Showing papers in "Journal of Gender Studies in 1996"

Playing it straight: Masculinities, homophobias and schooling

Abstract: The paper looks at the ways homophobias are expressed by young men in school. We focus on the verbal and physical manifestation of these displays to question the relation this has to the formation of hetrosexual masculinities. Our analysis suggests male identities are being worked out at a performative level where homophobic practices are fused with the struggle for a particular masculinity. Such investments illustrate why homophobia is so difficult to challenge within male peer groups. Throughout the research several questions arose: Why is homophobia rife within the cultures of young men? How are these views expressed in school? What functions does homophobia serve for pupil cultures and schooling? To begin to interpret some of these questions we adopt an ethnographic approach that reveals the internal dimensions of homophobic performances. Our work focuses on the complex inter relationships of masculinity, homophobia and schooling.

Being a man and becoming a nurse: Three men's stories

Abstract: The entry of men into nursing and their disproportionate dominance of the senior positions within the occupation raises some interesting questions about the influence of hegemonic patriarchal attitudes and orientations within this setting. Morgan (’Discovering Men, Routledge, London, 1992) explains that masculinity is not the possession or non‐possession of certain traits. It has to do with the maintenance of certain kinds of relationships between men and men, and women and men. Masculinities need to be understood as sets of attitudes which in varying degrees contribute to the maintenance and reproduction of patriarchal systems. Using this understanding of masculinity the paper examines how first year male nurses approach their entry into nursing. This examination demonstrates the process by which dominance by men is achieved and explains why women nurses need to be aware of the strategies used.

Disciplining women in contemporary discourses of sexuality

Abstract: Although the boundaries demarcating what is permissible for women may have changed, contemporary discourses of women and (hetero)sexuality still define women's sexuality in relation to men and deny women autonomy. This paper explores dominant themes in contemporary discourses to illustrate this: the domestification of pornography; the search for gender equivalence; the construction of female (hetero) sexual desire as a means of self expression. While such themes may be taken to signal women's sexual assertiveness and equality with men, I argue that they can be understood, historically, as manifestations of the same discourse in which women are identified with their bodies, sexualised within a disciplining heterosexuality and their liberation constructed in predominantly (hetero)sexual terms. Based on Foucault's work on power, sexuality and ‘techniques of the self, my analysis suggests that women's sexuality is shaped and controlled through the creation of new demands and coercive practices of the...

Everywhere to go but home: On (re) (dis) (un) location

Abstract: Women of colour who have migrated from ex‐colonies to the ‘West’ are located within a complicated matrix of outsider‐witkin social relationships where they are not only sexualised as women but also racialised as non‐white female Other in Eurocentric societies. Contemporary feminist debates have already raised complex issues about the construction of the female Self with the assertion that subjectivities are not only a result of sexual socialisation but that the Self is equally a product of individual locationing, in historical time, geographical space, and within hierarchised frameworks of power relationships. However, most of the current research into this multilayered subjectivity is from the literary and representational disciplines and sociologists have been slow to undertake empirical investigations of the questions raised by these debates. My research is an ethnographic study centred around narratives of immigration experiences. This paper is based on the oral accounts of the (re) (dis) (un...

Feminism, matrilinealism, and the ‘house of women’ in contemporary women's fiction

Abstract: In this paper I use the Bakhtinian concept of the ‘chronotope’ to investigate the ways in which a matrilineal narrative affects the space/time structures of some recent women's fiction. The intersection of feminism and matrilinealism produces particular kinds of structures: in feminist matrilineal narratives, there are often two time‐frames going on at once. There is a synchronic, horizontal plane, on which the generations of women are united by a common femaleness; and a diachronic, vertical axis of descent, leading back into the past and forward into the future. The house inhabited by several generations of women is a very useful spatial device to bring together the synchronic and diachronic patterns that a feminist matrilinealism sets up. I investigate these patterns in relation to Sara Maitland's Three Times Table, Catherine Cookson's House of Women and Tanith Lee's ‘Wolfland’.

