Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Legacy Book In America, 1664–1792, Roxanne Harde, Lindsay Yakimyshyn

Zea E-Books Collection

Legacy books in colonial America were instruments for the transmission of cultural values between generations: the dying mother (usually) instructing and advising children on the path to salvation and heavenly reunions. They were a popular and influential form of women’s discourse that distilled the ideologies of the religious establishment into practical and emotional lessons for lay persons, especially the young.

This collection draws together legacy texts written by colonial American women and girls: five mother’s legacy books and two legacies by children, organized here chronologically. These legacies were writ­ten in anticipation of dying, making awareness of death central to the …

The Clothesline Project [Poster], University Of Northern Iowa. Women's And Gender Studies Program.

Women’s and Gender Studies Program Documents

No abstract provided.

Warrioress In White: A Semiotic Analysis Of America's Joan Of Arc In The Women Of The Copper Country, Akasha Khalsa

Conspectus Borealis

Mary Doria Russell’s The Women of the Copper Country is a fictionalized historical account of the 1913 mining strike in the Keweenaw Peninsula. Significantly in this strike, a great deal of leadership was focused in the Union’s Women’s Auxiliary. In particular, one woman formed the backbone of the local movement. Known by her community as Big Annie, Anna Klobuchar Clements was the heart of the 1913 strike. Memories of her bravery linger today in the form of recorded testimonies by elderly community members, immortalization in plaques and songs, and Russell’s popular novel. Today she is remembered not as herself, not …

Representation Of Terror And Terrorism In Two Arab Films: Paradise Now (2005) By Hany Abu-Assad And Horses Of God (2012) By Nabil Ayouch, Mustapha Hamil

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Middle Eastern violence and terrorism are not novel subjects in world cinema, especially American cinema. The Arab or Muslim other in these films is always presented as someone who epitomises a culture of violence, directed mostly against innocent civilians. Against the backdrop of Hollywood’s stereotypical representation of Middle-Easterners as advocate of indiscriminate terror and terrorism, Arab filmmakers have turned in recent years to the representation of terror and religious extremism. Paradise Now (Abu Assad 2005) and Horses of God (Ayouch 2012) address the controversial issue of suicide bombing with the same motivation: to examine the choice of suicide bombing within …

Looking Back, Or Re-Visioning: Contemporary American Jewish Poets On “Lot’S Wife”, Anat Koplowitz-Breier

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Although mentioned only twice in Genesis (19:17, 26), Lot’s wife has been a topic of much discussion amongst both traditional and modern commentators and exegetes. The traditional midrashim seek to explain why she chose to disregard the instructions she was given and the nature of her punishment. In doing so, they follow two principal directions, representing her a) negatively as a wicked sinner, a Sodomite who acted as such even before disobeying the divine decree not to look backwards—thus linking her disobedience with her intrinsic character (e.g., curious, greedy, inhospitable, faithless); or b) positively as a loving mother and daughter. …

Resisting Pacification: Locating Tension In G'Ebinyo Ogbowei's Poetry, Niyi Akingbe, Paul Ayodele Onanuga

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Where Are The Women?: An Ecofeminist Reading Of William Golding’S Lord Of The Flies, Hawk Chang

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The absence of female characters and their voices in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954) has been previously examined. On the surface, this fiction focuses on the struggle and survival of a group of boys who are left alone on a Pacific island against the background of nuclear warfare. The only presence of women in the story seems to be the aunt via a boy’s narration. However, when approaching the fiction through the lens of ecofeminism, we can find a range of feminized entities which are metaphorically embodied in the natural surroundings of the secluded island. The boys’ interactions …

‘Convicted Of Patricide?’: Robert Frost’S Nationalism In The Eyes Of Contemporary Arab-American Women Writers, Eman K. Mukattash

