 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Τελευταία νέα
|
| Βιβλιοθήκη |
|
The forty-two essays gathered here constitute some of the best and most significant recent English-language work in the field of lesbian/gay studies. They are derived from a wide variety of disciplines -- philosophy, classics, history, anthropology, sociology, African-American studies, ethnic studies, literary studies, and cultural studies. They produce and engage many different kinds of knowledge and meaning: they examine a range of topics and subjects for further inquiry demonstrating the cogency of different methods, theories, styles, and approaches: taken together, they transform our view of cultures and the world. As the essays collected here demonstrate, lesbian/gay studies is not limited to the study of lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men. Nor do they refer simply to studies undertaken by, or in the name of, lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men. Not at all research into the lives of lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men necessarily qualifies as lesbian/gay studies. Lesbian/gay studies does for sex and sexuality what women's studies does for gender, continuing to furnish the categories of sexuality and gender with significance for discussions in both women studies and lesbian/gay studies: hence, the interface of boundaries between the fields of lesbian/ gay studies is a matter of lively debate and ongoing negotiation. Lesbian/gay studies attempts to decipher the sexual meanings inscribed in many different forms of cultural expression while also attempting to decipher the cultural meanings inscribed in the discourses and practices of sex.
The Multi-National Women's Liberation Group was established in Athens in 1975 to provide both a meeting place for foreign and Greek women, and a forum to discuss issues and problems of women. Since it was found that many of the members continued to have adjustment difficulties, even after deciding to live in Greece permanently, and perhaps after marrying and having had children in Greece, the group conducted a series of seminars and study groups in September and October 1977. Following these it was decided to that a broad survey be conducted to specifically elucidate those areas where foreign women face problems and need help in adapting to life in Greece. Through the results of the survey the group hoped to be able to guide existing services such as the International Social Service and the various embassy consular services to address women's needs, to set up appropriate support services through the Women's Liberation Group, to develop a booklet with pertinent information and to distribute it widely. Qasmin Amin (1863-1908), an Egyptian lawyer, is best known for his advocacy of women's emancipation in Egypt, through a number of works including The Liberation of Women and The New Woman. In the first of these important books in 1899, he started from foreign domination, and used arguments based on Islam to call for an improvement in the status of women. In doing so, he promoted the debate on women in Egypt from a side issue to a major national concern, but he also subjected himself to severe criticism from the khedival palace, as well as from religious leaders, journalists, and writers. In response to these criticisms, he wrote The New Woman, Amin relies less on arguments based on the Quran and sayings of the Prophet, and more openly espouses a Western model of development. Although published a century ago, these two books continue to be a source of controversy and debate in the Arab feminist movement. The Liberation of Women and The New Woman appear here in English translation for the first time in one volume.
Why is bisexuality the object of such scepticism? Why do sexologists steer clear of it in their research? Why has bisexuality, in stark contrast to homosexuality, only recently emerged as a nascent political and cultural identity? Bisexuality has been rendered as mostly irrelevant to the history, theory, and politics of sexuality. With A History of Bisexuality, Steven Angelides explores the reasons why, and invites us to rethink our conceptions about sexual identity. Retracing the evolution of sexology, and revisiting modern epistemological categories of sexuality in psychoanalysis, gay liberation, social constructionism, queer theory. Biology, and human genetics, Angelides argues that bisexuality has functioned historically as the structural other to sexual identity itself, undermining assumptions about heterosexuality and homosexuality. This book sets out to place Cypriot migration to Britain within the context of New Commonwealth migration as a whole and within current developments in the field of racial and ethnic relations. It provides an account of the economic and social position of Cypriots in British society paying particular attention to a number of central theoretical and political debates relating to class, ethnicity, racism and gender. The book argues that migrant groups have to be understood in terms of the interaction between the internal cultural and social differentiations within the group and the wider structural, institutional and ideological processes of the country of migration. Gender divisions and the family are seen as central in understanding the forms of settlement and the economic and social placement of a migrant group.
Despite promises from Western policy makers and financial institutions that capitalist globalization will eventually improve the economic welfare of all nations, overwhelming evidence thus far indicates that it has not only succeeded in enriching the few at the expense of the many. It has also created an international division of labor in which a female proletariat, composed primarily of women of color, is consigned to the lowest-paid and least secure jobs with the worst working conditions. Delia D. Aguilar and Anne E. Lacsamana have assembled a provocative collection of articles showing the various ways in which the neoliberal agenda of globalization has drawn women into productive labor and in the process radically reshaped their lives in the reproductive sphere. Implemented primarily through the structural adjustment programs required by international financial agencies, neoliberalism has intensified women's exploitation on the assembly line and spawned an unprecedented diaspora of women as mail-order brides, domestic helpers, and workers in the sex trade. Many of the essays describe the appalling conditions that characterize these work sites. Not less important, they underscore the vitality of grassroots organizations where women collectively wage battles for better work lives and envision a system more humane than what currently exists. Desire and Domestic Fiction argues that far from being removed from historical events, novels by writers from Richardson to Woolf were themselves agents of the rise of the middle class. Drawing on texts that range from 18th-century female conduct books and contract theory to modern psychoanalytic case histories and theories of reading, Armstrong shows that the emergence of a particular form of female subjectivity capable of reigning over the household paved the way for the establishment of institutions which today are accepted centers of political power. Neither passive subjects nor embattled rebels, the middle-class women who were authors and subjects of the major tradition of British fiction were among the forgers of a new form of power that worked in, and through, their writing to replace prevailing notions of "identity" with a gender-determined subjectivity. Examining the works of such novelists as Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and the Bront?s, she reveals the ways in which these authors rewrite the domestic practices and sexual relations of the past to create the historical context through which modern institutional power would seem not only natural but also humane, and therefore to be desired. The attempt to supplant traditional gender roles was an important element of the Bolshevik drive to transform society in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. This book explores the constitution of gender identity in the soviet system and examines the implications of the collapse of communism for the gender roles of both men and women. Gender, state and society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, addresses the important questions raised by the rise and fall of the soviet experiment in transforming gender relations. On the basis of qualitative research, the contributors analyze both the state prescription of gender roles and the active role of men and women in defining gender identities within the institutional parameters laid down by the state. This is one of the few English language studies to focus on men and masculinity, something which is vital to understanding gender relations in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia. This book takes the process of "reading the body" into fields at the forefront of culture -- the vast spaces mapped by science and technology -- to show that the body in a high-tech world is as gendered as ever. From female bodybuilding to virtual reality images, from cosmetic surgery to cyberpunk, from reproductive medicine to public health policies to TV science programs, Anne Balsamo articulates the key issues concerning the status of the body for feminist cultural studies in a postmodern world. Technologies of the Gendered Body combine close readings of popular texts-- such as Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale, the movie Pumping Iron II:The Women, cyberpunk magazines, and mass media-- with analyses of medical literature, public policy documents, and specific technological practices. Balsamo describes the ways in which certain biotechnologies are ideologically shaped by gender considerations and other beliefs about race, physical abilities, and economic and legal status. She presents a view of the conceptual system that structures individuals' access to and participation in these technologies, as well as an overview of individuals' rights and responsibilities in this sometimes baffling area. Examining the ways in which the body is gendered in its interactions with new technologies of corporeality, Technologies of the Gendered Body counters the claim that in our scientific culture the material body has become obsolete.
Economics has tended to be a very male, middle class, white discipline. Introducing Race and Gender into Economics is a ground-breaking book which generates ideas for integrating race and gender issues into introductory eocnomics courses. Each section gives an overview of how to modify standard courses, including macroeconomics, methodology, microeconomics as well as race and gender-sensitive issues. This up-to-date work will be of increasing importance to all teachers of introductory economics. Que sont devenus les ouvriers? Objet de toutes les attentions depuis la revolution industrielle jusau'aux annees 1980, les travailleurs d'usine n'interessent plus grand mond apres l'echec du projet communiste et l'effondrement de leurs bastions industriels. Parmi ces derniers, l'automobile. Dancs ce secteur, les usines Peugeot de Montbeliard occuperent longtemps une place de choix: forte concentration ouvriere, taux exceptionnel de syndicalisation, toute une region organisee autour de ses ateliers. Les choses ont bien change aujourd'hui, puisque si les effectifs s'elevaient a 42,000 salaries en 1979, l'usine ne conpte plus que 20,000 travailleurs. En depit de cette reduction drastique, Peugeot-Montbelieard est la plus grande usine de France.
"Voila des siecles qu'on epilogue pour decider si la femme est inferieure, superieure a l'homme, ou son egale. 'Cen't un homme manque', dit saint Thomas; un 'os surnumeraire', rencherit Bossuet; Michelet l'appelle 'l'etre relatif'. Mai si Eve a ete tiree d'un os, Adman naquit d'un paquet de boue; si le Christ s'est fait homme, c'est peut-etre par humilite. Poulain de la Barre nous met en grade: 'Tout ce que a ete ecrit par les hommes sure les femmes doit etre tenu pour suspect, car ils sont a la fois juge et partie."
Dans ce second volume, Simone de Beauvoir entreprend 'd'etudier avec soin le destin traditionnel de la femme', c'est a dire de 'situer' la femme. 'Comment la femme dait-elle l'apprentissage de sa condition, comment l'eprouve-t-elle, lands quel univers se trouve-t-elle enfermee, quelles evasions lui sont permises, voila ce que je chercherai a decrire." D'abord sa formation: dans l'enfance, dans l'adolescence, dans l'initiation sexuelle, tout semble dispose, agence, pour creuser davantage le fosse naturel qui la separe de l'homme, pour transformer des differences en inegalite, et cette inegalite en inferiorite. Despite the recent publishing boom in queer studies, few texts cover a broad range of topics around sexual and gender identities. Most existing works are overly complex theoretical books, texts focused upon specific disciplines or topics, or practical guides aimed primarily at a heterosexual audience or people just beginning to come out. To date, there has been no general, accessible, and inclusive work suitable for use as an introduction to queer studies. Queer Studies is a wide-ranging anthology which discusses the nature and diversity of queer studies, its foundations, and some of the most pressing issues in the field today. Some contributors assess the conflict between postmodernism and theories of identity politics. Others address queer theory, looking specifically at how we define it, how we might use it to inform political activism, and how we can theorize such aspects of sexual performance/behaviors as s/m or butch/femme relationships. Other theories are also introduced and critiqued as contributors explain the value of feminist, cultural, and postmodern positions for queer theory. Building Bodies is an arresting collection of articles that construct theoretical models in which power, bodies, discourse, and subjectivity interact in a space we can call the "built" body, a dynamic, politicized, and biological site. Contributors discuss the complex relationship between body building and masculinity, between the built body and the racialized body, representations of female body builders in print and in film, and homoeroticism in body building. Linked by their focus on the sport and practice of body building, the authors in this volume challenge both the way their various disciplines (media studies, literary criticism, gender studies, film and sociology) have gone about studying bodies, and existing assumptions about the complex relationship between power, subjectivity, society, and the flesh. Body building - in practice, in representation, and in the cultural imagination - serves as an launching point because the sport and practice provide ready challenges to existing assumptions regarding what constitutes the "built" body. The second edition of this highly successful anthology makes available to the feminist reader a collection of essays which does justice to the range and diversity, as well as to the eloquence and the challenge, of recent feminist critical theory and practice. The new, enlarged Feminist Reader includes Toni Morrison's brilliant discussion of a Hemingway short story, Line Pouchard's reading of Radclyfe Hall's lesbian classic The Well of Loneliness, Marjorie Garber on Elvis and cross-dressing, and Diane Elam on the relation between feminism and postmodernism, in addition to a selection of influential essays by prominent feminist critics and theorists.The book arose directly from the editor's experience of teaching feminist criticism, and their sense of the need for a fully annotated, representative selection of essays for discussion. They have included a summary of each essay, a glossary of unfamiliar terms, new suggestions for further reading and an updated introduction, mapping the field of feminist critical theory. The anthology begins at the point a great many feminist readers start from, a feeling of outrage at the patriarchal nature of the literary canon and the relative exclusion of women from literary history. It goes on to consider the implications of this. Is writing by women necessarily feminist? What kind of literary history would serve the needs of feminism? Is there a women's language? Has white, Western, heterosexual feminism inadvertently been guilty of another form of oppression? What do feminists want? The essays enter into a dialogue with each other on these issues, enlisting the reader in a developing debate. This book examines the ways in which feminist analysis has made inroads into the highly technical debates and prophesies of international development and Globalization. Gender, Development, and Globalization presents the ultimate primer on global feminist economics for any student of global economics and development interested in a gendered perspective. This is an excellent book on global policy developments that have occurred since 1945 and the founding of the United Nations, particularly surrounding the UN conferences during the International Women's Decade (1975 - 1985). These include the conference in Mexico City, Mexico in 1975 where the World Plan of Action for the Implementation of the Objectives of the International Women's Year which called "for the full participation of women in all efforts to promote and maintain peace; The 1980 World Conference on the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development, and Peace held in Copenhagen Denmark in 1980; and finally the adoption of The Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, adopted at the 1985 World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievement of the United Nations Decade for Women held in Nairobi, Kenya in 1985. Using a feminist framework, this book provides an excellent critique of the militarization, patriarchy and all forms of oppression, and takes issue with all forms of violence, particularly against women.