Subalternity and gender: Problems of post‐colonial Irishness

Abstract: This paper examines the possible relationships between gender and nation in Irish culture, placing Ireland in the context of post‐colonial theory and arguing that Gramsci's notion of the ‘subaltern’ (later adapted by post‐colonial theorists) offers a useful way in which to begin to understand how gender and ‘Irishness’ co‐exist. The paper argues that Gramsci's definition of the subaltern, when translated into a post‐colonial context, implies a critique of the formation of nationalism as a force of liberation and suggests that gender, as an alternative subalternity, tends to be dominated and overwritten by the influence of nationalism. Debates in Irish culture which examine the relationship between gender and nation are discussed and Gerry Adams’ short story ‘The Rebel’ examined as an example of a complex reiteration of the domination of the concept of the nation over gender within subalternity. The paper concludes by offering some thoughts on the nature of gendered‐subaltern post‐colonial reading...

Palestinian Costume, the Intifada and the Gendering of Nationalist Discourse

Abstract: The essay explores why the peasant woman's costume has become one of the dominant representations of Palestinian cultural identity. The costume was traditionally a marker of regional and familial identity, however it has been invested with multiple meanings as a result of the dispossession and exile of Palestinian communities. The focus of the conflict are competing claims to the same territory. Thus the use of peasant symbolism is a result of Palestinians being engaged in articulating an identity rooted in the land. Nationalist discourses through imaging the women in traditional dress have sought to prescribe women's national role as confined to the domestic sphere. However the costume's design and significance is continually transformed by women. In re‐making the dress, women express their national aspirations and have used the dress to challenge the positions assigned to them in national discourses, this was particularly evident during the Intifada uprising when women wearing flag dresses cros...

Dancing with Derrida: Anti‐essentialism and the politics of female subjectivity

Abstract: This paper grapples with the crucial question of how to affirm the positioning of female subjectivity in light of contemporary critiques of the subject. This involves a critical engagement with Derrida's deconstruction. First, I interrogate his use of metaphors of femininity and the figure of ‘Woman’, its inherent masculinism and its relation (if any) to ‘real life’ women. Then, drawing on the work of Gayatri Spivak and Diane Elam, I consider the political implications of deconstruction's undecidability. I argue that a politics of indeterminancy does not necessarily preclude political action or ethical judgements but rather in fact demands them. Finally I consider issues of nominalism and formalism. Engaging with the work of Linda Alcoff and Teresa de Lauretis I argue that deconstruction is not purely formalist. It provides us with a means to understanding the production of gendered subjectivity.

Women farmers in south‐west England

Abstract: There has been research on women running businesses and on women as farmers’ wives, but little is known about women farmers—women running their own businesses within the rural economy. This paper reports on long interviews with nine women farmers in the South West of England. All had become involved in farming during or as a result of marriage, but at the time of the interviews all were business‐women in their own right, running farms or substantial independent businesses within a farming enterprise. The paper looks at their lives in terms of the power inherent in their positions on the one hand and the necessary interaction of domestic and farming obligations on the other. We also point out the importance of women farmers in a rural economy and the gender‐specific difficulties which they face.

Social Development and Women in Africa: The Case of Morocco

Abstract: The gap between the rich and the poor people of the world has doubled since the 1960s, and now Western development agencies, international organizations and an increasing number of Third World governments are acknowledging the need to improve living conditions for the mass of people living in developing countries At the same time, aid agencies are seeking to impose more stringent and wide‐ranging conditions on the granting of development finance, by stipulating that recipient governments must pursue policies which favour democratic participation, the promotion of human rights and the eradication of poverty This study focuses on two factors which play a vital role in the social development of disadvantaged populations It investigates the state of educational and employment opportunities for one disadvantaged group, the female population in Morocco, where the government has publicly stated the need for greater state intervention in the social development of its people The study compares the gen

