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The Normalization Of Prostitution In Switzerland: The Origin Of Policies, Corinne Isler, Marjut Jyrkinen
The Normalization Of Prostitution In Switzerland: The Origin Of Policies, Corinne Isler, Marjut Jyrkinen
Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence
In this article, we examine how socio-political actors frame prostitution and problems attached to the phenomenon and what types of policies they suggest. The sex trade in Switzerland has been tolerated since 1942, and prostitution is protected under the economic freedom guaranteed by the Swiss constitution. Any critique of prostitution is viewed as counterproductive, claimed to be rooted in old-fashioned ideas about sexuality and thought to worsen the situation for women who sell sex. The role of sex buyers is largely obscured, and the presumed right to buy sex remains unquestioned.
Precarious Responsibility: Teaching With Feminist Politics In The Marketized University, Lena Wånggren
Precarious Responsibility: Teaching With Feminist Politics In The Marketized University, Lena Wånggren
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
One of the most pressing characteristics of the neoliberal restructuring of academia, together with increased managerialism, performativity measures, and a “customer service” approach, is the casualization or precarization of academic work. Casualization entails a fragmentation of academic work, where academics are forced to move between workplaces on hourly-paid and fixed-term contracts, often doing their job without access to resources such as an office, training, or paid research time. While a number of feminist scholars have investigated the ways in which feminist academics negotiate the ever-increasing mechanisms of individualization, ranking, and auditing of their work, this article focuses on the precarious …
"We Sick": The Deweys As Women's Willful Self-Destruction In Toni Morrison's Sula, Kathleen Anderson, Gayle Fallon
"We Sick": The Deweys As Women's Willful Self-Destruction In Toni Morrison's Sula, Kathleen Anderson, Gayle Fallon
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
Toni Morrison explores the complexities of race, gender, and matrilineal influence in Sula. Although much recent feminist criticism has addressed the operations of race and gender in the novel, this essay provides the first developed examination of Morrison’s strategic use of three diminutive boys, all named “dewey,” to emphasize the willfully self-destructive tendencies of the novel’s female characters. Burdened with their community’s limiting idealizations of femininity and motherhood, the women of Sula practice various forms of self-harm in an effort to develop and proclaim their holistic, autonomous selves. The deweys’ mischievous childhood games foreshadow the consequences of female self-harm, but …
Reclaiming The Streets: Investigating Female Experience Of Cinematic Urban Violence, Angelica De Vido
Reclaiming The Streets: Investigating Female Experience Of Cinematic Urban Violence, Angelica De Vido
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
The spatial ideologies and narrative tropes of gendered victimhood, which are designed to induce fear and anxiety, are routinely employed to govern and restrict female access to and experience of urban spaces—both in cinematic depictions and in the real world. This paper explores how such tropes are challenged and rewritten in three screen narratives based in urban landscapes: London in Happy-Go- Lucky (2008), Paris in Amélie (2001), and New York in Sex and the City (1998–2004). Contrary to the ideologies of fear that routinely dominate urban narratives, I will argue that the texts under discussion instead display the city as …
Emancipating The Passive Muse: A Call For A Feminist Approach To Writing Biographies On Historical Women, Ina C. Seethaler
Emancipating The Passive Muse: A Call For A Feminist Approach To Writing Biographies On Historical Women, Ina C. Seethaler
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
This essay analyzes two popular biographies on historical women to interrogate how a focus on gender has shaped the genre: Nancy Ruben Stuart’s The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation (2008) and Jung Chang’s Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (2013). I argue that biographers who perpetuate gender stereotypes miss a momentous opportunity during the current life writing boom in the United States to educate readers on women’s social, cultural, and political contributions worldwide. In proposing that feminist-informed biographies are more accurate, complete, and make social …
Not Mine Alone, Nor Mine To Own: Some Reflections On The Young Girl, Jacqueline Mabey
Not Mine Alone, Nor Mine To Own: Some Reflections On The Young Girl, Jacqueline Mabey
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
This essay looks at the role of the young girl in the curatorial practice of Jacqueline Mabey. Mabey reckons with the young girl as the signifier of a spectrum of mutable cultural signifieds and young girls as subjects on their own terms in the two exhibitions under review, Miss World and Utopia Is No Place, Utopia Is Process. In doing so, she recognizes a shift in motivations from an interest in what the young girls mean as a narcissistic reflection to how she could work in service of the development of young girls.
