Women's Studies Commons^™

Ain’T I A Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality, Avtar Brah, Ann Phoenix

Journal of International Women's Studies

In the context of the second Gulf war and US and the British occupation of Iraq, many ‘old’ debates about the category ‘woman’ have assumed a new critical urgency. This paper revisits debates on intersectionality in order to show that they can shed new light on how we might approach some current issues. It first discusses the 19th century contestations among feminists involved in anti-slavery struggles and campaigns for women’s suffrage. The second part of the paper uses autobiography and empirical studies to demonstrate that social class (and its intersections with gender and ‘race’ or sexuality) are simultaneously subjective, structural …

Introduction: Crossing Boundaries, Sue Jackson

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Viva, Amanda Loumansky, Sue Jackson

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women today are making clear inroads into the academy and, at undergraduate level at least, are engaging in greater numbers than men. However, at postgraduate level the picture changes, especially at doctoral level, and fewer women than men undertake research degrees. However, little is known about women’s experiences of doctoral research, including the viva. The authors seek to address the lack of research about women’s experience of the PhD viva. The research carried out by the authors emphasises both the lack of power felt by women in the current examination process and the lack of consistency in practice across universities. …

Perverse Pleasures – Identity Work And The Paradoxes Of Greedy Institutions, Valerie Hey

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women’s studies struggle for a location in the academy has always involved feelings of deep ambiguity. The outsider/insider relation is a peculiarly vexed one in times when the demands on professional identity appear to erase the more political claims on our identity such as being a feminist.

This paper considers aspects of these complex navigations across the personal, private, public and professional aspects of identity through the concept of pleasure. It explores the discrepancy as well as the interrelations between the moral climate of higher education and the more elusive, secret or at least unspoken nature of our persistent (over?) …

Crossing The Border: Locating Heterosexuality As A Boundary For Lesbian And Disabled Women, Clare Beckett

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article draws on my personal experience, and on the separate experiences of ‘leaving heterosexuality’ and of ‘being disabled.’ I have attempted to find common ground for action between these two groups by interrogating the experience of being sexual. I argue that heterosexuality functions as a social matrix, with exclusionary practices that operate in similar ways towards both groups. Mechanisms may be different, but the experience of exclusion is similar, and is based on similar practices. This article focuses on specific points in the exclusionary process, and illustrates similarities.

Crossing Borders: The Extent To Which The Voices Of Exiled And Refugee Women Have Adapted To Their New Western Diasporic Space, Jennifer Langer

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this article I will consider the extent to which the voices of exiled and refugee women have adapted to their new Western diasporic space. I will examine whether women writers consider exile to be a safe place in which to describe the horrific experiences of gender specific persecution and of being a victim of violence in conflict or whether taboos restrict the women’s voice. Is exile providing a cathartic space to write openly? Do the exiled writers as reflected in their literary work, relate to their British physical space and interact with British people and society? What is the …

Gender, Context, And Physics Assessment, Laura Mccullough

Journal of International Women's Studies

A persistent gender gap exists on one of the most commonly-used physics conceptual tests, the Force Concept Inventory. The test includes many stereotypically male contexts such as hockey, rockets, and cannonballs. A revised version of the test was created using stereotypically female contexts and both versions were randomly administered to 300 college students. While the total correct score did not change for men and women, significant results were discovered when test questions were examined individually. Results suggest that context can affect performance on a physics assessment for both men and women. One implication for instructors is that they should be …

Judith Merril And Rachel Carson: Reflections On Their “Potent Fictions” Of Science, Dianne Newell

Journal of International Women's Studies

Donna Haraway has argued that women’s engagement with the masculine domain of science and modern culture usually occurs at the peripheries and from the depths, not from the platform of the powerful. This paper considers the popular culture fields of science fiction and nature writing, exploring the contributions of two American women writers who both operated at the peripheries of science and landed on the ‘platform of the powerful’: Judith Merril and Rachel Carson. Their domestic Cold War envisioning and conflation of literature and science and their insights into the inherently political nature of science anticipated the foundational feminist discussions …

