Vulnerability and dangerousness - The construction of gender through conversation about violence

In this article, the author argues that beliefs about vulnerability and dan gerousness are central to conceptions of gender and are constructed and tra nsmitted through conversation. Using data from 13 focus groups, the author demonstrates that ideas aborts gender and its relationship to vulnerability and danger are pervasive in talk about violence, and that this talk is fur ther marked by ideas about age, race, social class, and sexual identity. Th ese ideas are based. in part, on shared beliefs about human bodies, which r einforce the perceived naturalness land therefore the invisibility) of thes e ideas. The article concludes with a discussion of the consequences of the se ideas for the daily lives of women and men.