Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

(Post)Colonising Disability, Mark Sherry

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

Disability and postcolonialism are two important, and inter-related, discourses in the social construction of the nation and those bodies deemed worthy of citizenship rights. This paper acknowledges the material dimensions of disability, impairment -and postcolonialism and its associated inequalities – but it also highlights the rhetorical connections which are commonly made between elements of postcolonialism (exile, diaspora, apartheid, slavery, and so on) and experiences of disability (deafness, psychiatric illness, blindness, etc.) The paper suggests that researchers need to be far more careful in their language around experiences of both disability and postcolonialism. Neither disability nor postcolonialism should be understood as …

Making The “Unfit, Fit”: The Rhetoric Of Mainstreaming In The World Bank’S Commitment To Gender Equality And Disability Rights, Rebecca Dingo

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In the 1990s The World Bank president James Wolfensohn urged Bank policy- makers to consider gender in their development policies; in 2004 the Bank made a similar commitment to include people with disabilities in their programmatic plans. Examining materials from Bank archives and from “The World Bank: Disability and Development” conference in 2004, this essay demonstrates the contradictory arguments put forth by the World Bank’s gender, disability, and development programs.

Wack! Art And The Feminist Revolution At Moca, Micol Hebron

Art Faculty Articles and Research

This article focuses on an art exhibit featuring works of feminist art throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

The Individual Resisting The Collective Through Faith, Hope, And Love, Jessica Hodgson

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Introduction: The Sexual Body, Shelly J. Eversley, Jennifer L. Morgan

Publications and Research

Introduction to the special issue, "The Sexual Body," edited by Shelly Eversley and Jennifer L. Morgan.

Social Fora: Representing Resistance And Alternatives? Critique And Alternative Interpretation From A Feminist Perspective, Magdalena Freudenschuss

Journal of International Women's Studies

The World Social Forum is only one in the worldwide process of social fora, which mark a new phase in the era of globalisation. This critical form of globalisation from below challenges neoliberal hegemony and sets up a space to develop alternatives symbolised by the Forum’s motto, “Another World is Possible.” Collectively, the fora make up a part of the forces of global resistance, but in a more concrete way, opinions on resulting strategies and aims diverge concerning the foras’ character and function. At the same time, criticism is formulated inside the fora, leading to heavy debates. Among these critiques …

Transnational Feminisms And The World Social Forum: Encounters And Transformations In Anti-Globalization Spaces, Janet Conway

Journal of International Women's Studies

What would it mean to place feminism(s) – as movement(s), politics and ethics – at the centre of our understandings of the World Social Forum? The author argues that transnational feminisms have been among the significant forces constituting the WSF, although this has been uneven across different time-spaces and scales of the WSF. She further asserts that transnational feminisms, understood as movement(s), politics and ethics, are making particular and irreducible contributions to contemporary emancipatory movements in and beyond the WSF. This study historicizes and analyzes some major expressions of transnational feminism at the WSF with implications for understanding the inter-relationality …

“Otro Mundo Es Posible”: Women Power In The Vi Caracas World Social Forum And The Bolivarian Revolution, Renée Kasinsky

Journal of International Women's Studies

This is an insider’s account of the participation of a Boston delegate at the World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in January 2006. She relates the stories of women who attended the WSF and those women who through their leadership in their communities create a new world order based on the major themes of the WSF. The health and welfare missions created by the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chávez are testimony to the theme of the forum that through the process of participatory democracy “Otro Mundo Es Posible”.

A Conversation With Onyango Oloo At The Wsf Nairobi 2007, Patricia Willis, Onyango Oloo

Journal of International Women's Studies

Onyango Oloo, National Coordinator for the Kenyan Social Forum 2006 and who also served on the Nairobi Organizing Council for the World Social Forum Nairobi 2007, has gained notoriety as an outspoken advocate for women’s leadership at the World Social Forum. His widely circulated article, “Gendering WSF Nairobi 2007 - Conceptual Underpinnings,” raised expectations among some readers about the role women would play at the Nairobi forum. In this interview, completed in the midst of that event, Onyango reflects on the evolution of his own feminist consciousness and the tactics he feels need to be implemented in order to infuse …

Selfless: Buffy's Anya And The Problem Of Identity, Victoria Large

Undergraduate Review

No abstract provided.

