HOW DO WE ADDRESS" THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENDER INEQUALITY AND the language practices of a society"? 1 Principled and repetitive inequality seems un-American. Yet gendered performances continue in part because these performances efface themselves into appearances of doing something natural. How can we level the playing field in such circumstances? How do we take the issues discussed previously and point them toward applications in the worlds of careers, couple-making, and family interaction? I would like to have written this chapter around success stories, reports of occasions in which speakers talk in ways that make or preserve a level play ing field. I have found these stories hard to come by, which suggests one or more of the following: