Holmes & Schnurr|| Doing Femininity at Work by Vlad Shoo

Journal of Sociolinguistics 10/1, 2006: 31^51

‘Doing femininity’ at work: More than just relational practice1 Janet Holmes and Stephanie Schnurr Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Workplaces constitute one of the more interesting sites where individuals ‘do gender’, while at the same time constructing their professional identities and meeting their organisation’s expectations. Drawing on interactional data recorded in New Zealand professional organisations, this paper focuses in particular on how participants manage and interpret the notion of ‘femininity’ in workplace discourse. In much current usage, the concepts ‘feminine’ and ‘femininity’ typically evoke negative reactions. Our analysis suggests these notions can be reclaimed and reinterpreted positively using an approach which frames doing femininity at work as normal, unmarked, and effective workplace behaviour in many contexts. The analysis also demonstrates that multiple femininities extend beyond normative expectations, such as enacting relational practice (Fletcher 1999), to embrace more contestive and parodic instantiations of femininity in workplace talk.

KEYWORDS: Workplace discourse, femininities, gender identity, relational practice, community of practice

INTRODUCTION Researchers in the area of language and gender have recently begun to examine the ‘multiplicity of experiences of gender’ (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 47) in different social contexts and communities of practice. A number of researchers, for example, have explored the concept of masculinity, and indeed ‘masculinities’ (Connell 1995; Cameron 1997; Edley and Wetherell 1997; Johnson and Meinhof 1997; Kiesling 1998, 2004; Bucholtz 1999; Mea“ n 2001; Coates 2003; Bell and Major 2004). Some attention has also been paid to ‘the multiplicity of . . . femininities’ (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 48), that is, the dynamic and diverse ways in which people construct different kinds of femininity in social interaction in different contexts (e.g. Okamoto 1995; Livia and Hall 1997; Cameron 1997, 1998; Coates 1997, 1999; Cameron and Kulick 2003). This paper contributes to this enterprise by analysing some of the ways in which people construct and negotiate different femininities in white-collar New Zealand workplaces. # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA.

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

Femininity is an ambiguous concept with complex associations. It could even be argued that ‘femininity’ has been treated as something of a dirty word in gender studies, associated, from a feminist perspective, with a rather dubious set of behaviours. Most obviously, acting ‘feminine’ conjures up politically incorrect ‘frilly pink party dresses’; femininity is associated with demureness, deference, and lack of power and influence (as discussed in Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 16ff, 184ff; see also Lakoff 2004). Femininity invokes a stereotype, and it is a negative one for many feminists, and a problematic and uncomfortable one for many academic women.2 Discussing this issue, Mills (2003) implicitly subscribes to this negative attitude: ‘one of the many important advances made by feminism is to open up within the notion of what it means to be a woman a distinction between femininity and femaleness, so that one can be a woman without considering oneself to be (or others considering one to be) feminine’ (Mills 2003: 188). Accepting such a claim entails subscribing to the view that ‘feminine’ and ‘femininity’ are dirty words which must be replaced by the euphemisms ‘female’ and ‘femaleness’. But is this necessary? We argue that ‘feminine’can be reclaimed as a positive attribute. In contesting the denigration and rejection of the words ‘feminine’ and ‘femininity’, it is important to note that the basis for this negative stereotype is the exaggeration of features which are associated with the construction by women of a normative gender identity. The exaggeration evokes derision. As Mills herself notes, in the media‘the representation of stereotypically feminine women is rarely presented . . . without mockery or ridicule’ (2003: 187).3 But this should not mean that the enactment of normatively feminine behaviour should be a cause for embarrassment and apology by professional women (or men) in the workplace. In what follows, we attempt to re-present the notion of femininity as a positive rather than a negative construction in workplace interaction. We analyse a number of specific examples which illustrate the negotiation of a range of femininities at work.We draw on the notion of a gendered community of practice (Holmes and Stubbe 2003a), in which certain kinds of gender performance are perceived as ‘unmarked’ (Ochs 1992: 343), or ‘‘‘normal’’ behaviour’ (Kiesling 2004: 234), while others are regarded as marked or ‘emphasised’ (Connell 1987: 187). Building on the notion that ^ through their association with particular roles, activities, traits, and stances ^ certain sociopragmatic, discursive and linguistic choices, or ways of speaking, ‘index’ (Ochs 1992, 1996) or culturally encode gender (Cameron and Kulick 2003: 57), we explore the different ways of ‘doing femininity’ identified in our workplace data. In a recent paper examining the ways in which authority is constructed in workplace interaction, Kendall (2004) suggests that gender identity is often irrelevant in the workplace. She argues that in everyday interaction people focus on role construction rather than gender identity: ‘women and men do not generally choose linguistic strategies for the purpose of creating masculine # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK

or feminine identities’ (2004: 56) . . . ‘situations in which women and men consciously choose language options to create femininity and masculinity are rare’ (2004: 76). Certainly gender is not frequently a conscious focus of identity performance at work (but see Hall 1995, 2003; Besnier 2003). Nonetheless, the distinction between two types of social identity is not always easy to make, especially when particular linguistic features are associated with more than one kind of identity (e.g. masculinity and leadership, femininity and subordination/server status). As Cameron and Kulick note, in some cases ‘the same way of speaking signifies both a professional identity and a gendered identity, and in practice these are difficult to separate: the two meanings coexist, and both of them are always potentially relevant. The actual balance between them is not determined in advance by some general principle, but has to be negotiated in specific situations’ (2003: 58). In our view, then, gender is relevant at some level in every workplace interaction, an ever-present influence on how we behave, and how we interpret others’ behaviour, even if our level of awareness of this influence varies from one interaction to another, and from moment to moment within an interaction.4 We are always aware of the gender of those we are talking to, and we bring to every workplace interaction our familiarity with societal gender stereotypes, and the gendered norms to which women and men are expected to conform (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2003: 87).Workplaces are simply one of many sites for gender performances which have the potential to strengthen the ‘gender order’ (Connell 1987); and while in some professions ‘doing gender’ is quite central to workplace performance, in all workplaces individuals unavoidably enact gendered roles, adopt recognisably gendered stances, and construct gender identity in the process of interacting with others at work. In addition, there are situations in which people exploit their audience’s familiarity with stereotypical concepts of femininity or masculinity in a more conscious fashion for particular effect, as we illustrate below. The concept of ‘double voicing’ (Bakhtin 1984) is relevant here, accounting for the ways in which speakers mingle components of different styles for particular effect. Talk which indexes gender in exaggerated or over-emphatic ways may be manipulated for the purpose, for instance, of parodying and even subverting established workplace norms and expectations about appropriate ways for professional employees to behave at work. The ability to interpret and appreciate the social meaning of such gender performances depends inevitably on recognition of what constitutes an unmarked gender performance or ‘unmarked behaviours for a [particular] sex’ (Ochs 1992: 343) in a particular community of practice. The first section of the analysis addresses, therefore, the issue of the construction of unmarked femininity in particular communities of practice. The data we draw on was collected by the Wellington Language in the Workplace (LWP) Project (see www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/lwp; Holmes and Stubbe 2003b). The Project includes material from a wide variety of New Zealand # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

