Pamela Fishman Research.

Pamela Fishman research;

·         Listened to 52 hours of pre-recorded conversation between young American couples.

·         5/6 of the subjects were at graduate school

·         All subjects where either feminists or sympathetic to the women’s movement.

·         They were all white and between the ages of 25 and 35.

·         Fishman concentrated on two characteristics of women’s speech – tag questions such as ‘you know?’ and women’s dialect.

·         Fishman stated that women frequently use the tag questions ‘isn’t it?’ or ‘Couldn’t we?’ following a thought or suggestion.

·         For women, questions are a way of beginning or maintaining conversation with men.

·         Fishman argues that women do not use these questions because of a lack of conversational awareness but that women actually gain conversational power by doing it.

·         Fishman argues questions are required when speaking to males as men often do not respond to a declarative statement or will only respond minimally.

·         Fishman also analysed the use of the phrase ‘you know?’ It is an attention grabbing device to discover if the conversational partner is listening.

·         When combined with a pause, Fishman said that the use of ‘You know?’ invites the listener to respond.

·         Within her study Fishman found that women used four times as many yes/no and tag questions as men. However, she did not believe this meant women were more uncertain and tentative like Lakoff suggested.

·         Fishman believed that this showed women generally try to keep the conversation going and therefore, women’s style of talking is not from lack of social training but to the inferior social position of women.

Information from https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/pamela-fishman%E2%80%99s-theory/

 

·         Women asked 263/370 questions.

·         This may reflect women’s relative weakness in interactive situations.

·         They exploit questions and answers in order to force a response and keep the conversation going.

Information from http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/23sexism/genderlect.html

 

·         Argues in interaction; (The work women do 1983) conversation between the sexes fails not because of the way women talk but because of how men respond or don’t respond. Women ask questions to try and get a response from men, not because of their personality weakness.

·         The Dominance theory and Fishman: The dominance theory states that the power imbalance between men and women is due to men being dominant and controlling in their interactions. All theorists in this field believed it was not down to the inferiority of women speakers but the more dominant style men had.

·         Some ideas from theorists in this category suggest men talk for longer on average; they interrupt more and control the language system.

·         In her research Fishman focused on features of women’s language considered by Lakoff but interprets them in different ways. E.G. She asserts that questions do not reflect uncertainty or powerlessness, but instead are one of a variety of tools used by women to keep conversation going.

·         Fishman also argues that women do the majority of ‘Conversational Shitwork’ as men, in their more dominant role, are less concerned to do so. Fishman states that the difference between male and female conversational behaviour is explained through expectations – men are more dominant linguistically because this is what society expects.

Information from https://prezi.com/73jkilbhzo9y/pamela-fishman/

First and Second wave Feminism.

First Wave Feminism;

Women’s suffrage began in 1848 at the Seneca Falls convention. Activists at the time such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott fought for women’s right to vote in the USA. A few years later Lucy Stone organised the National Women’s Rights Convention and Susan Anthony joined the cause. In 1920 the 19^th Amendment was passed forbidding the government from restricting voting rules based on gender.

 In England, there were two groups leading the fight for women’s right to vote. They were the Suffragettes and the Suffragists. The Suffragists were ran by Millicent Fawcett. In the wake of defeat of the first reform act that would allow women to vote the London Society for Women's Suffrage was formed. Similar Women's Suffrage groups were formed all over Britain. In 1897, seventeen of these individual groups joined together to form the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).

The NUWSS adopted a peaceful and non-confrontational approach. Members believed that success could be gained by argument and education. The organisation tried to raise its profile peacefully with posters, leaflets, calendars and public meetings.

This differed significantly from the Suffragettes led by Emmeline Pankhurst. The suffragettes were involved in a lot of controversy surrounding their methods. In 1911, the UK witnessed the first act of suffragette arson (orchestrated by Christabel Pankhurst) and two years later Emily Davison died at the Derby as she rushed out to bring down the King's horse. In Parliament, pressure for change was led by some liberal MPs, who were the leading figures in a suffrage committee. But away from the reasoned debate of Westminster, prisons filled with women prepared to go to jail for the right to vote. The civil disobedience continued behind bars, with many women force-fed to prevent them hunger striking.

While the authorities tried to present them as insane, their families campaigned for the inmates to be given political status, including the right to wear their own clothes, study and prepare their own food.

World War I proved to be the turning point for the campaign.The suffragettes effectively put their campaign on hold in the interests of national unity. As men went to the Western Front, women proved how indispensable they were in the fields and armaments factories. By 1918, no government could resist and the Representation of the Peoples Act allowed women over 30 the right to vote. It would take a further 10 years to abolish the age qualification and put men and women on an equal footing. Many people believe women’s contribution to the war effort and not the suffragettes allowed women to gain the right to vote.

Second Wave Feminism.

The second wave of feminism began in the 1960’s and stayed until the 1990’s. It began with protests against the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City in 1968 and 1969. Feminists parodied what they held to be a degrading "cattle parade" that reduced women to objects of beauty dominated by a patriarchy that sought to keep them in the home or in dull, low-paying jobs. The radical New York group called the Red stockings staged a counter pageant, in which they crowned a sheep as Miss America and threw "oppressive" feminine artifacts such as bras, girdles, high-heels, makeup and false eyelashes into bins.

The contraceptive pill, which was put on sale in 1960 made a huge change to women’s lives. They could now decide when they were going to have children and how many children they wanted. This meant women could have long standing careers and plan ahead allowing them to have many of the same opportunities as men.

 The greatest victories of Second Wave Feminism during the 1970's was the passage of Title IX, which allowed women equal access to education, especially college and professional schools. Furthermore, the work of these feminists also opened up numerous employment opportunities that before had been completely confined to men. In an epic battle, the National Organization for Women took the battle all the way to the Supreme Court.