daughter. okay. [laughter] otherwise, this will be something new to you, and be i hope you'll like it. it's set in the garden of eden. it is told by a very rebellious eve, and it reflects very much of the time. it reflects the concern, the fascination of feminists in the 1980s with escaping from patriarchal language, the idea that our language is a language invented by men and, therefore, controls what we can express and creating a new way of speaking and writing. so "she unnames them." most of them accepted namelessness with the perfect indifference with which they had so long accepted and ignored their names. whales and dolphins, seals and sea otters consented with particular grace and alacrity slid