Digital Commons Network^™

Introduction To Gendering Modern Japanese History, Barbara Molony

History

Gender, as Joan Scott asserted in 1986, is a useful category of historical analysis.¹ In the last quarter century, gender has emerged as a lively area of inquiry for historians and other scholars. Gender analysis has suggested some important revisions of the "master narratives" of national histories-that is, the dominant, often celebratory, tales of the successes of a nation and its leaders.² These narratives, like all histories, are provisional and incomplete and, to varying degrees, reflect the changing material, discursive, and ideological contexts of their times.³ To mention just two of the fields of history that had …

Weight Control Behavior And Women: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, Jacqueline A. Walcott-Mcquigg

Journal of International Women's Studies

The objective of this study was to seek directly from culturally diverse women information on their weight control behavior. Specific questions were: What types of weight control behavior are practiced by women? 2) What factors influence participation in weight control behavior? and, 3) what are the cultural influences on women’s motivation and ability to participate in weight control behavior? Face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 135 middle-income women (African American, Caucasian, Mexican American, Puerto Rican) in their homes, offices, and at other places in their neighborhoods. Additional data collection included measuring body weight and height. The …

Women In Educational Leadership Finding Common Ground, Kathleen Murphey, Glenda Moss, Susan Hannah, Roberta Wiener

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

The purpose of this research project was to engage in self-reflective analysis of leadership development as an ongoing process of social action towards democratizing education. Four White women connected by their work as educational leaders, teachers and administrators, engaged this topic by conducting a dialogical analysis of their experiences in leadership. They dialogued from what were technically different positions in the hierarchy at their University and implemented a research process to speak across or marginalize those technical differences to produce a text that explored the rich terrain of leading in which they shared experiences of growth, the conceptual frameworks that …

Alien(Ating) Naturecultures: Feminist Sf As Creative Science Studies, Helen Merrick

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

“Alien(ating) Naturecultures” examines the potential of feminist science fictions to act as “cross-cultural” narratives in encounters between the humanities and sciences. Merrick argues that the conjunction of disciplines figured by the term “science fiction” bears re-examination as a resource for science studies, and a potential mediator in science-humanities dialogues.

Specifically, Merrick asks, when we are concerned with critiquing and unpacking technoscientific practices, cultures and knowledges, what can more creative forms such as science fiction (sf) offer? Such questions about “naturecultures” are intimately connected to the ways we construct and understand “life,” the “human” and difference in the discourses of Science. …

Oy Science Fiction: On Genre, Criticism, And Alien Love: An Interview With Marleen S. Barr, Marlene S. Barr, Ximena Gallardo C., C. Jason Smith

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph of Abstract]

Marleen S. Barr is a pioneer of feminist science fiction criticism and a leader in the fight against the ghettoizing influences of genre-labeling in literary criticism. While the noteworthy Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction (University of Iowa Press, 1992) has been praised as Barr's seminal work in feminist science fiction criticism and theory, it is in Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies (U of Iowa P, 2000) where she takes on literary critics' discriminatory practices against genre fiction in general and fantasy and science fiction in particular.

Multiculturalisms Past, Present, And Future, Marilyn Edelstein

English

Once upon a time, most classes, in both schools and universities, focused on historical events shaped by white men, scientific discoveries made by white men, philosophies constructed by white men, and literary and artistic works created by white men. This time was not so long ago-and during some of our lifetimes. Since at least the late 1960s, this normative maleness and whiteness-which always claimed to be universal-has been challenged by the development of ethnic studies, women's and gender studies, and multiculturalism. Especially in literary studies-and nowhere more than in the field of American literature-the canon has exploded, as more works …

What’S So Special About Women’S History; Next Steps Facing Historians And Archivist Documenting Regional Women’S History, Danelle L. Moon

Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott: Rapping On The Frontiers Of Female Identity, Eliza Sellen

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper provides an analysis of Missy Elliott as a contemporary icon, using the innovation and creativity of two of her music videos (One Minute Man and She’s A Bitch), as media texts that both illuminate and disrupt feminist frameworks of identity. This paper begins with a discussion of the ways in which Elliott subverts and revises cultural signifiers; particular attention is paid to female embodiment and sexuality, blackness and power. The paper moves to discuss the visual landscape created through this cultural play, and explores this terrain through the theoretical frameworks of science fiction and technology.