What is a body? What are our perceptions of our inner body? Lynda Birke raises these questions and many others in the first book in this new series. While bodies may be currently fashionable in social and feminist theory, their insides are not. Biological bodies always seem to drop out of debates about the body and its importance in Western culture. They are assumed to be fixed, their workings uninteresting or irrelevant to theory. Birke argues that these static views of biology do not serve feminist politics well. As a trained biologist, she uses ideas in anatomy and physiology to develop the feminist view that the biological body is socially and culturally constructed. She rejects the assumption that the body's functioning is somehow fixed and unchanging, claiming that biological science offers more than just a deterministic narrative of "how nature works". Feminism and the Biological Body puts biological science and feminist theory together and suggests that we need a politics which includes, rather than denies, our bodily flesh. Sexology Uncensored brings together, for the first time, many of the key documents of the modern science of sexuality that emerged in the late nineteenth century. The early pioneers of the new field of sexology examined and classified sexual behaviors, identities and relations. For years much of the material here has been "censored" - difficult to obtain, subject to restrictive circulation, or available only in medical archives. This volume offers readers access to the primary materials through which contemporary sexology is founded and, as such, it is an invaluable record for all those interested in how we have come to think about sex and sexuality over the last one hundred years. The extracts in Sexology (which date from the 1880s to the 1940s) are organized thematically: gender and sexual difference, homosexualities, transexuality and bisexuality, heterosexuality, marriage and sex manuals, reproductive control, eugenics, race, and other sexual proclivities. Unbearable Weight, marked a milestone in the development of cultural criticism and gave to many within the academy and outside a substantive understanding of our culture. Truly interdisciplinary in its conceptualization and approach, it offers a whole new way of thinking and writing and living an intellectual life. It helped generate a whole new genre in literary and cultural studies that now goes under the name of "body studies". It is cited as a foundational work in sociology, philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, psychology, and many others. Unbearable Weight is included on the "must read" list of websites dedicated to the interests of women, lesbians and gays, ethnicity, feminism, and pop culture. Unbearable Weight also became a kind of bible for a young generation of scholars. In The Male Body, Susan Bordo offers a frank, sprightly, and, yes, educational look at the male nude as an index to attitudes about sexuality in the broth of media and pop culture in which, like it or not, we all stew. While the Greeks were unafraid to celebrate masculine beauty, men have been strangely sexless throughout most of Western history--until Hollywood rediscovered the male body when Marlon Brando first shed his T-shirt in "A Streetcar Named Desire". It's only been in the '90s, however, that the male image has gone so far as to reclaim its penis. From de facto censorship to near idolatry, never has an organ made such a journey in one brief decade. But it's not the penis alone that makes a man a man; perhaps, Bordo concludes, it's time for us to rethink our metaphors of manhood. That we live in an image saturated culture has come to seem routine to us. But our great-grandparents would probably have had their brain circuits blown if they were plunked down in our culture. Massive and dramatic cultural and technological changes have taken place in an extraordinarily brief period of historical time- and so recently that we have barely begun to chart their effects on our perception, cognition, and most basic experiences of the relation between reality and appearance. The images are much more ubiquitous in our lives today than they were just a decade ago. The technology for producing them is far more sophisticated, and those who produce the images seem to have no compunction about using that technology in the service of a deceptive verisimilitude. With created images setting the standard, we are becoming habituated to the glossy and gleaming, the smooth and shining, the ageless and sagless and wrinkleless. We are learning to expect "perfection" and to find any "defect" repellent or unacceptable. We expect live performances to sound like CDs, politicians to say nothing messy or disturbing, real breasts to be as round and firm as implants. Unbearable Weight, marked a milestone in the development of cultural criticism and gave to many within the academy and outside a substantive understanding of our culture. Truly interdisciplinary in its conceptualization and approach, it offers a whole new way of thinking and writing and living an intellectual life. It helped generate a whole new genre in literary and cultural studies that now goes under the name of "body studies". It is cited as a foundational work in sociology, philosophy, gender studies, disability studies, psychology, and many others. Unbearable Weight is included on the "must read" list of websites dedicated to the interests of women, lesbians and gays, ethnicity, feminism, and pop culture. This effort provides thoughful challenges to gender ideology that continually asks difficult questions about identity, orientation, and desire. Bornstein cleverly incorporates cultural criticism, dramatic writing, and autobiography to make her point that gender (which she distinguishes from sex) is a cultural rather than a natural phenomenon. The chapters range from "fashion tips'' on her writing style to a dialogue between herself and another about the "nuts and bolts'' of the surgical process of a gender change (which she has undergone). Confronting transgenderism and transgendered people is not easy for many individuals, but Bornstein does it in a way that sparks debate without putting her audience on the defensive. She suggests that "the culture may not simply be creating roles for naturally-gendered people, the culture may in fact be creating the gendered people.'' Her discussion of the "parts'' of gender is based on respected sources and includes analyses of gender assignment, identity, and roles. It is generally agreed by economists that future employment growth in developed countries will be heavily reliant on the tertiary sector. The reasons behind this important change in employment structure have been the subject of much debate and controversy. The outcomes of these discussions are of decisive importance for economic policy and the quality of working and living conditions in the future. Working in the Service Sector adds to this ongoing debate, using original research and empirical analysis from a wide range of countries. The book examines core issues such as working time, country regimes, working conditions in different employment sectors and flexibility as well as gender and work. The reader is presented with case studies and accompanying analysis for various service industries across different nations. Working in the Service Sector provides an engaging and comprehensive account of this shift in employment structure and will be of great interest to students and academics of economics as well as essential reading for policy makers. Gender, Conflict, and Development was written as an effort to fill a gap between the Bank's work on gender mainstreaming and its agenda in conflict and development. The authors identify a link between gender and conflict issues and provide the most comprehensive review of external and internal sources on gender and conflict, with a particular focus on policy relevance for an institution such as the Bank. The book highlights the gender dimensions of conflict, organized around major relevant themes such as female combatants, sexual violence, formal and informal peace processes, the legal framework, work, the rehabilitation of social services and community-driven development. And for each theme it analyzes how conflict changes gender roles and the policy options that might be considered to build on positive aspects while minimizing adverse changes. The suggested policy options and approaches aim to take advantage of the opportunity afforded by violent conflict to encourage change and build more inclusive and gender balanced social, economic and political relations in post-conflict societies. The book concludes by identifying some of the remaining challenges and themes that require additional analysis and research. Nomadic Subjects argues for a new kind of philosophical thinking, one that would include the insights of feminism and abandon the hegemonic mode that that is conventionally adopted in high theory. Rosi Braidotti's personal, surprising, and lively prose insists on an integration of feminism into the mainstream discourse. The essays explore problems that are central to current feminist debates including Western epistemology's relation to the "woman question", feminism and biomedical ethics, European feminism, and how American feminists might relate to European movements. Braidotti considers the ways in which contemporary French philosophers such as Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze address questions which are central to feminist thought though they do not acknowledge feminist theory as such. She shows that they rely on a notion of "the feminine" in order to undermine classical thought, and yet this notion is largely metaphorical and bears no direct relevance on the historical experience of women. The feminine thus becomes a means of renewing a philosophical discourse from which women continue to be paradoxically excluded. Braidotti then examines the attempts by feminist thinkers in Europe and the United States to undermine the universalizing claims of male theorists, and to show the gendered nature of discursive power games. She discusses the contributions of Luce Irigaray and many other feminist theorists to the understanding of sexual difference and of its implication for philosophy and politics. This book is a brilliant and timely analysis of the complex issues raised by the relation between women and philosophy. It will be praised as a major contribution to contemporary feminist theory and social thought. The discussions about the ethical, political and human implications of the postmodernist condition have been raging for longer than most of us care to remember. They have been especially fierce within feminism. After a brief flirtation with postmodern thinking in the 1980s, mainstream feminist circles seem to have turned their back on the staple notions of poststructuralist philosophy. Metamorphoses takes stock of the situation and attempts to reset priorities within the poststructuralist feminist agenda.Cross-referring in a creative way to Deleuze's and Irigaray's respective philosophies of difference, the book addresses key notions such as embodiment, immanence, sexual difference, nomadism and the materiality of the subject. Metamorphoses also focuses on the implications of these theories for cultural criticism and a redefinition of politics. It provides a vivid overview of contemporary culture, with special emphasis on technology, the monstrous imaginary and the recurrent obsession with 'the flesh' in the age of techno-bodies.This highly original contribution to current debates is written for those who find changes and transformations challenging and necessary. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, feminist theory, gender studies, sociology, social theory and cultural studies.
Beauty Matters brings together a compilation of academic, accessible texts that examine how gender, race and sexual orientation have informed the concept of beauty and we are driven to pursue it. The articles are largely based on the worlds of fashion, film and art. Contemporary views judge beauty by moral attitudes and scientific knowledge. Beauty Matters contrasts this with the theories of the eighteenth century philosopher Immanuel Kant, who held that the beauty is solely based on one`s direct, personal response. Whatever the case, defining beauty remains a daunting challenge, one now overshadowed by issues of political correctness. Of particular interest for gay male readers is Susan Bordo's article on the modern use of male imagery. Originally titled 'Gay Men`s Revenge', here renamed 'Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body', Bordo pontificates on Calvin Klein adverts and the objectification of male models. She sees Klein`s use of men in his adverts as a culmination of an aesthetic style pursued throughout the twentieth century by several photographers, such as George Platt Lynes and Robert Mapplethorpe. This book argues that increasing engagement between international institutions and sectors of civil society is producing a new form of global governance. The authors investigate 'complex multilateralism' by studying the relationship between three multilateral economic institutions (the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organization), and three global social movements (environmental, labour, and women's movements). They provide a rich comparative analysis of the institutional response to social movement pressure, tracing institutional change, policy modification and social movement tactics as they struggle to influence the rules and practices governing trade, finance and development regimes. The competition to shape global governance is increasingly being conducted on a number of levels with a diverse set of actors. Analysing a unique breadth of institutions and movements, this book charts an important part of that contest. Original and compelling, Laura Briggs's Reproducing Empire shows how, for both Puerto Ricans and North Americans, ideologies of sexuality, reproduction, and gender have shaped relations between the island and the mainland. From science to public policy, the "culture of poverty" to overpopulation, feminism to Puerto Rican nationalism, this book uncovers the persistence of concerns about motherhood, prostitution, and family in shaping the beliefs and practices of virtually every player in the twentieth-century drama of Puerto Rican colonialism. In this way, it reveals the legacies haunting contemporary debates over globalization. Original and compelling, Laura Briggs's Reproducing Empire shows how, for both Puerto Ricans and North Americans, ideologies of sexuality, reproduction, and gender have shaped relations between the island and the mainland. From science to public policy, the "culture of poverty" to overpopulation, feminism to Puerto Rican nationalism, this book uncovers the persistence of concerns about motherhood, prostitution, and family in shaping the beliefs and practices of virtually every player in the twentieth-century drama of Puerto Rican colonialism. In this way, it reveals the legacies haunting contemporary debates over globalization.