Re-Visioning Science Education, Ingrid Bartsch

Journal of International Women's Studies

Science education is crucial for shaping the culture of science and its practitioners. Boundaries currently limit ties between natural and social science education structures, exposing the public to a one-dimensional science and its possible ramifications. Believing this to be a “crisis,” I explore a variety of approaches to re-visioning science education and the ensuing forms of resistance that these face. In addition, a more personal accounting of my experience with trying to integrate social and cultural issues into the education of scientists allows me to explore the forms of resistance I faced; bridge the gap between theory and practice; and …

Empowering Women? Engaging A Technology Grant For Social Change, Erica Meiners, Laurie Fuller

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines and exposes the writing and implementation of a project, funded by a federal government grant that worked to increase the technological literacy levels of women at an urban working-class university in the Midwest. This three-year study/intervention clearly reveals that disrupting the ‘digital divide’ for working-class women at our university, particularly women of color, requires engagements with the material and practical realities of their everyday lives. In addition to findings in relation to gender, race, low-income communities and technology, participation in this study/intervention illuminated for the authors—anti-racist, feminist academics and organizers—the consequences and costs of moving epistemological frameworks …

Poems, Catherine Daly

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Introduction: New Writing In Women’S Studies: Selected Essays From The First Women’S Studies Network (U.K.) Association Essay Contest, Louise Livesey, Karen Throsby

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of Quaker Women’S Writing Between 1650 And 1700, Caroline Baker

Journal of International Women's Studies

Throughout the tumultuous period that was the English Civil War, there was a great change in society’s values and beliefs resulting in the establishment of many new political and religious groups. Quakerism, established in the 1640’s, appealed to women as it gave them freedom to prophesy and to proclaim the gospel. This study explores the role of Quaker women’s writing specifically between the years 1650 and 1700, a period of increased religious prominence. Texts from this time are examined including the journal and the epistle to the prophetic tract. The presence of women as preachers and missionaries is explored in …

In Spite Of Challenges By “Black” And “Third World” Women, Do Mainstream Feminist Theories Still Reflect The Concerns Of White Women?, Sherry Chopra

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the extent to which, despite challenges by “black” and “third world” women, mainstream feminist theory continues to be dominated by the concerns of white women. It considers the problematic nature of categories such as “white women’s interests” and “black women’s concerns” – specifically the reification of racial or ethnic identity that they imply. Such a process ignores the complex power hierarchies and often-conflicting interests of groups and individuals within them. Having destabilized homogenous definitions of group interests and identities, however, it becomes necessary to conceptualize ways of discussing, theorizing and organizing against patterns of material, social and …

The Prisoner Of Gender: Foucault And The Disciplining Of The Female Body, Angela King

Journal of International Women's Studies

The work of Michel Foucault has been extremely influential amongst feminist scholars and for good reason; his meditations on discipline, power, sexuality and subjectivity are particularly pertinent to feminist analysis. Yet despite his preoccupation with power and its effects on the body, Foucault’s own analysis was curiously gender-neutral. Remarkably, there is no exploration or even acknowledgement of the extent to which gender determines the techniques and degrees of discipline exerted on the body. Although this exposes serious flaws in Foucault’s work, I don’t believe it negates his entire theoretical framework. Rather it can be adopted and adapted; his glaring omissions …

An Illimitable Field: A Practice-Based Investigation Into The Writing Process, Julie Mellor

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay will be presented in two parts. The first part contains the opening chapter of my novel, Cork Dolls. This novel, as yet unpublished, has been written as part of a practice-based PhD looking at contemporary women’s fiction. Cork Dolls is set in Sicily and focuses on the psychological tensions between Rachel, an English au pair, and Susan, a Filipino housekeeper. Both women are employed by the wealthy Bruni family. As background to the first chapter, it is helpful to know that Rachel has recently had an abortion, while Susan left her daughter, Reetha, in the Philippines some years …

