National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences
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| 3.2. Discourse and Gender The study of discourse is oftentimes not complete without examining how Gender affects discourse and how discourse is used to portray gender (representation of gender in discourse. Scholars on Feminist Discourse and Gender Studies have identified different ways Gender shapes discourse. One way of looking at Gender and discourse is to look at the speech of men and women. Women and men do not speak the same way in the sense that what they talk about is different. For instance, women often talk about feelings and relationships, their work, and their family. On the other hand, men talk most often about practical matters, like their latest computer update, how to repair their car, or even business. Another way is to look at how women are represented. The general feeling of scholars on Media and Gender Studies is that women are stereotyped in discourse especially in the Media. Oftentimes they are presented as sex symbols with the display of sensitive parts of their bodies like their busts, thighs in adverts. Representations of women across all media tend to highlight the following beauty, sexuality, emotions and relationship. Women are often represented as being part of a context (family, friends, colleagues) and working/thinking as part of a team. In drama, they tend to take the role of helper or object, passive rather than active. Often their passivity extends to victimhood. 118 Men on the other hand are represented with focus on the following aspects of masculinity sex, power, physique and independence. With these stereotyping, Feminists scholars believe that women are most times misrepresented and this amounts to discrimination against the female gender. Men are provided with a larger number of opportunities to present their viewpoints and shown in diverse role in all areas like administration, law, business, science and technology. Representation of women varies from negligible to total exclusions and women in certain accepted professions are interviewed and talked about in the Press. For example women educationists or women doctors. If they are interviewed for achieving success in a male profession, then the article often goes to great pains to point out her ‘feminity’. Download 0.49 Mb. Share with your friends:
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