A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis of the Concept of ‘Patriarchy’ in Tomlin’s Behind Closed Doors

Abstract

Patriarchy refers to the system of male domination over women in society. The man in a patriarchal setup looks at women as contingent beings who gain their meaning and value only in relation to men. The power that men wield over women flows from the patriarchy, which legalizes all forms of oppression and exploitation. The current study scrutinizes Jenny Tomlin’s (2005) memoir Behind Closed Doors by implementing a feminist critical discourse analysis perspective. Walby’s (1990) six structures are used to investigate the issue of patriarchy by relating them to specific feminist ideologies. The close analysis of Tomlin’s memoir denotes that the whole text revolves around three main ideologies: gender inequality, objectification, and stereotyping. These three ideologies have been found spreading in the six investigated structures, with objectification through sexuality and violence as the leitmotif in the whole narrative. This result proves that Tomlin’s story is a demonstration of the dark face of patriarchy. Feminist critical discourse analysis discloses the ways patriarchal structures (with their manifested ideologies) are encoded in the text so that women and readers, in general, can avoid, resist, and/or modify.