History Commons^™

Medicinal Vibrations, Lauren E. Gardner

The Purdue Historian

In the course of the mid to late 20th and 21st centuries the term "vibrator" has been synonymous with sexual gratification and the female sex drive. However, its original usage is more in line with a therapeutic medical treatment administered and recommended by medical professionals. In this article the history of the vibrator discusses the roots of medicines views on the female body and the ways in which their ailments were treated, with medicine not fully understanding the female sexual gratification of clitoral stimulation until the 1920s. These previous decades are colored by ancient understandings of the female sex and …

A Sense Of Loss: The Effect Of Prisoner Camp Conditions On German Pows’ Masculinity During The First World War, Analucia Lugo

The Purdue Historian

During the First World War, almost a million German soldiers became prisoners of war (POW) and held captive in enemy camps. The moment of capture and arrest caused these men to experience debilitating emotions, including guilt and fear. Varied conditions at POW camps bolstered these responses and often determined prisoner health and morale throughout the war. This article examines how camps in Britain, France, and Russia treated German POWs, and how German nationalism affected these soldiers' senses of masculinity and patriotism during and after the war.

Considering The “Special Considerations”: The Treatment Of Female Inmates In The People’S Republic Of China Since 1994, Niklas Berry

Madison Historical Review

The purpose of this paper is to historicize contemporary gendered legal practices in the People’s Republic of China and to demonstrate that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, paternalistic assumptions rooted in Confucianism still inform the treatment of female prisoners today. Though China underwent massive political and economic shifts after the formation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, certain longstanding societal principles were preserved in modern China, including long-held paternalistic stereotypes about the physical and mental fragility of women. These precepts undergirded the PRC’s reforms of its judicial and criminal systems …

The Rites Of Women: The Continuity Of Gender Roles In Roman Religion, Ariel E. Bybee

The Thetean: A Student Journal for Scholarly Historical Writing

The second-centrury B.C. historian Aulus Gellius recounts the ceremony by which a girl was inducted into the cult of the Roman goddess Vesta in his Attic Nights. A maiden between six and ten years of age and of aristocratic birth was selected from among her peers by the drawing of lots. The chief pontiff took her by the hand and declared, "I take thee, Amata, as one who has fulfilled all the legal requirements, to be priestess of Vesta, to perform the rites which it is lawful for a Vestal to perform for the Roman people, the Quirites." She was …

Beauvoir, “French” Feminisms, And “Translation Work:” A Roundtable Conversation, Sandrine Sanos, Judith G. Coffin

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This conversation featuring four scholars—Sandrine Sanos, Judith G. Coffin, Lorraine Delavaud, Marine Vaslin—took place on zoom on December 1, 2023. It was organized, transcribed, and edited by Sandrine Sanos who also wrote the introduction to contextualize the conversation. The roundtable reflects on the making of the translation of Judith Coffin’s book on Beauvoir; and how it became a collective object, and the challenges and productive limitations that it involved, showing how such a project helped forge and relied upon transnational, transdisciplinary, and transgenerational feminist solidarities. The ways Beauvoir became a transatlantic object sheds light on the ways that the book …

Internalized Oppression: Exploring The Nuanced Experiences Of Gender And Sexuality In Historically Black Colleges And Universities, Kathryn Kendal Ryan

The Great Lakes Journal of Undergraduate History

In the American South at the turn of the century, quality education was scarce and legislative laws were put in place to ensure that African American individuals remained far away from Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). As a result, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) became a catalyst for change in a “separate but equal” driven society. This article will explore the significance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities in elevating Black Americans throughout the twentieth century while assessing the conservative nature of the institutions and their inflexibility towards the various nuances of African American communities. While not particular to HCBUs, …

“America’S Nervous Breakdown”: Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, Popular Psychology, And The Demise Of The Housewife In The 1970s, Kate L. Flach

Journal of 20th Century Media History

In 1976, soap opera satire Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (MH, MH) debuted and reached an estimated 55 million households. Produced by Norman Lear, the central storyline developed during the first season involved the mental breakdown of Mary Hartman (Louise Lasser), a typical consumer housewife who Lear claimed metaphorically represented the United States. Portraying a discontent housewife with mental illness as a proxy for the nation reflects how ubiquitous popular psychology became in explaining American anxieties over the transformations of the family and politics. An analysis of tape-recorded writers meetings reveals that the show’s creators pulled from contemporary books, theories, and …

