Women's Studies Commons^™

Film Review: A Feminist Critique Of The Representation Of Women In 21st-Century Bollywood Sports Biopics, Amitabh Roy

Journal of International Women's Studies

This review critically analyses the portrayal of women in Bollywood sports biopics using a feminist perspective, with reference to three influential 21st-century films: Mary Kom (2014), Saina (2021), and Shabaash Mithu (2022). While these movies ostensibly celebrate women’s sporting achievements, a close reading discloses the durability of patriarchal currents in the narrative, visual composition, and character construction. Using feminist theories like Laura Mulvey’s “male gaze,” Judith Butler’s “gender performativity,” and bell hooks’s intersectionality, this work contends that these films simultaneously empower and limit their heroines. Exploring how femininity, family, and national pride are performed in these films, this review examines …

Men To Mars, Ayesha Perveen

Journal of International Women's Studies

The poem articulates apprehensions about the future reproduction of earthly misogynist structures if Mars is ever made inhabitable, as envisioned by some of the richest capitalist elites of the world. Such elites wish to have an army of sons to scaffold their capitalist dreams while relegating women to the level of child-bearing machines only. Exposing the earthly misogynistic behaviour of the elite men, the poem encourages women to pave way for their own adventures instead of compromising with patriarchal dreams—today and in futures near and far.

Revisiting “Autobiographical Reflections: My Story”: A Reflection On The Unspoken And Misconveyed, Ronak Karami

Journal of International Women's Studies

This piece revisits and reflects on my feminist essay, “Autobiographical Reflections: My Story” (2020), published in the Journal of International Women's Studies. With the benefit of years of growth and introspection, I return to that work and see more than the story I once told. I now notice the silences between the lines, the nuances I overlooked, and the unintended messages my words may have carried. This reflection is not an attempt to erase my truth but rather an effort to revisit and refine it—to provide, within the confines of a few pages, greater clarity, accountability, and context where …

Between Mothers And Daughters: Female Isolation, Despotism And Fragile Bonds In Anthony Trollope’S "Castle Richmond" And "Lady Anna", Aleksandra Tryniecka

Journal of International Women's Studies

Analyzing the dialogue in Anthony Trollope’s nineteenth-century novels Castle Richmond and Lady Anna reveals portrayals of mother-daughter conflicts that span throughout generations and carry profound societal consequences. In both novels, the mothers are depicted as ambivalent figures who simultaneously play the roles of both victim and oppressor. Relentlessly striving to redeem their past, the despotic mothers intimidate their daughters into accepting socially beneficial marriage arrangements. Using Bakhtin’s notion of dialogism, I present how in both novels, the younger generation (the daughters) adopt a fresh system of social values, which gradually results in a change in Victorian society of the second …

Evaluating Gender Policy In Kazakhstan: A Dual Perspective On Politics And Economics, Elmira Kagazbaeva, Ulzhan Kazybekova, Madina Axakalova

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article aims to advance gender studies in Kazakhstan by examining the underlying causes of inequality in the political and economic spheres. It holds both scientific and practical significance in identifying the challenges to gender equality in Kazakhstan and exploring potential solutions that could be applicable to other countries. The methodological framework of the study is grounded in a gender-based approach, complemented by general scientific and specialized methods of inquiry, including structural, functional, and content analysis of official documents. The research is supported by an analysis of official statistics and the legal framework governing gender-related issues. Kazakhstan’s gender policy is …

Antecedents And Measures Of Women’S Financial Empowerment: A Comprehensive And Global Literature Review, Priya Gupta, Mamta Aggarwal, Meera Bamba

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women’s financial empowerment has garnered greater interest in recent years, and numerous articles have highlighted gender disparities. In existing literature, antecedents and measures of economic empowerment are fragmented, with limited research that provides a comprehensive assessment framework. This systematic review aims to identify the determinants affecting women’s financial empowerment to develop a comprehensive framework to measure financial empowerment based on insights derived from an examination of 101 selected research articles published from 2001 to 2023 and exclusively sourced from the Scopus database. The search followed a comprehensive and systematic approach involving identification, selection, appraisal, and synthesis of the existing literature. …

