Rickett, Bridgette (2024). ‘Fish wives’ and ‘Working-Class heroes’ in UK Parliament: Discursive intersections of (dis)respectability, class and gender in newspaper representations of Angela Rayner. SHU Research Data Archive (SHURDA). http://doi.org/10.17032/shu-0000000209
Summary
This research develops an intersectional understanding of the portrayal of White, working-class origin women politicians in UK newspaper coverage via a single case analysis of the reporting of Angela Rayner and her supposed attempt to ‘distract’ the UK Prime Minister. A Dual process feminist-influenced discourse analysis was conducted on data sampled across a 4-week period and comprising 74 UK newspaper articles (47,000 words). Two overarching discourses were identified - ‘fish wives’ and ‘working-class heroes’ – which functioned to both confer and revoke respectability. Despite celebratory potential, these discourses reproduced the ‘elite male as norm’ and classed the gendered double bind to potentially restrict working-class women’s ability to adopt, reject, or demolish elite, masculine idealised standards. They also served to caution against working-class women politicians - framed as inherently dangerous (e.g., ‘inner fishwife’) and disrespectable (e.g. uncouth and hypersexualised) compared to White middle-class feminised standards. Therefore, classed and gendered boundaries were re-asserted via a presentation of working-class women politicians as unworthy and potentially dangerous. This technology of governance has implications for voting decisions, our shared understanding of the overall appropriateness of working-class women in positions of power as well as our treatment towards them, while sustaining elite (White) masculinised power and privilege.
| Keywords: | Feminist Discursive Psychology Social Class Women Politicians UK newspapers Media Text Single Case Analysis Hypersexuality Respectability | ||||||
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| Academic units: | Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) > Academic Departments > Department of Psychology, Sociology and Politics | ||||||
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| Copyright Holders: | Sage Journals | ||||||
| Publisher of the data: | SHU Research Data Archive (SHURDA) | ||||||
| Publication date: | 31 August 2024 | ||||||
| Data last accessed: | No data downloaded yet | ||||||
| DOI: | http://doi.org/10.17032/shu-0000000209 | ||||||
| SHURDA URI: | https://shurda.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/209 | ||||||