For Dignity Or Money: Feminists On The Commodification Of Women’S Reproductive Labour, Carolyn Mcleod

Philosophy Publications

No abstract provided.

Liberated Jokes: Sexual Humor In All-Female Groups, Janet Bing

English Faculty Publications

Females have formerly been under-represented in jokes. Many scholars have claimed that joke making is primarily a male activity, particularly in the domain of sexual jokes. In this paper, I discuss sexual jokes that women share with each other both in all-female groups and by e-mail. After reviewing some widely held assumptions about women and jokes, I explore liberated women's jokes, including their structure, use of stereotypes, and subversive ideas. Finally, I discuss why humor theory is incomplete without the inclusion of a female perspective and suggest that women should tell more jokes.

Storming Politics: San José Women In The “Feminist Capital, 1975-2006,, Danelle L. Moon

Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Young Activists And The New 'No Wave': Two Anthologies For A Feminist Future, Alycia Sellie

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Gender Role And Feminism Revisited: A Follow-Up Study, Elizabeth A. Suter, Paige W. Toller

Communication Faculty Publications

In this follow-up to our earlier study (Toller, Suter, & Trautman, Gender role identity and attitudes towards feminism, Sex Roles, 51, 85–90, 2004) we examine the interrelationships among gender role, support for feminism, and willingness to self-label as feminist. Ten percent of college students previously surveyed participated in qualitative interviews, which elicited characterizations of feminists, whether students self-identified as feminist, suggestions for garnering support for feminism, and for interpretation of the initial study’s findings. Students were asked to speculate why we found that highly masculine men and highly feminine women were neither likely to self-identify as feminist nor to …

Editorial, Zdenka Kalnicka

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

Mmatshilo Motsei, Hearing Visions Seeing Voices, 2004, Jacanamedia, South Africa. Isbn 1-919931-51-1, R139.95, Pp. 189., Mechthild Nagel

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

Review Of Silvia Federici Caliban And The Witch: Women,The Body And Primitive Accumulation (2005, Autonomedia,Nyc), Ann Fergusun

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

No abstract provided.

Generations, Feminist Beliefs And Abortion Rights Support, Terri Susan Fine

Journal of International Women's Studies

Do forces that impacted feminist beliefs in the past, such as gender and generation, impact feminist beliefs today within the context of abortion policy support? While the abortion rights issue was framed during the feminist movement era as a feminist issue, it is now clearly framed along partisan and ideological lines. Public opinion on issues that percolated through the feminist movement and identified as feminist issues in the past may no longer be viewed as feminist issues today. The abortion rights issue was chosen because of the oft-held perception that it is solely a women’s issue. The strong association of …

Sylvia Plath And The Crisis Of The Self: A Feminist Reading Of The Late Poetry, Rania Salah Mohamed

Archived Theses and Dissertations

The study of Sylvia Plath's poetry sheds light on the various approaches that can be used to read the crisis of the self in Plath's poetry. It reveals the latent power and talent of a woman poet who fought against the male tradition to express her voice and demand full recognition. Plath's late poems can be approached in different ways. The thesis examines the existential dilemma of the modern poet in a world of confusion and the psychology of defense against death and suffering in the feminist struggle against the other. These approaches are used to account for the richness …

The Example Of Barbara Johnson, Pamela Caughie

English: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

More Than Girlfriends, Geekettes, And Gladiatixes: Women, Feminism, And Fantasy Role-Playing Games, Rebecca Borah, Inez Schaechterle

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The only function women have in D&D is to serve cookies. Gary Gygax, the most well known of the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, claims he did not make this remark (Gel214th). That he did or not is perhaps, some thirty years after the introduction of the first fantasy role-playing game, of concern only to him. The problematic position of women players is a secure feature of the RPG zeitgeist. While few male gamers may openly challenge the assumption that women can or should play fantasy role games such as Dungeons & Dragons, the function of …

L’Intertextualité Géopolitique Dans Le Petit Chat Est Mort De Fejria Deliba, Sarah B. Buchanan

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

In this article, Buchanan examines how Fejria Deliba’s short film, Le petit chat est mort, questions the ideas that conservative members of North African and French communities mobilize to separate themselves from each other. Using theories of intertextuality and geopolitical conscience, Buchanan illustrates how “imagined communities” are always influenced by other national narrations, and how “home” is never isolated, pure or preserved. On the contrary, Buchanan highlights how Deliba presents the French and North African cultures as spaces of intersection and interface, that is, of intertext.