Undoing Gender Performativities In Nawal El Saadawi’S Woman At Point Zero, Tobe Levin Von Gleichen, U. H. Ruhina Jesmin, Tasnuva Khair

Journal of International Women's Studies

Physician, psychiatrist, and Marxist activist for women’s rights, Nawal El Saadawi (1931-2021) published fiction and non-fiction exposing how a capitalistic, phallocratic social order keeps Egyptian women in thrall to men through violent suppression. Women are exploited by men, who see women as weak and prey on these presumed docile subordinates in a display of masculinity. Deciphering the effects of this gendered performativity through the lens of Judith Butler, El Saadawi’s novel Woman at Point Zero (1977/2015a), or Ferdaous, une Voix en Enfer (El Saadawi, 1977/2007) in French, provides a narrative whose significance is amplified by Butlerian theory. The protagonist, …

Pindi Boys: The Cultural Production Of Urban Masculinity In Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Saad Ali Khan

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article seeks to understand and analyze the formation of urban masculinities in Rawalpindi, Pakistan by focusing on a subculture known as “Pindi boys,” who are young men aged 17-22. In doing so, this research offers an understanding of what it means to be a teen or young man from a low-income household in the urban city of Rawalpindi. How does sociocultural context influence boys and young men to embody a specific type of masculinity? Following the daily lifestyle of Pindi boys, this research avoids generalizations that result in an ahistorical analysis of men and masculinities in urban spaces. Considering …

Breeding, Mariah Susan, Wendy Chapkis Phd

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

In this interview, Breeding, a 75-year-old queer woman, explores questions of identity, culture, and activism. Breeding was born in New Hampshire, grew up in Ohio, and moved back to the East Coast as a teenager. She moved to Maine at 21, living in Ogunquit and Portland. Breeding discusses her family's background, including her parents' contrasting social classes, and the importance of a Unitarian Universalist group in creating early community. An important subject in the interview is Breeding’s first significant relationship with astrologer Wendy Ashley in Ogunquit and Portland, Maine. She discuses the complex bisexual and polyamorous culture of the 1970s, …

Quasi-Feminism And Identity Exploration In The Film Laapata Ladies, Dr. Bharat Dhiman, Nausheen Khan

Journal of Religion & Film

The film Laapata Ladies (2024), directed by Kiran Rao, is a social commentary revolving around misogyny and the socio-cultural barriers faced by women in rural India, serving as a brilliant ode to womanhood and conveying its message effectively without any melodrama, thereby reflecting social realities at a ground level. The film explores the protagonists’ inner dilemmas, constraints, struggles, and hardships, advocating the cause for inclusivity from a quasi-feminist perspective, poignantly urging us to re-examine our perspectives and stirring conversations around the need for women to establish their own identities, away from the standard kaleidoscope of the male gaze.

Research Guide To Womanist Literature: Historical, Anticolonial, And Fictional Perspectives, Apoliana Da Conceicao Dos Santos

FIRE Fund Bibliographies

This bibliography was compiled for both research and teaching purposes, organized into three thematic categories reflecting a hemispheric, anticolonial, and womanist approach to knowledge production. The collection centers Black, Afro-Latin American, and feminist voices, offering alternative epistemologies that challenge Eurocentric, patriarchal, and colonial frameworks commonly reproduced in academic syllabi. It invites professors and students across disciplines to engage with scholarship and storytelling that foreground women's histories, theories, and creative expressions.

