Exploring Language Aggression against Women

Exploring Language Aggression against Women presents a collection of systematic studies that delve into the critical role of language in constructing violence, creating inequality, and justifying discrimination against women. Drawing on a range of discourse analytic methods, this volume subjects to scrutiny mediated and non-mediated (re)tellings and reactions to rape and sexual assault, newspaper reports of intimate partner abuse, YouTube responses to public service advertising for abuse prevention, and verbal sexism on Twitter and in legal and parliamentary contexts. Special attention is paid to the multiple forms that verbal violence against women can take, and its pervasiveness in contemporary Western societies, precisely at a time when the need for, and usefulness of, feminism are continuously being questioned. Exploring Language Aggression against Women will be of relevance to scholars and students interested in gender, language and sexuality, discourse, media, feminism, and communication. Most articles were originally published in Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict Vol. 2:2 (2014).

Susan Ehrlich, York University:
The pervasive and widespread nature of violence against women is surely sustained by discourses that excuse, minimize and deny its existence. This volume is unique in bringing together critical analyses of such ‘discourses’ as they appear in a variety of institutional and online contexts. In its deconstruction of many of the unquestioned assumptions surrounding gendered violence, the collection is a timely and important political intervention into what the World Health Organization has labeled a ‘global health problem of epidemic proportions'.