My, Is That Cyborg A Little Bit Queer?, Esperanza Miyake

Journal of International Women's Studies

This piece of work is a response to the following question: ‘Critically assess the importance, or otherwise, of Donna Haraway’s “manifesto” for early twenty-first century feminists’. Based on Stein and Plummer’s outline of queer theory in their essay, “I can’t even think straight”: “Queer” Theory and the Missing Sexual Revolution in Sociology (Stein and Plummer 1996). This piece compares and contrasts different aspects of queer theory (sociological, ideological, political and ontological) with Haraway’s ‘manifesto’ in order to investigate the possibilities of a cyberqueer theory: to ‘queer’ (as a verb) the ‘cyborg’. Whilst attempting to interrelate both the notion of the …

Reading As Act Of Queer Love: The Role Of Intimacy In The “Readerly” Contract, Lee Ronald

Journal of International Women's Studies

The following paper has been revised from my 2001 MA thesis, which asked ‘Is it possible to define a strategy for reading queer?’ This includes an investigation of how the traditionally stable categories of reader/text/author may be redefined by queer strategies that instead force instability and flux. In the three years that have elapsed since first conceiving of this piece, I argue that the potential of queer reading is still one that has not been adequately explored. As I acknowledge, ‘whilst the queer does flag the fluctuating nature of sexual identity… it may also be used to unpack broader patterns …

Plugged In Praxis: Critical Reflections On U.S. Feminism, Internet Activism, And Solidarity With Women In Afghanistan, Loretta Kensinger

Journal of International Women's Studies

Cyber-space presents many contradictions to those seeking to use it for activist ends in a transnational world. This paper explores some of these contradictions by examining various uses of the internet in efforts to raise awareness about the situation for women in Afghanistan during the period the Taliban came to power and controlled a majority of the country. I explore differences in approaches, images, and tone within examples of internet activism, emphasizing the Web work of the Feminist Majority Foundation, set in comparison with that of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Due to the prominence of the …

Keys To Women’S Liberation In Communist China: An Historical Overview, Jinghao Zhou

Journal of International Women's Studies

Has the Communist Party of China (CPC) fully liberated Chinese women? Is the leadership of the CPC the key to Chinese women’s liberation in the twenty-first century? The CPC has tried to convince the Chinese people and international society to believe that the answer is positive. Having examined the status of Chinese women from an historical perspective, the author has reached the conclusion that women’s problems in present-day China are not only serious but also structural. It is impossible for Chinese women to fully enjoy women’s rights within the current communist system. The future of women’s liberation largely depends on …

Women Learners In The Classroom: Exploring The Experience Of Voice, Listening, And Silence, Anita Sinner

Journal of International Women's Studies

The question of voice is central to a feminist perspective. The dichotomies of voice and silence have long held positions of power and marginalization in the context of the classroom community. In a recent investigation into the learning experiences of three women, Giustina, Tina and Christina, the theme of voice, listening, and silence surfaced as participants reflected on their participation in college and university courses in Canada. These case studies offer a forum to discuss the classroom experiences of women and perhaps shift perspectives on the meaning of voice, listening, and silence in learning.

Book Review: Ex-Lovers And More Important Losses, Jeffrey C. Alfier

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Ex-Lovers and More Important Losses by Lisa Haynes

Housing Delivery In Nthutukoville, South Africa: Successes And Problems For Women, Catherine Ndinda

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the notion of empowerment and what it entails in housing development. Through a critical analysis if the different phases in one particular housing project analyzed by the author, the paper highlights the areas of empowerment and emphasizes that it is a process, which in the case of Nthutukoville in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa began with securing land tenure. Access to resources and acquisition of skills are important. Both external and internal factors may be responsible for women’s inability to take charge of their lives. External factors include political violence, unsupportive local authorities, and a hostile environment as well …