The first category, Historical Womanist Literature, examines testimonies, resistance, kinship, and survival of Black women under slavery and colonial rule across the Atlantic world, drawing extensively from histories of gendered …

Echoes Of The Goddess: Reclaiming Power-Within In The Modern Workplace, Chloe E. Hanousek

Student Publications

This work examines gender inequality in the American workforce as part of a broader cultural system that consistently devalues care, embodiment, and relational labor. Rather than treating issues such as the wage gap or the motherhood penalty as isolated problems, it situates them within a historical pattern shaped by patriarchal power, medical dismissal, and the domination of nature. Through an interdisciplinary feminist approach, this work traces how the suppression of the feminine influences women’s working lives, health experiences, and relationships to their bodies. By connecting labor inequality to burnout, ecological harm, and the erosion of inner authority, it argues that …

Jute Mill Songs: Mary Brooksbank And Industrial Tradition In A Dying Industry, Erin Farley

Studies in Scottish Literature

This article outlines some key elements of Dundee’s industrial literary tradition, primarily associated with the city’s jute industry, as expressed in the songs and poems of Mary Brooksbank (1897-1978). It also explores ways in which writers working from the 1980s onwards have used the memory of the jute industry, Brooksbank herself, and associated verse traditions to imagine place and work in post-industrial Dundee.

‘And On One Toils, Into The Hill’: Working And Walking In Nan Shepherd’S North East, Sarah Leith

Studies in Scottish Literature

This article considers the duality of working and walking in Nan Shepherd’s writings about the North East of Scotland. Exploring Shepherd’s works from the perspectives of social and intellectual history, it considers the ways in which she represented both working and walking as labour during the first half of Scotland’s twentieth century.

Women And Religion In The Mongol Empire, Karlie Barnett

The Ozark Historical Review

This article contributes toward the effort to uncover the impact of women on the making of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It also considers how women among the Mongols interacted with religion in varied and distinct ways and how these relationships influenced the development of Eurasian religions and the Mongol Empire overall. These interactions, which took place in the personal realm, the political realm, and in the realm of patronage, had profound effects on the development of Eurasian religions and the Mongol Empire.

Review Of: Feminist Conversations On Peace, Matilda Maseno

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Elite Patriot Women, Anthony Luna

History in the Making

This research paper explores the overlooked yet pivotal contributions of elite patriot women had on the American Revolution. It argues that their participation in the revolution was instrumental in shaping its outcome through grassroots organizing, frontline support, and propaganda creation. While men like George Washington and Alexander Hamilton dominated popular narratives, women from influential families played critical roles by organizing boycotts, producing goods, delivering intelligence, and rallying financial and moral support for the Continental Army. This study investigates how elite women such as Mercy Otis Warren, Sarah Fulton, Esther DeBerdt Reed, and Martha Washington didn’t just support the revolution from …

State Sexual Violence At Carceral Institutions In Iowa: A Position Paper, Chikako Inoue

Sociology Between the Gaps: Forgotten and Neglected Topics

No abstract provided.

Matrescence, Erin Kunz

The Cicadian

Kunz reflects on her transformation into motherhood, describing the physical, emotional, and psychological shifts that accompany the process known as matrescence. Through vivid memories of childhood and early parenting, she explores the complexities of maternal love, especially for women who did not receive unconditional love themselves. Her rocking chair becomes a symbol of nurturing and endurance, where she gave everything to her children while grappling with her own identity. Erin also highlights the supportive role of her partner, challenging traditional gender norms and celebrating shared caregiving. As her children grow, she mourns the environmental changes that have altered the …

Indigenous Women’S Reproductive Traditions: Reclaiming Sovereignty Through 500 Years Of Colonization, Stephanie A. Sellers

Gettysburg College Faculty Books

In Indigenous Women’s Reproductive Traditions, Stephanie Sellers delves into the rich history of Indigenous women’s reproductive practices before European colonization. The book highlights traditional methods such as birth control, abortion, and child spacing, which were integral to maintaining agency over their bodies. Sellers explores how these practices were disrupted by European patriarchal structures and examines the impact of forced sterilization in the 20th century. Today, Indigenous women are reclaiming their rights through movements for reproductive justice, advocating for a return to their ancestral practices and redefining concepts of womanhood and motherhood on their own tribal terms.