My paper is an analysis of contemporary Czech expert discourses on love and coupledom, framed within ongoing feminist discussions of sociological theory's emphasis on the individualization, reflexivity and detraditionalization of gender. Using Bourdieu's notion of symbolic violence, I argue for understanding therapeutic discourses as perlocutionary speech acts that authoritatively enact gendered norms and heteronormative assumptions. This performative approach both challenges heightened reflexivity theory by pointing to its flawed voluntarism, and also allows for grasping transformation through fissures between a perlocutionary act and its reception.
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