Nursing a grievance: Women doctors and nurses

Abstract: The literature on doctor‐nurse relations still mostly presumes that the doctor is male and the nurse female. While there has been some interest in male nurses, especially gay ones, very little has been said about the relationship between nurses and women doctors. This paper draws on life history interviews with women doctors, and focus groups of nurses to explore the relationship. Nurses of both sexes were more positive about women doctors than vice versa but the two versions mesh: nurses prefer working with women doctors because the latter are less demanding and have a more consultative style; the doctors, however, resent what they see as the compromises they have to make. Some of the tensions between female doctors and, in particular, female nurses, derive from the deliberate construction of ‘modem’ medical and nursing identities as normatively masculine and feminine and the impossibility for women doctors of playing the ‘doctor‐nurse game’. Woman doctors were expected be a blend of nurse and d...

Gender equality and community rights: Paradoxes of liberal democracy in India

Abstract: Today, the women's movement has an uneasy relationship with liberal democracy. While most women activists continue to acknowledge the importance of democracy, they remain sceptical of the possibility of empowering women through the liberal individualist ethic. Intervening in this debate about the relevance of liberalism for women's struggles, this paper argues that in countries like India, it is the procedural aspect of liberal democracy that is a bigger stumbling block. Analysing the Indian experience, it maintains that the twin concerns of autonomy and equality are nether central to the functioning of a democracy nor realised in every democracy. Democratic practices, particularly those associated with limited representative government, are not sufficient guarantee of women's interests. In fact, the logic of representative government often goes against the interests of women. This is particularly true of democracies where equality between groups rather than individual autonomy is the operating p...

Post‐colonial Women's Colonised States: Mothering and m‐othering in Bessie Head's A Question of Power and Kamala Das’ My Story

Abstract: Post‐colonial women's colonized states—political, social, psychological—arise out of personal experiences of patriarchal domination, and out of political impositions of colonial and imperialist exploitations. Women writers from areas of the world like India, Nigeria, Jamaica share a British colonial past and resultant neo‐ and post‐colonial realities that impinge on nearly every aspect of life, for instance, standard English, an imposed language that now carries enormous power among peoples with various indigenous languages; and for women particularly, the impact of colonisation on cultural traditions and sexual politics. A study of mothering and m‐othering is contextualised within a historicised analysis of women's colonised states, how women's bodies and minds are colonised, their resistances to this, before and after the historical events of colonisation. Further, a cross‐cultural study that reveals the similarities and differences within this shared colonial history for women, enables writers...

The dark side of goodness: Women, social norms and mental health

Abstract: Within the context of the historical literature on the link between femininity and madness, and current psychiatric research on the mental health of women, this paper focuses on the lives of two women, who have suffered from severe mental illnesses and have been users of psychiatric services for over 30 years. Both cases illustrate the negative impact of the Irish concept of a ‘good woman’ on the mental health of those who do not fit easily into this category. They also illustrate the extent to which mental health professionals uphold traditional values by failing to question social situations which are obviously oppressive.

Codes in Conflict: Post‐independence alienation in Anita Desai's early novels

Abstract: Many Indian novels of the early post‐independence years are characterised by a certain paralysis of both form and content, and a withdrawal from the public sphere. This essay, with reference to three of Anita Desai's early novels, examines post‐independence malaise as reflected in the internal conflicts of her female protagonists. These conflicts can be seen as symptomatic of contradictions within the Indian nationalist discourse, as Desai both rejects and reproduces its dominant structures and symbols. The ideological underpinnings of nationalism that are available to Desai and her protagonists are tried and found wanting, but alternative models are either lacking or rendered inarticulate by the political climate. The novels’ themes and conceptual frameworks are caught between nationalist rhetoric and women's lived realities, producing impossible double‐binds that result only in self‐destruction. Desai's work is illuminated by a growing body of scholarship on the gendered construction of Indian ...

