STEREOTYPICAL IDEOLOGIES TOWARDS WOMEN: FEMINIST POSTSTRUCTURALIST DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF MALALA YOUSAFZAI’S POLITICAL SPEECHES

Abstract

Purpose of the study: The study investigates how the speech of Malala Yousafzai to the United Nations and Nobel Lecture intends to be coercive through generalizing the experiential realities of women across the world and how it tends to legitimize and delegitimize certain beliefs about women in Pakistan. This paper attempts to demonstrate how Feminist Poststructuralist Discourse Analysis tends to subvert the stereotypical ideologies towards women across the world through the deconstruction of political media discourses. Methodology: The study tends to focus upon context-specific gender issues where power is constructed as a flowing entity in order to dismantle the binaristic constructions of powerful/powerless and also in order to reinterpret the stereotypical subject positions assigned to women in media discourses. A qualitative research paradigm has been used. Main Findings: This study shows the way in which Malala Yousafzai's speeches privilege one voice in favor of another voice is questionable, as the present research inquiry tends to deconstruct the epistemology of fixed gender symmetries in media studies. This study is finally able to reveal the ideology in Malala Yousafzai’s speeches and present the linguistic features that construct the ideology. Applications of this study: The present study can be applied in gender studies to study political ideologies. It is concluded that the ideology of Malala Yousafzai’s speeches is women empowerment. There is a protest and willingness to carry off girls ‘education and women’s rights. It is also shown through her persuasive ways to encourage the girls and women to recognize their abilities. She initiates changes in girl’s education and women’s rights. Novelty/Originality: This study is unique in the way that it interprets Malala's speeches under the framework of Feminist Post-Structuralist Discourse Analysis. It deconstructs the meanings and reveals the power dynamics through language.