ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the minority status of women within public sphere institutions, such as Parliament and the established Church means that the dominant discursive practices which circulate in these domains are those associated with white middle-class male speakers. The chapter suggests, that media institutions also function as sites of discursive struggle in the ongoing debate about appropriate gender roles and behaviour, rather than simply reproducing conservative gender ideologies. It outlines a number of possible strategies available to women who enter traditionally male-dominated communities of practice and to consider the potential risks and advantages of each, both from the point of view of the career interests of individual women, and from the point of view of the broader feminist goal of eradicating inequalities based on gender. A number of feminist political theorists have suggested that new social movements (NSMs) constitute sites of political participation that are particularly open to women.
