7. SOME GENDER ASPECTS
In her review of gender studies Hawkesworth (1997) notes that their scope
includes history, language, literature and the arts, the media, politics,
psychology, religion, medicine and science, law, and the workplace (p.650).
However, the consideration of gender here need not be so wide, as it is determined
by the salient facts relating to the disputed remark which occurs in the final
analysis – ‘Margaret Thatcher was a man’. The relevant contextual
factors to be considered will be: the notions of gender identities and representations,
gender and language, and gender and humour. The investigation of gender identities
will be one that deliberately points up the diversity and ambivalence of contemporary
gender and sexual identities in order to both show their complexities and
display the scope for play they provide. The main concern in the discussion
of gender and language will be to demonstrate that though the main schools
of thought are those of difference and dominance, at least one recent trend
is moving away from this basic divide. And the look at gender and humour will
deal with the past exclusion of women from comedy and the debate concerning
the similarities and differences between ‘masculine’ humour and
‘feminine’ humour.
| 7. Some Gender Aspects |