Women's Studies Commons^™

Seeing Battle, Knowing War: Feminist Re-Visioning In Hortensia Papadat-Bengesçu’S “The Man Whose Heart They Could See”, Jon Dietrick

Journal of International Women's Studies

As an exploration of the themes of disillusionment and the failure of language, Romanian writer Hortensia Papadat-Bengesçu’s “The Man Whose Heart They Could See” would seem to share much with better-known men’s writing on the war such as Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms or Henri Barbusse’s Le Feu: Journal d’une Escouade. But a careful reading of the text reveals some crucial differences from these works. Treating the subject of war not in terms of an easily definable “scene of battle” or “war front” but instead as a deeply entrenched cultural logic in which varied aspects of society are both …

Family Obligations Or Cultural Contraints? Obstacles In The Path Of Professional Women, Marie-Josée Legault, Stéphanie Chasserio

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper provides an account of our research on balancing private life and work among highly qualified information technology (IT) professionals. The authors basically present the findings of an empirical research on balancing private life and work among highly qualified information technology (IT) professionals (mostly engineers and few managers), comparing small loosely structured high-tech firms and big bureaucracies. Authors here build on theories regarding gender and commitment, appraisal and promotions and link these to work time behavior to show up consequences of gendered work time patterns on engineers’ careers.

Briefly, to sum up the rationale, women and men behave differently …

The Gender Blindness Of Good Theorists: An Israeli Case Study, Henriette Dahan Kalev

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this article I use Swirski’s book as a sounding board for a theoretical discussion about issues of marginality and gender in Israeli society. My aim is to discuss a number of issues connected with gender blindness that are prevalent in sociological studies about Israeli society. Namely: (1) What is the sociological manifestation of the phenomenon referred to as gender blindness? (2) Why is it that women are often excluded in theoretical analysis? (3) Why is it that women are marginalized either intentionally or accidentally? (4) What are the causes of women’s invisibility? I explain why Marxist analysis of the …

Identifying Indigenous Health Technologies Used By Women In A Rural Community In Nigeria On The Cord Stumps Of Newborns: A Decrease In Cord Infections And Neonatal Tetanus?, Ifeyinwa Flossy Obuekwe, Ifechukwude Chuma Obuekwe

Journal of International Women's Studies

About two-thirds of births in developing countries take place outside health facilities and almost half of the women are delivered by untrained traditional birth attendants (TBAs), family members or deliver on their own. A wide variety of traditional practices and beliefs are associated with care of the umbilical cord. This paper attempts to identify indigenous health technologies used by women in a rural community – Oregbeni – in Edo State, Nigeria on the cord stumps of newborns, to describe their preparations and applications and also to link these traditional practices with the relevant scientific information to determine the validity of …

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 …

Irish Women: Uncovering Their Language Of Power, Margaret Garry Burke

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper I discuss my experience as an older student studying in Ireland. I connect my encounter in Ireland with a preeminent female Irish poet, Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, to research I was conducting on the social evolution of women in Ireland for which I interviewed seven Irish women who came from very different socio-economic and political backgrounds. As an Irish-American who had denied my heritage for most of my life, this experience revealed to me how native-born Irish women, who faced many of the same problems I had encountered as a sheltered suburban housewife, had dealt with repressive state …

Using Imagination To Create New Roles: Diane Wakoski’S Poetry, Nancy Bunge

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Too Much To Ask: Black Women In The Era Of Integration, Sheila T. Gregory

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Too Much to Ask: Black Women in the Era of Integration by Elizabeth Higginbotham

Poetry, Donna J. G. Lee

Journal of International Women's Studies

Two poems by Donna J. G. Lee:

• Afternoon in Paleó Fáliron
• Up the Mountain

Mr. James Sheppard On Leisure, Sanela Zukic

We Exist Series 4: Quotes

Interviewer: Sanela Zukic

Interviewee: Mr. James Sheppard (born in New York City in 1924; both his parents immigrated from Antigua in the West Indies to Canada, then they came to the United States in 1923; moved to Maine in 1971).

“But in addition to that we'd have lots of summer events: picnics and that sort. But that's separate; that's a different thing.”

“Between my wife and I, we saw to it that they did a lot of reading. And we did a lot of traveling. We did a lot of traveling to the Caribbean and South America, and we took …

Selling The "Professional" Housewife: Editorial Strategy In Ladies Home Journal 1905 And 1955, Amanda Ellington

Theses & Honors Papers

This thesis compares the editorial strategies of the women's magazine Ladies' Home Journal in 1905 and 1955. Throughout the twentieth century, the. Journal rapidly became one of the first mass circulation magazines offering a newly affluent middle class low subscription prices supported by the advertisement of consumer products. It both reflected and sought to shape its readers' values, interests, and attitudes.