This …

Introduction: Volumes, Valerie Begley, Olga Gershenson

Journal of International Women's Studies

This special issue of the JIWS seeks to examine the topic of gendered constructions of space(s). How does space structure our understanding of gender? How does it participate in cultural constructions of race, class, and sexuality? What are the political and economic dimensions of the spaces that we construct and that construct us? In this issue we wanted to explore the role(s) that space plays in shaping and maintaining identities and power relations. Far from being neutral or self-evident, we take space to be a site and a means of cultural power, informed by a set of historically and culturally …

Dirty Spaces: Communication And Contamination In Men’S Public Toilets, Ruth Barcan

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the spatiality of men’s public toilets in Australia. It considers public toilets as cultural sites whose work involves not only the literal elimination of waste but also a form of cultural purification. Men’s public toilets are read as sites where heteronormative masculinity is defined, tested and policed. The essay draws on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s concept of homosociality and on Mary Douglas’s conception of dirt as a destabilizing category. It treats the “dirtiness” of public toilets as a submerged metaphor within struggles over masculinity. The essay considers a range of data sources, including interviews, pop culture, the Internet …

Researching Female Public Toilets: Gendered Spaces, Disciplinary Limits, Barbara Penner

Journal of International Women's Studies

I have always been drawn to study intimate yet public spaces – most notably Victorian ladies’ public lavatories and American honeymoon suites. Such research raises larger questions concerning the legitimacy of certain objects of inquiry and of feminist and interdisciplinary work in general. This paper aims to go behind the curtain of academic research and to think about the challenges one faces “back-stage” when investigating spaces or objects connected intimately to sexuality and the gendered body.

Your Humble Servant Shows Himself: Don Saltero And Public Coffeehouse Space, Angela Todd

Journal of International Women's Studies

In 1695, James Salter, who fashioned himself as “Don Saltero,” opened a coffeehouse on a respectable corner in Chelsea. The chief attraction of the coffeehouse, from Salter’s point of view, was the array of natural science detritus and colonial souvenirs displayed on the walls and ceiling. For the price of a cup of coffee, patrons could view the immensity of England’s global grasp, and ponder the bizarre workings of far-away lands and the earth’s creatures. What is noteworthy about Salter’s collection, however, is not the oddities on display—and there were many—but that his collection overlapped considerably with that of the …

Book Review: Embodied Utopias: Gender, Social Change, And The Modern Metropolis, Delano Greenidge-Copprue

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Embodied Utopias: Gender, Social Change, and the Modern Metropolis, edited by Amy Bingaman, Lise Sanders and Rebecca Zorach

Book Review: Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place And Irish Women (Gender, Racism, Ethnicity), Helen Thompson

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women (Gender, Racism, Ethnicity) by Bronwen Walter

Film Review: Performing The Border, Writing Desire, Remote Sensing, And Europlex, Pamela C. Rosi

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Performing the Border, Writing Desire, and Remote Sensing (Ursula Biemann, filmmaker) and Europlex (Ursula Biemann, filmmaker, in collaboration with Angela Sanders)

A Study Of The Southern Appalachian Granny-Woman Related To Childbirth Prevention Measures., Harriet P. Masters

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Documented as serving in the midwife capacity from the 1880s to the 1930s, the “granny-woman,” often was the only line of defense regarding childbirth support practices for many childbearing age women living in the region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The early twentieth century saw the granny-women discredited and subject to elimination as a result of a purposeful campaign conducted by the male-dominated medical profession. Using knowledge of herbal remedies, the granny-woman played an integral part in the survival of the inhabitants of the region, especially related to childbirth. These centuries-old, herbal-based ministrations have been explored to …

As Filhas De Oyá: Warriors In The Eye Of The Storm, Sheela Bringi

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study follows the trail of Oyá, a black feminine Orixá, or goddess, within the Afro-Brazilian spiritual tradition of Candomblé, through her elemental forces as the winds, storms, tornadoes, the river Niger, and buffalo. I unearth the influence of Oyá on the lives of three black female followers as she is manifested in the world as a black woman, a mother, a warrior and a lover.