Orphaned Jane Eyre, hated by her aunt and cousins, is sent away to Lowood School. Though life improves for Jane, she longs for true love and friendship. Then one day she meets Mr. Rochester, and everything changes...
Feminist Perspectives on the Body provides an accessible introduction to this very popular subject area and is aimed at students from a variety of disciplines interested in gaining an understanding of the key issues involved. The author explores many important topics including: the Western world's construction of the body as a theoretical, philosophical and political concept, the body and reproduction, medicalisation, cosmetic surgery and eating disorders, the body in performance, the private and the public body, working bodies and new ways of thinking about the body. Twenty-two experts share their extensive knowledge on women's preoccupation with body size. They consider the continuum of eating behaviours ranging from dieting and exercise for weight control to anorexia and bulimia, and explore recent research in such areas as the failure of dieting to control weight, and the increasingly disputed links traditionally made between weight and health. In his book Peter Brown addresses the practice of permanent sexual renunciation--continence, celibacy, and life-long virginity--that developed in Christian circles from the first to the fifth centuries A.D. Brown vividly describes the early Christians and their strange, disturbing preoccupations. He follows in detail the reflection and controversy these notions generated among Christian writers. Among the topics covered are marriage and sexuality in the Roman world, Judaism and the early church, Origen and the tradition of spiritual guidance, sexuality in the desert fathers and Augustine and sexuality. The Body and Society is a significant study on sexuality and the family in the ancient world by a renowned scholar. Besides being of great interest to readers in ancient history and early church history, and to classicists and medievalists, it will engage readers concerned with women's studies and the history of sexuality. Until recently, the realm of politics has been limited almost exclusively to men. Wendy Brown, with her unerring aim for the essential, exposes the historical link between men's politics and the character and content of political thought and practice in a genderdivided world. This feminist analysis of Western political thought goes straight to the heart of the matter--bypassing the "woman issue"--to lay bare, with irresistible logic, the development of the ideal of man and manhood and its influence on the ontological basis of Western political thought. An interpretation of the works of three giants of classical political theory constitutes the main body of this work: Aristotle, who proclaimed man a political animal and the world of the polis his natural habitat; Machiavelli, who associated political excellence with virt?--the exertion needed to channel action, cunning, and strength to achieve one's goals; and Max Weber, who called for a politician endowed with heroic stature to save politics from the desultory process of bureaucratic rationalization. Manhood and Politics is an original, often acerbic reading of familiar themes in classical works. Professor Brown artfully weaves the dissimilarities of fundamentally masculine political theories into a depiction of points of similarity in constructing ideals of manhood and, in the process, provides touchstones for an alternative, "postmasculinist" politics. "States are where the power lies," and "power is gendered". With these simple statements, Lisa D. Brush turns a gendered lens on states, power, and governance, showing the inherent inequalities in political systems and gender systems and how they intersect. Her gender lens allows a clear assessment of the different effects state power and social policies have on men and women, highlighting both difference and dominance in the governance of gender. She then turns her eye on the way that the state power supports male dominance, the gender of governance. Her nuanced arguments, supported by cases from the United States and other Western political systems, will make this book a useful antidote to traditional textbooks on government, the state, politics, and social policy.
Τα ζητήματα που εγείρει ο φεμινισμός έχουν κεντρική θέση στον τρόπο οργάνωσης της ανθρώπινης κοινωνίας και στον τρόπο με τον οποίο αντιλαμβανόμαστε τον κόσμο. Στο βιβλίο αυτό η Valerie Bryson προσφέρει μια διεξοδική εξέταση της ιστορίας της δυτικής φεμινιστικής σκέψης, από τον 17ο αιώνα μέχρι τις μέρες μας, και μια οξυδερκή ανάλυση των σύγχρονων αντιπαραθέσεων. Μας παρουσιάζει μια προσιτή και γόνιμη για τη σκέψη ανάλυση σύνθετων θεωριών και εννοιών, συνδέοντάς τες με ζητήματα της "αληθινής ζωής", όπως η σεξουαλική βία, η πολιτική εκπροσώπηση και η οικογένεια. Το βιβλίο αυτό αποδεικνύει ότι ο φεμινισμός ακόμη και σήμερα είναι σημαντικός, καθώς και ότι μια έγκυρη θεωρία μπορεί να μας βοηθήσει να κατανοήσουμε το γιατί εξακολουθούν να υφίστανται τόσα προβλήματα και το πώς θα μπορούσε να επιτευχθεί η πρόοδος. Ένα βασικό ανάγνωσμα για όλους όσοι ενδιαφέρονται για τη φεμινιστική σκέψη και την πολιτική θεωρία. As a form of power, subjection is paradoxical. To be dominated by a power external to oneself is a familiar and agonizing form power takes. To find however, that what "one" is, one's very formation as a subject, is dependent upon that very power is quite another. If, following Foucault, we understand power as forming the subject as well, it provides the very condition of the subject's existence and the trajectory of its desire/ power is then not simply what we depend on but that which forms reflexivity as well. Drawing upon Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault and Althusser, this challenging and lucid work offers a theory of subject formation that illuminates as ambivalent the psychic effects of social power. To claim that power fabricates the psyche is also to claim that there is a fictional and fabricated quality to the psyche. The figure of a psyche that "turns against itself" is crucial to this study, and offers an alternative to describing power as "internalized". Although most readers of Foucault eschew psychoanalytic theory, and most thinkers of the psyche eschew Foucault, the author seeks to theorize this ambivalent relation between the social and the psychic as one of the most dynamic and difficult effects of power. This work combines social theory, philosophy, and psychoanalysis in novel ways, offering a more sustained analysis of the theory of subject formation implicit in such other works of the author such as Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" and Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity.
Interest in Jane Austen has never been greater, but it has been challenged and revitalized by the advent of feminist literary history. In a substantial new introduction Marylin Butler places this book, which was first published in 1975, within the larger tradition of post-war criticism, from the generation of Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, and F.R Leavis to that of the new dominant feminist critics. The book argues that Austen herself lived in contentious times. Like Wordsworth and Coleridge, she served her literary apprenticeship in the 1790s, the decade of the Terror and the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, an era in England of polemic and hysteria. Political partisanship shaped the novel of her youth, in content, form, and style. Professor Butler now examines the very different schools of writing about Austen, and finds in them some unexpected continuities, such as a willingness to recruit her to modern aims, but a reluctance to engage with her own history. When the book first came out, it attracted attention for its fresh, controversial approach to ideas of Austen. The new edition shows how the arrival of feminism has made the task of the literary historian more vital and challenging than ever. Written on the Body surveys the history of the tattoo in Europe and North America from Antiquity to the present day. While the subject of tattooing has been approached from the viewpoints of anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, this is the first book to set the practice into a historical perspective. This is partly because there was no obvious context for writing a serious history of the tattoo prior to the recent emergence of scholarship on the cultural history of the body, and partly because of the ephemeral nature of the practice. Even given the current vogue for tattooing, most treatments of the subject have been superficial, relying on visual rather than textual analysis. This groundbreaking book demonstrates for the first time that there is in fact a rich and fascinating, if episodic, history to be discovered. The tattoo emerges as a haunting presence on Europe's margins, figuring repeatedly as something alien and uncanny, something that is not - or should not be - at home in Western culture. The Western tattoo seems to hover for much of its history in a space between the cosmetic and the punitive, frequently indicative of and complicated by the practice of penal violations of bodily integrity. It is this fluidity of the tattoo's meaning, rather than its marginality, that is the focus of Written on the Body. This book explores the complicated issue of gender in computer games-particularly the development of video games for girls. One side is the concern that the average computer game, being attractive primarily to boys, furthers the technology access gap between the genders. Yet attempts to create computer games that girls want to play brings about another set of concerns: should games be gendered at all? And does having boys' games and girls' games merely reinforce the way gender differences are socialized in play? Cassell and Jenkins have gathered the thoughts of several feminist and media scholars to explore the issues from multiple perspectives, but this is not a work confined to ivory-tower theorizing. Alongside the philosophical explorations are pragmatic investigations of the hard-nosed, real world of computer-game manufacture and sales. Particularly enlightening is a section featuring interviews with several leading creators of games for girls. And while all agree that it's good to be past the days when women in computer games were limited to scantily clad background figures or damsels in distress, the visions of an appropriate future are both diverse and well defended. Western culture is replete with mythic figures that provide a self-representation of the symbolic order from which the culture is woven. The process can be traced back to ancient mythology, and can be found in all kinds of literary documents down through the ages, even in the modern period, or rather, in modern reaprorpiations of more ancient figures. In the beginning were the gods of Greek myth, then Homer's Odysseus and Polyphemus, then Oedipus in classical tragedy, not to mention the figures in the Bible. Later came Faust and Don Juan, or we could even add Cyrano and Whether. In fact, the mythic figure has the power to express in a concentrated way the symbolic order that shapes it. Indeed it is within the symbolic order that the figure takes on a signifying name (a proper name). It does this with a kind of immediate, story-like allusiveness, coming to life in a vital, paradigmatic way. Clearly, the symbolic order finds expression in other types of language, for example the philosophical treatises or legal documents. But the mythic figure is unique in its communicative force and in its capacity to stir up a sense of self recognition: it has the ongoing ability to adapt to the inner workings of the symbolic order like a living organism whose different traits become visible from various points of view that evolve over time. This new volume from SEA illuminates the importance of gender as a frame of reference in the study of economic life. The contributors are economic anthropologists who consider the role of gender and work in a cross-cultural context, examining issues of historical change, the construction of globalization, household authority and entitlement, and entrepreneurship and autonomy. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers in anthropology and in the related fields of economics, the sociology of work, gender studies, women's studies, and economic development. This pamphlet has significant discussions on the growing importance of women in trade unions, with a particular focus on where women stand in relation to existing power structures. An interesting overview of women's attitudes to voting and white collar/blue collar jobs. Women have carried the feminist movement into the heartlands of male power: into the state, trade unions, local councils, business corporations. A flurry of "equal opportunity" activities were the result. But women found the effort costly and the gains meager. What was blocking change? The research upon which this book is based evaluates aspects of how men prove themselves sometimes helpful, but more often resistant to feminist changes in four large organizations, and reveals the struggle over the equality agenda: is change to be about sharing power or changing power? It shows how women as a sex, but also black people, lesbians and gays, and people with disabilities, are compelled to hide their "difference" if they wish to claim a right to "equality". From these painful experiences of equality activism the author draws lessons for feminist alliances that might end the male monoculture of power and make organizations more democratic and responsible.
