10 November 1958 – 20 January 2026
By Joan Scanlon
Deborah Cameron, feminist linguist and formidable public intellectual, was born in 1958. Her mother died when she was in her teens, and like many young working-class women, she was expected to take on her mother’s role, look after her younger siblings and her feckless alcoholic father. She never harked back to her working-class background, having an aversion to all forms of identity politics, but it informed her views on family, work, food and all aspects of women’s lives. She was a materialist feminist with an extraordinary intellectual capacity, a gift for communication, and her feet very firmly on the ground.
After leaving school she was sacked from her first job in a bank for trying to unionize the staff there, and so she decided to leave home and take herself off to study English at University in Newcastle. So brilliant was she that she was propelled straight from there to St Hilda’s College, Oxford, where, alongside her research in sociolinguistics, she immersed herself in feminist activism, getting stuck into direct action protests against sex shops, prostitution and all forms of violence against women. When she submitted her thesis proposal, on feminism and linguistic theory, the premise was roundly rejected by the research board of the English faculty, and she left Oxford without a PhD. There are many bitter ironies in Debbie’s career trajectory, but this was one of the first: shortly after leaving Oxford her thesis was published by Macmillan Press and went on to become a key text-book for students of linguistics at universities around the UK and internationally.
Feminism and Linguistic Theory has all the hallmarks of her future writing, most notably her remarkable ability to make complex ideas accessible. Debbie had such intellectual confidence that she had no need to hide behind the mystificatory language of high theory, or adopt the intellectual fashions of the day, be it post-modernism, psychoanalytic theory or French philosophy, so beloved of other academics at the time and since. Her first academic job was at Roehampton institute – where I first met her at a fairly unorthodox feminist conference she organized in 1987, with comedians like Sensible Footwear in the line up – but the first time I heard her speak in public was at an event in the summer of 1988. It was the peak of the so-called ‘sex-wars’ between pro and anti pornography feminists; a famous keynote speaker had withdrawn because she had concluded that there were pro S&M delegates at the conference, chiefly because there were a few students in attendance who were wearing ripped tights and Doc Martens. Debbie stepped into the breach and spoke to the packed auditorium about media reporting of violence against women; she had the audience in the palm of her hand as she unpicked headlines and photo captions with such acuity that you could never look at a newspaper the same way again. She was a brilliant speaker, hard-hitting and clear-sighted, witty and entertaining; she also had the capacity to write with the same apparent ease with which she spoke – and she was a prolific writer. When she joined the editorial collective of Trouble and Strife magazine, there was more than one occasion on which she bailed us out as the print deadline approached and we were short of copy, because she always had material on her laptop. I remember asking her how on earth she could just have an article about Rose West sitting on her computer, ready for us to publish – and she explained that she hadn’t written it for publication; she had written it to try and work out her understanding of the apparent phenomenon of a woman serial killer. Not least because she had written The Lust to Kill a few years earlier with Elizabeth Frazer, which had focused on male sexual violence and the murder of women, and she wanted to know whether the case of Rose West changed their analysis of sexual murder. Writing for her was a way of clarifying issues and so she wrote about whatever was on her mind, to sharpen her own intellectual and political thinking. We were the accidental beneficiaries of that process, and it was a huge pleasure and privilege to have been a witness to that alchemy. I cannot think of any feminist colleague of mine, whether academic or activist (or both) who has not been influenced by her work, or who does not admire her writing.
While at Roehampton, Debbie went as a visiting Professor to William and Mary College in Virginia, where she met & fell in love with her life long partner and intellectual companion Meryl Altman. During her stay there, they were subject to appalling homophobic harassment and abuse, and Debbie determined never to go back to live in the US, and indeed, when Donald Trump was first elected she swore not to visit while he was in the White House. After Roehampton, she went to Strathclyde University, before returning to London to work at the Institute of Education; she then went from there to Oxford as Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication in 2004, which was the final chapter of her career. It amused her greatly that one of the dons who was on the committee that interviewed and appointed her to this Chair in the English faculty had been on the committee which rejected her original PhD thesis. She was also amused by her new title, and having established that the benefactor of her chair had no power to dictate any aspect of her role, she enjoyed the irony of being able, with impunity, to bite the hand that fed her. She also did her best to use her role to promote the interest of less advantaged students in getting placements in the media.
While in Oxford she continue to write and publish enormously influential books; such as The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages? which debunks the myth which is the central conceit of the title. Debbie was impatient of lazy thinking, evolutionary psychology, astrology, and all things woo-woo. And she chased them down with a laser. She always had a funny story about the latest linguistic gaffe she had heard: for instance when she heard a scientist on the radio talking about the gender of penguins – “they don’t have a gender” she guffawed – “he must have thought gender was a polite term for sex”. Debbie needed an audience for her ideas and her anecdotes. When Trouble and Strife finally gave up publication, Debbie and I edited a Reader with a selection of articles from its 20 years in print. Given Debbie’s phenomenal mind and strong opinions, I anticipated we would have heated debates, but to my astonishment, it was one of the most enjoyable and harmonious collaborations I have ever experienced. Debbie was a brilliant editor, able to tease out the arguments in other people’s writing and cut the waffle (she let me deal with feedback to the authors!); we bounced ideas off each other, laughed until our sides ached, and redrafted each other’s words without vanity. The brief book tour we did was equally stimulating, politically enlightening, and hilarious. Debbie had been central to Trouble and Strife, throughout its history, both as a writer and editor, and it felt like a fitting end to this chapter of the women’s movement, as recorded by one of its most important publications.
After Trouble and Strife magazine folded, Debbie looked for other readers and embraced the new technology that allowed her to make podcasts and contribute to debates in various online forums, where she built up a considerable following. She was also frequently invited to speak on numerous BBC radio programmes, including Woman’s Hour, Word of Mouth, Thinking Allowed and Fry’s English Delight. While in Oxford, Debbie continued to teach and write, and her most recent publication came out only last year, with the typically forthright title: The Rise of Dogwhistle Politics, exposing the linguistic mechanisms by which opposing cultural and political forces promote their beliefs and opinions in an era of populism and online echo chambers. As always, Debbie had her finger on the pulse, and we will miss her sharp commentary on the world we are left to watch without her.
She leaves two younger siblings, and her partner Meryl.