Feminist critical discourse analysis

This chapter outlines some principles of Feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA), followed by a review of selected FCDA studies on a range of gendered social concerns in a variety of international contexts. It focuses on a worked example involving a discourse on sexual violence – the objectives of which are to show the cultural particularities of the discourse, and at the same time, the discursive resonances of androcentric gender ideologies at play transnationally. Feminist CDA is a political perspective which investigates the complex and diverse ways by which gender ideologies that entrench power asymmetries become 'common sense' in particular communities and discourse contexts, and how they may be challenged. This includes discursively sustained assumptions and inequalities, ranging from overt to increasingly subtler forms of sexism. FCDA studies have investigated 'newer' gender ideologies and subjectivities that have become mainstreamed through popular discourses which have appropriated feminist signifiers.