The Discursive Construction of Gender

 Gender is constructed in discourse - in the ways we talk about things. This includes the words we have available, the metaphors, the turns of phrase (e.g. the "opposite sex"), the recurring conversations ("is it a boy or a girl?). The visions of gender and sexuality that are repeatedly exercised in talk take on a sense of naturalness, so when we speak of "discourses of gender and sexuality", we're referring to sets of beliefs that are pervasive, dominant, and powerful in society or in some segment of society.

This week we will discuss the discursive construction of gender and sexuality at all levels - from the role of power in setting "the" discourse to the role of the lexicon in carving up the world. The lexicon is always a project in progress, and we are all constantly in the process of making and changing the distinctions we make about the world. Common collocations and metaphors are also powerful resources in the reproduction of ideology.

Readings

Question of the week: How does the lexicon contribute to discourses of gender? We encourage you to come up with examples of your own.

Cameron, Deborah. 1992.Naming of parts: Gender, culture, and terms for the penis among American college students. American Speech, 67.367-82.
Hines, Caitlin. 1999. Rebaking the Pie: The WOMAN AS DESSERT Metaphor. In Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self in Discourse, Edited by Bucholtz, M. and Liang, AC and Sutton, L.A. Oxford University Press.145-62.
Martin, Emily. 1991. The egg and the sperm: How science has constructed a romance based on male-female roles. Signs, 16.485-501.

Geoff Nunberg asks "is sl*t an obscene word?"

Recommended Readings:

Zimman, Lal. ms. The discursive construction of sex: Remaking and reclaiming the gendered body in talk about genitals among trans men.
Valentine, David. 2003. 'I went to bed with my own kind once': the erasure of desire in the name of identity. Language and communication, 23.123-38.
Valentine, David. 2004. We're "Not about Gender": The uses of "Transgender". GLQ: A journal of lesbian and gay studies. 10. 215-20.