Technology, Commentary And The Admonitions For Women, Sherin Wing

Journal of International Women's Studies

The following is an analysis of the Admonitions for Women (Nu Jie) by the Later Han Dynasty scholar, Ban Zhao. It examines the historical context for its composition, applying not only one literary template, that of the instructional text, the technological treatise, but also Confucian Commentary. Through this process, the Admonitions emerges as a sophisticated philosophical tract that combines not only several literary traditions, but applies them to a new, unique audience: elite women. In so doing, Ban Zhao challenges assumptions of women’s roles, expectations of women, and enlightens her readers as to what might be really happening …

Psychological Factors Influencing Perceived Entrepreneurial Success Among Nigerian Women In Small-Scale Businesses, Benjamin Osayawe Ehigie, Ugonma Eme Umoren

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper considered self-concept, perceived managerial competence, work stress and business commitment as important psychological variables for perceived entrepreneurial success among female entrepreneurs. A study was conducted to examine these factors, using 213 female entrepreneurs. The results showed that although all the predictor variables jointly accounted for perceived entrepreneurial success only business commitment contributed significantly. But in the independent prediction of the variables, only self-concept and business commitment were significant. Additionally, number of children significantly influenced perceived success with females having 5 children and more, and those having 1-2 children reporting better success than those without children or having 3-4 …

In Search Of Equality: Marriage Related Laws For Muslim Women In Bangladesh, Kamrul Hossain

Journal of International Women's Studies

The problem of inequality for women in Bangladesh is more social than legal. As regards to the law, except for personal matters, inequalities in the provisions of law are hardly found. Personal matters, however, are regulated by religious laws or customs. In the legal system of Bangladesh though these laws or customs are incorporated separately under the head of Personal Law, these are not, however, as a whole derived from religious laws or customs. Some changes through introducing enactments or promulgating ordinances were made in their application. Still, these have been insufficient to establish equality between women and men. This …

Reflections On New Partnerships Between Women And Local Self-Government In India: A Rural Revolution?, Santosh Nandal

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay reflects on strategies for women’s empowerment in light of the enactment of the 73rd constitutional amendment, Panchayati Raj, in the Indian Constitution, in 1992. It begins with the assumption that women’s empowerment implies progressive elimination of gender disparities at the grassroots level. As such, a perspective on women’s empowerment differs from ideas about women’s development in some important ways. Women’s development is primarily a socio-economic concept while women’s empowerment is essentially a political project. It is argued here that women’s empowerment is indeed a precursor to women’s development. The author offers suggestions for increasing women’s effectiveness in …

Book Review: What Is Sexual Harassment?: From Capitol Hill To The Sorbonne, Kirsten Dellinger

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of What is Sexual Harassment?: From Capitol Hill to the Sorbonne by Abigail C. Saguy

Maria Stewart And The Rhetoric Of Mobility, Susan Roberson

Journal of International Women's Studies

Formulating a black feminist rhetoric, a counter-narrative that joins rather than separates the church with politics, Maria Stewart, in the meditations and political speeches of the Productions of Mrs. Maria Stewart (1835) calls on the nation to live up to its spiritual ideals and African Americans to mobilize as a community of Christians. In her own transgression of male-dominated space, becoming the first American woman to speak before a “promiscuous” audience, she enacts the conjunction between spiritual and spatial journeying, the crossing of spatial and ideological limits of race and gender. Countering experiences of exclusion, marginality, and stasis, Stewart constructs …

Maternalism In Mistress-Maid Relations: The Philippine Experience, Janet M. Arnado

Journal of International Women's Studies

The mistress-maid relationship, grounded in maternalism, provides a glaring example of the class inequality among women. Contextualized in the Third World, this paper examines maternalism both as a complex, hierarchical system that governs the employment arrangement and as a field of negotiation where women exercise agency. Recorded in-depth interviews and focus groups with thirty-one domestic workers and ten female employers were conducted in a medium-sized city in the Philippines between May and August 2000. QSR NUD*IST facilitated the data processing and analysis. This paper describes several forms of maternalism, including “part of the family” ideology, emotional labor, material support, utang …