The Denial Of The "Women Problem":Discursive Strategies Employed By Morrison Government In Parliament

Although recent years has seen the presence of more women in politics,in Australia,politics continues to be a male-dominated sphere.Women are under-represented in politics in general as well as in decision-making roles.Many scholars have analyzed a number of structural,cultural and social factors as the reasons for the existence of gender inequality in politics.The practice of discourse has also been widely studied in connection to gender inequality in politics.As an important social practice,discourse plays a role in justifying,reproducing and reinforcing those factors.Meanwhile,public discourse tends to be non-sexist in ways of expressions,which is especially true in political context.How parliamentary discourse,which is an important political practice,realizes non-sexist expressions and at the same time functions to maintain male dominance is an overlooked subject in the inter-discipline of gender,politics and discourse.This thesis aims to explore the role of non-sexist parliamentary discourse in maintaining the power structure between men and women based on the theory of modern sexism.The methodology of sociocognitive discourse analysis is adopted here to identify the discursive strategies employed in parliamentary discourse concerning women in politics.This thesis argues that although parliamentary discourse could appear non-sexist and even pro-women through the discursive strategies of generalization,positive self-representation and mitigation,these discursive strategies undermine and deny the existence of women problems in various ways.In addition,they contribute to sustaining a male-dominated environment of politics and(re)producing sexism in a subtle and covert way.