Charlebois, Justin and Sunderland, Jane (2010) The discursive construction of hegemonic and pariah femininities in the spoken accounts of a group of Japanese women. PhD thesis, Lancaster University.
Abstract
This thesis investigates the discursive construction of culturally idealised (‘hegemonic’) and alternative (‘pariah’) femininities in the spoken accounts of a group of Japanese women. Semi-structured individual and group interviews were conducted with a sample of women and the data was analysed using a Critical Discursive Psychology (CDP) approach. This study makes a contribution to both gender theory and critical discursive psychology. It contributes to gender theory by empirically investigating the theoretical constructs of ‘hegemonic’ and ‘pariah’ femininities. The results of this study indicate that a full-time homemaker is a culturally dominant image of hegemonic femininity. In contrast, working professional women challenge and potentially subvert the homemaker image and thus can be seen as ‘pariah’ femininities. Second, this study fills a gap in existing research by attempting to relate concepts from discursive psychology to characteristic discursive features. These relationships suggest that critical discursive psychologists can make claims about the workings of gender hegemony assisted by identifying participants’ use of characteristic discursive features. Inquiries such as this one contribute to closing the gap between critical discursive psychology and discourse analysis and the development of a more robust and synthetic form of discourse analysis.