Redefining the Situation: Negotiations on the Meaning of "Woman"

The Women's Movement of the late sixties and seventies brought about negotiations on the meaning of “woman.” This paper analyzes the process of redefinition-negotiations, using interactions in a small community for theoretical grounding and examples. It offers a typology of redefinition-negotiations and suggests the rules of sequence that appear to order their progress. Such a model may help us understand the way roles and social structures change. It is especially useful in clarifying the dialectic between negotiations that take place before large audiences and those that occur in relatively private settings.