Margaret Wetherell Masculinity, Performance and Discourse:
Rethinking the Relationship Between Gender and Language
Click here to download Margaret Wetherell's paper in pdf format.

The Open University
NEW ZEALAND
M.S.Wetherell@open.ac.uk
www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/staff/mswetherell/

About Margaret Wetherell

Wetherell has been instrumental in the development of discursive psychology. This approach shares some theoretical positions with critical discourse analysis but has grown from the social-psychology research tradition focusing on intergroup behavior. Wetherell has applied this framework to issues of racism and masculinity to demonstrate that commonsense interpretations of the world are established through discourse. She has also made a valuable intervention in the debate concerning the possibility of a feminist conversation analysis, arguing for the omnipresence of gender as a salient factor in interaction.


Abstract

This paper will explore the notion that gender is performed or 'done' in discourse. This claim, which is characteristic of discursive psychological work on gender identity, has its origins in post-structuralist theory (Butler's feminist philosophy, for instance) and in ethnomethodology. It can be contrasted with analyses of gender and language which take gender as a pre-discursive 'independent variable' reflected in or 'marking' language use. I will try to pull out the theoretical and substantive implications of the post-structuralist and ethnomethodological viewpoints using illustrations from a study of white British men.

My examples will concern the ways in which the men we interviewed positioned themselves in relation to hegemonic or dominant masculinities. This work builds on Connell's useful insights about varieties of masculine styles and the relationships between these. Some styles, for example, are marginalised or subordinated while others are lauded and celebrated. My examples lead to questions about how best to understand this concept of hegemonic masculine styles. What is hegemonic masculinity? Is it a particular kind of character structure that some men manage to act out while others fail? Is it normative masculinity or a regulatory ideal? How do gender and power go together in men's discourse?



Presentation Materials

Click here to download Margaret Wetherell's paper in pdf format.
Click here to download Margaret Wetherell's presentation handout in pdf format.
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