Conversation Analysis and Feminism

Conversation Analysis and Feminist Research
Feminist scholars have argued that the aims of CA are not incompatible with feminist studies. Traditional feminists have typically eschewed CA because of its inability to advance political arguments. CA is also criticized for its incompetence in “making the transitional links from micro-level observations to wider social structures and thus failing to produce effective political commentary”. However, Stokoe (2000) argues that this is only true of feminist psychologists - other feminist scholars have employed CA in their research. She cites the example of dominance theorists who have advanced political arguments by using CA to analyse and show dominance at the micro-level interactions. A recurring question is how far analysts can and should look beyond the dat. To answer that question, Stokoe cites Kitzinger (2000), in drawing from Sack’s (1992) work on racism, argues that conversation analysts must consider what is “passed by, not said, and taken for granted in interaction”. 560). Stokoe and Smithson also raise the following questions in relation to CA and gender and discourse:
1. To what extent can a CA approach enrich the field of gender and discourse?
2. As feminists can we use CA to make claims about the wider social effects of member’s local practices?
3. As conversation analysts, is it fruitful to rely on descriptions of and orientations to gender solely in participants’ own terms? And what counts as orientations to gender?
With regard to the first question, Stokoe and Smithson argue that a CA approach to the study of gender and discourse is not necessarily incongruent or incompatible. This is because CA’s ultimate methodology of privileging participants’ own understandings is commensurate with feminist researchers whose goals include focusing on the subjective experience of the participants. In addressing the second question, Stokoe and Smithson argue that it is indeed possible to make claims about the wider social effects if one challenges the stance of CA. This is because, after all, CA does employ the use of context, be it tacitly or overtly. In relation to the last question, which is also a larger overarching question, Stokoe and Smithson agree that it is fruitful to rely on descriptions and orientation to gender but this is limited as analysts cannot attend to everything and some culture and common-sense knowledge in the analysis is inevitably required.
While feminist scholars typically assume that gender is a relevant construct in all interactions, CA presents a challenge to feminist studies to show how and that the pervasiveness of gender is achieved in talk-in-interaction. In fact, feminist scholars who are interested in using CA as a methodology for analysis, understand that “the use of gender as an analytic category would only be appropriate when it was an observably salient feature of the participants’ talk and conduct”. Weatherall gives the example of how gender can be a relevant analytic
Examples of CA-oriented Feminist Research
Repair in Pre-adolescent Interactions
In light of the above, many feminist scholars have employed CA in their own research. Weatherall, paying special attention to repair, examines the interactions of 6 4-year-olds attending the student crèche at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. The children were grouped into triads: one all-boys triad, one all-girls triad and 2 mixed sex triads. She found that masculine generics, such as “guys” were used unproblematically to address a group comprising exclusively of girls. More importantly, there was no repair initiated to correct the use of default male generics. With the exception of one case, male generics were also generally employed in referring to animals. In that exceptional case, gender became an issue and remained pervasive throughout the rest of the interaction. Weatherall also observed that gender ambiguity can also be a source of trouble, as in the instance when the doll could be of either sex/gender. In these instances, repair ensues. In employing membership categorization and category bound activites, Weatherall also looked at how these pre-adolescent children classify jobs that are related to either gender. One telling instance is when a girl insisted that the train driver had to be a boy and this suggestion was met with a dispreferred turn shape that initiated repair. Weatherall concluded her study by underscoring that while typical conversational trouble is repaired in the vicinity of its source, gender trouble can be more extensive and pervasive, extending over the rest of the interaction.
Sexual Harassment
CA has also been used to examine instances of sexual harassment. Tainio uses CA to look at how the recurrent patterns of interaction, combined with the cultural knowledge of the identities of the participants, can give a feminist-informed approach to these instances of sexual harassment. In particular, she looks at how an MP extends the invitation to “go for a ride” to a young girl of 15 through a phonecall. Tainio argues that “harassment” can be constituted by routine conversational actions despite the girl’s strategies, which were formulated according to the norms of preference organization, to resist the MP’s invitations. For instance, she uses delays, silence or repair initiators to do rejections of the invitation which are then met with constant repetitions of the MP’s invitation. Tainio in citing Kitzinger and Frith (1999) highlights that the male’s claims to “not have understood” the refusals which conform to culturally normative patterns can only be heard as self-interested justifications for coercive behavior. Thus, the same argument can be made of the MP. Even though he did not admit to his phonecall being an instance of sexual harassment, his repetitive invitations and subsequent denials are evidence of his forceful coercion. Therefore, while his repetitive invitations are not absolutely indicative sexual harassment, his orientation to secrecy and implicit threats, combined with the cultural knowledge of what it means to “go to a hotel”, makes the notion of ‘sex’ relevant to the conversation. Additionally, with more cultural knowledge of the identity and power disparity between the girl and the MP, as well as the wider context in which the MP was previously convicted of sexual abuse, provide compelling, evidence that this phonecall was indeed one of sexual harassment.

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