workplaces, and uses a methodology which allows workplace interactions to be recorded as unobtrusively as possible. The LWP corpus currently comprises over 2500 workplace interactions, involving around 400 participants. In this paper, we draw on data from white-collar professional workplaces in order to explore the ways in which workplace participants, and especially workplace managers, construct complex femininities in different discourse contexts within particular communities of practice. ‘DOING FEMININITY’ IN A FEMININE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE We begin by considering what it means to behave in a normatively feminine way in a recognisably feminine community of practice. Holmes and Stubbe (2003a) explored the notion of ‘gendered’ workplaces, and examined some of the discourse features which people use to characterise the organisational culture of different workplaces as being relatively more ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’. Describing workplaces in this way does not indicate that everyone in a particular workplace behaves in a consistently gendered manner; rather these labels act as a shorthand, indicating the expectations and constraints on gender performances in some contexts in those workplaces.5 Indeed our analyses demonstrate that the characteristics stereotypically associated with such generalisations are often inaccurate, and that day-to-day interactions in particular communities of practice typically challenge the generalisations. Nevertheless, it was clear that those participating in our research, as well as members of the wider New Zealand community, were very willing to identify some workplaces as particularly feminine and others as very masculine. And such perceptions inevitably affect expectations about appropriate behaviour including ways of speaking. IT companies and manufacturing organisations typically tended to be labelled as more masculine workplaces, while organisations (and especially government departments) which dealt directly with clients, or with people-oriented, social issues, or with education, tended to be perceived as more feminine places to work. Within such workplaces people draw from a range of linguistic and discursive resources to construct their identities as ‘professionals’ in workplace interaction, and to negotiate particular pragmatic functions, such as giving directives, criticising, disagreeing, approving, and so on. Their choices index particular stances (e.g. authoritative, consultative, deferential) which construct not only their particular professional identities or roles (e.g. manager, team leader, support person), but also their gender positioning (see, for example, Holmes, Stubbe and Vine 1999; Holmes and Stubbe 2003a; Kendall 2003, 2004). This is the most obvious way in which people enact conventional gender identities at work ^ through linguistic and discursive choices which indirectly index normative femininity whilst also instantiating a particular professional relationship. Example 1 illustrates this in a community of practice # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK

described by its members, as well as by outsiders, as a very feminine community of practice: Example 16 Context: Ruth is the department manager. Nell is a policy analyst. Nell has prepared an official letter on which Ruth is giving her some feedback.7 1. Ruth: it’s actually quite I mean it’s 2. it’s well written [inhales] I just have 3. I just think the approach is could 4. should be a bit different in terms of see like 5. the organisation wouldn’t 6. we wouldn’t usually say something like this 7. that I mean it’s true but um we should probably 8. put in there that um the organisation has 9. what we did actually in terms of 10. providing advice on other avenues of funding 11. /but\ what the organisation ¼ 12. Nell: /mm\ 13. Ruth: ¼ provides is a policy advice organisation 14. and does not have um þþ 15. they actually have only limited funding for 16. sponsorship þ (and) I’ve just realised though 17. that this is (like) that they go in a couple of weeks 18. it might have been worth talking to Stacey 19. about um funding through 20. I think it’s through [name of funding agency] 21. ( ) last year we got funding for [tut] a someone 22. from [name of organisation] to attend 23. an international conference [drawls]:in: India 24. I think þ I can’t remember exactly the criteria 25. but there is a fund there and it may might be a bit late 26. but just I mean Stacey knows the contacts 27. and I think it’s in [name of funding agency] 28. and whether or not it’s worth having a talk to them about . . .

Ruth wants Nell to make some amendments to the letter, and the interaction is clearly potentially face threatening. Ruth’s strategy for conveying her critical comments and her directives entails the use of a range of classic face-saving mitigation devices. In this short interaction, she uses a variety of hedges and minimisers (in bold above): could, may, might, probably, just (2), actually (3), I mean (3) and I think (5), and approximators, a bit, I think it was, I can’t remember exactly, etc. These devices minimise the force of the face-threatening implicit criticisms and directive speech acts, and pay attention to Nell’s face needs (Brown and Levinson 1987).8 Ruth also minimises the critical implications of her comments by emphasising the positive. So she begins by highlighting the fact that Nell’s version of the # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

