Talking women : an exploration of Maltese women's discourse with regards to gender

Abstract

This research aimed to explore how Maltese women identify and define their gender whilst exploring the role of discourse in understanding and performing our gender. The analysis of the interplay between gender, identity and discourse was central in this study. Feminist post-structuralist and intersectional theoretical frameworks were, therefore, adopted so as to enable me to question and deconstruct taken-for-granted knowledge, especially about gender, whilst analysing the production, effect and perpetuation of dominant discourses. A qualitative methodology was adopted, allowing me to explore the constructionist conceptualisation of gender, particularly the interplay between theory and practice, by looking at how the participants interpret their gender and how this interpretation is based on their social context. The latter was informed by adopting a combination of feminist post-structural, intersectional and symbolic interactionist epistemology. This research was an opt-in study, with the inclusion criteria being that the participants had to identify as women between the ages of 20 and 40, had to either be Maltese or have been brought up in Malta and be willing to sit for two interviews each. Twenty-four interviews were carried out with twelve women; unstructured interviews were used for the first round of interviews with the intent to create a discussion with each participant about their definition of what it means to be a woman. After the first interviews were transcribed and key notions identified, an interview guide was created for the second round of interviews; the aim behind the second interview was to gain more insight into concepts which were prominent in the first interviews, such as social expectations and the distinction in discourses used when referring to men/masculinity and women/femininity. Moreover, the second interview served to delve deeper into any other identities, be them social or role identities, that the participants held so as to further analyse the impact of intersecting identities on gender. The responses gathered from both interviews were analysed using feminist post-structuralist discourse analysis so as to be able to explore the discursive construction of subjectivity (Baxter, 2008) more deeply. The following notions were identified: how discourse acts as social practice, gender performativity, the intersectionality and multiplicity of participants' identities, participants' construction of meaning within the local context, and the deconstruction of taken-for-granted notions as well as the participants' reflexive process. The results centred around two main umbrella themes: dominant discourses and social expectations. For each theme, various other sub-themes were analysed whilst reviewing the role of the presented data in the participants' identification and construction of their gendered identity. The main findings of the research suggest that the participants are very aware of the patriarchal constructs that still dominate our society; however, they felt as if nothing is being done to dismantle such patriarchal ideologies, which result in misogynistic behaviour. This finding did not come as a surprise since people working in the field of gender have been discussing and investing in activist work against such dominant behaviours; however, the interesting aspect of this finding is that even women who are not experts in the field and/or are not invested in feminist activism are aware of these dominant discourses and social constructs. This knowledge seems to have enabled the participants to engage in agentic behaviour whereby they resist dominant discourses in their own ways. Other findings revolve around gender performativity and the notion that not only trans* women have to pass but also cis-women have to be able to "pass" as a woman to be considered as such based on dominant ideologies of what a woman is and what a woman ought to do. A noteworthy finding of this study highlights the dominance of heteronormative discourses since even women who were in same-sex relationships, when speaking about relationships, especially about the household division of labour and rearing of children, spoke only about couples being in opposite-sex relationships. Social expectations related to childbearing and domesticity were highlighted within this research, with participants emphasising how women in most scenarios are caught in a double-bind, where they are shamed if they do and shamed if they do not. Based on findings obtained from this study, several recommendations for research were drawn up, such as research with regards to everyday personal agency, which could shed light on how individuals resist and deconstruct dominant gender ideologies in their everyday performativity of gender. Another suggestion is that future research could focus on the role of heteronormative discourses and their impact on the formation and social expectations of same-sex couples. Furthermore, recommendations made for policy changes consisted of proposals to tackle patriarchal ideologies, which are still prevalent within institutions such as the legislative and judiciary.