XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

JS-37

Talking: An Act Against Gender Violence

RC32 Women in Society (host committee)
RC25 Language and Society

Language: English

Preventing violence against women unfortunately continues to be an unresolved issue in most societies. Commensurately the struggle for gender equality and empowerment of all women and girls continues to be a priority for an international and transnational organization such as the United Nations. While much progress has been made, women all over the world still face inequalities and suffer violence perpetrated against them because of their gender.

 

With the present call for papers for a Joint Session taking into account the theoretical contributions of both women’s studies and socio-linguistics we aim to gather research that provides insight into effective prevention strategies that builds on the use of language to tackle this most pressing social problem—gender violence. Departing from Austin’s How to Do Things with Words and later research on speech acts this session focuses on how talking, as a speech act, operates as a mechanism to tackle gender violence. Verbal as well as nonverbal language can be a tool to either promote or prevent violence against women. We look forward to receiving theoretical and/or empirical research that can shed light on when and how language is used to tackle gender violence in many diverse social spheres, such as, educational institutions, among youth, within interactions in the public arena (e.g. street harassment), in the private sector, as well as in the political arena. Research that can help us advance in this endeavor will be considered for presentation.