letter is fine, it’s well written (line 2). She also acknowledges that what Nell has said is true (line 7), but comments that it is not the usual way of doing things in the organisation. The shift from the organisation (line 8) to the use of the pronoun we (line 9) which is strategically ambiguous between exclusive and positively polite inclusive meaning (we wouldn’t usually say something like this), allows Ruth to suggest that she and Nell are working on this together, thereby again saving both interlocutors’ faces in a potentially tricky situation. On this interpretation, mitigation is clearly at the core of this array of strategies. From an analyst’s perspective, this is normatively feminine talk, characterised by features which have been described in decades of language and gender research (e.g. see Tannen 1993, 1994a, 1994b; Crawford 1995; Holmes 1995; Aries 1996; Coates 1996; Wodak 1997; Talbot 1998; Romaine 1999). In this section of her interaction with Nell, Ruth is making use of linguistic, pragmatic and discursive devices which signal considerateness and positive affect, stances associated with femaleness and feminine identity in New Zealand society. These are, of course, just some of the available strategies for fulfilling her role as manager, and in other contexts she draws on more confrontational, authoritative, and direct strategies to achieve her goals (see, for example, Holmes and Stubbe 2003b: 49). Example 1 serves, however, to illustrate an interaction in which a middle-class professional woman performs her managerial role in a way which also constructs a conventionally feminine gender identity. It also serves as a linguistic instantiation of classic ‘relational practice’ (Fletcher 1999), that is, off-record, other-oriented behaviour which serves to further workplace goals. In Fletcher’s analysis relational practice is paradigmatically women’s work, and thus a quintessential example of ‘doing femininity’ at work. In the community of practice in which these women worked, this gender performance was unremarkable and ‘unmarked’. Being normatively feminine in this community of practice did not arouse derision, and nor did it require apology. Importantly, however, the perception of such behaviour as acceptable and unmarked held true for professional women in many of the white-collar workplaces in which we recorded. Doing feminine gender using the kinds of strategies and linguistic devices described above was typically perceived as unmarked, as simply one component of performing their professional identity in particular interactions in a very wide range of communities of practice. Feminine behaviour, in other words, was regarded as normal behaviour in such contexts, and hence can be re-classified positively rather than derided. When men ‘do femininity’ at work, however, the perceptions of, and reactions to, their behaviour are much more complex. For example, in our data, when men made use of discourse strategies and linguistic devices associated with normatively feminine behaviour, the responses varied significantly on different occasions in different communities of practice. In a relatively feminine community of practice, the use by a male of linguistic markers of considerateness and concern for the addressee’s face needs, such as those identified in Example 1, when used in a similar professional context, occasioned # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK

no comment. Indeed, our ethnographic observations and interviews, indicate that such behaviour was regarded as normal, appropriate and unmarked. An example of such normatively feminine behaviour by a male in a department with education as its core business, is provided in Holmes and Stubbe (2003b: 32). Giving a directive to a subordinate, Len, the manager, uses a range of mitigating strategies, including hedges, modalised interrogatives, minimisers, and hesitations, devices which very closely match those used by Ruth in Example 1. In the context where he works, this linguistic behaviour was considered perfectly appropriate; it did not attract comment as ‘marked’ in any respect, and his colleagues clearly regarded his linguistic and discursive style as unremarkable. Example 2 illustrates the same pattern in a different community of practice. It is taken from a meeting in one section of a large organisation; the section has specific responsibility for meeting the needs of the organisation’s clients. Smithy, the male project manager, engages in facilitative behaviour by drawing the attention of the chair to a contribution which merits praise:9 Example 2 Context: Large project team meeting in commercial organisation. The project manager, Smithy, is reporting on the project’s progress to the section manager, Clara. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Smithy: um service level team to produce a strategy document they’ve done þ umVita was to meet with I S to determine er an implementation plan for the recording device Vita: yes done it þ Smithy: [parenthetical tone] Vita’s done a um work plan just for that/um implementation\ and that Clara: great/that’ll make the plan easier\ Smithy: we can feed/(out what) you want\ Vita: /haven’t actually\(heard anything . . .) Smithy: Vita’s going to meet with Stewart to determine how 0800 numbers come in to the call centre

In lines 1^4, Smithy reports on what the team agreed Vita should do by this meeting, and in line 5, Vita confirms that she has indeed accomplished the specified task. Since Clara, the Department manager, makes no immediate response, Smithy proceeds to‘prime’ Clara to provide positive feedback to Vita (Vita’s done a work plan just for that implementation, lines 6^7). Clara responds appropriately in line 8 with a positive and appreciative comment, and Smithy then continues with the next item. Smithy’s facilitative move is made extremely discreetly, and Clara picks up his cue without missing a beat. This is a nice example of relational practice ^ subtle, backgrounded discursive work, attending to collegial relationships and ensuring that things run smoothly. Relational practice is quintessentially gendered as ‘feminine’ in Fletcher’s (1999) book Disappearing Acts, in which she argues that relational skills are typically associated with women, and hence Smithy’s # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

behaviour in Example 2 could be characterised as‘doing femininity’.This is just one of many similar examples of Smithy’s style of workplace interaction which attracts no comment, and appears to be regarded as normal and unremarkable behaviour in context, even in this somewhat less feminine community of practice. In neither Len’s workplace nor Smithy’s, then, does their use on occasion of a normatively feminine style of discourse seem out of place, and nor does it attract comment as ‘marked’ in any respect. Using linguistic features and discourse strategies which attend to relational aspects of the interaction, and index normative femininity, is perfectly acceptable as a way of performing aspects of one’s professional identity within these communities of practice. In other words ‘doing femininity’ is unmarked behaviour in such contexts, whether it is performed by a man or a woman. Thus defined, normative femininity can be regarded positively rather than treated as the focus of ridicule. ‘DOING FEMININITY’ IN A MASCULINE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE There are however, workplace contexts where using a feminine style can evoke a very much less positive response. Especially in relatively masculine communities of practice, the effective use of a normatively feminine style was a much more complex and even hazardous enterprise. And men, in particular, tended to be the target of negative comment for using stylistic features which conventionally index femininity. So, for example, the discursive behaviour of members of an IT team in a big commercial organisation contrasted sharply with the norms of the places where Ruth, Len and Smithy worked. There was, for instance, scarcely any conventional small talk among team members before or after meetings. Pre-meeting talk tended to be business-oriented, a chance to update on work which team members were doing together in other contexts. In the six meetings of this team that we videotaped in full, there is scarcely a single topic that is not directly related to some aspect of the team’s work. And the humour among these team members was predominantly aggressive and sarcastic, and sometimes undeniably sexist (e.g. with references to nagging wives, and heavy drinking with the boys).10 Over 90 percent of the humorous comments which occurred in one meeting, for instance, were sarcastic and negative jibes, intended to put down the addressee or to deflate them. Behaviour which was perceived as ‘soft’ or conventionally ‘feminine’ elicited a very different reaction in this community of practice from the way it was treated by Ruth’s colleagues and in Len’s workplace, as Example 3 demonstrates: Example 311 Context: Six men in a regular meeting of a project team in a large commercial organisation. They are discussing a technical issue related to a project for some clients. Callum’s colleagues pretend to be horrified that he has actually talked face-to-face with the clients.