I interviewed three black followers of Oyá and found that she is primarily a motherly force which provides protection, guidance and security for her followers. As a warrior, her energy inspires perseverance, determination, and …

Book Review, Oscar G. Chase

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Naccs 32nd Annual Conference, National Association For Chicana And Chicano Studies

NACCS Conference Programs

Visión: Articulating, Imagining, and Contextualizing Chicana/o Spaces
April 13-17
Hyatt Regency

Women In Utah History, Patricia Lyn Scott, Linda Thatcher

All USU Press Publications

A project of the Utah Women's History Association and cosponsored by the Utah State Historical Society, Paradigm or Paradox provides the first thorough survey of the complicated history of all Utah women. Some of the finest historians studying Utah examine the spectrum of significant social and cultural topics in the state's history that particularly have involved or affected women. The contents are as follows: A Comparison of Utah Mormon Polygamous and Monogamous Women Jessie L. Embry and Lois Kelley Innovation and Accommodation: the Legal Status of Women in Territorial Utah, 1847-96 Lisa Madsen Pearson and Carol Cornwall Madsen Conflict and …

A Queer Look At Feminist Science Fiction: Examing Sally Miller Gearhart's The Kanshou, Jennifer Jodelle Floerke

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis is a queer theory analysis of the feminist science fiction novel The Kanshou by Sally Miller Gearhart. After exploring both male and female authored science fiction in the literature review, two themes were to be dominant. The goal of this thesis is to answer the questions, can the traditional themes that are prevalent in male authored science fiction and feminist science fiction in representing gender and sexual orientation dichotomies be found in The Kanshou? And does Gearhart challenge these dichotomies by destabilizing them? The analysis found determined that Gearhart's The Kanshou does challenge traditional sociological norms of binary …

Where In The World Are The Lesbians?, Linda Garber

Gender and Sexuality Studies

In 2001 I became, as far as I can tell, the first person hired at a Catholic university specifically because of my work in LGBTQ studies. I am blessed, as it were, with a departmental colleague who publishes widely in postcolonial queer studies, a colleague in another department who teaches queer U.S. history every two years, and many supportive friends on the faculty. Still, I am the most public face of LGBTQ studies on campus, and if a new queer studies course is added to the curriculum, I am likely to be the one who develops it. Over the years …

De ‘Ángel Del Hogar’ A ‘Mujer Moderna’: Las Tensiones Filosóficas Y Textuales En El Sujeto Femenino De Carmen De Burgos, Estrella Cibreiro

Spanish Department Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Pale: Women, Cultural Contagion, And Narrative Hysteria In Kipling, Orwell, And Forster, Alan Blackstock

English Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

History Of Clcweb: Comparative Literature And Culture, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb Library

No abstract provided.

Specters Of The Subaltern : A Critique Of Representations Of Rural Women In Contemporary China, Tsui Sit

Lingnan Theses

China has speeded up modernization since the reform and open-door policy was introduced in 1978. After accession to the World Trade Organization in 1999, China has been further incorporated into the global track. The national policy of economic development requires a continuing exploitation of natural resources and intensive labor from the rural sector, and over the last few decades, there has been a ceaseless wave of rural women going to the cities and working mainly as assembly-line workers, domestic helpers and sex workers.

Developing a subaltern and feminist perspective, this thesis examines representations of rural women in academic research and …

Is Empathy Gendered And If So, Why? An Approach From Feminist Psychological Anthropology, Claudia Strauss

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Difference feminists have argued that women have special virtues. One such virtue would seem to be empathy, which has three main components: imaginative projection, awareness of the other's emotions, and concern. Empathy is closely related to identification. Psychological research and the author's own study of women's and men's talk about poverty and welfare use in the United States demonstrate women's greater empathic concern. However, some cross-cultural research shows greater sex differences in empathy in the United States than elsewhere. This combination of findings (women tend to demonstrate greater empathic concern, but this typical difference varies cross-culturally) requires a complex biocultural …

Less Cool, More Light: Review Of Cool Men And The Second Sex By Susan Fraiman., Meryl Altman

English Faculty publications

No abstract provided.

Investigating The Dilemmas Of Ethical Social Research, Helen Johnson

Journal of International Women's Studies

The author’s work with a university ethics committee and field research in Pacific New Caledonia is used as a basis to problematise the biomedical research models used by universities in Australia for assessing social research as ethical. The article explores how culturally specific Western emotional bases for ethical decisions are often unexamined. It expresses concerns about gaps in biomedical models by linking the author’s description of field interactions with research participants to debates about the creation of knowledge.

A Cross-Cultural Test Of Nancy Jay’S Theory About Women, Sacrificial Blood And Religious Participation, Virginia S. Fink

Journal of International Women's Studies

I examine the theoretical insights of Nancy Jay’s 1992 investigation of patrilineal sacrificial rituals and their role in the restriction of women in religious rituals. I use the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, a representative sample of preindustrial societies, to test the strength of patrilineality and other factors identified as subordinating women in preindustrial societies. A societal pattern of male inheritance of property and patrilineal descent are the strongest predictors of women being restricted or excluded from major public religious rituals. The implications of this pattern for modern societies are discussed.