Even in places of deadly national enmity, some very ordinary people are routinely doing peace. In this highly original study, Cynthia Cockburn deepens our understanding of the processes sustaining conflict in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine and Bosnia/Hercegovina by means of a close involvement with three remarkable women's projects that have chosen co-operation. How, she asks, do they fill the dangerous space between them with words instead of bullets? How do they make democracy out of difference? The book brings fresh insight to theories of the self in relation to collective identities and of gender in nationalist thought and practice. Observing in words and photographs how these women's alliances create a safe space in which to work together, we learn more about the dangers of essentialism and the problematic relationship between identity and democracy. What relationship exists between gender and technology? Does technology contribute to the disadvantage of women? In this innovative, ground-breaking volume, the authors take as an example the microwave oven, a recent innovation in domestic technology that neatly encapsulates the technology/gender relationship. In the microwave, argue the authors, "masculine" engineering encounters an age-old "women's" technology-cooking. Cockburn and Ormrod show how the microwave begins as a state-of-the-art "masculine" technology, is translated in the retail trade into a "family" commodity (one of a range of domestic goods), and eventually settles into the kitchen alongside other humble "feminine" appliances. Demonstrating how technology relations work to the disadvantage of women, the authors build theory out of meticulous observation of lived relations--both comic and painful--between real men and women and the machines they make and sell, buy and use. This feminist analysis of the postwar movement in Bosnia argues that a crucial but often overlooked factor in the successful reconstruction of societies after conflict is the level of importance accorded to transforming gender power relations. Focusing on two countries, Bosnia and the Netherlands, linked through a "peacekeeping operation," the contributors to this volume illuminate the many ways in which processes of demilitarization and peacekeeping are structured by notions of masculinity and femininity. Several chapters also analyze the self-questioning provoked in the Netherlands after the Dutch contingent of the UN peacekeeping forces was widely held responsible for failing to prevent the Srebrenica massacre; these entries provide a rich source of insights into relationships between soldiering and masculinities, war-fighting, and peacekeeping. Three leading figures in the field make up this important contribution to debates about social policy and gender relations in an era of economic restructuring and market liberalism. Structured as thematically and systematically comparative, the book analyzes three key policy areas: labor markets, income maintenance and reproductive rights. It explores the question of whether liberal states should intervene in workplaces or families to guarantee the rights and welfare of all individuals within them. The experiences of Canada, the UK, United States and Australia are the focus of the book.
In Fat and Proud, activist Charlotte Cooper reclaims the word "fat" as she charts the evolution of the fat rights movement. Demonstrating the extent of "fatphobia" in society, she explains not only how it affects fat women, but how the fear of being fat oppresses all women. Fat and Proud also looks at health issues, challenging the "medicalization" of fat people and exposing the myths and dangers of dieting and thinness. Throughout are the voices of fat women relating their experiences of discrimination and pain--but also their affirmations of positive self-image and esteem. Fat and Proud represents a coming to power of the fat rights movement; it calls for a greater appreciation of body-size diversity, so that all of us might live in and enjoy our bodies without fear or shame. This book contains the work of two of the most astute writers on women, gender and power within the Marxist tradition. This text engages with gender relations as they specifically take shape under capitalism, as shaped by capital-labor relations. Clear and engaging, this book takes a very different approach to sex and class from most other feminist works. The authors critique the excessively masculinist marxist approaches to labour, suggesting that a comprehensive and feminist approach to the production and reproduction of capital must necessarily take into account the predominantly unwaged labour performed by women, labour that is then used in the reproduction of capital. This was the early theoretical expression of the section of the Women's Movement demanding Wages for Housework and it contains a biting critique not simply of sexual oppression, but of capital-labor relations. A great number of gynecologists during their practice are often faced with gynecological problems seen in childhood or adolescence. Almost all gynecological diseases, which can be found in the adult woman, may also affect young girls. Furthermore the adolescent pregnancy rate has recently increased due to the intensification of sexual activity during adolescence and the inadequate sexual education of younger populations. During the IV European Congress on Pediatric and adolescent Gynecology held in Rhode Island between September 29 and October 2 1988, almost all subjects related to the Obstetrical and Gynecological problems seen during childhood and adolescence were discussed. The Gender Division of Welfare is an ambitious study that raises interesting and important questions concerning the relationship among welfare states, gender differentiation and social inequality. The book traces the consequences of different welfare state and social policy arrangements for women and men and the households in which they live. Mary Daly examines the British and German welfare states showing that both countries differ markedly in the measures they have instituted in various areas.
Why is it that in many universities the number of women professors can literally be counted on the fingers of one hand, while the number of men number in the hundreds? Why are women academics so relatively disadvantaged and men so firmly in control? In an attempt to find answers to these questions Negotiating the Glass Ceiling gathers together the unique personal reflects of 16 eminent women working in higher education across the world. These personal reflections document some of the changing patterns of women's lives in higher education since the war, a time of massive social change within the education itself, as well as in women's lives outside higher education. They also illustrate that the changes that have occurred have been hard won and not without consequences for the women involved. Whether the body is treated as biological bedrock or subversive metaphor, it is implicated in the cultural and historical construction of sexual difference as well as asymmetrical power relations. The contributors to this volume examine the role of the body as a socially shaped and historically colonized territory and as the focus of individual women's struggles for autonomy and self-determination. They also analyze its centrality to the feminist critique of male-stream science as dualistic, distanced and decontextualized. While the body has become a "hot item" in contemporary social theory and research, this renewed interest has received mixed reactions from feminists. The body may be back, but the "new" body theory often proves to be just as disembodied as it ever was. The body revival seems to be less an attempt to re-embody masculinist science than just another expression of the same condition which evoked the feminist critique in the first place: a flight from femininity and everything that is associated with it in Western culture. Drawing upon insights from contemporary feminist theories of gender and power, this book offers a timely critical appraisal of the recent "body revival". "Qui est L'ennemi principal?" Pour la feministe materialiste qu'est Christine Delphy, il ne s'identifie ni a l'Homme - avec unde majuscule -, ni aux hommes en general. Ce n'est en effet ni une essence ni un groupe naturel: c'est un systeme.
The role of gender in shaping social policy is now one of considerable interest and debate. Current controversies over the nature and funding of the welfare state have reopened historical issues. Gender, Health and Welfare deals primarily with the century before the creation of the classic welfare state in Britain. It provides a stimulating introduction to a historical era which saw a huge expansion in welfare services, both state and voluntary, and during which women emerged as significant "consumers" and "providers" of various welfare measures. Gender and Economics provides an introduction to gender studies in economics. This is a rapidly expanding field in which textbooks are urgently necessary. The contributors give comprehensive coverage of the economic situation of women throughout Europe. The authors approach the subject on three different levels: _ the economic theory of gender and economics. _ the different positions of men and women in the economy, their earning power and the division of labour within the family. _ European policy and law, and how this is evolving. With its unique balance of theoretical and empirical data, this book will be of great use to students of labour economics. It will also provide a wider view for all students of micro and macro economics.
Women of the European Union brings together studies by some of Europe's foremost feminist geographers and sociologists to raise questions about the implications of EU policies for women. It includes comparative chapters on national case studies and in-depth examinations of urban and rural contexts. Women of the European Union challenges gender-blind assessments of the economic and social aspects of the policies of the European Union to examine the implications of Union for the women within Member States. We see how place comes together with various factors to affect the ways in which women are constrained and develop strategies to manage their work and daily lives. How does the concept of racism rear its ugly head and fester in society? How do notions of "us'' and "them'', "inclusion'' and "exclusion'', "center'' and "margin'' originate and operate? Bridging cultural studies and political analysis, Race, Culture and Difference presents timely debates on race and its meanings in contemporary society and in educational and social policy. Linking feminist, post-structuralist and postmodernist concerns in recent social and cultural theory, it examines the contribution of ideas such as "ethnicity,'' "community,'' "identity,'' and "difference.'' The authors present a sustained yet sympathetic criticism of the organized forms of antiracism that have come to dominate educational policy. Their fresh, new approaches also begin to define an alternative agenda sensitive to the problems and the possibilities of difference. A successful balance between important recent articles and substantial contributions specifically written for this volume, Race, Culture and Difference will prove essential reading for professionals and students of sociology, cultural studies and education, and for those concerned with discrimination and antiracist policies.
It has long been recognized that women writers have played a significant role in the rise of the novel. Women and the Rise of the Novel is the first systematic theoretical study of early modern women's fiction showing how and why it helped shape the novel's identity. While most studies of the origin of the novel begin with the eighteenth century, Donovan traces women's literary traditions from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, focusing on the early modern period as a starting point. She examines works in Italian, French, and Spanish, as well as English, highlighting the contributions of various women writers from Christine de Pizan to Jane Austen.
"Refusing to accept the inevitability of war, Elshtain, a political scientist who teaches a course on war and peace, disputes theorists from the Greeks to Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars, 1977). Using an impressive range of literary, historical, and mythological examples, she examines the rhetoric and iconography of war. She classifies the assigned or adopted roles of women from Minerva to the Greenham Common women, from Spartan mother to warrior to victim. Finally, she proposes a leap of imagination, a search for new alternatives to the war/peace dichotomy. Elshtain does not argue that the world would be better if women ran it; she does insist upon the responsibility of women and men, as citizens, to reflect on history and experience, to find new forms of civic virtue, and not to leave everything to the experts." From Library Journal. Refusing to accept the inevitability of war, Elshtain disputes theorists from the Greeks to Michael Walzer (Just and Unjust Wars, 1977). Using a range of literary, historical, and mythological examples, she examines the rhetoric and iconography of war. She classifies the assigned or adopted roles of women from Minerva to the Greenham Common women, from Spartan mother to warrior to victim. Finally, she proposes a leap of imagination, a search for new alternatives to the war/peace dichotomy. Elshtain does not argue that the world would be better if women ran it; she does insist upon the responsibility of women and men, as citizens, to reflect on history and experience, to find new forms of civic virtue, and not to leave everything to the experts. With thorough documentation of the oppression of homosexuals and biographical sketches of the lesbian and gay heroes who helped the contemporary gay culture to emerge, Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities supplies the definitive analysis of the homophile movement in the U.S. from 1940 to 1970. John D'Emilio's new preface and afterword examine the conditions that shaped the book and the growth of gay and lesbian historical literature. Cynthia Enloe pulls back the curtain on the familiar scenes--governments restricting imported goods, bankers negotiating foreign loans, soldiers serving overseas--and shows that the real landscape is less exclusively male. Bananas, Beaches and Bases shows how thousands of women tailor their marriages to fit the demands of state secrecy; how foreign policy would grind to a halt without secretaries to handle money transfers or arms shipments; and how women are working in hotels and factories around the world in order to service their governments' debts. Enloe also challenges common assumptions about what constitutes "international politics." She explains, for example, how turning tacos and sushi into bland fast foods affects relations between affluent and developing countries, and why a multinational banana company needs the brothel outside its gates. And she argues that shopping at Benneton, wearing Levis, working as a nanny (or employing one) or planning a vacation are all examples of foreign policy in action. Bananas, Beaches and Bases does not ignore our curiosity about arms dealers, the President's men or official secrets. But it shows why these conventional clues are not sufficient for understanding how the international political system works. In exposing policymakers' reliance on false notions of "feminity" and "masculinity", Enloe dismantles a seemingly overwhelming world system, exposing it to be much more fragile and open to change than we are usually led to believe. Maneuvers takes readers on a global tour of the sprawling process called "militarization". With her incisive verve, the eminent feminist Cynthia Enloe shows that militarization affects not just the obvious people - executives and factory floor workers who make fighter planes, land mines, and intercontinental missiles - but also the employees of food companies, toy companies, clothing companies, film studios, stock brokerages, and advertising agencies. Enloe's inquiry ranges widely from Japan to Korea, Serbia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Britain, Israel, the United States, and many points in between. She covers a broad variety of subjects: gays in the military, the history of "camp followers", the politics of women who have sexually serviced male soldiers, married life in the military nurses, and the recruitment of women into the military. Films equating action with war, condoms produced with a camouflage design, fashions celebrating brass buttons and epaulettes, tomato soup containing pasta shaped like Star wars weapons - all of these contribute to militaristic values that mold our culture in both war and peace, for civilians as well as those in the military.
