Women Who Drink and Fight: A Discourse Analysis of Working-Class Women's Talk

Abstract

More recent years have begun to see a shift in focus in academic writing towards the rather neglected topic of female aggression and violence (for example, Campbell, 1993(for example, Campbell, , 1995Burbank, 1994). Furthermore, some feminists have highlighted the benefits of drawing attention towards women's aggression for feminist agendas (for example, Campbell, 1993;White and Kowalski, 1994). However, much of the existing work in this area situates women's aggression in the context of normative heterosexual relationships and domestic domains, meaning that women's aggression and violence in other (more public) contexts is often overlooked. This omission is puzzling now given that women are entering into more public domains and spaces which have historically been dominated by men (for example, Kua, 1994) and reports that most incidents where women report being attacked by other women take place in the context of pubs or clubs (Home Office, 1993). As such, this study examines women's talk around aggression in the context of 'nights out'. In sum, it is argued here that physical aggression can be understood as playing an important role in the construction of working-class femininities in ways that 'make sense' in local classed contexts, thus emphasizing the importance of contextual understandings of women's aggression.

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“…Day, Gough and McFadden (2003) argue, from a feminist perspective, that the study of women's involvement in incidents of public aggression and violence may help to challenge stereotypical views of women as passive and weak. They also consider women's aggression in the context of 'nights out' to be an important aspect of the construction of identities amongst English working-class women.…”

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“…However, analysis also aimed to explore how people are active meaning-makers. Thus, as in the work of Day et al (2003) principles from grounded theory and a more 'bottom-up' form of discursive psychology (Harper, 1999;Potter & Wetherell, 1995;Wetherell, 1998) were also used. Furthermore, in keeping with a critical discourse analytic approach (e.g.…”