Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Computational Analysis Of The Body In European Fairy Tales, Scott Weingart, Jeana Jorgensen

Jeana Jorgensen

This article explores how digital humanities research methods can be used to analyze the representations of gendered bodies in European fairy tales, a flexible and pervasive genre that has influenced Western children's education and acquisition of gender identity for centuries. By blending the theoretical and methodological concerns of folkloristics, gender studies, and large-scale scientific research, this article demonstrates the utility of cross-disciplinary collaboration in asking traditional questions of traditional materials with new methods. To facilitate this research, a hand-coded database listing every reference to a body or body part in the 233 fairy tales was created. Analysis revealed strong indications …

Whether It’S Coins, Fringe, Or Just Stuff That’S Sparkly': Aesthetics And Utility In A Tribal Fusion Belly Dance Troupe’S Costumes, Jeana Jorgensen

Jeana Jorgensen

As both a scholar and a belly dancer, I believe that belly dance is recognizable on aesthetic grounds. In addition to the movements that belly dancers typically perform—muscle isolations, undulations, graceful hand motions and turns, and lots of hip work—belly dancers wear costumes that are visually identifiable as belly dance costumes. While this description may seem tautological, there are recognizable standards both in the public sphere and among dancers for what constitutes the belly dance image—or images, as belly dance is a diverse phenomenon that encompasses teaching, learning, performing, watching, socializing, and costuming.

Understanding ‘The Body’ In Fairy Tales, Scott Weingart, Jeana Jorgensen

Jeana Jorgensen

Computational analysis and feminist theory generally aren’t the first things that come to mind in association with fairy tales. This unlikely pairing, however, can lead to important insights regarding how cultures understand and represent themselves. For example, by looking at how characters are described in European fairy tales, we’ve been able to show how Western culture tends to bias the younger generation, especially the men. While that result probably won’t shock anyone more than passingly familiar with the Western world, the method of reaching these results allows us to look at cultural biases in a new light. Our study and …

Queer Precarity And The Myth Of Gay Affluence, Margot Weiss, Amber Hollibaugh

Margot Weiss

Bdsm (Bondage, Discipline, Domination, Submission, Sadomasochism), Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Queer Economic Justice: Desire, Critique, And The Practice Of Knowledge, Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Police-Building And The Responsibility To Protect: Civil Society, Gender And Human Rights Culture In Oceania, Charles Hawksley, Nichole Georgeou

Nichole Georgeou

Forthcoming: This book examines how the United Nations and states provide assistance for the police services of developing states to help them meet their human rights obligations to their citizens, under the responsibility to protect (R2P) provisions. It examines police-capacity building ("police-building") by international donors in Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea (PNG). All three states have been described as "fragile states" and "states of concern", and all have witnessed significant social tensions and violence in the past decades. The authors argue that globally police-building forms part of an attempt to make states "safe" so that they can adhere …

Interview With Margot Weiss In Critical Lede Podcast, Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Podcast: Episode 130 - Interview with Margot Weiss We talk with Margot Weiss (Wesleyan) about BDSM, pleasure and neoliberalism in her new book Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality.

“Margot Weiss Talks Bdsm And Sexuality.” Interview By Yasmin Nair In Windy City Times., Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss' book, Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality ( Duke University Press, 2011 ) has become a fixture in several ongoing conversations about the BDSM community. It received the 2012 Ruth Benedict Book Prize and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards.

“On Marriage Equality” (Review Of Jay Cee Whitehead's The Nuptial Deal: Same-Sex Marriage And Neo-Liberal Governance [University Of Chicago Press, 2011]), Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

’Reinvigorating The Queer Political Imagination’: A Roundtable With Ryan Conrad, Yasmin Nair, And Karma Chávez Of Against Equality, Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Intellectual Inquiry Otherwise: An Interview With Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Silent Subversions, Derek Dubois

Derek M Dubois

Explores the concept of spectatorship in relation to gender in the earliest period of film history in the United States known as the silent era. Argues that a new mode of spectatorship emerges for women during the 1920s, which employs to advantage the extra-diegetic components of spectacle in theater design, new customized genres for female filmgoers, fandom, and exotic male film stars, such as Rudolph Valentino. Focuses primarily on feminist film theory and on cultural studies as methodological models.

“Bdsm And Feminism: Notes On An Impasse”, Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Identifying Self-Perceived Hiv-Related Stigma In A Population Accessing Antiretroviral Therapy, D. Tzemis, J. Forrest, C. Puskas, W. Zhang, Treena Orchard, A. Palmer, C. Mcinnes, K. Fernandes, J. Montaner, R. Hogg

Dr. Treena Orchard

No abstract provided.

How Do We ‘See’ Occupations? An Examination Of Visual Research Methodologies In The Study Of Human Occupation, L. Hartman, A. Mandich, L. Magalhaes, Treena Orchard

Dr. Treena Orchard

This article argues that visual research methodologies have potential to contribute to the study of occupation. The use of visual research methodologies is quickly growing in a number of disciplines and can help researchers to access information and reasoning not accessible through interview, log or survey. The reflexive, reflective, engaged process of creating and analysing visual materials allows for rich representations on behalf of participants, and immersion in the data on the part of researchers. This paper explores photovoice, body mapping and textual analysis of visual materials to understand how they can contribute to occupational science research. These methods were …

Bondage And Barbeques, Margot D. Weiss

Margot Weiss

Neoliberalism At Play: An Interview With Margot D. Weiss, Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

Interview at Trikster: Nordic Queer Journal Blog

Kink On Tap: Sexuality Netcast, Margot Weiss

Margot Weiss

No abstract provided.

