Gender Matters presents a feminist linguistic analysis of texts - literature, media and lyrics - and conversation. It explores how gender relates to and shapes our understanding of sexism, reading and writing, politeness and public speaking. The essays in the book examine a range of questions: why is it necessary for feminists to analyse or comment on sexism when sexism is widely regarded as an anachronistic concern? How can feminists describe the effect of gender on the experience of literature? Why are women conA--sidered more capable of private rather than public speech? What is the relation between gender and politeness and are women more polite than men? In analysing these themes, Gender Matters highlights the insights and strengths of both second and third wave feminist analysis for linguistics.
Gender Matters 1. Introduction: Why gender matters Section 1: Gender and reading/writing 2. Gender and reading 'Gendering the reader' 3.. Analysing women's writing 'The Gendered sentence' Section 2: Analysing sexism 4. Sexism and Poetry 'Knowing y/our place: feminist contextualised stylistics' 5. Post-feminist text analysis 'Postfeminist text analysis' 6. Transitivity analysis 'Close encounters of a feminist kind: Transitivity and pop lyrics' 7. Third wave feminist text analysis 'Third wave feminism and the analysis of sexism' 8. Feminism and naming 'Caught between anti-sexism, sexism and 'political correctness' Section 3: Gender and politeness 9. 'Gender and politeness' 10.'Gender and impoliteness' 11. 'Class, Gender and politeness' Section 4 : Strong women speakers 12. 'Discourse competence; or how to theorise strong women speakers' 13.'Gender and performance anxiety' 14. Conclusions
