Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Women's History Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 8 of 8

Full-Text Articles in Women's History

Precarious Responsibility: Teaching With Feminist Politics In The Marketized University, Lena Wånggren Jan 2018

Precarious Responsibility: Teaching With Feminist Politics In The Marketized University, Lena Wånggren

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

One of the most pressing characteristics of the neoliberal restructuring of academia, together with increased managerialism, performativity measures, and a “customer service” approach, is the casualization or precarization of academic work. Casualization entails a fragmentation of academic work, where academics are forced to move between workplaces on hourly-paid and fixed-term contracts, often doing their job without access to resources such as an office, training, or paid research time. While a number of feminist scholars have investigated the ways in which feminist academics negotiate the ever-increasing mechanisms of individualization, ranking, and auditing of their work, this article focuses on the precarious …


Marriage And Gender: A History Through Letters, Victoria Kern May 2015

Marriage And Gender: A History Through Letters, Victoria Kern

Senior Honors Projects

Research on the evolution of marriage can be found quite easily, but the opportunity to see into the lives of married couples from the past is rare. Through the analysis of letters between my parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, I provide a glimpse of what being married has meant throughout the 20th Century for heterosexual couples. Societal ideas about what makes a marriage ideal have changed over time, but they have always been closely linked with gender expectations (Berk, 2013), so a feminist approach to the analysis of the evolution of marriage is used with my family’s letters as a …


She Legislates, He Scandalizes: Reenvisioning The Impact Of Political Sex Scandals On Assemblywomen In New York, Hinda Mandell Jan 2015

She Legislates, He Scandalizes: Reenvisioning The Impact Of Political Sex Scandals On Assemblywomen In New York, Hinda Mandell

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

A rash of three political sex scandals within the span of less than two years, from 2012 to 2014, shook the New York State Assembly. All of the sex scandals involved male politicians accused of sexual harassment of female staffers and subordinates. This study investigates how New York State assemblywomen were impacted by the scandals of their male colleagues, exploring the “contagion” of scandals (Adut 2008). Interviews were conducted with eight assemblywomen in 2014, although all 33 assemblywomen serving in the legislature at the time of this research endeavor were invited to participate in a research interview. Findings indicate that …


Decolonizing Higher Education: Black Feminism And The Intersectionality Of Race And Gender, Heidi Safia Mirza Jan 2014

Decolonizing Higher Education: Black Feminism And The Intersectionality Of Race And Gender, Heidi Safia Mirza

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

Drawing on black feminist theory, this paper examines the professional experiences of postcolonial diasporic black and ethnicized female academics in higher education.1 The paper explores the embodiment of gendered and racialized difference and reflects on the power of whiteness to shape everyday experiences in such places of privilege. The powerful yet hidden histories of women of color in higher education, such as the Indian women suffragettes and Cornelia Sorabji in late nineteenth century, are symbolic of the erasure of an ethnicized black feminist/womanist presence in mainstream (white) educational establishments. The paper concludes that an understanding of black and ethnicized female …


What's Feminism Got To Do With It? Examination Of Feminism In Women's Everyday Lives, Claire Carter Jan 2013

What's Feminism Got To Do With It? Examination Of Feminism In Women's Everyday Lives, Claire Carter

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In recent decades there has been considerable debate about the role and meaning of feminism in younger women's lives. Feminism can be understood as an empowering discourse, fostering critical awareness and resistance to dominant social norms. However, it can also be experienced as regulatory and disciplinary, clearly defining who and what constitutes a "good" feminist. Utilizing Michel Foucault's principle of care of the self, this paper analyzes women's body practices in relation both to women's interpretation of feminism and to dominant feminist discourses. The complexities of negotiating diverse social identities, as well as women's desire for a happier life and …


The Problem Of Protection: Rethinking Rhetoric Of Normalizing Surgeries, Amy Falvey Jan 2012

The Problem Of Protection: Rethinking Rhetoric Of Normalizing Surgeries, Amy Falvey

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This essay focuses on the rhetoric of protection that emerges around infants who face the prospect of normalizing surgeries. Frequently, decisions to proceed with normalizing surgeries are made by doctors and parents with "protection" of the infant as a motivating force. "Protection," in such contexts, typically refers to protection of the infant from the inhospitable world that lies in wait for an individual whose body does not conform to social, morphological, and biological norms. While this concern may be valid and important, this essay argues that there are alternative narratives or notions of protection that must also be acknowledged and …


Grappling With Gender: Exploring Masculinity And Gender In The Bodies, Performances, And Emotions Of Scholastic Wrestlers, Phyllis L. Baker, Douglas R. Hotek Jan 2011

Grappling With Gender: Exploring Masculinity And Gender In The Bodies, Performances, And Emotions Of Scholastic Wrestlers, Phyllis L. Baker, Douglas R. Hotek

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

We contribute to the sociology of sport and gender literature with an ethnographic analysis of scholastic wrestling by observing the current climate of masculinity and gender. Our results suggest that it is necessary to understand men and sporting behavior within a broader framework of gender, not just masculinity, because the behavior of high school wrestlers fell along a gender continuum between an orthodox masculinity and femininity. Our exploration of the body, performance, and emotion practices of scholastic wrestlers gives credence to the current critiques of a hegemonic masculinity in men's sports. We show that gender is not dichotomous and that …


The Rise And Fall Of Western Homohysteria, Eric Anderson Jan 2011

The Rise And Fall Of Western Homohysteria, Eric Anderson

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In this essay, I draw upon my pro-feminist background to describe the formulation of the concept of homohysteria and explain its heuristic utility in conceptualizing historical shifts in heterosexual men's gendered regimes. I suggest that in times of high homohysteria, heterosexual men are compelled to align their identities and behaviors with orthodox (hypermasculine) notions of men's masculinity. This is in order to avoid homosexualization. Conversely, heterosexual men retain considerably more gendered freedom in times of low or no homohysteria. I describe this as a cultural process related to homophobia and define the term homohysteria as men's fear of being homosexualized, …