Multitasking women

senses in flux

Abstract

This article seeks to analyse the meaning effects of the formulation “multitasking women”, with the aim of reflecting on the movement of construction and deconstruction of discourses on the sexual division of labour. To this end, we pose the following questions: (i) how do meanings about the sexual division of labour, which classifies work activities according to gender, move in a given discursive formation crossed by patriarchal and class ideology?; (ii) what effects of resistance promote the drift of socially naturalised senses? This reflection is based on the theoretical-methodological perspective of pecheutian discourse analysis, whose historical-ideological object is discourse, the specific materiality of which is language. It is from the work of description and interpretation proposed by this materialist theory that we seek to understand the discursive functioning of the formulation “multitasking women” circulating in the digital media, more specifically in CLÁUDIA magazine online. Based on the analysis of three discursive sequences, we pointed out that the senses of/about “multitasking women” parade values promoted by capitalism – which cover up the exploitation of the working class by exalting excessive work as an indication of intellectual and physical capacity – but also include the possibility of resistance.