“She Was No Taller Than Your Thumb. So She Was Called Thumbelina”: Gender, Disability, And Visual Forms In Hans Christian Andersen’S “Thumbelina” (1835), Hannah J. Helm

Journal of Gender, Ethnic, and Cross-Cultural Studies

This article explores representations of femininity and disability in Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “Thumbelina” (1835) and select examples of his paper art. In this article, I argue that, on one level, the fairy tale and Andersen’s own paper cuttings uphold feminine and ableist norms. However, on another level, these literary and visual forms simultaneously work to destabilise social prejudices and challenge bodily normativity. I explore how characters and themes associated with the fairy tale and paper art can be (re)read in strength-based ways. In the story, Thumbelina experiences the world through her smallness, and key themes including accessibility, physical …

Chaos In Congress: Masculinity And Violence In The Congressional Struggle Over Kansas, Ian L. Baumer

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

According to Joanne Freeman's recent book on congressional violence, in the years between 1830 and 1860, members of Congress engaged in 'manly' violence against one another more than seventy times. However, no issue caused more violent personal disputes in the legislature than slavery. In particular, the debate over the legal status of slavery in the Kansas Territory caused a panoply of incidents in Congress, including near-duel between John C. Breckinridge and Francis Cutting in 1854, Preston Brooks' caning of Charles Sumner in 1856, and a brawl in the House of Representatives in 1858. This article examines how these lawmakers' views …

Power Dressing And Its Importance In Modern Democracy, Mansiben R. Patel, Dr. Catherine Amoroso Leslie

Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences

This research aimed to study the significance of Power Dressing in a modern democracy, by exploring the dynamics of clothing concerning the power it portrays for women holding influential positions in public office in a variety of countries throughout the world. This research accomplished its motive by collecting, reviewing, and analyzing scholarly articles, academic journals, newspapers, and current events which formed the foundation for data collection using a survey developed by the researchers. The analysis provided a platform for procuring knowledge of the association between Fashion and Politics, the concept of Women’s Power Dressing, and its significance in a modern …

Power Dressing And Its Importance In Modern Democracy, Mansiben R. Patel, Dr. Catherine Amoroso Leslie

Undergraduate Research Journal for the Human Sciences

This research aimed to study the significance of Power Dressing in a modern democracy, by exploring the dynamics of clothing concerning the power it portrays for women holding influential positions in public office in a variety of countries throughout the world. This research accomplished its motive by collecting, reviewing, and analyzing scholarly articles, academic journals, newspapers, and current events which formed the foundation for data collection using a survey developed by the researchers. The analysis provided a platform for procuring knowledge of the association between Fashion and Politics, the concept of Women’s Power Dressing, and its significance in a modern …

Gender Analysis Of King Philip's War, Derek Persson

Undergraduate Research Journal

Women and war have existed in history since the beginning of time. Yet in most modern historical accounts, women’s participation and significance in war conflicts is not present or is severely undermined. Often the conflict itself is presented to fit an agenda of the presenter or contributor. In modern American history, students are presented with a Pilgrim thanksgiving dinner with the Algonquin and then it fast forwards roughly 100 years to the American Revolution. The rest is commonly not acknowledged. Feminist author Roe Bubar sums it up well: “The problem is the narrative is told from a nation-building perspective in …

Malintzin: La Mujer Americana, Alma D. Elías Nájera

Crossings: Swarthmore Undergraduate Feminist Research Journal

Malintzin was a controversial Indigenous woman whose contributions to the Aztec conquest raised questions about what it meant to be a traitor with a limited agency. This essay recontextualizes Malintzin’s demonized identity and challenges masculinist sociocultural curations of gender, history, and knowledge production by infusing feminist theory into the cultural imaginaries of gender and racial stratification. By reintroducing Malintzin as a feminist emblematic figure trying to regain selfhood within an exploitative White cisheteropatriarchal society, her existence gives voice to those silenced by the violence of colonization, Manhood, and gender oppression. To do this, the author takes up the work of …

Intersections Of Violence Against Immigrant Women On The United States-Mexico Border, Holland Morgan

