Feminism theory Essay

The article â€Å"Just Say No? † by Celia Kitzinger and Hannah Frithspeaks explains why it is important for women to be able to refuse. Special attention is paid to development of feminism perspective on sexual refusal. As the author states young girls and women find it difficult to refuse unwanted sexual relations. Therefore, the author discusses main reasons of being afraid to refuse and consequences of unwanted sexual relations. Further, it is necessary to mention that the article provides detailed overview of feminism theory, core issues and beliefs stating that it is necessary to develop refusal skills to avoid unpleasant situation. The author provides also recommendations how to prevent rape. Firstly, she defines refusals as â€Å"complex conversational interactions, incorporating delays, palliatives, and accounts†. Kitzfinger admits that nowadays training of refusal skills aims at teaching â€Å"just say no† instead of paying attention to the mentioned issues. Therefore, young women should be taught assertiveness skills along with refusal and social ones. The author claims that women should be afraid of refusing directly and unapologetically. The author presents also literature review of existing practices of refusing. Secondly, according to empirical data, â€Å"women already can explicitly articulate a sophisticated awareness of these culturally normative ways of doing refusals†. It is emphasized that the focus is only on conversational problems, though rape education, refusal skills programs and theoretical rationale are involved as well. Nevertheless, the problem of sexual coercion can’t be solved only by changing the ways women talk, behave and refuse. The author is rather persuasive, because she uses logical arguments, conclusions, facts and viewpoints of different critics to defend her position that women should be more aware of refusal skills. The article leads through abundant data presented to persuade women to be more self-respected, not to be afraid to refuse unwanted sex or simply unpleasant interactions with men. The question appears on the agenda: why women find it difficult to refuse? References Kitzinvger, C. & Frith, H. (1999). â€Å"Just Say No? The Use of Conversation Analysis in Developing Feminist Perspective on Sexual Refusals†. Discourse Society, 10, 293-312.