# The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

Barry: but we can we can kill this/particular action\ point Marco: /well yep\ you can kill this particular action point Barry: and you/guys\ Callum: /are\ you sure þþþ I took the opportunity of talking with some of the users Barry: what again? [laughs]/[laughs]\ Marco: /not again what are you doing talking to them\ Barry: [laughs]: go on/Callum come on\ Marco: /[laughs]\ Callum: and th- and they th- þþ Marco: they’ve still got/issues\ Callum /(I I I)\ well þ I don’t think they’re sure? þ ( ) if they’re really issues or not

The group of men here make fun of Callum for engaging voluntarily in ‘communicative’ behaviour with clients. Using stereotypically masculine language, Barry and Marco suggest that a proposed action, namely dealing with a specific technical issue, be killed, that is, dropped (lines1^3), since it is peripheral to the main project. Callum interrupts with a protest, using a question are you sure (line 5), rather than a more aggressive form of challenge. Even so, the three-second pause suggests that his comment causes surprise. He goes on to point out that the proposed action emerged from his discussions with the people who will be using the programme (lines 6^7). Barry and Marco then proceed to mock Callum, ridiculing the notion that he should actually ‘talk’, that is verbally communicate face-to-face, with clients. Barry’s tone of voice in his question what again? (line 7) conveys mocking astonishment, and Barry’s Callum come on (line 9) is drawled with a rise-fall intonation indicating sardonic incredulity. Callum persists, despite the mockery, and maintains his relatively feminine approach, I don’t think they’re sure? if they’re really issues or not (lines13^14) with a high rising terminal on sure, a feature coded as feminine in New Zealand speech. He is also reporting behaviour that is stereotypically feminine, namely, these people don’t know what they think, thus risking tarring himself with the same brush byassociation. This short excerpt illustrates how this group of professional IT experts construct themselves as a very masculine community of practice; both in content (e.g. kill this point) and style: they contest each other’s statements very directly, and the floor is a competitive site where they interrupt one another freely. In this context, Callum’s verbal behaviour is clearly ‘marked’. The underlying (only slightly facetious) assumption is that ‘real men’ (and especially computer experts) do not ever actually talk face-to-face with clients; talking to clients is rather the responsibility of the support staff at the user interface, many of whom are, unsurprisingly, women. Indeed, contributing more than the minimal amount of talk seems to be generally regarded as relatively feminine behaviour within the culture of this IT project team, where the most senior participant in the team meetings contributes the least talk. In this exchange, # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

then, the team members imply that Callum has behaved in an unmasculine way, and mock his conventionally feminine approach. Example 4 provides another suggestive illustration of the kind of response elicited by normatively feminine behaviour in a relatively masculine community of practice. It is an excerpt from an interaction between members of the senior management team in Company S, a community of practice similar in some ways to the IT team described above. Many of the norms for interaction between the all-male members of this team are stereotypically masculine, with relational practice expressed through contestive humour, jocular insult, and extensive competitive teasing (see Schnurr forthcoming). During the period that we recorded, a new member of the team, Neil, was being inculcated into the team culture, the normal ‘way we do things around here’ (Bower 1966, cited in Clouse and Spurgeon 1995: 3), often through teasing and sarcastic comment on features of his behaviour which were regarded as inappropriate in the context of the team’s usual ways of interacting. On one occasion, for instance, he took seriously a negative critical response to his excuse for not being able to attend a meeting. It was clear from the reactions of others, as well as the subsequent discourse, that the criticism was intended as jocular. But Neil misinterpreted Shaun’s tone, and responded in a way that the other team members clearly regarded as inappropriately fulsome. Our observations and analyses in this rather masculine community of practice suggest that one dimension of this inappropriateness was the association of apologetic and mitigating language with relatively feminine ways of talking. Example 4 Context: Meeting of the senior management team in middle-sized IT company. Neil apologises for not being able to attend the first monthly staff meeting to which he has been invited. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Shaun:

okay but I think it’s important you do go to the staff meeting and get introduced Neil: yeah . . . . . . . . . er I can’t do it today unfortunately I’ve I’ve already booked in some time with someone else this afternoon but the next one I can come along to yeah Shaun: we’ll think about it Neil: pardon Shaun: we’ll think about it Neil: /[laughs]\ Shaun: /we don’t take kindly to\ being rejected Neil: oh I’m sorry I’ve got a yeah got a meeting this afternoon which I can’t get out of if I’d have known I would’ve changed it yeah Shaun: what is our formal position on Neil (5) # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK

Neil needs to be introduced to the wider staff of the organisation (lines 1^3). The fact that he is not free to attend (lines 5^8) provides an opportunity for Shaun to tease him for rejecting their invitation (lines 9, 11, 13). Neil does not recognise that he is being teased, and he responds seriously to Shaun’s comment we don’t take kindly to being rejected (line 13), with an elaboration of his excuse (lines 14^16). His response is marked by a number of appeasement devices (e.g. apology, excuse; he even claims he would have changed his appointment if he had known that he was expected to attend the staff meeting (line 16)). Shaun does not respond, however, to Neil’s attempt at appeasement; rather he replies in a very challenging tone with a confrontational, direct attack on Neil’s status: what is our formal position on Neil (line 17). Neil’s inappropriately elaborate apology could be regarded as overly conciliatory, a stance strongly associated with more feminine styles of interaction. It clearly marks him as an outsider to the team, a team which our ethnographic data indicates forms a very close-knit community of practice, with a number of normatively masculine norms of interaction, as mentioned above. Clearly then, ways of talking which conventionally index femininity can function as unmarked in some communities of practice, while the same discourse strategies and linguistic features may be perceived as marked and comment-worthy in others.We turn now to the discussion of a rather different way in which women may exploit gendered norms of interaction at work, drawing on the conventional indices of femininity for particular, and sometimes subversive, purposes. EXPLOITING NORMATIVE FEMININITY The extensive exploration of style and styling in the speech of those from a diverse range of social, ethnic and gender backgrounds (e.g. Bell 1999, 2001; Bucholtz 1999; Johnstone 1999, 2003; Rampton 1999, 2003) provides a useful framework for discussing the ways in which some New Zealand women exploit features of normative and even stereotypical femininity in workplace interaction. As these researchers note, Bakhtin’s (1984) concept of ‘double voicing’ provides a way of accounting for the mingling of stereotypical components of another style with ‘habitual speech patterns’ to ‘generate symbolically condensed dialogues between self and other’ (Rampton 1999: 422). In particular, this approach provides a way of describing how professional women in the workplace make strategic use of linguistic features associated with stereotypical femininity to parody, and thus implicitly contest and ‘trouble’ the images of women and the gender categories that such features support and maintain (Butler 1990; Bell, Binnie, Cream and Valentine 1994: 31; Jones 2000). In our data, this particular kind of double voicing, namely the ‘strategic use of an ingroup variety’ (Johnstone 1999: 514), was observable in the behaviour of senior women who were secure in their professional identity.12 This strategy allowed them to make use of features which might otherwise be misinterpreted as ‘serious’ rather than ironic. Traditionally, the concept of leadership has # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

