Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

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 …

The Royal Abbey Of Fontevrault: Religious Women & The Shaping Of Gendered Space, Gabrielle Esperdy

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines the religious and architectural history of the Royal Abbey of Fontevrault, in the French province of Anjou, investigating the active and deliberate role women played in shaping the physical and symbolic space of this female monastic community. Founded in the early 12th century and active until the French Revolution, the abbey was a rare institution in which administrative power was in the hands of women, enabling them to exert almost complete control over the built environment. The nature and impact of this control is examined by tracing the development of the abbey from an initial settlement of …

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

The Communal Apartment In The Works Of Irina Grekova And Nina Sadur, Erin Collopy

Journal of International Women's Studies

While a good deal of recent scholarly attention has been paid to the Soviet communal apartment, the current literature has not specifically addressed how women are affected by living in such a space. Russian women have a complicated relationship to the domestic sphere. While the domestic sphere is the center and source of women’s power, cultural and social demands require that women bear almost the entire burden of domestic responsibilities. The present work provides a brief history of the Soviet communal apartment and Russian women’s relationship to the domestic space. The focus then turns to the literary representation of women’s …

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.

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 …

The Political Economy Of Desire: Geographies Of Female Sex Work In Havana, Cuba, Cynthia Pope

Journal of International Women's Studies

The global political economy of desire influences the construction of gendered spaces in Cuba. One of the results of increasing global linkages has been the rise in sex tourism throughout the world. This is particularly salient in Havana where girls and women are increasingly being drawn to commercial sex work as a means for economic survival and access to dollars-only places, such as restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, and stores. Despite forty years of gender equity laws and a highly-educated population, sex work in Cuba has come full circle, and the nation is quickly gaining the reputation, “the Thailand of the Caribbean.” …

Book Review: Shopping For Pleasure: Women In The Making Of London’S West End, Yasemin Besen

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End by Erika Diane Rappaport

Absent Homosexuality: The Mediated Discourses Of Masculinity On The Design And Construction Of The Sydney Opera House, Greg Young

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the controversy surrounding the construction of the Sydney Opera House at mid-century, and the role of “absent” homosexuality in shaping the new ideals of the country as a modern nation. Australian popular culture--in this instance, the Opera House--is an example of “feminine” culture being incorporated into what had hitherto been a masculinist Australian civic identity. The public discourse surrounding the opera house reveals clear anxieties regarding gender and sexuality in Australia in the 1950s, and the inherently unstable narratives of gender and sexuality under Australian patriarchy from the 19th century onwards. Henning Bech’s notion of “absent homosexuality” …

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: Domestic Violence And The Politics Of Privacy, Suzanne Enck-Wanzer

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Domestic Violence and the Politics of Privacy by Kristin A. Kelly

Book Review: Black Body: Women, Colonialism, And Space, Stephanie Y. Evans

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Black Body: Women, Colonialism, and Space by Radhika Mohanram

Father's Kitchen, Elisabeth Kuhn

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

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)

Book Review: Behind The Gates: Life, Security, And The Pursuit Of Happiness In Fortress America, Jennifer Scanlon

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Behind the Gates: Life, Security, and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America by Setha Low

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 …

Book Review: Redesigning The American Dream: The Future Of Housing, Work, And Family Life, Mary Elizabeth Bezanson

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Redesigning the American Dream: The Future of Housing, Work, and Family Life by Delores Hayden

Memories In Vacuum And Western Beach: Questioning The Nature Of Space In The Israeli Context, Anat Litwin

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

The View From The Street: La Goutte D’Or, Mary Ellen Wolf

Journal of International Women's Studies

This photo essay is about a multiethnic urban immigrant neighborhood in central Paris called the Goutte d’Or. The text and the selection of photographs foreground the author’s exploration of women’s spaces in the neighborhood and the difficulties which women face in everyday life: housing, illiteracy, cultural differences, and poverty.

