Gender Matters - Sara Mills
7. Feminism and naming
Gender Matters - Sara Mills
Sara Mills [+]
Sheffield Hallam University
Sara Mills is a Research Professor in Linguistics at Sheffield Hallam University. Her most recent publications include Gender and Colonial Space (2005, Manchester University Press), Michel Foucault (Critical Thinkers Series, 2003, Routledge), Feminist Post-Colonial Theory: An Anthology (edited with Reina Lewis, 2003, Edinburgh University Press) and Gender and Politeness (2003, Cambridge University Press).
Description
The essay discusses the relationship between several potentially conflicting discourses: sexism, anti-sexism and “political correctness”. In order to analyse the way that the hypothesised relationship between these discourses is played out within people’s discursive practices, I have tried to elicit, through the distribution of a questionnaire, feminist professional women’s views on their choices about their surnames and titles, since this seems to be a key discursive site of struggle where these antagonistic discourses are seen to exert some force.