been associated with dominant, hegemonic masculinity: ‘what counts as leadership, the means of gaining legitimacy in leadership, and so on, are male dominated in most organizations’ (Hearn and Parkin 1988: 27). Consequently, ‘the language of leadership often equates with the language of masculinity’ (Hearn and Parkin 1988: 21). We found that effective women leaders typically drew skilfully and competently on a wide range of discourse strategies, some regarded as indexing conventional masculinity, and some as enacting normative femininity, to accomplish both their transactional and relational goals (Holmes 2000; Stubbe, Holmes,Vine and Marra 2000). Jill, for example, is a company director in a small IT company, and the chair of the company Board. She appears to enjoy her position as a woman in the predominantly masculine world of IT (Trauth 2002), as evidenced by many aspects of her behaviour (see Schnurr forthcoming). Our recordings indicate that Jill makes use of a wide range of interactional strategies and ways of talking, including some which can be regarded as normatively feminine, constructing her female gender in a conventional, unmarked and unselfconscious way within a range of workplace interactions, while at other times she draws on more conventionally masculine strategies. So, at times she uses conventionally polite discourse, standard relational practice in Fletcher’s (1999) sense, apologising for interrupting a subordinate, for instance, can I be a real pain and interrupt you again, and making use of a variety of facilitative and supportive strategies in running a meeting. At other points, she uses more direct and forceful strategies, interrupting small talk to start a meeting, for instance, and firmly asserting the need to move on to the next point on the agenda. In addition, however, Jill strategically ‘does femininity’on occasion, in a selfaware and ironic fashion that both exploits and parodies gender stereotypes. On such occasions, instead of playing down or minimising areas of difference in gender display in her male-dominated workplace, as senior women often do, she emphasises her femininity in a variety of ways, lampooning stereotypical features of gender performance. In Example 5, for instance, she plays up her helplessness and ignorance (albeit, importantly, with an ironic element of self-parody): Example 513 Context: Jill, chair of the Board of an IT company, has had a problem with her computer and has consulted Douglas, a software engineer, for help. Returning to her office, she reports her experience to her colleague, Lucy, a project manager in the company. 1. Jill: 2. Lucy: 3. Jill: 4. 5. Lucy: 6. Jill: 7.

[walks into room] he just laughed at me [laughs]: oh no: he’s definitely going to come to my aid but ( ) he just sort of laughed at me [laughs] (and then) I’ve got this appalling reputation of being such a technical klutz and/( )\ # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK

8. sometimes look it’s not me þ 9. Lucy: /[laughs]\ 10. Jill: I work with what I’ve got þ/( )\ 11. Lucy: /I know\ it’s the tools you’ve been prov/ided\ 12. Jill: /that’s\ right þþþ

In this exchange, Jill constructs an image of herself as a stereotypical female: as technically ignorant and incompetent, a technical klutz (line 7) in the area of the organisation’s specialisation, computer technology. She describes how her ignorance elicited laughter from the technical guy who was assisting her (lines 1, 4). Although she laughingly refutes the implication of incompetence, by blaming her tools (lines 8, 10), this excuse is clearly tongue-in-cheek or ironic, since technical klutz is an identity she regularly adopts, playing up the stereotypically feminine role of incompetent ignoramus in the IT area.14 The exaggerated intonation and high pitch with which lines 8 and 10 are delivered further underline Jill’s parodic intent. Our extensive observational data indicate that Jill is a confident and competent member of this professional organisation, and this, along with her sardonic tone, supports an ironic (and even subversive) reading of her construction of a stereotypical, ultra-feminine, identity. In other words, we could interpret Jill’s gender performance here not as reinforcing the predominantly masculine norms of her IT community of practice, but rather as troubling and contesting the assumptions underlying them. By refusing to treat IT incompetence as a serious matter, she implicitly questions the validity of the hegemonic stereotype which discounts the competence of women who are technically unsophisticated. Like the American adolescent girls Eder researched, Jill here parodies ‘traditional norms about feminine behaviour’ (1993: 25), and, as a demonstrably intelligent woman and competent manager, implicitly contests them, thus transforming their role as unquestioned and unquestionable reference points. Unlike some women in IT workplaces in which we have observed, Jill does not appear to feel any pressure to pretend that she is no different from a man. So, for example, in response to a comment from her colleague Lucy that by not having a computer monitor she will have space for a pot plant, she comments humorously to a male colleague you can tell the girly office can’t you. Jill’s use of the term girly here is superficially problematic since it appears to dismissively endorse an ideology which denigrates women’s preferences. Analysing a narrative in which a woman, Meg, uses the term girl in just such an oppressive way, Coates (1997: 310) comments that Meg ‘presents herself as colluding in a world view that denigrates and trivializes women’. But Jill’s usage here is different. Firstly she is talking about herself, and secondly, the comment is in no way apologetic in tone. Drawing on Bakhtin’s (1984) concept of ‘double voicing’, an ironic reading is thus possible, a reading which is much more consistent with Jill’s confident gender performance in this male-dominated community of practice. So, for instance, she and Lucy take responsibility for the # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