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Given the culturally expansive nature of the American literary tradition of today, the question of the relevance of Robert Frost’s poetry to the poetry of contemporary Arab-American women writers is an issue worth digging into. Writing almost one hundred years ago does not make Frost’s poetry out of date. Frost’s poetry is as relevant to today’s America as it has been to the America of his days. And this can be ascribed to the multiplicity of perspectives he presents in his poetry as he examines crucial questions lying at the core of America’s “grand narrative of national development.” (Westover 2004: …

Short Story: “Villain’S Suicide”, M. M. Vinodini, Translated By Afsar Mohammed

Journal of International Women's Studies

As B.R. Ambedkar stated in Annihilation of Caste, day laborers only suffer grueling labor on subsistence wages owing to their terror of punishment given to those who question it. This story reminds readers that so-called ritual impurity or untouchability has never stopped non-privileged caste people from being violated through touch and sexual abuse. The agitation over the 2012 Delhi gang rape and the more recent revelations of #MeToo occur amidst a long history of low-income Dalit women and girls routinely facing rape and other forms of repeated sexual assault from powerful landowners whose word can stop or start their wages. …

Short Story: “Block”, M. M. Vinodini, Translated By K. Purushotham, Edited By Bonnie Zare

Journal of International Women's Studies

Despite India’s Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act of 2013 (and with a 2020 Amendment awaiting approval), it is likely that at least one million people work as manual removers of human waste, helping the 60% or more of Indians who do not have access to flush toilets. The story “Block” puts us inside a manual scavenger’s mind as we accompany Jilakaramma on her rounds in Andhra Pradesh. M. M. Vinodini writes about this labor with true empathy. Entering the daily life of someone who carries out this very stigmatized job creates new understanding of the …

Sexual Violence Against Dalit Women: An Analytical Study Of Intersectionality Of Gender, Caste, And Class In India, Ajay Kumar

Journal of International Women's Studies

Dalits belong to the lowest caste in India; they are excluded from the four-fold Varna system of Hinduism, treated as fifth Varna “panchama”, and characterized as “untouchables”, and, consequently, they have historically and culturally suffered caste-based social exclusion from their civil and political rights. There are more than 200 million Dalits in India, and Dalit women constitute half of this population, which is about 16.3% of the total female population of India, and of this population, about three-fourths of women live in rural areas2. Dalit women’s problems are not only related to gender and economic deprivation but also discrimination related …

Dalit-Futurist Feminism: New Alliances Through Dalit Feminism And Indian Science Fiction, Priteegandha Naik

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article analyses the novel Generation 14 by Priya Sarukkai Chabria from a convergent perspective of Dalit Studies (which encapsulates Dalit literature and Dalit feminism) and science fiction. I suggest that Indian science fiction that discusses caste with reference to the emerging technoscientific culture can be termed Dalit-futurism. I define this concept by drawing on the tradition of Dalit literature and science fiction and suggest that the Dalit-futurist texts seek to mutate caste to foreground its arbitrary structure. This paper uses the vocabulary of science-fiction criticism to analyze the mutation of caste in the fictional world and draws parallels with …

Dalit Women In History: Struggles, Voices, And Counterpublics, Tarushikha Sarvesh, Rama Shanker Singh, Tehzeeb Alam

Journal of International Women's Studies

History is a projection of realities from the historian's lens and parameters. The popularity and acceptance of historical accounts depend much on hegemonic structures and knowledge. The Dalit community was marginalized within the Indian economic, social, and political historiography. Gradually, with the rise of Dalit consciousness, men—the better-positioned gender of the community—tried to express their vulnerabilities from a masculinist perspective. The literature written also projected women only as extensions of male protagonists. Though the traumas Dalit women have faced due to intersectional realities are separate from that of men, they could not find a place in early literature as complete …

Who Will Speak For The Pasmandaa Women? —Dalits, Women, Muslims, And The Politics Of Representation, Rafia Kazim