Book Review: Maps Of Women’S Goings And Stayings, Chithra Karunakaran

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Maps of Women’s Goings and Stayings by Rela Mazali

From Sociability To Spectacle: Interracial Sexuality And The Ideological Uses Of Space In New York City, 1900-1930, Elizabeth Clement

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper addresses inter-racial sociability and sexuality in New York City before and after the Great Migration of African-Americans from the rural South to northern US cities. Using space and the arrangements of objects in space as my primary evidence, I argue that spatial relations both reflected and created race relations in the urban North and that these practices shifted dramatically over the course of a twenty-year period. While the black proprietors of clubs in Hell’s Kitchen in the 1910s used space to make transgressive interracial sociability possible, by the 1920s, the white-owned clubs of the Harlem Renaissance did the …

Book Review: The Gendered Pulpit: Preaching In American Protestant Spaces, Alwen Bledsoe, Tammie Kennedy

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of The Gendered Pulpit: Preaching in American Protestant Spaces by Roxanne Mountford

Livelihoods, Security And Needs: Gender Relations And Land Reform In South Africa, Susie Jacobs

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article focuses on the land reform programme in South Africa as well as on broader questions of rural women’s needs. It draws on interviews with 47 key informants, drawn particularly from the NGO sector, carried out in 2002 and 2003. It examines the importance of ‘land’ compared with wider issues such as personal and bodily security. Despite some encouraging state initiatives, most informants felt that poorer rural women remained marginalized within the land reform programme and more generally. Needs for independent income, health, and personal security were emphasised, with secure access to land seen as potentially beneficial although not …

Socio-Cultural, Environmental And Health Challenges Facing Women And Children Living Near The Borders Between Afghanistan, Iran And Pakistan (Aip Region), Iraj M. Poureslami, David R. Maclean, Jerry Spiegel, Annalee Yassi

Journal of International Women's Studies

For hundreds of years, people in the AIP region (the Afghanistan-Iran-Pakistan borders) have been challenged by conflict and political and civil instability, mass displacement, human rights abuses, drought and famine. Given this sad history, it not surprising that in this region health and quality of life of vulnerable groups are among the worst in the world. In spite of national and international efforts to improve health status of vulnerable populations in this region, the key underlying socio-cultural determinants of health and disparities, i.e. gender, language, ethnicity, residential status, and socio-economic status (SES), have not been addressed or even systematically studied, …

Female Workers In Japan: Opportunities & Challenges, Rajindar K. Koshal, Yuko Yamada, Sasuke Miyazima, Manjulika Kosha, Ashok K. Gupta

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study is based on a survey of male and female workers in organizations in and around Nagoya, Japan. It provides insights into gender issues within Japanese business organizations. The study finds that the female managers in Japan assess the managerial skills of women more positively than do their male counterparts. Business organizations in Japan are male-dominated and little is done to help women fit into the business culture. This is especially true when one considers the number of females in management ranks. Female workers in Japanese businesses perceive that they make many positive contributions to the workplace, such as …

The Interrelationship Between Gender-Based Violence And Hiv/Aids In South Africa, Chineze J. Onyejekwe

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper focuses on how gender-based violence intersects with HIV/AIDS in ways too devastating to be ignored. Women’s subordinate position is linked to poverty, sexual abuse/rape, and the risk to women in long-term union. The country’s pioneering steps to establish legal and judicial frameworks for dealing with these problems are discussed.

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.

Gender Based Violence In India: A Never-Ending Phenomenon, B. R. Sharma, Manisha Gupta

Journal of International Women's Studies

Religion, customs, age-old prejudices, etc. have put Indian women in a subservient and exploitable position in many domains of life. Low rates of participation in education, lack of economic independence, value biases operating against them, etc., have resulted in the women being dependent on men folk and other institutions of authority like the family, neighborhood and the society. They are usually ignorant of their rights and even if they are not, they do not have easy access to justice.

The issues related to women are being raised and discussed in various fora, in the recent times. Of these, ‘violence against …

Book Review: Clinical Aspects Of Sexual Harassment And Gender Discrimination- Psychological Consequences And Treatment Interventions, G. Asha

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Clinical Aspects of Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination- Psychological Consequences and Treatment Interventions by Sharyn Ann Lenhart