Throughout its history, beginning with its founding in 1879, the Journal advocated a conservative view womanhood, maintaining that women should feel fulfilled through their relationships with others, their domestic responsibilities, and their duties of childcare. As the culture changed, …

Voices Of Women High School Principals, Ellen Wexler Eckman

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

This study presents the challenges women face in educational administration from the perspective of female high school principals. Eight women high school principals participated in the qualitative study that focused on their careers, the conflicts between their personal and professional roles, and the impact of gender on the high school principalship. The participants acknowledged the importance of encouragement and mentoring in their decisions to become high school principals. They continued to be affected by the male image of the high school principal. They sought support from other female leaders as well as offered mentoring to women aspiring to administrative positions. …

Seeking Justice For All: The Special Concerns Of Women School Administrators, Patricia F. First

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

In this article the belief that there are special responsibilities for women school administrators based upon gender and the racial divide in U.S. schools is explored. Justification for women's special responsibility is discussed and examples are given, including the new issue of justice in schooling and differences in access to cyberspace. How the caring women administrator can make a difference is described in the concluding remarks.

Review Of Reinventing Fundraising: Realizing The Potential Of Women's Philanthropy By Sondra C. Shaw And Martha A. Taylor, Jean M. Haar

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

Studies of women note the unique nature of female leadership (Aburdene & Naisbitt, 1992; Helgeson, 1995; Sergiovanni, 1995). As women's leadership roles in the workforce increase (Helgeson, 1995; Ruderman & Ohlott, 2002), the potential for women's leadership in philanthropy is acknowledged. In Reinventing Fundraising: Realizing the Potential o/Women 's Philanthropy, Shaw and Taylor address the potential of women philanthropists-and make special note that, whether women inherit, earn or marry money, they are becoming a powerful financial force. Lederer (1991) and Taylor (1998) emphasized that American women now control 60% of the nation's investment wealth and constitute 43% of the nation's …

Journal Of Women In Educational Leadership, Vol. 1, No. 2 - April 2003

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

No abstract provided.

"I Have Work To Do" Work Roles And Affirming Or Marginalizing Experiences Among Women At Professor Rank, Florence A. Hamrick

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

This qualitative study of women at professor rank at a Research Extensive university explored work roles as well as occasions and events that signified affirmation or marginalization to respondents as they performed their work. Three primary work roles emerged: disciplinary expert, mentor or model, and advisor or change agent. Although all respondents clearly identified themselves as disciplinary experts, the other two roles were often more complex. Respondents generally experienced affirmation through student, collegial,and institutional recognitions of expertise and effectiveness. Marginalizing experiences included serving token roles on committees or other bodies and being a "lone voice" on issues of equity.

One Of A Kind, Marilyn L. Grady, Barbara Lacost

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

As we prepare this issue for publication, the news of war with Iraq is dominant. A story aired by National Public Radio (NPR) focused on women in the war and noted that one in every seven members of the military personnel serving in Iraq is a woman (Morning Edition, April 2, 2003). Women in the War is a special segment of NBC's Today Show. Their report noted that 15,000 women are serving in Iraq (April 9, 2003). As television and radio reports bombard us with a steady stream of information and analysis, the stories of women's experiences in Iraq as …

Single-Sex Schools And Classroom: Is "Separate But Comparable" Legally Permissible?, Donald F. Uerling, Gretchen Hall

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

Most public schools in the United States have been coeducational, based at least in part on a general belief that single-sex schools and classrooms were legally impermissible. Now the issue of single-sex education has been raised again by the No Child Left Behind Act of2001, which provides that federal funds may be made available to local education agencies for an array of innovative assistance programs, including programs to provide same-gender schools and classrooms. An analysis of applicable law, coupled with a review of the merits of single-sex schooling, suggests that "separate but comparable" single-sex public school education might be legally …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Exposure To Risk, Gender, And Delinquency: An Exploratory Case Study, Rosanne D. Walters

Theses and Dissertations in Urban Services - Urban Management

This case study explored the interactive relationship between the type and level of risk experienced by males and females entering the Norfolk Juvenile Detention Home in 2000, differences in delinquent behaviors of males and females, and differences in responses to that behavior. The study was an outgrowth of a previous report to the Norfolk Juvenile Detention Home Utilization Task Force suggesting that females experienced a higher level of risk than males and that they were detained for lesser offenses. The study also was motivated by data from the Office on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention indicating that there had been …

Introduction: Harvesting Our Strengths: Third Wave Feminism And Women’S Studies, Stacy Gillis, Rebecca Munford

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Beyond Trashiness: The Sexual Language Of 1970s Feminist Fiction, Meryl Altman

Journal of International Women's Studies

It is now commonplace to study the beginning of second wave US radical feminism as the history of a few important groups – mostly located in New York, Boston and Chicago – and the canon of a few influential polemical texts and anthologies. But how did feminism become a mass movement? To answer this question, we need to look also to popular mass-market forms that may have been less ideologically “pure” but that nonetheless carried the edge of feminist revolutionary thought into millions of homes. This article examines novels by Alix Kates Shulman, Marge Piercy and Erica Jong, all published …

Mothers Of Future Kings: The Madonna Redux Phenomenon, Colleen Denney

Journal of International Women's Studies

The visual culture that created Diana was motivated by Victorian constrictions of motherhood that enforced notions of stability and lineage. This article examines the cultural metaphors of nurturance – the “Madonna redux phenomenon” – in images of Diana, and in her predecessor Princess Alexandra. I argue that images of royal motherhood are staged affairs, constructed and performed as part of the Princesses’ main role as dutiful and loving mothers. Finally, I point up how moments of agency can be achieved within these images and how Diana, “the postfeminist princess,” embraced these moments.

