scholarly journals #MeToo as a Failed Movement of Women Empowerment in Pakistan: A Critical Discourse Analysis

Author(s):  
Khushbakht ◽  
Dr. Sadia Irshad ◽  
Dr. Abdus Samad

The current study aims to understand the narrative of #MeToo in Pakistan as formulated by Pakistani Twitter users. Although the #MeToo movement emerged as a movement of women empowerment against the issues of sexual harassment and domestic violence, however today in the 21st-century women are still struggling with longstanding abuses and sexual harassment. The current study has explored how in the patriarchal society of Pakistan, the narrative of #MeToo is not acceptable and manipulated by certain societal forces for personal gain. Similarly, this research has also understood the influence of dominant discourses on the narrative of #MeToo. Through the use of Van Dijk's (1998), Ideological square, as a theoretical lens, the results of the study argue that the narrative of #MeToo is badly exploited subjugated by patriarchal notions to manipulate women empowerment in Pakistan. Two domains of the #MeToo movement have been explored i.e. Sexual harassment and Domestic violence through the current study and the results have revealed that in the patriarchal society of Pakistan domestic violence is given weightage over sexual harassment. Furthermore, Patriarchy has argued that the #MeToo movement is a movement of fame, to which the proponents of the #MeToo movement referred as Fame: A Blame Game to the movement. Lastly, the recommendations are offered as well.

2019 ◽  
pp. 135910531987824
Author(s):  
Christine A Gonsalves ◽  
Kerry R McGannon ◽  
Ann Pegoraro

The purpose of this study was to explore how the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and Canadian Twitter users linked women’s experiences and health identities with the #MoreMoments cardiovascular disease awareness campaign. Critical discourse analysis of Twitter data between September 2017 and November 2017 identified two primary discourses (tragedy and loss, and life and health) and two identity/subject positions (visionary leaders and successful survivors). Responsibility for women’s health was attributed to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, also limiting neo-liberal healthism and risk identification. Novel findings included resistance through use of ‘small stories’ within discourses regarding the targeted demographic for health promotion and knowledge translation.


Author(s):  
Emma Trentman ◽  
Wenhao Diao

Abstract The 21st century has seen an emphasis in US media and policy documents on increasing the numbers of US students studying abroad and also the amount of US students studying ‘critical’ languages. This paper examines the intersection of these discourses, or the experiences of critical language learners abroad. We analyze this intersection by using critical discourse analysis to examine US media and policy documents and data from students studying Arabic in Egypt and Mandarin in China. This analysis reveals considerable discrepancies between rhetoric and experience in terms of language and intercultural learning. We argue that a critical examination of current discourses of study abroad (SA) reveals that they in fact recreate the colonial map, mask global inequalities, and create a new global elite. We conclude that language and intercultural learning abroad will remain a source of tension until SA students and programs critically engage with these discourses.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 636-659
Author(s):  
Jennifer Andrus

This article analyzes narratives about encounters between police officers and domestic violence victim/survivors in the context of domestic violence calls. Narratives are sites in which individuals create relationships between themselves and others, oriented around a set of unfolding events. Narrative is a motivated, engaged retelling of prior or anticipated events produced in interaction with others, in a particular context stocked with constraints and affordances. In the process of telling stories, identities emerge. In order to understand the relationship between narrative and identity, I analyze stories told about police interactions with domestic violence victim/survivors from the perspectives of both the police and the victim/survivors. Working empirically with a data set of 48 interviews, I use critical discourse analysis and discourse analysis to analyze the ways both groups narrate domestic violence and confrontations with police officers, the ways they create story worlds stocked with characters, the ways story characters are formed and deployed, and the ways those characters are positioned against/with/by the storyteller, allowing the storyteller’s identity to emerge. This article is an analysis of the relationship between the storyteller and the story world and the storyteller’s process of constructing an/other in order to position in relation to that other. Ultimately, I argue that identity emerges for the storyteller in the way she or he constructs characters in a story and then positions in relation to those characters.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-462 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Easteal ◽  
Kate Holland ◽  
Michelle Dunne Breen ◽  
Cathy Vaughan ◽  
Georgina Sutherland

This study uses critical discourse analysis to examine news reporting of two cases of intimate partner violence in Australia. The fine-grained analysis of newswriting and news-editing practices focuses particularly on the lexical features and referential strategies used to represent the perpetrator and the victim, the crime, and the location of the crime. Findings show that reporting often omits social context, sensationalizes, and acts to shift blame in ways that do not increase public understanding of the nature of domestic violence. These results build on international findings and add to the evidence base about media reporting of violence against women.