Ramifications

There have been growing tensions along the United States-Mexico border over the last twenty years and the very unique position of Mexican immigrant women is largely ignored. With the increased militarization of the border to protect American land from people considered ‘illegal’, this has left immigrant women vulnerable to gendered violence from border officials; as well as state systems that silence their voices or persecute them for their undocumented status. This paper uses the disciplines of history, sociology, and women’s and gender studies to make connections between the state portrayal of immigrant women, violence in border cities, and community efforts …

"Either On Account Of Sex Or Color": Policing The Boundaries Of The Medical Profession During Reconstruction, Adam Lloyd-Jones

Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal

In 1868, the American Medical Association (AMA) was asked to permit consultation with female physicians and admit them as delegates. In 1870, a delegation of Black doctors sought entrance to an Annual AMA meeting. The AMA refused entrance to both female and Black physicians. This paper argues that these meetings, and the question of inclusion for Black and female practitioners, arose out of the political climate that Reconstruction created. Expanding from previous scholarship, this paper further analyzes the role of Chicago doctor Nathan Smith Davis in the perpetuation of a white medical profession.

Round Table (Part 5): What’S Raphaël Lemkin Got To Do With Genocide Studies?, Douglas Irvin-Erickson

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Gothic Girlhood And Resistance: Confronting Ireland’S Neoliberal Containment Culture In Tana French’S The Secret Place, Mollie Kervick

Critical Inquiries Into Irish Studies

The Secret Place (2014) exposes a persistent Western cultural impulse to contain the emotions of teenage girls when they demonstrate control over their lives. In the Irish context, the dismissal of teenage girls is resonant of a containment culture in which controlling women’s bodies and minds has been essential to upholding heteropatriarchal ideals. Resistance to the novel’s unresolved supernatural elements by readers and critics and the lack of sustained academic scholarship also point to an unsettling complacency with the neoliberal impulse to contain female emotion and lived experience in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland.

Climate Disasters, Mass Violence, And Human Mobility In South Sudan: Through A Gender Lens, Marisa O. Ensor

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article examines the links between gender, mass violence, climate change, and displacement in South Sudan. I argue for risk-informed gender-sensitive strategies that incorporate local capacities and sources of resilience. When civil war engulfed South Sudan again in 2013, egregious human rights violations, including sexual and gender-based violence, were perpetrated with near complete impunity. As the national army was divided along Dinka-Nuer ethnic lines, soldiers from each faction turned against each other in a deadly pattern of revenge and counter-revenge attacks that soon spread across the national territory. Inter-communal conflicts also intensified, often centering on competition over land for pasture, …

Book Review: Armed Conflict, Women And Climate Change, Shelly Clay-Robison

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Melanie C. Hawthorne. Women, Citizenship, And Sexuality: The Transnational Lives Of Renée Vivien, Romaine Brooks, And Natalie Barney. Liverpool Up, 2021., Jennifer Carr

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Melanie C. Hawthorne. Women, Citizenship, and Sexuality: The Transnational Lives of Renée Vivien, Romaine Brooks, and Natalie Barney. Liverpool UP, 2021. 167 pp.

Gender, Race, And Religion In An African Enlightenment, Jonathan D. Lyonhart

Journal of Religion & Film

Black Panther (2018) not only heralded a new future for representation in big-budget films but also gave an alternative vision of the past, one which recasts the Enlightenment within an African context. By going through its technological enlightenment in isolation from Western ideals and dominance, Wakanda opens a space for reflecting on alternate ways progress can—and still might—unfold. More specifically, this alternative history creates room for reimagining how modernity—with its myriad social, scientific, and religious paradigm shifts—could have negotiated questions of race, and, in turn, how race could have informed and redirected some of the lesser impulses of modernity. Similar …

‘Could The Subaltern Speak?’ Patriarchy And Gender-Based Violence In Ben Okri’S Dangerous Love, Francis Etsè Awitor

Journal of Gender, Ethnic, and Cross-Cultural Studies

In a patriarchal society, women are, on the most part, the least representative in socio-political and economic spheres. They are frequently considered as second-class citizens, and live in the shadow of their male counterparts. They are portrayed as commodities, objects that satisfy men’s needs while being used as sex toys, cooks, servants, housewives and housemaids. They face various forms of violence and abuse as far as they are seen as sub-humans. In a society trapped in a web of traditional, cultural and religious beliefs, women’s plights and sufferings are often overlooked and ignored. By utilizing a feminist lens, the violation …

Gender, Science, And The Natural World: Essays On Medieval Literature From The 2020 Gender And Medieval Studies Conference, Linda E. Mitchell, Daisy E. Black

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Introduction to the special issue of literature articles from the 2020 Gender and Medieval Studies Conference.