Más Rudas Collective, 2009-2016 (An Archival Epilogue To An Epic Pachanga), Josh T. Franco
Más Rudas Collective, 2009-2016 (An Archival Epilogue To An Epic Pachanga), Josh T. Franco
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
Contemporary artists Más Rudas Collective (MRC) were active in San Antonio, Texas, from 2009 to 2016. This essay looks to primary source documents from preceding decades and keystone exhibitions of Chicana/o art to articulate MRC’s position in a network of art production and curatorial activity that takes Chicana/o identity as a conceptual framework and/or departure point. Specific examples of MRC members’ reappropriations of Mexican, Mexican American, and Chicana/o cultural elements are analyzed and considered as “weaponizations” against cultures of body shaming and misogyny. Their approach is compared to that of other artists and curators in order to highlight the variety …
Nonconsensual Collaborations, 2012-Present: Notes On A Shared Condition, Aliza Shvarts
Nonconsensual Collaborations, 2012-Present: Notes On A Shared Condition, Aliza Shvarts
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
"Nonconsensual Collaborations, 2012-present: Notes on a Shared Condition" is an extended performance text. It investigates the unmarked gendered dynamics of artistic collaboration, documenting a series of “nonconsensual collaborations”—that is, performances with other artists who did not agree to their participation. Presented here as written narratives, these nonconsensual collaborations frame everyday occurrences of violation, erasure, and misrecognition, exploring how discourses of consent arise from the raced and gendered histories of property relations. They call into question the politics of representation, the status of the document, the formation of evidentiary truth, and the interpenetration of sexual and aesthetic economies. These nonconsensual collaborations …
Towards A New Theory Of Feminist Coalition: Accounting For The Heterogeneity Of Gender, Race, Class, And Sexuality Through An Exploration Of Power And Responsibility, Holly Jeanine Boux
Towards A New Theory Of Feminist Coalition: Accounting For The Heterogeneity Of Gender, Race, Class, And Sexuality Through An Exploration Of Power And Responsibility, Holly Jeanine Boux
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
This paper develops a novel theory of feminist coalition that centers and redefines the concepts of power and responsibility. After outlining several key ways in which feminist coalition work has been addressed by both theorists and practitioners, it goes on to explore how accounting for the complex experiences of identity rooted in factors such as race, class, gender, and sexuality continues to complicate the process of coalition building and theorizing. From these foundations, the article develops a theory of feminist coalition that speaks to how such a movement—or organizations within such a movement—can drive the political will for transformation and …
More Wounding Than Wounds: Hysterectomy, Phenomenology, And The Pain(S) Of Excorporation, Heather Hill-Vasquez
More Wounding Than Wounds: Hysterectomy, Phenomenology, And The Pain(S) Of Excorporation, Heather Hill-Vasquez
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
Focusing on the pain experience of hysterectomy, this article applies and interrogates the foundational descriptive process on which phenomenology is based and suggests that feminism and phenomenology are more compatible than previously asserted. Building upon the work of feminist philosophers who have also explored how feminist and phenomenological approaches share similar methods and intentions—especially in connection with the former’s significant attention to lived experience as a source for the theory feminism employs—the article engages with the philosophies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Samuel Mallin who maintain a consistent attention to the body in their phenomenological approaches. Arguing that Mallin’s method of …
“Strong Women Make Strong Nations”: Women, Literature, And Sovereignty In Paula Gunn Allen And Virginia Woolf, Kristin Czarnecki
“Strong Women Make Strong Nations”: Women, Literature, And Sovereignty In Paula Gunn Allen And Virginia Woolf, Kristin Czarnecki
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
This essay places Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas alongside Paula Gunn Allen’s The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Reading these landmark texts together helps establish a transnational dialogue essential to twenty-first-century literary and feminist studies. A Room of One’s Own and The Sacred Hoop resonate with each other in striving to recuperate women’s history and literature, long denied or suppressed by patriarchal tenets and texts. A fruitful dialogic also emerges between Three Guineas and The Sacred Hoop, both of which argue for the eradication of patriarchy in favor of female-centric social …
Moving Forward/Looking Back: Reclaiming And Revising Our Feminist Past And Searching For Solidarity, Cassandra Denise Fetters
Moving Forward/Looking Back: Reclaiming And Revising Our Feminist Past And Searching For Solidarity, Cassandra Denise Fetters
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
Interweaving personal anecdotes, feminist theory, and literary and popular culture references, this article attempts to provide answers to the question of how we build a social movement and establish solidarity among women while still recognizing and respecting difference. The article traces historical accounts of feminists contending with the “difference impasse” and argues that we should return to and revise the feminist thought that preceded us, weaving together theories from our feminist past with contemporary models, including those of feminist psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin and her ideas of “mutual recognition” and intersubjectivity. Drawing on fictional accounts from literature by women writers, the …
Teaching Postcolonial Literature In An Elite University: An Edinburgh Lecturer’S Perspective, Michelle Keown
Teaching Postcolonial Literature In An Elite University: An Edinburgh Lecturer’S Perspective, Michelle Keown
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