Factors Behind Hiv Testing Practices Among Canadian Aboriginal Peoples Living Off-Reserve, Treena Orchard, C. Mcinnes, K. Fernandes, M. Clement, M. Gilbert, V. Lima, J. Montaner, R. Hogg

Dr. Treena Orchard

The objective of this study was to examine factors associated with HIV testing among Aboriginal peoples in Canada who live off-reserve. Data were drawn for individuals aged 15–44 from the Aboriginal Peoples Survey (2001), which represents a weighed sample of 520,493 Aboriginal men and women living off-reserve. Bivariable analysis and logistic regression were used to identify factors associated with individuals who had received an HIV test within the past year. In adjusted multivariable analysis, female gender, younger age, unemployment, contact with a family doctor or traditional healer within the past year, and “good” or “fair/poor” self-rated health increased the odds …

Insert Discourse: Rectal Douching Among Young Hiv-Positive And Hiv-Negative Gay Men In Vancouver, Canada, A. Schilder, Treena Orchard, C. Buchner, S. Strathdee, R. Hogg

Dr. Treena Orchard

Douching is a common practice among certain groups of women and MSM, and it is conducted for the purpose of cleanliness as part of bodily hygiene maintenance. Although there has been considerable research about female vaginal douching, understandings of rectal douching (RD) for MSM are limited. In the epidemiological and medical literature, RD is presented as a behaviour that removes beneficial bacteria and the surface epithelium layer of the colon, which can, potentially, increase the risk of HIV transmission in MSM. The paucity of research on male douching practices is curious given the primacy of anal sex in HIV prevention …

Gay Shame And Bdsm Pride: Neoliberalism, Privacy, And Sexual Politics, Margot D. Weiss

Margot Weiss

Best Practices In Intercultural Health; Five Case Studies In Latin America, J. Mignone, J. Bartlett, J. O'Nwil, Treena Orchard

Dr. Treena Orchard

The practice of integrating western and traditional indigenous medicine is fast becoming an accepted and more widely used approach in health care systems throughout the world. However, debates about intercultural health approaches have raised significant concerns. This paper reports findings of five case studies on intercultural health in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Suriname. It presents summary information on each case study, comparatively analyzes the initiatives following four main analytical themes, and examines the case studies against a series of the best practice criteria.

In This Life: The Impact Of Gender And Tradition On Sexuality And Relationships For Devadasi Sex Workers In Rural India, Treena Orchard

Dr. Treena Orchard

In the popular imagination and certain academic fields, sex workers' experiences of sexuality and intimate relationships are often "naturalized," to the point where they are assumed to be deviant or completely different than those of women in mainstream society. Researchers and sex worker organizations are challenging these reified constructions by examining more diverse and representative models of sexuality and relationships. However, the experiences of women selling sex in the "third world" are consistently portrayed as violent, non-pleasurable, and oppressive, characteristics often applied universally to "third world women". Using data from ethnographic fieldwork with girls and women who belong to the …

Girl, Woman, Lover, Mother: Towards A New Understanding Of Child Prostitution Among Young Devadasi Sex Workers In Rural Karnataka, India, Treena Orchard

Dr. Treena Orchard

The emotive issue of child prostitution is at the heart of international debates over ‘trafficking’ in women and girls, the “new slave trade”, and how these phenomena are linked with globalization, sex tourism, and expanding transnational economies. However, young sex workers, particularly those in the ‘third world’, are often represented through tropes of victimization, poverty, and “backwards” cultural traditions, constructions that rarely capture the complexity of the girls’ experiences and the role that prostitution plays in their lives. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with girls and young women who are part of the Devadasi (servant/slave of the God) system of sex …

Downtown Ladies: Informal Commercial Importers, A Haitian Anthropologist And Self-Making In Jamaica, Gina Ulysse

Gina Athena Ulysse

The Caribbean “market woman” is ingrained in the popular imagination as the archetype of black womanhood in countries throughout the region. Challenging this stereotype and other outdated images of black women, Downtown Ladies offers a more complex picture by documenting the history of independent international traders—known as informal commercial importers, or ICIs—who travel abroad to import and export a vast array of consumer goods sold in the public markets of Kingston, Jamaica. Both by-products of and participants in globalization, ICIs operate on multiple levels and, since their emergence in the 1970s, have made significant contributions to the regional, national, and …

Dhandha, Dharma And Disease: Traditional Sex Work And Hiv/Aids In Rural India, J. O'Neil, Treena Orchard, J. Swarankar, J. Blanchard, K. Gurav, B. Barlaya, R. Patil, C. Hussain Khan, S. Moses

Dr. Treena Orchard

This paper discusses the results of two ethnographic studies with female sex workers in rural areas of Karnataka and Rajasthan, India. In particular, we focus on women whose socio-economic status, and religious and occupational practices, are part of sex work systems that have historical precedents such that they can be termed “traditional” sex workers. The approach taken in the ethnographic work was informed by current critical approaches in medical anthropology and public health. The paper argues that in the context of an expanding HIV/AIDS epidemic in rural areas of India, understanding the historical and structural factors that operate to perpetuate …