kitchen renovations, discussing paint and cushions with no sense that they need to reject such a stereotypically feminine task. Although she holds a powerful leadership position, Jill enacts her feminine identity with good-humoured assurance, alongside an intelligent awareness of the dominant societal gender stereotypes. Thus her use of the term girly office can be interpreted as indicating her awareness of her male colleagues’gender stereotypes, along with an implicit contestation and troubling of those views. By unapologetically embracing the concept of a feminine space at work, and indicating its acceptability, this powerful woman implies that she sees no contradiction between being statusful and being feminine in this community of practice. In another workplace the boss is known as ‘Queen Clara’, and addressed and referred to by her staff with good-humoured irony as ‘your royal highness’. Clara, like Jill, is perfectly secure both with her professional and her gender identity, and draws comfortably on the full panoply of available discourse strategies, including those conventionally regarded as masculine, to do authority when appropriate (see, for example, the ‘screendumps’ example in Holmes and Marra 2002b: 391). Equally, Clara frequently behaves in normatively feminine ways without any sense that this is inappropriate to her high status in the organisation. It is possible that Clara and Jill, as senior women who refuse to conform to the conventionally masculine norms associated with leadership (Ely 1988; Hearn and Parkin 1988; Geis, Brown and Wolfe 1990; Maher 1997; Sinclair 1998), are effectively contesting the related widespread expectation that workplaces (and especially those concerned with technology and IT) should be regarded as uncompromisingly masculine domains (cf. Tannen 1994b; Trauth 2002; Kendall 2003), where male patterns of interaction serve as the unmarked model. Their secure attitude to the performance of their gender identity in the workplace appears to free up these women to enjoy and exploit stereotypical, and even hyperbolic ways of ‘doing femininity’. Clara and Jill seem to revel in semi-facetiously and parodically ‘doing femininity’ in the more off-record, peripheral aspects of their managerial roles, but they also draw on both normatively masculine and feminine discourse resources in the course of their everyday workplace interactions. As women who are secure in their professional identities, it seems that they do not to need to downplay the fact that they are female or minimise gender differences in aspects of their behaviour in order to ensure they are taken seriously. CONCLUSION This paper has explored certain aspects of gender performance in the workplace. We have discussed different femininities or ways of ‘doing femininity’, and suggested that workplace interaction provides opportunities not only for indexing normative femininity, a kind of gender performance which # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK

has been associated with ‘relational practice’ (Fletcher 1999), but, also for parodying, contesting, and troubling gendered workplace expectations and assumptions. We have shown that the use of familiar and normative discourse resources for indexing femininity by both women and men may elicit different responses in different contexts within different communities of practice. We have suggested that, especially in relatively feminine communities of practice, such performances are frequently treated as ‘unmarked behaviours’ (Ochs 1992: 343), not just for women but for either sex. Indeed, in many contexts within such communities of practice, the ability to discursively index conventional femininity is regarded as an asset, and skill in adopting a feminine stance is positively construed. There is no evidence here for the negative conception of femininity which pervades much of the discussion of this concept. Feminine behaviour is regarded as normal and assessed positively in many contexts within such communities of practice. On the other hand, we identified relatively low tolerance for aspects of behaviour perceived as normatively feminine in some contexts, and especially by men engaged in transactional, task-oriented interaction in more masculine communities of practice. Features which are conventionally associated with femininity may thus attract negative comment or derision in particular workplace interactions, within particular workplace cultures. Though often expressed in covert and implicit ways, such negative reactions could be regarded as evidence of sexism in such workplaces. More positively, identifying particular types of behaviour as markedly feminine, also opens up the possibility for exploitation, and through a kind of ‘double-voicing’, for parody and ironic self-quotation. Language can be used not only to enact and reinforce conventional gender positioning, the ‘gender order’, but also to subvert unacceptable socio-cultural norms, and contest restrictive concepts of professional identity at work. Hence, some senior women in our data deliberately exploit feminine stereotypes, consciously parodying conventional notions of how women should behave in the workplace (cf. Koller 2004). In conclusion, while professional identity might appear the most obviously relevant aspect of social identity in workplace interaction, the analysis in this paper demonstrates that people also discursively manage and interpret complex gender identities through workplace talk. Moreover, we suggest that our analysis provides a basis for recasting the concepts ‘feminine’ and ‘femininity’ in a more positive light, reclaiming the potential for women and men to behave in feminine ways, and make constructive but unremarkable use of conventionally feminine discourse strategies,‘even’at work.

# The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

NOTES 1. The content of this paper was first presented at IGALA 3, the 3rd Biennial Conference of the International Gender and Language Association held at Cornell University, June 5^7, 2004. We thank those who attended and contributed to the discussion which has informed our revision. We thank those who allowed their workplace interactions to be recorded, and other members of the Language in the Workplace Project team who assisted with collecting and transcribing the data.We also thank Meredith Marra and Emily Major for much-appreciated assistance with editing and preparing this paper for publication. Finally we are indebted to the editors and the three anonymous reviewers who provided detailed and valuable feedback which has resulted in a much improved paper. 2. In this the concept of ‘femininity’ contrasts significantly with the concept of ‘masculinity’, which is regarded positively. As Kiesling (2004: 230) points out ‘studying masculinity allows the discussion of idealizations of manhood that no man may actually fulfill’. 3. Mills (2003:186^188) describes changes in feminist analyses of femininity over the last decade, and especially the ironisation of femininity which has been the focus of work by Liladhar (2001). The concept of ironising a ‘feminine’ performance is explored below. See also Clift (1999). 4. This approach is endorsed by a number of other analysts, for example, West and Fenstermaker (1995), Mart|¤ n Rojo (1998), Stokoe and Weatherall (2002), Stokoe and Smithson (2002), Kitzinger (2002). 5. This point is more fully explored in Holmes and Meyerhoff (2003), Holmes and Stubbe (2003a), and Holmes (in press). 6. This example is discussed in more detail in the context of an analysis of leadership strategies in Holmes, Schnurr, Chiles and Chan (2003). Tina Chiles, in particular, contributed to the analysis of this example. 7. See Appendix for transcription conventions. 8. We are not suggesting that indirectness should always be construed positively (or directness negatively). There are obviously occasions when indirectness can be unhelpful and counter-productive (see Holmes in press chapter 2). Such assessments can only be made in context; they require attention to participants’ reactions, and often to the longer-term outcomes of an interaction insofar as these can be derived from the ethnographic detail collected in workplaces where we recorded. 9. This example is also discussed in Holmes and Marra (2004: 388), a paper which focuses on the range of linguistic and discursive strategies which may instantiate Fletcher’s (1999) concept of ‘relational practice’. 10. See Holmes and Marra (2002a) for a fuller description and exemplification, and Baxter (2003: 145) for a description of a very similar community of practice in the British context. 11. This example is used to illustrate a different point in Holmes (2005: 53). 12. Tew (2002: 78ff) discussing the work of Cixous and Kristeva, notes the importance they attach to identifying elements of ‘‘‘a different voice’’ . . . in the ordinary everyday discourses of women and other subordinated social groups’, as one means of starting to disrupt the hegemony of ‘phallocentric codes and rules’ (2002: 81^82). Parody constitutes one such element. 13. This example is also discussed in Schnurr (forthcoming) and in Holmes and Schnurr (2005) where it is used to illustrate the way Jill uses humour in the workplace. # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK

14. See Clift (1999: 543) on self-deprecating irony, and also on‘the affiliative qualities of irony’. See also Johnstone (2003: 204^205) who describes how being southern and sounding southern as resources for someTexan women, can be used sometimes ‘for very specific fleeting purposes (such as selling a business service to a man who wants you to flirt)’.