‘Starving Children In Africa’: Who Cares?, Lisa Cassidy

Journal of International Women's Studies

The current state of global poverty presents citizens in the Global North with a moral crisis: Do we care? In this essay, I examine two competing moral accounts of why those in the North should or should not give care (in the form of charity) to impoverished peoples in the Global South. Nineteen years ago feminist philosopher Nel Noddings wrote in Caring that “we are not obliged to care for starving children in Africa” (1986, p. 86). Noddings’s work belongs to the arena of care ethics – the feminist philosophical view that morality is about responding to, caring for, and …

Oral History, Identity, And The Italian Women’S Movement In The Future Of The Contemporary Past, Wendy Pojmann

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this essay, I reflect on the use of oral history and participant observation as tools for researchers of the contemporary past. I want to argue that these approaches must, as Nietzsche has stated, “serve life” by pushing traditional guidelines and by considering the rich cultural fabrics not recorded in oral or written form. Feminist scholars must experiment with methodologies that allow them to consider identities by continually reflecting on their own. But, they should neither become trapped by the narrow definitions of identity politics nor indulge solely in personal exploration.

I first discuss briefly the relationship of oral history …

Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum: A New Gospel For Women By Women, Agnieszka Markiewicz

Honors College Theses

The paper analyses Aemelia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum to show that her proto-feminist writing aimed at rich and powerful women is to gain support for women's freer access to knowledge. The paper shows how Lanyer tries to bring about women's equality through the spread of her re-evaluation of the Genesis story and the re-evaluation of the social standing of women.

Can Women's Voices Be Recovered From The Past? Grappling With The Absence Of Women Voices In Pre-Colonial History Of Zimbabwe, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

The question of whether women’s voices can be recovered from the past may sound very old-fashioned to some people, but in the Zimbabwean academic situation, it is still pertinent even after all the advances made in researching women history elsewhere. This is because there is no attempt by historians to grapple with the absence of women voices in mainstream narratives of pre-colonial history of Zimbabwe. Invisibility of women has been maintained even in the latest historical works on pre-colonial history of Zimbabwe. This means that the existing histories neglected the activities of half of the population of the pre-colonial Zimbabwean …

Gender Issues In Hiv/Aids Epidemiology In Sub-Saharan Africa., Ben E. Wodi

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

"The patriarchal nature of African societies continues to shape women’s sexual behavior in the region. This in turn accounts for the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS among women in sub-Saharan Africa. Of the several factors implicated in the unequal prevalence of the disease among women in Africa, economic dependency/feminization of poverty, unequal distribution of sexual power (sexual violence and coercion), limited educational opportunities and lack of political will continue to dominate the literature (Robinson, 2004; Dunkle, et al., 2004; Martin and Curtis, 2004; Eaton, et al., 2003; Mill and Anarfi, 2002). While programmatic and financial initiatives have increased significantly in the …

Transnational Health Promotion: Social Well-Being Across Borders And Immigrant Women's Subjectivities., Denise Gastaldo, Amoaba Gooden, Notisha Massaquoi

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In this article, the authors use two qualitative studies to address transnationalism in the intersection of migration, gender and health promotion studies. The experiences of women who have recently (less than 3 years ago) immigrated to Canada are examined focusing on their transnational health promotion activities. Despite the invisibility of women’s unpaid work in transnational and migration studies, we argue that the well-being of families, communities and nations is currently being produced in local, national, and international networks of health promotion and care giving and by the wealth generated by women’s labour. Our contribution is to bring together gendered health …

Unsettling Experiences: Transnational Dialogues Of Necessity In Journal, Nationalité: Immigré(E) And Paletitas De Guayaba, Tim Gerhard

Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women's & Gender Studies

In this paper, I examine the transnational stories of two women --one born in France of Algerian descent and the other born in the United States of Mexican descent-- whose lives are interrupted by the inability to understand their status as ethnic women in the country of their birth. By analyzing their works in the proper socio-historical context and by defining how they fit into a relatively new mode of expression --the autoethnography-- I establish a transnational dialogue between the works of these two women. Transnational stories such as these challenge the superiority of the transnational identities established by the …