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    Living under siege : women's narratives of psychological violence within coercively controlling intimate partner relationships : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2017) Hancock, Carmel M
    As a global epidemic, the violence of women enacted through gendered social power relations of inequality, exploit, harm, and silence women. Specifically, intimate partner violence (IPV) constitutes a systematic pattern of coercive control, embedded within psychological, physical, and/or sexual violence, that intimidates and hurts women through fear and terror. Although previous literature has identified the debilitating effects of psychological violence, within our socio-political landscape physical violence continues to occupy a more visible and privileged position, minimising other forms of violence. The aim of this research, therefore, was to explore and make visible heterosexual women’s experiences of psychological violence within previous intimate relationships, framed through coercive control, to enable a greater understanding of how women become subjected to men’s coercion and control within intimate relationships. The aim was also to explore how psychological violence positions women within the gendered social hierarchy. A narrativediscursive approach analysed the stories of six women subjected to psychological violence and attended to the discursive resources the women used to narrate their experiences. The analysis identified how the women’s experiences of heteronormative coupledom developed into relationships of coercion and control, emphasising their inequitable and subordinate positions within femininity. Becoming entrapped within a destructive pattern of coercion, the women’s everyday lives were micro-regulated through their partners’ tactics of intimidation, isolation, and control and through their own operations of imperceptible disciplinary power. Importantly, the analysis identified particular turning points of resistance enabling the women to leave their relationships, however, they continue(d) to live under siege post-separation, subjected to psychological violence by their ex-partners through the men’s use of both their children and the legal system. The analysis ends with the women’s reflections on how these previous relationships continue to currently affect them.
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    Negotiating gender relations in the context of heterosexual intimate partner relationships : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology, at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2017) Campbell, Debra
    Contemporary neoliberal postfemininism portrays women as empowered and existing in heterosexual relationships where equality is negotiated between two equal beings. The current study is a feminist project seeking to understand how men and women negotiate gendered relations in the context of heterosexual intimate partner relationships. The research draws on individual semi-structured interviews conducted with six men and six women aged between 25 and 40, who had been in a heterosexual intimate relationship for at least two years, thus having experience in the area of interest. A feminist poststructural discourse analysis was used to attend to the gendered power relations and dominant discourses that enabled and constrained subjectivities and positioning for the men and women. This research indicates that whilst equality and women’s empowerment are popularised ideals, the lived reality is quite different. In both their own gendered subjectivities and gendered performances in their intimate heterosexual relationships, men and women are navigating the positions/roles on offer in hegemonic masculinity, emphasised femininity and neoliberal postfeminist ‘choice’ femininity that are both enabled and constrained by heteronormativity. Heteronormativity produces discourses, subjectivities and positioning that are so dominant they are invisible, and are taken up as one’s own individualised choices. Social sanctions make resisting or developing new positions difficult. The result is the continuing enactment of traditional gendered roles in intimate heterosexual relationships, rather than negotiating new positioning, which is reproducing inequality and the continued subordination of women.
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    (Mis)communication in couples : positioning as a site of conflict : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2005) Davis, Julia
    Mis)communication between people in couple relationships often results in arguments. Psychological research on this phenomenon has often relied on essentialist accounts of gender, offering little room for social or personal change. This study has used feminist poststructuralist theory to investigate the discourses that constitute couple relationships and enable (mis)communications in the form of arguments. From my reading of this theory and my experience of couple relationships I formulated three research questions: What discourses may be identified in young adults' talk about their couple relationships? How do these discourses specify the various obligations and entitlements of Boyfriends and Girlfriends? How are young adults' positions within these discourses implicated in their accounts of arguments? The transcripts of semi-structured interviews with young adults talking about their couple relationships provided the texts for analysis. I conducted interviews with six men and six women aged between 22 and 30. Four themes emerged from participants' talk: division of labour, relationship work, spending time, and arguments. I used analytic resources from Parker's (1992) and Baxter's (2003) interpretations of poststructuralist discourse analysis to identify five discourses that constitute these thematics. I have named these discourses egalitarian, traditional, togetherness, reciprocity, and men-need-space. Analyses address the ways in which these discourses position boyfriends and girlfriends. The implications of contradictory positioning for enabling arguments are discussed.
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    Speaking of love : a discourse analysis of single women's and men's talk about hetero-sexual relationships in their fourth decade : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2005) Leslie, Barri Janette
    In Eurocentric countries unprecedented numbers of heterosexual men and women in their fourth decade now live without partners. Indications are that most would prefer to be in relationships, although not necessarily with children. Yet complex dilemmas face this population as they struggle to achieve goals of relationship while self protecting against failure, desperation and loss. The growing divide between mature single men and women is explicated through analysis of the gendered deployment of mutually exclusive discursive resources. After painful experiences of fictional constructions of romantic love, women favour the communicative assumptions and practice offered by the discourse of intimacy while men prefer self sufficiency enabled by individualism.