Feminist critical discourse analysis of masculine organizational discourse: public / ‘gendered’ versus private / ‘gender-neutral’ standpoints in Osama bin laden’s hunt and annihilation
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Date
2016
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University of Management and Technology Lahore
Abstract
This research aims to study the masculine organizational discourse through the conceptual framework of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis. The study selected one of the most powerful organizations in the world, the Federal Government of the United States of America in order to analyze the discourse articulated by the U. S. policy makers on the historic(al) event of Osama Bin Laden’s (OBL) annihilation. The discourse of the governmental officials was compared and contrasted with the discourse articulated by non- governmental operatives on one and the same issue. It is a gender-analytic perusal of unequal power relations between men and women displayed in the governmental versus non- governmental discourse. Techniques of textual, intertextual and social semiotic analysis as well as character analysis were deployed. As a result of the investigation it has been discovered that women are eliminated from the organizational discourse by deploying passive voice. Women are absent from the official narrative about OBL’s hunt both verbally and physically. For example, in a seventy five minute long documentary, entitled Bin Laden: Shoot to Kill, voicing the official account of OBL’s hunt and killing, women shared only seven seconds of screen time. At the end of the spectrum, the private discourses, voiced through books, documentaries and movies, proclaim that a group of women played the key role in locating OBL’s Abbottabad compound. Therefore, the study concludes that one of the leading political organizations, the Federal Government of America is gendered. It systematically facilitates men, while women are actively and deliberately eliminated from the discourses of the U.S. officials. This research has epistemologically appraised the gender inequality by probing the male dominance in the Federal Government of the United States of America as well as in Hollywood. The elimination of women from the governmental discourse as well as the objectification of women in the Hollywood movies is scrutinized in the study undertaken. My future research will focus on the reasons behind the elimination and objectification of women.
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Keywords
Masculine organizational discourse, Feminist Critical