Food, Comfort And Community: Media Coverage Of Last Meals For The Dying, Tina Sikka

European Journal of Food Drink and Society

This article examines the media coverage of food in the context of community-based end of life rituals and death meals that are increasingly being observed by those undergoing a medically assisted death (medical assistance in dying: MAID). I employ a reconstituted form of media analysis that aims to identify and unpack the socio-cultural themes, values, and assumptions that underpin these food events. These include the central frame of plenty, community/family, personality, comfort, and gender. My objective is to provoke a discussion about how media coverage acts as a site from which to understand the significance of food in the context …

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal Of Gender And Sexuality 57.1 (2021)

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

No abstract provided.

Women’S Work And Men’S Devotions: The Fabrics Of The Passion In “O Vernicle”, Jenny C. Bledsoe

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

This article explores how male Cistercians producing an early fifteenth-century miscellaneous manuscript made devotional use of images representing women’s textile labor. An early manuscript copy of “O Vernicle,” a Middle English arma Christi poem, appears in Royal 17 A. xxvii, likely produced at Bordesley Abbey. The Royal version of “O Vernicle” features a unique marginal illumination of two women of Bethlehem and Jerusalem wearing green and red dresses. The woman in green holds a baby swaddled in a green and blue cloth with red stripes, similar to a Scottish tartan. Three other examples demonstrate the illuminator’s careful attention to fabric’s …

A Hive Of Her Own: Early Modern Women Beekeepers, Shannon Jane Garner

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

While much important work has been done on the early modern fascination with the political nature of bees and bee societies, this essay instead takes a closer look at the conflation of honeybees, women, and domestic spaces within the multi-generic textual ecology of early modern beekeeping. In the early modern period women were the primary beekeepers. As key participants in this art of sustained and intimate collaboration across species and environment, these women managed their own hives using the multifaceted skills of the early modern housewife, including textile arts, brewing, distilling, medicine, horticulture, and husbandry. This essay highlights the tension …

A Female Scribe In The Twenty Sixth Dynasty [Iretrau], Heba Maher

Journal of the General Union of Arab Archaeologists

(En)

This research studies Iretrau’s ‘sS-sHm.t’, which was mentioned several times in her tomb. This is a clear reference to literacy. It is notable that Iretrau and her position as a scribe is one of the most complicated issues, due to the lack of texts written by her as a male scribe, as well as the absence of writing tools in her tomb. However, there are many other reasons for looking at Iretrau as a literate woman who held a scribal position with actual duties according to previous indications. The fact that Iretrau used the very plain …

“Sweep All These Pests From Our Midst”: The Anti-Chinese Prostitution Movement, The Criminalization Of Chinese Women, And The First Federal Immigration Law, Laura Curry

West Virginia University Historical Review

Often forgotten in light of later pieces of anti-Chinese legislation, the Page Act of 1875 and the anti-Chinese prostitution movement were critical in creating a legal precedent for racially exclusionary immigration laws. Religious leaders in California aggressively campaigned against Chinese prostitution by creating rehabilitation centers for former Chinese prostitutes, investigating Chinese women arriving at the port, and focusing media attention on the issue. Concentrated specifically on Chinese prostitution, religious leaders created an implicit association between Chinese women and prostitution while ignoring the larger white prostitution trade. The potential for Chinese women to give birth to Chinese American citizens also made …

Cellphilming And Building Solidarity With Queer Youth To Speak Back To Historical Erasures In New Brunswick Social Studies Classrooms, Casey Burkholder

The Councilor: A National Journal of the Social Studies

New Brunswick, Canada’s K-12 Social Studies curricula erases the myriad histories and experiences of the province’s LGBTQ+ communities. Building on these erasures, this study analyzes how six queer, trans, and non-binary young people (aged 14-17) created cellphilms (cellphone + mobile film production) in response to these absences. In the study, I ask: How might engaging in media and art production with young people—and screening and exhibiting these productions in online and community spaces—work to counter dominant forms of apathy and denial, and support youth to claim a stake in creating solidarities, belonging, and community-making? What is required for youth-produced media …