Maquinaría móvil – (Daños externos) Cobertura

The „feminism is not X‟ structure occurs 24 times. Although this is a much smaller number than the 102 occurrences of „feminism is X‟, the use of negating in these examples provides evidence that „feminism‟ is often described according to what it is not (Baumgardner & Richards, 2000, p. 61). Strikingly, 11 of the 24 „feminism is not X‟ structures are part of the presentation of speech, with female writers defining what feminism is not, for example “„feminism has never been dead – it‟s just that the media has been lazy‟, says Andi Zeisler, the founding editor of Bitch” (Guardian 07c). In particular, writers and those whose speech is being presented argue against the idea that feminism is dead (see the analysis of „feminism is [adjective phrase]‟ in section 5.2.2.2 above), with the use of negating enabling them to argue against this common perception. Contrasting is also used to expand on the ideas that are negated, as a means for writers to present feminism in a more positive light.

In each of the „feminism is not X‟ structures, a proposition is negated. However, in many occurrences the effect is that, ultimately, something positive is said about „feminism‟. This is most obvious in the examples below, each of which contests the idea that feminism is dead:

Publication Sentence

Guardian 07c […] there‟s a groundswell of new feminist magazines, which are evidence not just that feminism isn‟t dead, but that it‟s thriving

Guardian 07c Feminism has never been dead – it‟s just that the media has been lazy […] Independent 08a […] feminism isn‟t dead yet

Mail 02a Feminism isn‟t dead, it‟s simply lying dormant

Table 5.7: Occurrences of „feminism is not dead‟

The „feminism is not dead‟ structures are a form of litotes, with their meaning depending on a double negative (Beaton-Thome, 2013, p. 387) and a flout of manner and/or quantity (Grice, 1975) (see discussion of the „feminism does not mean X‟ structure in section 5.2.1). In „feminism is not dead‟, the semantically negative „dead‟ is negated by the syntactic negation of the proposition („not‟, „never‟), resulting in an implied positive meaning – that feminism is alive. However, the linking of ideas such as „feminism‟ and „death‟ – even if the association is negated – will still cause readers to associate the

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two (Lind & Salo, 2002, p. 217). As a result, the state of being dead, or at least of enjoying only dubious health, is part of the textual meaning of „feminism‟ in this context.

Eight of the 24 „feminism is not X‟ structures demonstrate an awareness of this problem, with the writer or speaker expanding the structure into a „feminism is not X, feminism is Y‟ structure that allows them to contrast a negative perception of what „feminism‟ means with a more positive one. This use of contrasting allows writers to argue against others‟ negative perceptions of feminism. Table 5.8 lists the X and Y coordinates in these instances of negated opposition:

Publication Feminism is not Feminism is

Guardian 01b a rigid set of given positions, an agenda, an ideology

radical […] a premise of freedom

Guardian 03b cool the realm of middle-aged nostalgia

for youth

Guardian 07c dead thriving

Guardian 09a about chiding other women, or establishing yet another set of standards for women to be judged against

a social justice movement

Guardian 09b scary or a fringe movement a movement for the good of all

society

Mail 02a dead lying dormant

Mail 03a about the pressure to have everything at once

about the freedom to choose what you want

Times 09b about rights or social advances shopping

Table 5.8: Occurrences of „feminism is not X, feminism is Y‟

Two of the „feminism is not dead‟ structures are expanded to produce a contrast with what feminism is – either the near antonymous thriving (Guardian 07c) or the less obviously positive lying dormant (Mail 02a). The latter example demonstrates the power of contrasting to construct new opposites. Ordinarily, „dormant‟ might be seen as residing nearest the „dead‟ end of the “plane of difference” (Davies, 2008, p. 185) between the conventional opposites „alive‟ and „dead‟. Here, however, dead and dormant are opposites, with the latter taking on a more positive evaluative meaning than would

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ordinarily be the case: at least there is the promise of feminism being conscious and fully alive again at some point in the future.

In other instances, negated opposition is used not just to try to undermine the connotations of death attached to „feminism‟, but also to stress connotations of freedom and inclusivity. Each of these constructed oppositions can be traced to more conventional superordinate opposites: the contrasts between a rigid set of given positions, an agenda, an ideology and radical […] a premise of freedom (Guardian 01b), and about the pressure to have everything at once and about the freedom to choose what you want (Mail 03a) both have connotations of the more conventional limited/free, while establishing yet another set of standards and a social justice movement (Guardian 09a), and a fringe movement and a movement for the good of all society (Guardian

09b) both relate to the antonyms exclusivity/inclusivity. Again, there is the sense of writers and

speakers having to create a positive meaning for „feminism‟ by first of all arguing against negative connotations (Mendes, 2011a, p. 9).

The remaining two examples from table 5.8 appear to provide more negative definitions of what feminism is. However, each discusses „feminism‟ from the point of view of others, again arguing support for feminism from a defensive position (Mendes, 2011a, p. 10). Times 09b‟s rights or social advances/shopping opposition occurs in the following passage:

“[…] the language of women's liberation was ransacked by companies trying to flog us stuff. Suddenly feminism wasn't about rights or social advances, but shopping”

The exact meaning of the „feminism wasn‟t about X, but Y‟ opposition can only be understood in the context of the previous sentence, in which “the language of women‟s liberation” (here synonymous with „feminism‟) is the goal in a material action process of ransacking by “companies trying to flog us stuff”. It is not that the writer thinks „feminism‟ equates with shopping, but that in this particular context they believe that it does. Similarly, a negative view of „feminism‟ – “not cool” – is presented as the perception of others through an adverbial phrase in Guardian 03b:

“[…] for women of my generation (I'm a child of the 70s), feminism is supposedly not cool. It‟s the realm of middle-aged women nostalgic for lost youth”

This example demonstrates the importance of a consideration of the full range of ways of creating textual meaning. The contextualisation of the state – “feminism is supposedly not cool” – being represented with the circumstance “for women of my generation” limits the validity of the proposition as applying to only a certain group of people, while the modal adverb “supposedly” allows the writer to hypothesise about the likeliness of feminism not being cool – this is only something that is supposed

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by some. In each of these examples, writers make use of contrasting to acknowledge and then subvert others‟ perceptions of feminism.