This book provides a showcase for a wide range of discourse analytical work in psychology from a feminist perspective. It constitutes a thorough critical evaluation of this approach for the feminist project of intellectual, social and political change.
Leading researchers explore the benefits and contradictions of discourse analysis and consider its value for feminist psychology. The first part of the book illustrates the application of discourse analysis to four key topics of feminist concern: adolescent knowledge about menstruation; sexual harassment; gendered representations of childhood; and anorexia nervosa. The second part contains five assessments of the usefulness of discourse analysis - both as theory and as method - for feminists.
Introduction - Sue Wilkinson and Celia Kitzinger
PART ONE: EMPIRICAL WORK
The Bleeding Body - Kathryn Matthews Lovering
Adolescents Talk about Menstruation
Sexual Harassment - Celia Kitzinger and Alison Thomas
A Discursive Approach
`What Is It?' Masculinity and Femininity in Cultural Representations of Childhood - Erica Burman
Conflicting Opinions? `Anorexia Nervosa', Medicine and Feminism - Julie Hepworth and Christine Griffin
PART TWO: THEORETICAL ADVANCES
Feminist Discourses and Women's Heterosexual Desire - Wendy Hollway
Identity, Politics and Talk - Sue Widdicombe
A Case for the Mundane and the Everyday
Romantic Discourse and Feminist Analysis - Margaret Wetherell
Interrogating Investment, Power and Desire
Pragmatism, Extravagance and Feminist Discourse Analysis - Corinne Squire
Relativism, Reflexivity and Politics - Rosalind Gill
Interrogating Discourse Analysis from a Feminist Perspective