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article questions the deliberate omissions of disadvantaged Dalit Muslim women, also known as Pasmandaa women, from feminist, Dalit, and subaltern discourses. To understand the multiplicative nature of oppression and discrimination that these women are continually subjected to, this article foregrounds the intersectionality framework to get a nuanced picture of intersecting vertices of discrimination. It argues that by excluding these severely disadvantaged women from their respective agenda, feminist and Dalit activists have contributed towards their perpetual marginality. Underlying such unaccounted absence of these women is an insouciant attitude of the Pasmandaa leaders towards them. Their approach towards the non-representation of …

Mother’S Story: The ‘Third Space’ For Emancipation In Dalit Women’S Life Narratives, Parveen Kumari, Anupama Vohra

Journal of International Women's Studies

In India, Dalit women wrestle not only with gender and economic deprivation, but also discrimination associated with caste and untouchability, which results in the denial of their social, economic, and political rights. Today, Dalit women’s life narratives form an important segment of not only Dalit literature but also world literature. The narration of their sufferings due to gender and caste forms the basis of these narratives. The articulation of the past, which is a "narrative strategy of reminiscence", is the most crucial aspect of Dalit women's life narratives. While narrating the past, Dalit women try to negotiate direction for the …

Insidious Interlocking Of Gender And Caste: Consequences Of Challenging Endogamy, Mayurakshi Mitra

Journal of International Women's Studies

The Caste system in the Indian subcontinent is characterized by hierarchy or gradations according to occupational status. The evaluative standard that places a caste higher than others or lower compared to the rest is rooted in the Hindu Dharmashashtras. The high and the low are opposed to each other because of their associations with notions of purity and impurity in terms of the nature of their occupations. Since each caste is regarded as a closed group, special emphasis is placed on eating, physical contact, and marriage. Out of these three, the institution of marriage plays a significant role in the …

Dissenting Dalit Voices: An Analysis Of Select Oral Songs Of Dalit Women In Kerala, Anne Placid

Journal of International Women's Studies

The caste and gender configurations in literary and socio-historic spheres that misrepresent or eliminate Dalit women’s voices in mainstream chronicles uphold the notion that caste subjugation has been unresponsively endured by Dalit women. This depiction of the gendered caste subaltern in the mainstream narratives is interrogated and countered by the oral songs of Dalit women in Kerala. This paper examines how the songs as the sites of the register of the voices of Dalit women hold cultural and historic significance carrying the bearings of the Dalit feminist standpoint. The oral songs which contain the feminist consciousness of the gendered caste …

Absence In Presence: Dalit Women’S Agency, Channar Lahala, And Kerala Renaissance, Binu K D, Manosh Manoharan

Journal of International Women's Studies

In the patriarchal milieu of Kerala, the woman’s world is overshadowed by male suppression and cowed silence; the Dalit woman, however, seems to never take it lying down. As is evident from the Channar revolt of the 19th century, Dalit women have never been silent victims in history. This is in stark contrast to the upper-caste women who tend to succumb to caste patriarchy in silence. Drawing on the Channar or Shannar women’s historic revolt for the right to cover their breasts, this paper engages with the question of Dalit women's agency in the social reform movements during the period …

“We Are Working For A Caste-Free India”: An Interview With M. M. Vinodini, Bonnie Zare

Journal of International Women's Studies

The present interview with M.M. Vinodini extends the context of her two stories printed in this issue, “Block” and “Villain’s Suicide” and the contemporary context for Telugu Dalit women writers. It enables readers to consider the combination of factors that must align for a woman and therefore, a secondary citizen of a severely stigmatized community to take action and protest through activist organizing and creative storytelling. Discrimination, self-respect, and assertion are repeated themes in Vinodini’s body of work and here she discusses changing views of caste among young people, the reception of her work, the ongoing mistreatment of sanitation workers, …

Casteing Gender: Intersectional Oppression Of Dalit Women, Bhushan Sharma, K. A. Geetha

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.