Ποιες είναι οι σημαντικότερες πτυχές της σύγχρονης βιβλιογραφίας για το φύλο; Ποια είναι η σχέση της βιβλιογραφίας αυτής με την κοινωνική θεωρία; Πώς μεταβάλλει η αναγνώριση της σημασίας του φύλου τα κύρια θέματα και επιχειρήματα της κοινωνικής θεωρίας; Η φεμινιστική θεωρία μας έχει βοηθήσει να κατανοήσουμε βαθύτερα τη σημασία του φύλου στην προσωπική μας ζωή, ενώ όλες οι σύγχρονες κοινωνικές επιστήμες αναγνωρίζουν πλέον την έμφυλη διαφοροποίηση του κοινωνικού μας κόσμου. Η Mary Evans, στο παρόν βιβλίο, διερευνά τόσο το πώς το φύλο καθορίζει τις ζωές μας όσο και σε ποια έκταση η πληρέστερη αναγνώριση της διαφοράς των φύλων συνεπάγεται την αποδιάρθρωση, τον κλονισμό ή την υποβάθμιση της κοινωνικής θεωρίας με κάποιον σημαίνοντα τρόπο. Γραμμένο από μια διεθνούς φήμης συγγραφέα, το κείμενο αυτό έχει ιδιαίτερη αξία για το μελετητή και αποτελεί σημείο αναφοράς στο συγκεκριμένο γνωστικό πεδίο. Faderman charts the evolution of the concept of the "lesbian" as a 20th-century social construct and shows how love between women, once known at the turn of the century by such terms as "romantic friendship" or "sentimental friendship," came to be called "lesbianism." What was once not a realistic alternative to marriage became possible as women became educated, demanded equal rights, and came out of the home and into the workforce. With increased opportunities for independence, women no longer needed men's financial support to survive and, as a result, love between women was no longer perceived as innocently as it had been in the past. This is a much-needed book and is highly recommended for all public libraries both for its information about the perception and treatment of this particular minority group in America, as well as for its historical and sociological contribution. Its scholarly approach and content also make it a necessity for women's studies collections. With technological advances in reproduction no longer confined to the laboratory or involving only the isolated individual, women and men are increasingly resorting to a variety of technologies unheard of a few decades ago to assist them in becoming parents. The public at large, and feminists as a group, are confused and divided over how to view these technologies and over what positions to take on the moral and legal dilemmas they give rise to. Farquhar argues that two perspectives have tended to dominate feminist discussions of these issues. She labels these: fundamental feminism and market liberalism. Her argument is that both of these perspectives are faulty because neither can allow for the complex benefits and dangers that attend these technologies in different contexts. Farquar points to the diverse consequences of these technologies. She examines the way they reinforce class privileges while they also undermine traditional conceptions of the family. By linking a theoretical approach with a practical set of issues, Farquhar's The Other Machine provides a rigorous analysis of contemporary feminist debates. Anne Fausto-Sterling goes on to critique the science itself, exposing inconsistencies in the literature and weaknesses in the rhetorical and theoretical structures that support new research. "One of the major claims I make in this book," she explains, "is that labeling someone a man or a woman is a social decision. We may use scientific knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about gender--not science--can define our sex. Furthermore, our beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists produce about sex in the first place." Whether discussing genital surgery on intersex infants or the amorous lives of lab rats, the author is unfailingly clear and convincing, and manages to impart humor to subjects as seemingly unpromising as neuroanatomy and the structure of proteins. This collection explores the growing range of body modification practices such as piercing, tattooing, branding, cutting and inserting implants, which have sprung up recently in the West. Contributors address the question of the permanence of the body transformation through fitness regimes and body building, and performance artists who explore the Western standard of beauty by experimenting on their own bodies. Also, the construction of the anatomy of a virtual body in Real Video Surgery and the Visible Human Project are explored. Rethinking European Welfare provides a wide-ranging and innovative rethinking of the study of Europe and social policy and offers new ways of analysing European welfare and its future. While acknowledging the importance of research and analysis of policy making in Europe, this Reader addresses a range of other challenging and provocative issues which have been marginalized or ignored in the study of European social policy. It will be essential reading for students of European social policy, social and public administration, social work, sociology, politics, cultural studies and European studies. "Sex class is so deep as to be invisible. Or it may appear as a superficial inequality, one that can be solved by merely a few reforms, or perhaps by the full integration of women into the labour force. But the reaction of the common man, woman, and child - 'That? Why you can't change that! You must be out of your mind!' - is the closest to the truth. We are talking about something every bit as deep as that. This gut reaction - the assumption that, even when they don't know it, feminists are talking about changing a fundamental biological condition - is an honest one. That so profound a change cannot be easily fitted into traditional categories of thought, e.g., 'political', is not because these categories do not apply but because they are not big enough: radical feminism bursts through them. If there were another word more all-embracing than revolution - we would use it." Women writers, many of them lesbian feminists, have begun to explore the relationships between humans and machines. Along the way, they are rethinking how race, class, and gender affect technological change, especially given the growing gap between those with access to equipment and those without it. The entries in Reload, 11 pieces of fiction and 17 critical essays, assess the ways technology has, or will, affect female life. Take, for example, the notion that cyberspace levels the playing field by allowing users to don whatever identity they choose. According to contributor Lisa Nakamura, "when users are free to choose their own race, all were presumed to be white. And many of those who adopted nonwhite personae turned out to be white male users masquerading as exotic samurai and horny geishas." Chilling as this is, cyberspace remains a positive "place" for many users; writer Sharon Cumberland reminds us that women's chat rooms are often valued precisely because of the anonymity offered. Reload is filled with provocative and often contradictory glimpses into cyberculture. From fetuses scanned ultrasonically to computer hackers in daycare, contemporary children are increasingly rendered cyborg by their immersion in technoculture. In Cyborg Babies, Robbie Davis-Floyd and Joseph Dumit have brought together cultural anthropologists and social critics to analyze the production of children in symbiosis with pervasive technology across a range of perspectives, from resistance to ethnographic analysis to science fictions. Interweaving cutting-edge ethnography, cultural critique, and personal narrative, these essays explore cyborg conceptions, prenatal diagnosis, hospital technobirth, and the effects of computer simulation games, techno-toys, and cyborg stories on children's emergent conciousness. This collection of essays surveys recent work on proletarization in labour history and new direction in feminist scholarship. The book examines the complicated relationship between sex and class from different angles advancing the theoretical agenda of Eurpean labour history. New reproductive technologies, such as in vitrio fertilization, have been the subject of intense public discussion and debate worldwide. In addition to difficult ethical, moral, personal and political questions, new technologies of assisted conception also raise novel socio-cultural dilemmas. How are parenthood, kinship and procreation being redefined in the context of new reproductive technologies? Has reproductive choice become part of consumer culture? Embodied Progress offers a unique perspective on these and other cultural dimensions of assisted conception techniques. Based on ethnographic research in Britain, this study foregrounds the experiences of women and couples who undergo IVF, whilst also asking how such experiences may be variously understood. Identity Without Selfhood proposes an original conception of identity and subjectivity in the context of recent post-structuralist and queer debates. The author argues that efforts to analyse and even 'deconstruct' identity and selfhood still rely on certain core Western techniques of identity such as individuality, boundedness, autonomy, self-realisation and narrative. In a detailed study of biographical, media and academic representations of Simone de Beauvoir, Dr Fraser illustrates that bisexuality, by contrast, is discursively produced as an identity which exceeds the confines of the self and especially the individuality ascribed to de Beauvoir. In the course of this analysis, she draws attention to the high costs incurred by processes of subjectification; in the light of these costs, while drawing substantially on and expanding Foucault's notion of the techniques of the self, the argument presented in the book also offers a critique of Foucault's work from a Deleuzo-Guattarian perspective.
Why are young women today deeply unhappy with their own bodies? Why do young girls inflict serious harm on themselves by dangerous patterns of binge eating and dieting? Drawing on a wide range of sources of feminist perspectives, this book examines this epidemic of body-hatred in adolescent girls and young women.
The notion of identification, especially in the discourse of feminist theory, has come sharply and dramatically into focus with the recent interest in such topics as queer performativity, cross-dressing, and racial passing. Identification Papers is the first book to track the evolution of identification's emergence in psychoanalytic theory. Diana Fuss seeks to understand where this notion of identification has come from, and why it has emerged as one of the most difficult problems in contemporary theory and politics. Identification Papers situates the recent critical interest in identification in the intellectual tradition that first gave the idea its theoretical relevance: psychoanalysis. Fuss begins from the assumption that identification has a history, and that the term carries with it a host of theoretical problems, conceptual difficulties, and ideological complications. By tracking the evolution of identification in Freud's work over a forty year period, Fuss demonstrates how the concept of identification is neither a theoretically neutral notion nor a politically innocent one. Identification Papers closely examines the three principal figures -- gravity, ingestion, and infection -- that psychoanalysis invokes to theorize identification. Fuss then deconstructs the psychoanalytic theory of identification in order to open up the possibility of more innovative rethinkings of the political. Drawing on literature, film, and Freud's own case histories, and engaging with a wide range of disciplines -- including critical theory, philosophy, film theory, cultural studies, psychoanalysis, and feminism -- Identification Papers will be a necessary starting point in any future theoretical project that seeks to mobilize the concept of identification for a feminist politics. Women of the European Union challenges gender-blind assessments of the economic and social aspects of EU policies to examine the real implications of union for the diversity of women in the member states. The authors also analyse how women's work and daily lives are shaped by local and national policies, by local and global economic conditions, and by diverse and changing cultural values. Detailed contemporary case studies explore how place comes together with class, life stage, sexuality and ethnicity to affect the ways in which women are constrained, and how they develop strategies to manage their lives.