Author(s):  
Shrouq Al Maghlouth

In recent years, Saudi women have been empowered on plenty of levels which were not easily available at the dawn of this century. In the last two decades, social change has been initiated, constructed and distributed discursively on both governmental and non-governmental circles; with the topic of women's inclusion in unconventional work environments provoking controversial positions between the heterogenous society of Saudi Arabia. The current paper offers a critical discourse analysis on how these diverse positions are reported metaphorically in blog posts written by bloggers presenting themselves as supporters of change and women empowerment. Such posts were written between 2009 and 2011; thus, documenting the very early support and opposition to this topic, which has also intensified drastically after King Salman -the current Saudi monarch- ascended to throne in 2015, following the death of the late King Abdullah. Keywords: social change, critical discourse analysis, women empowerment, Saudi Arabia


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 176
Author(s):  
Huimin Xu ◽  
Yunying Tan

This study examines the advertising campaign of a beauty product SK-II, “Change Destiny” through the lens of critical discourse analysis. By unpacking the verbal language and visuals in the three advertisements and a video advertisement, this article aims to investigate how the beauty advertiser SK-II constructs the ideal images of women through discursive strategies in ads and uncover the possible ideologies underlying the advertising discourse. Adopting Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1990 ,1996) framework of ‘reading images’ and systemic functional grammar (Butt, 2012; Halliday, 1994) to analyze the texts and visuals in the ads, this study has found that the beauty brand SK-II has utilized various strategies to engage the audiences and market its products, such as problematizing the aging of women, providing personalized solutions to the problem of aging, constructing certain feminist discourses for women, and drawing itself close to the younger generation through women empowerment. The findings show that although the beauty brand claims to empower women through advocating change of destiny for women in its ads, gender ideology remains to be dominant and continues to perpetrate women. It is concluded that these new changes in the ads are simply playful discursive strategies that employed by advertisers to legitimate the new capitalism and commercialism and generate more sales.


2021 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 46-64
Author(s):  
Eglė Gabrėnaitė ◽  
Monika Triaušytė

The great spread of the phenomenon of MeToo, a global movement promoting the publicity of the facts of sexual harassment, has also received a response in Lithuania: anonymous stories in blogs have grown into a provocative discourse that has attracted a great deal of attention. The aim of the research presented in this article is to characterise the discourse of MeToo in terms of rhetorical expression that has not been discussed yet: to identify and elicit the dominant elements of rhetorical argumentation. The empirical research was conducted using the method of rhetorical analysis that allows distinguishing and defining in rhetorical categories the models characteristic to rhetoric appeals. The method of rhetorical analysis combined with directed content analysis, as well as with critical discourse analysis. Following the methodology of provocative narrative research, it was analysed the material published at the time of maximum intensity and involvement in the discourse, such as testimonies, publications, interviews, and comments of women who have been subjected to sexual harassment. The results of rhetorical discourse analysis allow us to discuss the culture of accusation in which the normalization of victim condemnation is prevalent, and logical reasoning gives way to prejudice-based emotional appeals.


2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 299-313 ◽  
Author(s):  
María D López Maestre

The complete eradication of violence against women remains a challenge for 21st-century societies. In Spain 606 women were killed by their partners or ex-partners in the period 2003–2011 inclusive. Figures like these make this phenomenon a very serious social problem which requires intervention at a plurality of levels. The language used in narratives about these issues is very important. It can be an additional factor that contributes to the transmission of sexism and the perpetuation of indirect sexist ideologies that naturalize violence against women. This article presents a critical stylistics analysis of one such narrative from a feminist point of view. It is a text displayed at a Visitors’ Centre in Spain to show local culture to children and the tourists who visit the area. Applying a combined methodology based on feminism, stylistics and critical discourse analysis, the analysis carried out shows how the text conveys an underlying sexist ideology that normalizes violence against women and adopts a victim-blaming stance. The article concludes by stressing the need to raise awareness of the consequences of indirect sexism and naturalized ideologies covert in discourse, particularly in the field of writing for children and in the public domain in general.


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