This reflective essay explores some of the pedagogical challenges I have faced in teaching postcolonial literature and theory at the University of Edinburgh. There are particular social dynamics at work at Edinburgh that make engaging with intersectionality, particularly in the context of colonialism and racism, a rather complex endeavor. Edinburgh is a Russell Group university, and our undergraduate constituency is overwhelmingly white, middle class and British, with a high proportion of students coming from British public-school backgrounds. Many of these students approach postcolonial writing with well-meaning liberal intentions, but often adopt what Graham Huggan (2001) would term an exoticizing perspective …
Mother Of A New World? Stereotypical Representations Of Black Women In Three Postapocalyptic Films, Karima K. Jeffrey
Mother Of A New World? Stereotypical Representations Of Black Women In Three Postapocalyptic Films, Karima K. Jeffrey
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
This essay explores three cinematic representations of Black matriarchs who play prophetic roles in redeeming humanity in the midst of apocalyptic change: Ika (Quest for Fire), Kee (Children of Men), and The Oracle (The Matrix trilogy). Not only do these courageous women resist the politics of domination, rebelling against a dying status quo, but they "give birth" to the leaders needed to rebuild a world in chaos and decay. One film ends with a pregnant woman rubbing her belly as she stands on the precipice of evolutionary change; another positions a mother and newborn adrift, waiting to be found by …
(Re)Pinning Our Hopes On Social Media: Pinterest And Women's Discursive Strategies, Katherine Gantz
(Re)Pinning Our Hopes On Social Media: Pinterest And Women's Discursive Strategies, Katherine Gantz
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
Pinterest, the theme-based image-sharing website, has seen a predominantly female usership since its launch in 2010. Unique in both its design and its demographics in the US, the site has generated distinctive patterns of use, posing new questions about how women are claiming this particular spot in social media as their own. Supported by both feminist linguistic and social science research, this article undertakes a discussion of Pinterest's implicit and explicit gendered protocols of usership, which result in what I argue is an emerging women's online rhetoric. Through the examination of images and accompanying comments taken from the site, I …
What's Feminism Got To Do With It? Examination Of Feminism In Women's Everyday Lives, Claire Carter
What's Feminism Got To Do With It? Examination Of Feminism In Women's Everyday Lives, Claire Carter
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
In recent decades there has been considerable debate about the role and meaning of feminism in younger women's lives. Feminism can be understood as an empowering discourse, fostering critical awareness and resistance to dominant social norms. However, it can also be experienced as regulatory and disciplinary, clearly defining who and what constitutes a "good" feminist. Utilizing Michel Foucault's principle of care of the self, this paper analyzes women's body practices in relation both to women's interpretation of feminism and to dominant feminist discourses. The complexities of negotiating diverse social identities, as well as women's desire for a happier life and …
Moving Beyond "Slaves, Sinners, And Saviors": An Intersectional Feminist Analysis Of Us Sex-Trafficking Discourses, Law And Policy, Carrie N. Baker
Moving Beyond "Slaves, Sinners, And Saviors": An Intersectional Feminist Analysis Of Us Sex-Trafficking Discourses, Law And Policy, Carrie N. Baker
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
This article analyzes stories and images of sex trafficking in current mainstream US public discourses, including government publications, NGO materials, news media, and popular films. Noting the similarities and differences among these discourses, the first part demonstrates that they often frame sex trafficking using a rescue narrative that reiterates traditional beliefs and values regarding gender, sexuality, and nationality, relying heavily on patriarchal and orientalist tropes. Reflecting this rescue narrative, mainstream public policies focus on criminal justice solutions to trafficking. The second part suggests alternative frameworks that empower rather than rescue trafficked people. The article argues that the dominant criminal justice …
Irish American Women: Forgotten First-Wave Feminists, Sally Barr Ebest
Irish American Women: Forgotten First-Wave Feminists, Sally Barr Ebest
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
Numerous books have been written about American feminism and its influence on education and society. But none have recognized the key role played by Irish American women in exposing injustice and protecting their rights. Certainly their literary heritage, inherent knowledge of English, and membership in the single largest ethnic group gave them an advantage. But their dual positions as colonized, second-class citizens of their country and their religion gave them their political edge, a trait that has been evident since the Irish first stepped off the boat and that continues to this day. This essay focuses on the first wave …
Feminist Debate In Taiwan's Buddhism: The Issue Of The Eight Garudhammas, Chiung Hwang Chen
Feminist Debate In Taiwan's Buddhism: The Issue Of The Eight Garudhammas, Chiung Hwang Chen
Journal of Feminist Scholarship
In 2001, during an academic conference on Humanistic Buddhism in Taipei, Venerable Shi Zhaohui, accompanied by a few Buddhist clergy and laypeople, tore apart a copy of the Eight Garudhammas (Eight Heavy Rules), regulations that govern the behavior of Buddhist nuns. Zhaohui's symbolic act created instant controversy as Taiwan's Buddhist community argued about the rules' authenticity and other issues within Buddhist monastic affairs. This paper examines the debate over the Eight Garudhammas and situates the debate within Taiwan's cultural terrain as well as the worldwide Buddhist feminist movement. I argue that while Zhaohui's call resulted in the abolishment of the …