The Ana Sanctuary: Women’S Pro-Anorexia Narratives In Cyberspace, Karen Dias

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores cyberspace as a site in which women who are struggling with anorexia can find sanctuary from the surveillance of the public sphere. Feminist geographical and sociological work on the body and critical analysis of medical and psychiatric discourses inform the analyses of the text, narratives and images presented. I locate women’s (dis)embodied cyberspace experiences in the context of the pathologization of women and within attempts to silence their voices. Through these women’s narratives, women’s engagement in the interpretation of their experiences can be observed. What women struggling with anorexia may not be able or ready to say …

Feminist Futures: Trauma, The Post-9/11 World And A Fourth Feminism?, E. Ann Kaplan

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article will engage with the possibilities of feminist futures. That there is no monolithic feminism is a good, it at times uncomfortable, fact: positions, actions and knowledge – constantly being contested, questioned, and debated – mean that feminism is alive and well, and always changing in accord with larger social, historical and political changes. However, the ways in which social and political conditions on both local and global levels are impacting on feminism must be addressed. The post-9/11 world is one in which we need to re-think what feminisms have achieved and how the various groups positioned under the …

Women’S Space “Inside The Haveli”: Incarceration Or Insurrection?, Daphne Grace

Journal of International Women's Studies

While the Hindu and Muslim veiled woman may respectively appear to be relics of traditional class and religious values, or as icons of the eroticised female body of colonial desire, she still appears as a powerful – and ambiguous – indicator of meaning in contemporary literature. Both Asian and Euro-American theorists have recognised the equation in imperialist through between the feminised nation and the trope of the veiled woman. Yet how far is the figure of the Indian woman invisible as well as silent? This article discusses how gendered representations of women represent the changing role of women in terms …

Global Feminisms, Transnational Political Economies, Third World Cultural Production, Winnie Woodhull

Journal of International Women's Studies

Third wave feminism is located historically in relation to de-industrialization in the 1980s and the 1990s’ boom in information technologies and transnational finance, which exponentially increased disparities of wealth and power worldwide. Given the global context of third wave feminism’s emergence, this article argues for a consideration of the many forms and expression of feminism the world over, and of the ways they converge with and diverge from western feminisms, both politically and culturally. After briefly discussing the economically oppressive and culturally homogenizing tendencies of globalization, the article looks at the democratizing potential of today’s global media networks. I end …

From Suffragist To Apologist: The Loss Of Feminist Politics In A Politically Correct Patriarchy, Ashleigh Harris

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article discusses the ways in which feminist politics have been dissolved since the 1980s, most notably in the popular cultural sphere, so as to make feminism appear anachronistic. It considers how various discourses and texts have sought to efface the political impetus of feminism through claims to political correctness. Young women are thus interpolated into a more insidious patriarchy that re-inscribes female shame, guilt, passivity and silence in both professional and personal contexts, at the same as it espouses the discourse of equal rights. Many are not only apologizing for the equal rights that been “granted” to them, but …

Lost Between The Waves? The Paradoxes Of Feminist Chronology And Activism In Contemporary Poland, Agnieszka Graff

Journal of International Women's Studies

The complexities of Polish gender politics can be conceptualized as a series of paradoxes. Until recently, Polish feminists had denied the very possibility of a Polish women’s movement. This article argues that Polish feminism resists the chronology of “waves”: it uses styles and tactics characteristic of the third wave (irony, high theory, camp, cross-dressing, etc.) to achieve typically second wave aims (reproductive rights, equal pay, etc.). It then engages with a historical paradox: the phenomenon of backlash before feminism. Rejecting the political in favour of the personal was compatible with psycho-sexual dynamics already in progress – these were a defence …

Is Women’S Studies Dead?, Marysia Zalewski

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article considers the recurring criticisms of Women’s Studies. The desire for the demise of Women’s Studies is not new yet recent demands for its end have come from Women’s Studies scholars themselves. I review the arguments for and against the termination of the field and, although the arguments against Women’s Studies are compelling, I argue for its continuation. This paradoxical conclusion is reached by reconsidering the “for and against” debates through Wendy Brown’s use of Jacques Derrida’s “spectre” and Walter Benjamin’s “angel of history.” Thus, despite the seduction of the discourse of conventional argumentation performed through the deconstructive critique …

Situation Of Women In Cuba’S Prisons, Maritza Lugo Fernández

Institute for Cuban & Cuban-American Studies Occasional Papers

No abstract provided.