Unequal egalitarianism: A preliminary study of discourses concerning gender and employment opportunities

Abstract

A set of accounts concerning final year university students' views on the status of employment opportunities for women is examined to identify some of the practical ideologies surrounding the reproduction of gender inequalities. The focus of the analysis is the structure of the discourse produced and what is revealed about wider systems of making sense. This approach is contrasted with conventional survey research. We argue, first, that our sample's responses represent a conflict between their endorsement of equal opportunities and their emphasis on the practical considerations supposedly limiting those opportunities and, second, that their model of the human subject in society is individualistic in nature as are their notions of social change and explanations for existing inequalities.

The Real Cost of Childcare: Motherhood and Flexible Creative Labour in the UK Film Industry - Review Essay

“…It's just the way the business is. (Groysberg 2008, p.78) It is also echoed by one of the young men interviewed in Margaret Wetherell et al's (1987) ground-breaking investigation of discourses of final year university students around gender and employment opportunities:…”

Discursive Social Psychology: From Attitudes to Evaluative Practices

“…As discursive social psychology developed, one of the main lines of criticism of traditional work on attitudes revolved around the identification of variability in the use of evaluative expressions (Billig, 1989;Potter and Wetherell, 1987;Wetherell et al, 1987). At its simplest the argument is as follows.…”

“…There are now a range of studies which reveal variability in a wide range of different settings including the talk and letters of research scientists (Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984;McKinlay and Potter, 1987;Mulkay and Gilbert, 1981, 1983Potter, 1984Potter, , 1987Potter, , 1988; talk about race and racism (Potter and Wetherell, 1988McCreanor, 1989;McCreanor, 1990, 1991;Shi-xu, 1996;Wetherell and Potter, 1992); accounts of government communicators (te Molder, 1996); talk about gender, careers and inequality (Campbell, 1995;Gill, 1991Gill, , 1993Marshall and Wetherell, 1989;Wetherell et al, 1987); talk about the Royal Family (Billig, 1991(Billig, , 1992; claims in parliamentary discourse and newspaper articles related to a political dispute (Edwards and Potter, 1992a,b;Edwards, 1990, 1994); talk in work settings such as education and medicine (Billig et al, 1988); talk about health and dieting (Lupton and Chapman, 1995;Wetherell, forthcoming) and social work (Roffe, 1996). The majority of these studies do not take 'attitude variability'…”

Financial crisis and austerity: interdisciplinary concerns in critical discourse studies

“…They should not be thought of as permanently held viewpoints. Most ideologies are flexible enough to allow a fair amount a shifting and situational adaptation, or even paradox and contradiction (Wetherell, Stiven, & Potter, 1987). The austerity debate provides some great examples for this argument positing the situated nature of discourse, including amongst leading publications like The Economist, which moved from a solidly pro-austerity standpoint in the run-up to the UK May 2010 election, to a mildly anti-austerity standpoint (The Economist), and then moved onto a direct critique of German austerity policies (The Economist, 2012).…”