Women voicing resistance : discursive and narrative explorations / edited by Suzanne McKenzie-Mohr and Michelle N. Lafrance.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Women counter-storying their lives / Michelle N. Lafrance and Suzanne McKenzie-Mohr -- 2. Language and stories in motion / Marjorie L. DeVault -- 3. Beyond "coming out": lesbians' (alternative) stories of sexual identity told in post-apartheid South Africa / Gibson & Catriona Macleod -- 4. Bodies talk: on the challenges of hearing childbirth counter-stories / Joy Chadwick -- 5. Counteer-storying rape: women's efforts toward liberatory meaning making / Suzanne McKenzie-Mohr -- 6. "I used to think I was going a little crazy": women's resistance to the pathologisation of premenstrual change / Jane M. Ussher & Jannette Perz -- 7. Talking against dominance: South African women resisting dominant discourse in narratives in violence / Floretta Boonzaier -- 8. "Oh it was good sex!": heterosexual women's (counter) narratives of desire and pleasure in casual sex / Pantea Farvid -- 9. Depression as oppression: disrupting the biomedical discourse in women's stories of sadness / Michelle N. Lafrance -- 10. 'Girly-girls','scantily-clad ladies', and police women: negotiating and resisting femininities in non-traditional work space / Bridgette Rickett -- 11. Untangling emotional threads and self-management discourse in women's body talk / Catrina Brown -- 12. Women's discursive resistance: attuning to counter-stories and collectivizing for change / Suzanne McKenzie-Mohr and Michelle N. Lafrance.

"Feminist scholars have demonstrated how 'dominant discourses' and 'master narratives' frequently reflect patriarchal influence, thereby distorting and depoliticizing women's storying of their own lives. In this groundbreaking volume a number of internationally recognized researchers, working across a range of disciplines, provide a detailed examination of women's attempts to counter-story their lives when prevailing discourses are unhelpful or, indeed, harmful. As such, it is an exploration of women's agency and resistance, which highlights the challenges and complexities of such discursive work. The chapters explore women's resistance across a wide range of experiences, including: intimate partner violence, casual sex, depression, premenstrual change, disordered eating, lesbian identity, women's work in male-dominated spaces, rape, and child birth. Each chapter combines theoretical analyses with illuminating first-hand accounts, and elaborates practical implications that provide directions for individual and social change. Providing an incisive and comprehensive exploration of discourse, oppression and resistance, that cuts across domains of women's everyday lives, Women Voicing Resistance will be of great interest to students, scholars and practitioners in the fields of psychology, gender studies, women's studies, sociology, and social work."--Publisher's website.