The discursive construction of femininities in the accounts of Japanese women

Abstract

This article presents findings from a study investigating the gendered interpretative repertoires or ‘ways of seeing the world’ that a group of Japanese women drew on as they discursively constructed their gendered identities during semi-structured interviews. The study draws on critical discursive psychology which views language not simply as a window into people’s minds, but as a discursive resource which individuals utilize to perform various discursive functions. Participants assumed a range of subject positions in relation to these repertoires that suggests that Japanese society may be in a state of flux where dominant repertoires are undergoing discursive reformulation and change. Results of this study indicate that while interpretative repertoires constitute cultural ‘common sense’, individuals possess agency to discursively deploy, resist, and sometimes even reconstruct these discursive resources.