Engaging with gender: Star trek's ‘next generation‘® [1]

Abstract: In this article I examine the representation of gender roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation and explore whether the vision of the twenty‐fourth century advanced by the series also incorporates a futuristic vision of gender, or whether it merely perpetuates twentieth‐century gender stereotypes and preconceptions. I argue that although the series presents obvious moves towards androgyny and sexual equality in career function and shows many women in pioneering roles, the latter are only peripheral figures and are not a permanent feature of the weekly episodes. The recurring female characters still conform to today's stereotypes of femininity and occupy positions which perpetuate essentialist stereotypes of nurturance, sensitivity and desire for romance. Similarly, the leading men conform to stereotypes of strength and authority. This situation perpetuates the prescriptive notion of gender‐stereotyped behaviour for both sexes, since only the minor figures are permitted to deviate from these paradi...

The gender of post‐colonialism

Abstract: This article looks at Britain from the perspective of those who fall between two stools: they were born in the UK but have a cultural/ethnic difference that sets them apart. The colonial world created this difference, and this article traces in particular the implications of colonialism on Indian migrants. It then goes on to look at the cultural divide from a gender perspective, which cuts across the fight for racial equality. Finally, it assumes a personal stance in noting the very specific battles that the writer has faced both as a woman and as an ‘ethnic minority’, but also does express a belief that this is a voice speaking for many.

Contesting Identities: Involvement and resistance of women in the Indian National Movement

Abstract: In this paper, I have examined the construction of forms of historical consciousness in narratives or schools of narrative by treating historical fiction as the literary dimension of nationalist ideology. By focusing particularly on the politics of representation of women in the 1930s national movement in India, I have tried to show that the idea of nationalism and its manifestation in historical fiction, which underwrites the freedom struggle, and the actual roles played by women in that struggle, diverge widely. One of the ways of demythologising the homogeneous histories of the national movement is through the demystification of the genre of historical fiction, for it is common to find that existing stereotypes of Indian women were affirmed and solidified in the process of building Indian national identity through literature and its writing by the Indian nationalist intelligentsia. I have considered Raja Rao's (1938) novel, Kanthapura (Delhi Orient) to shed light on the construction of the Ved...

Engendering equality: From writer to reader

Abstract: This paper is a personal exploration by a children's writer and educationalist of (a) the transaction that takes place between writer and reader in the creation and reading of a text; (b) her own engendered and racialised upbringing in South Africa, including the role of books; (c) the responsibility as a children's writer of ‘realistic fiction’ as to where she places herself and implicitly her readers (although they may choose otherwise); (d) the engendered nature of reading, including data from her own research exploring white British students’ responses to racism through literature, with a greater tendency amongst the girls towards articulating non‐racist discourse; (e) the importance of the context and culture of the classroom in which texts are read and of addressing issues of both ‘race’ and gender in post‐colonial Britain.

A woman's little madness

Abstract: This essay explores Pocomania, the 1938 play by Jamaican author Una Marson which brought together troublesome conceptions of Black women's identity against a background of colonial oppression and strict gender division. In Marson's work, native religion becomes the absolute sign of healing, resolving the pain and pathology imposed by the State. The essay also demonstrates Una Marson's significance as a foregrounding Caribbean playwright and how come she is (at last) celebrated within the region.

New women performance writers; Rose English and Holly Hughes

Abstract: This paper suggests a particular framework for investigating contemporary women performance artists who write and perform written texts. It argues that these texts are an important force in contemporary feminist writing, and that they are largely ignored as such. Two texts are analysed in detail, these are; Rose English's Walks on Water and Holly Hughes’ World Without End. This is guided by the play between the physical presence of the perfomer, and the concern within the texts to destabilise a complete sense of self/refuse the simplicity of binaries. The paper argues that these texts, and these women's performance of them, crack open the possibilities of the performative.

An open letter to Stevie Davies

Abstract: Closing the Book Stevie Davies, 1994 London, The Women's Press 244 pp., 0–7043–4388–6, pb £6.99