Farming, as it is practised in market industrialized countries, is predominantly a family business. The central message of this book is that the nature of the farm business cannot be properly understood without reference to the family that operates it. The authors focus not so much on the farm family or the farm business separately, but on the interaction between the two. While many of their illustrations relate to the United Kingdom, examples are also drawn from North America, European Community countries, Scandinavia, Australia and New Zealand. The general approach is a multidisciplinary one, and the book is aimed at senior students, researchers and policy makers concerned with agricultural economics, policy and management as well as rural sociology, geography and other rural studies. Women and Social Transformation brings three women from different countries together into dialogue. Judith Butler is the most referenced author in current feminist literature, and we find the latest developments of her work in this book. Lidia Puigvert has recently reached international recognition with her contribution to the "other women", who have not yet had a voice in feminism and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim complements this debate with her work about immigrant women. The authors argue for the need to open feminism to the plurality of all women's voices, especially those who are in the margins. Women and Social Transformation is a debate, and speaks about transforming gender relations, taking a distance from post-modern stances, and insisting on the need for egalitarian dialogue among women. This book gives back the meaning of the feminist struggle. The sexual revolution: an evocative term, but what meaning can be given to it today? How does "sexuality" come into being, and what connections does it have with the changes that have affected personal life more generally? In answering these questions, the author disputes many of the dominant interpretations of the role of sexuality in modern culture.The author suggests that the revolutionary changes in which sexuality has become caught up in are more long-term than generally conceded. He sees them as intrinsic to the development of modern societies as a whole and to the broad characteristics of that development. Sexuality as we know it today is a creation of modernity, a terrain upon which the contradictory tendencies of modern social life play themselves out in full. Emancipation and oppression, opportunity and risk - these have become a part of a heady mix that irresistably ties our individual lives to global outcomes and the transformation of intimacy. We live today in a social order in which, for the first time in history, women are becoming equal to men - or at least have lodged a claim to such equality as their right. The author does not attempt to analyze the gender inequalities that persist in the economic or political domains, but instead concentrates on a more hidden personal area in which women-ordinary women, in the course of their day-to-day lives, quite apart from any political agenda - have pioneered changes of importance. These changes essentially concern an exploration of the potentialities of the "pure relationship", a relaitonship that presumes sexual and emotional equality, and is explosive in its connotations for pre-existing relations of power. The author analyzes the emergence of what he calls plastic sexuality - sexuality freed from its intrinsic relation to reproduction - in terms of the emotional emancipation implicit in the pure relationship, as well as women's claim to sexual pleasure. Plastic sexuality is decentered sexuality, freed from both reproduction and subservience to a fixed object. It can be molded as a trait of personality, and thus become bound up with the reflexivity of the self. Premised on plastic sexuality, the pure relationship is not exclusively heterosexual; it is neutral in terms of sexual orientation.The author speculates that the transformaion of intimacy might be a subversive influence on modern institutions as a whole, for a social world in which the dominant ideal was to achieve intinsic rewards from the company of others might be vastly different from that which we know at the present. The final third of this feminist literary study maintains the quality of volumes I (The War of the Words, 1987) and II (Sexchanges, 1989) as it looks at women writers' exploration of our century's complex and ever-shifting cultural scene, particularly the thorny question of gender. Gilbert and Gubar take a generally chronological approach, beginning with the modernists. In their analysis, Virginia Woolf sketched scenarios challenging traditional sex roles, as well as the historical settings and the social hierarchies in which they functioned. Edna St. Vincent Millay and Marianne Moore were "female female impersonators'' who exploited femininity's artificiality in an imaginative but uncertainly empowering way. The authors then move on to the Harlem Renaissance, arguing that such writers as Zora Neale Hurston, Jessie Redmon Faucet, and Nella Larsen worked to reveal the "authentic (black) feminine'' behind racial stereotypes and criticized (white) feminism. Intertwining the poet and her work, a chapter on HD maintains that she produced her long poems by consciously manipulating images of herself. Moving forward to WW II, Gilbert and Gubar discuss the period's "blitz on women'': Cheesecake pinups on tanks and VD posters conflated sex and death, while even positive images of the women left behind were tinged with resentment. They contend that metaphors from the war, transformed into images of sexual battle, haunted the poems of Sylvia Plath, who fought toward a way of being a woman beyond the old patriarchal traditions. At once playful and thoughtful, the final chapter considers the multiplicity of women's stories via the authors' several rewrites of Snow White--e.g., the no-longer-evil queen challenges gender roles by advising Snow White to "marry the Prince but sleep with me too,'' while in another version a critically savvy queen realizes they're all "merely signifiers, signifying nothing.'' This pathbreaking book of feminist criticism is now reissued with a substantial new introduction by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar that reveals the origins of their revolutionary realization in the 1970s that "the personal was the political, the sexual was the textual." In conflict zones from Iraq and Afghanistan to Guatemala and Somalia, the rules of war are changing dramatically. Distinctions between battlefield and home, soldier and civilian, state security and domestic security are breaking down. In this especially timely book, a powerful group of international authors doing feminist research brings the highly gendered and racialized dimensions of these changes into sharp relief. In essays on nationalism, the political economy of conflict, and the politics of asylum, they investigate what happens when the body, household, nation, state, and economy become sites at which violence is invoked against people. In particular, these essays move us forward in our understanding of violence against women--how it is perpetrated, survived, and resisted. They explore the gendered politics of ethno-nationalism in Sri Lanka, the post-Yugoslav states, and Israel and Palestine. They consider "honor killings" in Iraqi Kurdistan, armed conflict in the Sudan, and geographies of violence in Ghana. This volume augments feminist analysis on conflict zones and contributes to transnational coalition-building and feminist organizing efforts. An intriguing inquiry into how aesthetic surgery has evolved into a major area of modern medicine, this book combines cultural perspectives on the body beautiful with a medical chronology. Gilman focuses extensively on the nose as the original site of aesthetic procedures. He simultaneously explores "the basic motivation for aesthetic surgery as the desire to 'pass,'" starting with 16th-century surgery to rebuild the noses of syphilitics "so they would be less visible in their society" and discusses its cultural implications. Early debate centered on whether surgery restored function or merely catered to human vanity. The "hierarchy of races" created by some scientists in the 18th century inspired procedures to create "American noses out of Irish pug noses," while "the origin of the 'correction' of the black nose is masked within medical literature [because] no reputable surgeon wanted to be seen as facilitating crossing the color bar." Gilman discusses political uses of aesthetic surgery, such as that of the Nazis to achieve the Aryan ideal, the transformation of former Klan Grand Wizard David Duke into what one commentator called "a blond, blow-dried replica of a young Robert Redford," transsexual surgery to permit "restoration of the relationship between the inner and outer selves" and aesthetic surgery as a fountain of youth. Population aging has fuelled interest in pensions and intergenerational equity, leading to privatization of pensions. Yet the gender implications of such policies and the connections between the gender contract and the generational contract remain unexplored. Women, Work and Pensions examines how women's paid and unpaid work, interacting with the gendered pension systems of six liberal welfare states - Britain, the US, Canada, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand - contributes to female poverty in later life. By comparing how these welfare states deal with women's employment, family roles and pension entitlement, the nature of the residual welfare model is better understood. Changes over the past three decades in the gender contract and in women's employment suggest that family caring may have less impact on women's pensions in the future. Yet pension reforms which diminish the effectiveness of women-friendly features in state pensions through cuts and privatization point in the opposite direction. This issue, and how the pension penalties of caring vary with women's class, ethnicity and race, are major themes of the book.
Gender roles are nowhere more prominent than in war. Yet contentious debates, and the scattering of scholarship across academic disciplines, have obscured understanding of how gender affects war and vice versa. In this authoritative and lively review of our state of knowledge, Joshua Goldstein assesses the possible explanations for the near-total exclusion of women from combat forces, through history and across cultures. Topics covered include the history of women who did fight and fought well, the complex role of testosterone in men's social behaviors, and the construction of masculinity and femininity in the shadow of war. Goldstein concludes that killing in war does not come naturally for either gender, and that gender norms often shape men, women, and children to the needs of the war system. lllustrated with photographs, drawings, and graphics, and drawing from scholarship spanning six academic disciplines, this book provides a unique study of a fascinating issue.
Women, the State, and Welfare is the first collection of essays specifically about women and welfare in the United States. As an introduction to the effects of welfare programs, it is intended for general readers as well as specialists in sociology, history, political science, social work, and women's studies. The book begins with a review essay by Linda Gordon that outlines current scholarship about women and welfare. The chapters that follow explore discrimination against women inherent in many welfare programs; the ways in which welfare programs reinforce basic gender programs in society; the contribution of organized, activist women to the development of welfare programs; and differences of race and class in the welfare system. By giving readers access to a number of perspectives about women and welfare, this book helps position gender at the center of welfare scholarship and policy making and places welfare issues at the forefront of feminist thinking and action.
Στο βιβλίο του "Άνδρες από τον Άρη, Γυναίκες από την Αφροδίτη", ο John Gray αποκαλύπτει πόσο διαφέρουν οι άνδρες και οι γυναίκες και πώς μπορούν να γεφυρώσουν αυτές τις διαφορές και να δημιουργήσουν βαθιές και ουσιαστικές σχέσεις αγάπης και κατανόησης. Με το βιβλίο "Άρης και Αφροδίτη για πάντα μαζί" προχωράει ακόμα ένα βήμα μπροστά και μας δείχνει πώς αυτές οι σχέσεις μπορούν να γίνονται πιο βαθιές και ουσιαστικές με το πέρασμα του χρόνου. Χρησιμοποιώντας ζωντανά παραδείγματα, χιούμορ και κοινή λογική, ο John Gray μας βοηθά να κατανοήσουμε: -Τι χρειάζονται περισσότερο οι γυναίκες και τι πραγματικά επιθυμούν οι άνδρες -Πώς οι άνδρες μπορούν να μάθουν να ακούν χωρίς να αναστατώνονται -Πώς θα μάθουν οι γυναίκες τον τρόπο να μιλούν και ο άνδρας να τις ακούει -Τα μυστικά για μια ζωή γεμάτη αγάπη και πάθος -Με δυο λόγια, πώς θα διατηρήσουμε για πάντα αναμμένη τη φλόγα της αγάπης. There are few moments in history when the division between the sexes seems as "natural" as during wartime: men go off to the "war front," while women stay behind on the "home front." But the very notion of the home front was an invention of the First World War, when, for the first time, "home" and "domestic" became adjectives that modified the military term "front." Such an innovation acknowledged the significant and presumably new contributions of civilians, especially women, to the war effort. Yet, as Susan Grayzel argues, throughout the war, traditional notions of masculinity and femininity survived, primarily through the maintenance of--and indeed reemphasis on--soldiering and mothering as the core of gender and national identities. Drawing on sources that range from popular fiction and war memorials to newspapers and legislative debates, Grayzel analyzes the effects of World War I on ideas about civic participation, national service, morality, sexuality, and identity in wartime Britain and France. Despite the appearance of enormous challenges to gender roles due to the upheavals of war, the forces of stability prevailed, she says, demonstrating the Western European gender system's remarkable resilience.
For women born in the immediate post-war period there were the years BG and AG--"before Greer" and "after Greer". It's all too easy to underestimate its influence, but the fact is that in 1970 every self-respecting woman on the Left owned a copy of The Female Eunuch. Greer's book broke the ground that women of today stand on--her unique stance combined outrageous humour and assertiveness to lead the way forward for women who wanted to take control of their lives. Thirty years later in The Whole Woman, Greer is ready to get angry again. Picking up where she left off, she analyses the invasive ways in which the health industry persuades women, and seduces them into having their bodies and reproductive systems "managed". Greer lays out the facts about the high failure rate and devastating side effects of in-vitro fertilisation, and the incongruity between the "success" of breast implants in achieving the "perfect" mammary to please men and the continuing failures in detecting and treating increasingly prevalent breast cancer. his is the first study to ask whether there is a specifically European dimension to some of the major issues in Women's Studies. In doing so, it fills some of the gaps in our knowledge about women and enriches debates hitherto dominated by Anglo-American influences. Among the new areas of enquiry opened up are: women and militarism, ethnic cleansing as an attack on the family, the problematic relationship between feminism and anti-Semitism, the decline of the welfare state across Europe, the issue of the relationship between women's rights and human rights, and the rise of the phenomenon of the "single" woman. This text asks whether there is a specifically European dimension to some of the issues in women's studies. Among the lines of enquiry opened up are: the impact on women of Europe's experience of warfare; the relationship between feminism and anti-semitism; and the phenomenon of the "single" woman.