REFERENCES Aries, Elizabeth. 1996. Men and Women in Interaction. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Problems in Dostoevsky’s Poetics. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Baxter, Judith. 2003. Positioning Gender in Discourse: A Feminist Methodology. Chippenham, U.K.: Macmillan Palgrave. Bell, Allan. 1999. Styling the other to define the self: A study in New Zealand identity making. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3: 523^541. Bell, Allan. 2001. Back in style: Reworking audience design. In Penelope Eckert and John R. Rickford (eds.) Style and SociolinguisticVariation. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. 139^169. Bell, Allan and George Major. 2004. ‘Yeah right’: Voicing kiwi masculinity. Paper presented at the New Zealand Language and Society Conference, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Bell, David, Jon Binnie, Julia Cream and Gill Valentine. 1994. All hyped up and no place to go. Gender, Place and Culture 1: 31^47. Besnier, Niko. 2003. Transgenderism and language use in Tonga. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.) Handbook of Language and Gender. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell. 279^301. Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Bucholtz, Mary. 1999.You da man: Narrating the racial other in the production of white masculinity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3: 443^460. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Cameron, Deborah. 1997. Performing gender identity: Young men’s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In Sally Johnson and Ulrike Hanna Meinhof (eds.) Language and Masculinity. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell. 47^65. Cameron, Deborah. 1998. ‘Is there any ketchup Vera?’: Gender, power and pragmatics. Discourse and Society 9: 435^455. Cameron, Deborah and Don Kulick. 2003. Language and Sexuality. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Clift, Rebecca. 1999. Irony in conversation. Language in Society 28: 523^554. Clouse, R.Wilburn and Karen Spurgeon. 1995. Corporate analysis of humor. Psychology ^ A QuarterlyJournal of Human Behaviour 32: 1^24. Coates, Jennifer. 1996.Woman Talk. Conversation Between Women Friends. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell. Coates, Jennifer. 1997. Competing discourses of femininity. In Helga Kotthoff and Ruth Wodak (eds.) Communicating Gender in Context. Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: John Benjamins. 285^314. # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

Coates, Jennifer. 1999. Changing femininities: The talk of teenage girls. In Mary Bucholtz, A. C. Liang and Laurel A. Sutton (eds.) Reinventing Identities. New York: Oxford University Press. 123^144. Coates, Jennifer. 2003. Men Talk. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell. Connell, Robert W. 1987. Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Connell, Robert W. 1995. Masculinities. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Crawford, Mary. 1995. Talking Difference. On Gender and Language. London: Sage. Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet. 2003. Language and Gender. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Eder, Donna. 1993.‘Go get ya a French!’ Romantic and sexual teasing among adolescent girls. In Deborah Tannen (ed.) Gender and Conversational Interaction. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. 17^31. Edley, Nigel and Margaret Wetherell. 1997. Jockeying for position: The construction of masculine identities. Discourse and Society 8: 203^217. Ely, Robin. 1988. Attitudes toward women and the experience of leadership. In Suzanna Rose and Laurie Larwood (eds.) Women’s Careers. Pathways and Pitfalls. New York: Praeger. 65^81. Fletcher, Joyce K. 1999. Disappearing Acts. Gender, Power, and Relational Practice atWork. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Geis, Florence, Virginia Brown and Carolyn Wolfe. 1990. Legitimizing the leader: Endorsement by male versus female authority figures. Journal of Applied Psychology 20: 943^970. Hall, Kira. 1995. Lip service on the fantasy lines. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds.) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self. New York: Routledge. 183^216. Hall, Kira. 2003. Exceptional speakers: Contested and problematized gender identities. In Miriam Meyerhoff and Janet Holmes (eds.) Handbook of Language and Gender. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell. 352^380. Hearn, Jeff and P. Wendy Parkin. 1988. Women, men, and leadership: A critical review of assumptions, practices, and change in the industrialized nations. In Nancy Adler and Dafna Izraeli (eds.)Women in ManagementWorldwide. London: M.E. Sharpe. 17^40. Holmes, Janet. 1995.Women, Men and Politeness. London: Longman. Holmes, Janet. 2000. Women at work: Analysing women’s talk in New Zealand workplaces. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL) 22: 1^17. Holmes, Janet. 2005. Power and discourse at work: Is gender relevant? In Michelle Lazar (ed.) CDA and Gender. London: Palgrave. 31^60. Holmes, Janet. In press. Gendered Talk at Work: Constructing Gender Identity Through Workplace Discourse. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell. Holmes, Janet and Meredith Marra. 2002a. Over the edge? Subversive humour between colleagues and friends. Humor 15: 1^23. Holmes, Janet and Meredith Marra. 2002b. Humour as a discursive boundary marker in social interaction. In Anna Duszak (ed.) Us and Others: Social Identities across Languages, Discourses and Cultures. Amsterdam,The Netherlands: John Benjamins. 377^400. Holmes, Janet and Meredith Marra. 2004. Relational practice in the workplace: Women’s talk or gendered discourse? Language in Society 33: 377^398.

