This is the account of an attempt to conceptualize a poststructuralist metaphor analysis of the use of the term gender as designating a domain of research and study. In the first section of the article, I explain the choice of empirical materials, which is taken from the discussion section of a seminar on Gender and International Development, given by Professors Naila Kabeer (School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS]) and Elaine Unterhalter (Institute of Education [IOE]), at the London International Development Centre. I then delve into the contradictions of poststructuralist metaphor analysis, while trying to construct the foundations of an analytical method from the tatters of my original understanding of a linguistic metaphor analysis. In the second section, I offer a sample analysis of the seminar discussion text. I finally return to the two questions posed in tandem by this piece: How does "gender" operate as a designation of a domain of research and study? Is poststructuralist metaphor analysis epistemologically possible?