hrough an examination of the experience of transsexuals, this book enhances the understanding of how gender can and does function in powerful, complex and subtle ways. The author, who has herself been surgically reassigned, has conducted extensive interviews with transsexuals from many walks of life. Her personal experiences, which inform this book, have given her access to her subjects, access that others might be denied. While highlighting how the gender identity of transsexuals relates to hormonal and surgical changes in the body as well as to changes in dress, the book investigates the pressures and motivations to conform to expected gender roles, and the ways in which these are affected by social, educational, and professional status. Differences in the experiences of those who change from male to female and those who change from female to male are also examined. Sex reassignment has been the focus of considerable media attention recently, as increasing numbers of people feel able to talk frankly about their personal experiences with gender dysphoria. Strides with medical technology have given transsexuals new opportunities in their lives. This book provides unique insights into how these changes are seen by those people most affected by them. This book provides a review of contemporary theory and empirical research into the relationship between feminism and social constructivism. Through case studies, the book focuses on issues raised by different technologies and on developing theoretical understandings of the gender-technology relation. Body Image presents a review of current literature and the results of some new research on body image. It compares the effects of gender, sexuality, social class, age and ethnicity on our satisfaction with the way we look and suggests how these differences arise. Why, for instance, are heterosexual men much happier with their body images than women or gay men? Sarah Grogan discusses the effect of media presentation of the ideal body and other cultural influences. Surprisingly, despite the almost exclusive media preference for very young female bodies, she finds that older women are not less satisfied with their bodies than younger women. The image of an armed woman is one rife with tension - it challenges our deep-rooted beliefs regarding the proper role of women in society. The connection between military service and citizenship is explicit to varying degrees in most societies - and therefore the right of women to bear arms is an issue that strikes at the heart of a society's valuation of women. A Soldier and a Woman explores this controversial subject in nineteen chapters spanning three centuries and four continents from the late medieval period to the present day. A Soldier and a Woman builds a picture of the practical and ideological issues surrounding women soldiers, and the ambiguous place they inhabit. In the process uncovering a remarkable continuity across cultures and periods. The female soldier raises questions of military readiness, gender identity, perceptions of the body, power structures and hierarchy, gendered symbolism and language, personal and collective identities, the power of myths, and the disjunction between equality and conformity. Volatile Bodies is based on a risky wager: that all the effects of subjectivitiy, psychological depth and interiority can be refigured in terms of bodies and surfaces. It uses, transforms and subverts the work of a number of distinguished male theorists of the body (Freud, Lacan, Merleau-Ponty, Schilder, Nietzsche, Foucault, Lingis and Deleuze) who, while freeing the body from its subordination to the mind, are nonetheless unable to accomodate the specificities of women's bodies. Volatile Bodies explores various dissonances in thinking the relation between mind and body. It investigates issues that resist reduction to these binary terms - psychosis, hypochondria, neurological disturbances, perversions and sexual deviation - and most particularly the enigmatic status of body fluids, and the female body. Are bodies sexy? How? In what sorts of ways? Sexy Bodies investigates the production of sexual bodies and sexual practices, of sexualities which are: dyke, bi, transracial, and even hetero. It celebrates lesbian and queer sexualities but also explores what runs underneath and within all sexualities, discovering what is fundamentally weird and strange about all bodies, all carnalities. Looking at a pleasurable variety of cultural forms and texts, the contributors consider the particular charms of girls and horses, from National Velvet to Marnie; discuss figures of the lesbian body from vampires to tribades to tomboys; uncover 'virtual' lesbians in the fiction of Jeanette Winterson; track desire in the music of legendary Blues singers; and investigate the ever-scrutinised and celebrated body of Elizabeth Taylor. The collection includes two important pieces of fiction by Mary Fallon and Nicole Brossard. Sexy Bodies makes new connections between and amongst bodies, cruising the borders of the obscene, the pleasurable, the desirable and the hitherto unspoken rethinking sexuality anew as deeply and strangely sexy.
Halberstam presents a unique offering in queer studies: a study of the masculine lesbian woman. Halberstam makes a compelling argument for a more flexible taxonomy of masculinity, including not only men, who have historically held the power in society, but also women who embody qualities that are usually associated with maleness, such as strength, authority, and independence. Fleshing out her argument by drawing on a variety of sources, fiction, films, court documents, and diaries, Halberstam calls for society to acknowledge masculine lesbian women and value them.
Poser la question de la difference des sexes dan les sciences sociales et inviter a la reflexion sur le travail dans le champ des recherches sur le genre, decrypter, a partir de hierarchies, des divisions det des segmentations qui parcourent le mond du travail, le statut des hommes de des femmes dan la societe et poser anisi la question de la difference des sexes: telle est l'hypothese foundatrice de Travail, genre et societies. During the 1990s, Greece had a very high rate of abortion at the same time that its low birth rate was considered a national crisis. The Empty Cradle of Democracy explores this paradox. Alexandra Halkias shows that despite Greek Orthodox beliefs that abortion is murder, many Greek women view it as "natural" and consider birth control methods invasive. The formal public-sphere view is that women destroy the body of the nation by aborting future citizens. Scrutiny of these conflicting cultural beliefs enables Halkias's incisive critique of the cornerstones of modern liberal democracy, including the autonomous "individual" subject and a polity external to the private sphere. The Empty Cradle of Democracy examines the complex relationship between nationalism and gender and re-theorizes late modernity and violence by exploring Greek representations of human agency, the fetus, national identity, eroticism, and the divine. Halkias's analysis combines telling fragments of contemporary Athenian culture, Greek history, media coverage of abortion and the declining birth rate, and fieldwork in Athens at an obstetrics/gynecology clinic and a family-planning center. Halkias conducted in-depth interviews with one hundred and twenty women who had had two or more abortions and observed more than four hundred gynecological exams at a state family-planning center. She reveals how intimate decisions and the public preoccupation with the low birth rate connect to nationalist ideas of race, religion, freedom, resistance, and the fraught encounter between modernity and tradition. The Empty Cradle of Democracy is a startling examination of how assumptions underlying liberal democracy are betrayed while the nation permeates the body and understandings of gender and sexuality complicate the nation-building projects of late modernity. Is bisexuality coming out in America? Bisexual characters are surfacing on popular television shows and in film. Newsweek proclaims that a new sexual identity is emerging. But amidst this burgeoning acknowledgment of bisexuality, is there an understanding of what it means to be bisexual in a monosexual culture? RePresenting Bisexualities seeks to answer these questions, integrating a recognition of bisexual desire with new theories of gender and sexuality. Despite the breakthroughs in gender studies and queer studies of recent years, bisexuality has remained largely unexamined. Problematic sexual images are usually attributed either to homosexual or heterosexual desire while bisexual readings remain unexplored. The essays found in RePresenting Bisexualities discuss fluid sexualities through a variety of readings from the fence, covering texts from Emily Dickinson to Nine Inch Nails. Each author contributes to the collection a unique view of sexual fluidity and transgressive desire. Taken together, these essays provide the most comprehensive bisexual theory reader to date. Judith Hanna's book offers an understanding of how dance, sex roles, sexuality, and culture intertwine. Hannah covers historic and contemporary dance forms from around the world, initiating a discussion that should propel a more methodologically informed study of dance and gender. In Primate Visions, Haraway explicates the metaphors and narratives that direct the science of primatology. She demonstrates that there is a tendency to masculinize the stories about reproductive competition and sex between aggressive males and receptive females that facilitate some and preclude other types of conclusions. She contends that female primatologists focus on different observations that require more communication and basic survival activities, offering very different perspectives of the origins of nature and culture than the currently accepted ones. Drawing on examples of Western narratives and ideologies of gender, race and class, Haraway questions the most fundamental constructions of scientific human nature stories based on primates.
Donna Haraway's work has transformed the fields of cyberculture, feminist studies, and the history of science and technology. Her subjects range from animal dioramas in the American Museum of Natural History to research in transgenic mice, from gender in the laboratory to the nature of the cyborg. Trained as a historian of science, she has produced a series of books and essays that have become essential reading in cultural studies, gender studies, and the history of science. The Haraway Reader brings together a generous selection of Donna Haraway's work. Included is her "Manifesto for Cyborgs," in which she famously wrote that she "would rather be a cyborg than a goddess." Other selections are taken from her three major works, Primate Visions, Modest Witness , and Simians, Cyborgs and Women , as well as some of her more recent writing on animals. For readers in cultural studies, feminist theory, science studies, and cyberculture, Donna Haraway is one of our keenest observers of nature, science, and the social world. This volume is the best introduction to her thought. This book takes shape through cascading accounts of humans, nonhumans, technoscience, nation, feminism, democracy, property, race, history, and kinship. Beginning in a mythic time called the Scientific Revolution, the titular modest witness indulges in narratives about the imaginary configurations called the New World Order, Inc, and the Second Christian Millennium. As Harraway argues, the imaginary and the real figure each other in concrete fact, and so she takes the actual and the figural seriously as constitutive of lived material-semiotic worlds. Taught to read and write inside the stories of Christian salvation history and technoscientific progress, Harraway is neither heretic, infidel, nor Jew, but, as she says, a marked woman informed by those literacies as well as by those given to her by birth and education. Shaped as an insider and an outsider to the hegemonic powers and discourses of my European and North American legacies, Harraway remembers that Anti-Semitism and misogyny intensified in the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution of early modern Europe, that racism and colonialism flourished in the traveling habits of the cosmopolitan Enlightenment, and that the intensified misery of billions of men and women seems organically rooted in the freedom of transnational capitalism and technoscience. But she also remembers the dreams and achievements of contingent freedoms, situated knowledges, and the relief of suffering that are inextricable from this contaminated triple historical heritage. She remains a child of the Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment, and technoscience. Donna Jeanne Haraway uses the work of pioneering developmental biologists Ross G. Harrison, Joseph Needham, and Paul Weiss as a springboard for a discussion about a shift in developmental biology from a vitalism-mechanism framework to organicism. The book deftly interweaves Thomas Kuhn's concept of paradigm change into this wide-ranging analysis, emphasizing the role of model, analogy, and metaphor in the paradigm and arguing that any truly useful theoretical system in biology must have a central metaphor. This volume contains eleven of Hartsock's essays, almost all previously published, and arranged in roughly chronological order. The book is divided into three sections, interspersed with short commentaries in which Hartsock explains the development of her thought. From these inteludes one gains insights into how Hartsock's life shaped her thought, and vice versa; her more first-personal meta-analysis of the state of feminist theory reflects her long political experience. She identifies two core themes in all these essays - power and epistemology - and is right to point out the significance of "the importance of issues of power for activists committed to social change cannot be exaggerated. We need to know how relations of domination are constructed, how we participate in these relations, how we resist, and how we might transform them."