# The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK

Holmes, Janet and Miriam Meyerhoff. 2003. Different voices, different views: An introduction to current research in language and gender. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.) Handbook of Language and Gender. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell. 1^17. Holmes, Janet and Stephanie Schnurr. 2005. Politeness, humour and gender in the workplace: Negotiating norms and identifying contestation. Journal of Politeness Research 1: 121^149. Holmes, Janet, Stephanie Schnurr, Tina Chiles and Angela Chan. 2003. The discourse of leadership. Te Reo 46: 31^46. Holmes, Janet and Maria Stubbe. 2003a.‘Feminine’ workplaces: Stereotypes and reality. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.) Handbook of Language and Gender. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell. 573^599. Holmes, Janet and Maria Stubbe. 2003b. Power and Politeness in the Workplace. A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Talk atWork. London: Longman. Holmes, Janet, Maria Stubbe and Bernadette Vine. 1999. Constructing professional identity: ‘Power’ in policy units. In Srikant Sarangi and Celia Roberts (eds.) Talk,Work and Institutional Order. Discourse in Medical, Mediation and Management Settings. Berlin: de Gruyter. 351^385. Johnson, Sally and Ulrike Hanna Meinhof (eds.). 1997. Language and Masculinity. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell. Johnstone, Barbara. 1999. Uses of Southern-sounding speech by contemporary Texas women. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3: 505^522. Johnstone, Barbara. 2003. Features and uses of Southern style. In Stephen J. Nagle and Sara L. Sanders (eds.) English in the Southern United States. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. 189^207. Jones, Deborah. 2000. Gender trouble in the workplace: ‘Language and gender’ meets ‘feminist organisational communication’. In Janet Holmes (ed.) Gendered Speech in Social Context: Perspectives from Gown and Town. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press. 192^210. Kendall, Shari. 2003. Creating gendered demeanours of authority at work and at home. In Janet Holmes and Miriam Meyerhoff (eds.) Handbook of Language and Gender. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell. 600^623. Kendall, Shari. 2004. Framing authority: Gender, face and mitigation at a radio network. Discourse and Society 15: 55^79. Kiesling, Scott Fabius. 1998. Men’s identities and sociolinguistic variation: The case of fraternity men. Journal of Sociolinguistics 2: 69^99. Kiesling, Scott Fabius. 2004. What does a focus on ‘men’s language’ tell us about language and woman’s place? In Mary Bucholtz (ed.) Language and Woman’s Place: Text and Commentaries. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. 229^236. Kitzinger, Celia. 2002. Doing feminist conversational analysis. In Paul McIlvenny (ed.) Talking Gender and Sexuality. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins. 163^193. Koller, Veronika. 2004. Businesswomen and war metaphors: ‘Possessive, jealous and pugnacious’? Journal of Sociolinguistics 8: 3^22. Lakoff, Robyn Tolmach. 2004. Language and woman’s place revisited. In Mary Bucholtz (ed.) Language and Woman’s Place: Text and Commentaries. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. 15^28. Liladhar, Janine. 2001. Making, unmaking and re-making femininity. Unpublished PhD thesis. Sheffield, U.K.: Sheffield Hallam University. Livia, Anna and Kira Hall (eds.). 1997. Queerly Phrased: Language, Gender, and Sexuality. NewYork: Oxford University Press. # The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

HOLMES AND SCHNURR

Maher, Karen. 1997. Gender-related stereotypes of transformational and transactional leadership. Sex Roles: A Journal of Leadership 37: 209^226. Mart|¤ n Rojo, Luisa. 1998. Intertextuality and the construction of a new female identity. In Mercedes Bengoechea and Ricardo J. Sola Buil (eds.) Intertextuality/ Intertextualidad. Alcala¤ de Henares, Spain: Universidad de Alcala¤ de Henares. 81^98. Mea“ n, Lindsey. 2001. Identity and discursive practice: Doing gender on the football pitch. Discourse and Society 12: 789^815. Mills, Sara. 2003. Gender and Politeness. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. Ochs, Elinor. 1992. Indexing gender. In Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin (eds.) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. 335^358. Ochs, Elinor. 1996. Linguistic resources for socializing humanity. In John J. Gumperz and Stephen C. Levinson (eds.) Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. 407^438. Okamoto, Shigeko. 1995. ‘Tasteless’ Japanese: Less ‘feminine’ speech among young Japanese women. In Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz (eds.) Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self. NewYork: Routledge. 297^325. Rampton, Ben. 1999. Styling the other: Introduction. Journal of Sociolinguistics 3: 421^427. Rampton, Ben. 2003. Hegemony, social class and stylisation. Pragmatics 13: 49^83. Romaine, Suzanne. 1999. Communicating Gender. London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Schnurr, Stephanie. Forthcoming. Leadership, humour and gender. An analysis of workplace discourse. Unpublished PhD thesis. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University. Sinclair, Amanda. 1998. Doing Leadership Differently. Gender, Power and Sexuality in a Changing Business Culture. Melbourne, Australia: Melbourne University Press. Stokoe, Elizabeth H. and Janet Smithson. 2002. Gender and sexuality in talk-ininteraction: Considering conversation analytic perspectives. In Paul McIlvenny (ed.) Talking Gender and Sexuality: Conversation, Performativity and Discourse in Interaction. Amsterdam,The Netherlands: John Benjamins. 79^109. Stokoe, Elizabeth H. and Ann Weatherall. 2002. Gender, language, conversation analysis and feminism. Discourse and Society 13: 707^713. Stubbe, Maria, Janet Holmes, Bernadette Vine and Meredith Marra. 2000. Forget Mars and Venus, let’s get back to earth: Challenging stereotypes in the workplace. In Janet Holmes (ed.) Gendered Speech in Social Context: Perspectives from Gown and Town. Wellington, New Zealand:Victoria University Press. 231^258. Talbot, Mary. 1998. Language and Gender. An Introduction. Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press. Tannen, Deborah (ed.). 1993. Gender and Conversational Interaction. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. Tannen, Deborah. 1994a. Gender and Discourse. London: Oxford University Press. Tannen, Deborah. 1994b. Talking from 9 to 5. London:Virago Press. Tew, Jerry. 2002. Social Theory, Power and Practice. Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave. Trauth, Eileen. 2002. Odd girl out: An individual differences perspective on women in the IT profession. InformationTechnology and People 15: 98^118. West, Candace and Sarah Fenstermaker. 1995. Doing difference. Gender and Society 9: 8^37. Wodak, Ruth (ed.). 1997. Gender and Discourse. London: Sage.

# The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006

‘DOING FEMININITY’AT WORK

APPENDIX yes [laughs]::

Underlining indicates emphatic stress Paralinguistic features in square brackets, colons indicate start/finish þ Pause of up to one second (3) Pause of specified number of seconds . . ./. . . . . .\ . . . Simultaneous speech . . ./. . . . . .\ . . . (hello) Transcriber’s best guess at an unclear utterance ? Rising or question intonation Incomplete or cut-off utterance ... ... Section of transcript omitted ¼ Speaker’s turn continues [edit] Editorial comments italicized in square brackets All names used in examples are pseudonyms.

Address correspondence to: Janet Holmes School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies Victoria University of Wellington P O Box 600 Wellington New Zealand Janet.Holmes@vuw.ac.nz

# The authors 2006 Journal compilation # Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2006