Extract 11
1 Hol.: in what way do:es changing nappies translate to:
2 (.) running a boardroom↑ exactly
3 Ally: if you can change a na ppy (0.4) you can change the
4 wor ld
5 Hol.: well i can change nappies and i don’t have a
6 child so:↑
Here Holly uses “changing nappies” (line 1) as a category-resonant
descriptor of motherhood, contrasting this basic task of motherhood with
an empowered image of a Businessperson as capable of “running a
boardroom” (line 2). Ally accepts and reframes this category
descriptor, hyperbolically equating changing nappies with changing the
world (lines 3-4). Both speakers rely on common sense knowledge of the
category-bound activity as an identifier of motherhood. In lines 5-6,
however, Holly problematises this categorical tie, reframing the ability
to change nappies as not category-bound to motherhood. This offers a
striking demonstration of the capacity for normative category
expectations to be manipulated within argumentative talk, revealing the
instability of such knowledge and how it can be reconstructed in
various, and often contradictory, ways.
Our final extract, concerning a debate about gender-neutral school
uniform, illuminates how motherhood incumbents, on occasion, seek to
uphold their argument by (re)producing and policing category rights,
norms, and values as qualities and concepts that are potentially only
comprehensible to those who are members of the category.