This study of 30 mothers looks at the varying ways women balance work and family life. It is carried out through intensive interviews and the data is examined from several theoretical standpoints, including structural theory, motherhood theory, and feminist theory. As a largely unexplored area, this inquiry is an innovative and original examination of bisexual spaces as places that are defined by both geographical boundaries and cultural assumptions. Hemmings applies the ideas of queer theory as well as social and cultural geography in her fascinating investigation into the spaces and places of bisexual life. Specifically focusing on Northhampton, MA and San Francisco, she draws on interviews with community members and the town histories showing how and why they have developed into safe places for the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities. By mapping out a space of bisexuality, Bisexual Spaces provides a new and provocative understanding of the concept. The basic premise of this book is that "the structural contradictions on which capitalism is based . . . shape the work we do, the food we eat, our mobility in the world, how we know, who and how we love." Further, Hennessy argues that homosexuality can no longer be seen as a "monolithic or universal identity" and that "all sexual identities . . . are intimately inflected by gender, race, nationality, ability, age." Hennessy makes the point that these "identities themselves arise from capitalism." and gives us a Marxist feminist analysis of the commodification of culture in global capitalism and the creation and management of sexual identities. Her historical approach uncovers problems not only with classical identity politics but also with postmodern queer theory and politics with incisive criticisms of Althusser, Williams, Butler and De Lauretis. Women with muscles are a recent phenomenon, so recent that, while generating a good deal of interest, both positive and negative, their importance to the cultural landscape has yet to be acknowledged. This newness, along with the ways in which muscular women challenge traditional ideas that associate women with physical weakness and incompetence, femininity with diminution and childishness, and the female body with softness, has led to a widely held belief, both inside of body building circles and outside, that the cultural implications of female body building are limited to a small subculture. Leslie Heywood looks at the sport and image of female body building as a metaphor for how women fare in our current political and cultural climate. Drawing on contemporary feminist and cultural theory as well as her own involvement in the sport, she argues that the movement in women's body building from small, delicate bodies to large powerful ones and back again is directly connected to progress and backlash within the abortion debate, the ongoing struggle for race and gender equality, and the struggle to define "feminism" in the context of the nineties. She discusses female body building as activism, as an often effective response to abuse, race and masculinity in body building, and the contradictory ways that photographers treat female body builders. Engaging and accessible, Bodymakers reveals how female bodybuilders find themselves both trapped and empowered by their sport. An important contribution to the current literature on gender and social politics, this book challenges mainstream thinking on welfare states, citizenship, family, work, and social policy. Contested Concepts in Gender and Social Politics analyses the corresponding shifts in political discourse, and the changes in socio-political configurations that mirror changing gender relations. The discussion is both international and interdisciplinary, and focuses on topics that include citizenship, social exclusion and inclusion, care, social capital and representation, amongst others. The contributors examine these issues in relation to current policy debates and consider how they are embedded in particular European intellectual traditions. They also explore how feminist scholarship has engaged with these issues, and assess how these contested concepts can improve understanding both of the position of women and of gender relations more broadly. Socialist feminist theorizing is flourishing today. This collection is intended to show its strengths and resources and convey a sense of it as an ongoing project. Not every contribution to that project bears the same theoretical label, but the writings collected here share a broad aim of understanding women's subordination in a way which integrates class and gender - as well as aspects of women's identity such as race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation - with the aim of liberating women. The Socialist Feminist Project: A Contemporary Reader in Theory and Politics brings together the most important recent socialist feminist writings on a wide range of topics: sex and reproduction, the family, wage labor, social welfare and public policy, the place of sex and gender in politics, and the philosophical foundations of socialist feminism. Although focusing on recent writings, the collection shows how these build on a history of struggle. These writings demonstrate the range, depth, and vitality of contemporary socialist feminist debates. They also testify to the distinctive capacity of this project to address issues in a way that embraces collective experience and action while at the same time enabling each person to speak in their own personal voice. Resurgent immigration is one of the most powerful forces disrupting and realigning everyday life in the United States and elsewhere, and gender is one of the fundamental social categories anchoring and shaping immigration patterns. Yet the intersection of gender and immigration has received little attention in contemporary social science literature and immigration research. This book brings together some of the best work in this area, including essays by pioneers who have logged nearly two decades in the field of gender and immigration, and new empirical work by both young scholars and well-established social scientists bringing their substantial talents to this topic for the first time. Sex/Machine is maping the intersection between gender and technology. Crossing multiple academic disciplines--from philosophy of technology, to medical ethics, to womens studies, gender theory and cultural studies, to law (among others), Patrick Hopkins has assembled a collection of provocative writing concerning the interactions between technologies and genders. The essays in this edited volume explore the history of technologies and gender, and how technology can shore up traditional and problematic gender roles (e.g., pectoral implants to make men appear more "macho", and technologies that make it possible for parents to know, and potentially select, the sex of their children before they are born). Another important aspect of the book is the exploration of the ways technologies undermine traditional ideas of gender.
"La femme est l'avenir de l'homme" Ce vers d'Aragon constitue peut-etre la meilleure introduction a l'ouvrage l'Ages Hubert. Et si notre Europe ne pouvait parvenir a ses fins parce qu'encore trop masculine, trop faconnee dans ses concepts et dans son organisation par une main d'homme? Telle est bien l'intuition a laquelle il nous est propose d'adherer au fil de cette lecture alerte de l'histoire europeenne contemporaine. Jerome Vignon This up-to-date book addresses the implications of postmodernism and post-structuralism for feminist theorizing. It identifies the challenges of this through the development of 'conceptual literacy'. Introducing conceptual literacy as a pedagogic task, this text facilitates students' understanding of, for example: - The range and lack of fixity of conceptualizations and meanings of key terms; - The significance of theoretical framework for conceptualization of key terms; - The changing nature of language and the reframing of key terms in research (eg the recent shift from 'equality' to 'social justice'); The text explores these issues through six key concepts in feminist theorizing: equality; difference; choice; care; time; and experience. Each chapter considers the varied ways in which these terms have been conceptualised and the feminist debates about these concepts. Each chapter includes case studies to illustrate the application of these concepts in feminist empirical research, and provides a guide to further reading.
New technologies suggest new ideas about embodiment: our "reach" extends to global sites through the Internet; we enter cyberspace through the engines of virtual reality. In this book, a leading philosopher of technology explores the meaning of bodies in technology-how the sense of our bodies and of our orientation in the world is affected by the various information technologies. Bodies in Technology begins with an analysis of embodiment in cyberspace, then moves on to consider ways in which social theorists have interpreted or overlooked these conditions. An astute and sensible judge of these theories, Don Ihde is a uniquely provocative and helpful guide through contemporary thinking about technology and embodiment, drawing on sources and examples as various as video games, popular films, the workings of e-mail, and virtual reality techniques. Charting the historical, philosophical, and practical territory between virtual reality and real life, this work is an important contribution to the national conversation on the impact technology-and information technology in particular-has on our lives in a wired, global age. The Geography of Rural Change provides a thorough examination of the processes and outcomes of rural change as a result of a period of major restructuring in developed market economies. After outlining the main dimensions of rural change, the book progresses from a discussion of theoretical insights into rural restructuring to a consideration of both the extensive use of rural land and the changing nature of a rural economy and society. The text places an emphasis on relevant principles, concepts and theories of rural change, and these are supported by extensive case study evidence drawn from different parts of the developed world. The twentieth century gave rise to profound changes in traditional sex roles. But the force of this "rising tide" has varied among rich and poor societies around the globe, as well as among younger and older generations. Rising Tide sets out to understand how modernization has changed cultural attitudes toward gender equality and to analyze the political consequences of this process. The core argument suggests women's and men's lives have been altered in a two-stage modernization process consisting of (1) the shift from agrarian to industrialized societies and (2) the move from industrial to post industrial societies. This book is the first to systematically compare attitudes toward gender equality worldwide, comparing almost seventy nations that run the gamut from rich to poor, from agrarian to postindustrial. Rising Tide is essential reading for those interested in understanding issues of comparative politics, public opinion, political behavior, political development, and political sociology. Meatloaf, fried chicken, Jell-O, cake--because foods are so very common, we rarely think about them much in depth. The authors of Cooking Lessons however, believe that food is deserving of our critical scrutiny and that such analysis yields many important lessons about American society and its values. This book explores the relationship between food and gender. Contributors draw from diverse sources, both contemporary and historical, and look at women from various cultural backgrounds, including Hispanic, traditional southern White, and African American. Each chapter focuses on a certain food, teasing out its cultural meanings and showing its effect on women's identities and lives. What does it mean to desire both men and women?This question has been answered in many different ways and asked for many different reasons: by Madonna, by Freud, by feminism, by Shakespeare, and more recently by the emergent bisexual community. The essays in The Bisexual Imaginary demonstrate that the ways in which bisexuality is discussed shed important light on how we make sense of our desires and how we produce identities and communities out of them. Covering variously film and sexology, photography and literature, psychoanalysis and political identity, this collection explores the different ways that bisexuality has both been represented and had its representation elided. By refusing to argue simply for a new and autonomous "bisexual self", these essays show desiring both men and women plays a complex role in the construction of lesbian, gay, and straight identities. Bisexuality is presented as simultaneously pivotal to a sense of self and as that which causes profound anxiety and tension within the self.The Bisexual Imaginary, offers wide-ranging analysis of these concerns and makes a timely case for the centrality of bisexual theory to gender studies, lesbian and gay studies, and cultural and literary studies.
Christine Delphy is a major architect of materialist feminism, a radical feminist perspective which she developed in the context of the French women's movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She has always been controversial and continues to make original and challenging contributions to current feminist debates. This informative volume profiles Delphy and discusses topics including her opposition to the idea that femininity and masculinity are natural phenomena. Her insistence that women and men are social categories, defined by the hierarchical relationship between them rather than by biology, typifies the materialist school within French feminism. In this lucid introduction to Delphy's work, Stevi Jackson recounts the events in Delphy's life as a feminist activist and the social and political context of her work. This text is essential reading for anyone with an interest in feminism or cultural history, this is a readable and accessible introduction to a key thinker in the modern women's movement. This reader brings together a range of feminist writing on sexuality. Emphasizing the diversity of feminist perspectives, the readings are grouped together under four main areas within the debates about sexuality: essentialism versus social construction; affirming and questioning sexual categories; power and pleasure; and commercial sex. This reader offers students an informed overview of some of the most significant sociological work on gender produced over the last three decades. The readings cover both theoretical and empirical work representing a range of perspectives and each section includes selections which address the intersection of gender with differences of 'race', class and sexuality. The text is informed by an understanding of gender as a structural social division and a set of everyday social practices. The seventeen essays in Women and Power in the Middle East analyze the social, political, economic, and cultural forces that shape gender systems in the Middle East and North Africa. Published at different times in Middle East Report, the journal of the Middle East Research and Information Project, the essays document empirically the similarities and differences in the gendering of relations of power in twelve countries - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. Together they seek to build a framework for understanding broad patterns of gender in the Arab-Islamic world. Challenging questions are addressed throughout. What roles have women played in politics in this region? When and why are women politically mobilized, and which women? Does the nature and impact of their mobilization differ if it is initiated by the state, nationalist movements, revolutionary parties, or spontaneous revolt? And what happens to women when those agents of mobilization win or lose? In investigating these and other issues, the essays take a look at the impact of rapid social change in the Arab-Islamic world. They also analyze Arab disillusionment with the radical nationalisms of the 1950s and 1960s and with leftist ideologies, as well as the rise of political Islamist movements. Indeed the essays present rich new approaches to assessing what political participation has meant for women in this region and how emerging national states there have dealt with organized efforts by women to influence the institutions that govern their lives. Οι έρευνες, οι οποίες αναλήφθηκαν από το Κέντρο Κοινωνικών Επιστημών Αθηνών, στα πλαίσια μιας προοριζόμενης για την UNESCO μελέτης για την αστικοποίηση της σύγχρονης Ελλάδας, και οι εργασίες που γίνονταν για την κατάστρωση του "Οικονομικού και Κοινωνικού Άτλαντα της Ελλάδας", κατέστησαν γνωστά πολλά στοιχεία της ανθρωπογεωγραφίας και της οικονομικής γεωγραφίας της χώρας. Η πενιχρή επιστημονική βιβλιογραφία στον τομέα αυτό καθώς και η ανάγκη οι διάφορες απόψεις της μελέτης πάνω στην αστικοποίηση να θεμελιωθούν σε κάποια γενική ανάλυση των δομών, μας οδήγησαν στην απόφαση να συγκεντρώσουμε στο παρόν βιβλίο όσα από τα στοιχεία αυτά φαίνονταν έγκυρα και μπορούσαν να χρησιμοποιηθούν, άξια να τεθούν σε συγκεντρωτική μορφή υπ' όψη των ερευνητών, των σχεδιαστών προγραμμάτων και των ασχολούμενων με την κοινωνιοτεχνική δραστηριότητα. Επαναλαμβάνοντας τον υπότιτλο του βιβλίου θα λέγαμε ότι δεν πρόκειται για γεωγραφία, αλλά απλώς για στοιχεία γεωγραφίας και δη για στοιχεία ειδικού προσανατολισμού, δεδομένου ότι γενικά συνελέγησαν για να διαπιστωθεί η κατάσταση και οι διαδικασίες της αστικοποίησης, δηλαδή της μετακίνησης του πληθυσμού από την ύπαιθρο στις πόλεις. Can science be gender-neutral? In recent years, feminist critics have raised troubling questions about the practice and goals of traditional science, demonstrating the existence of a pervasive bias in the ways in which scientists conduct and discuss their work. This exciting volume gathers seventeen essays--by sociologists, scientists, historians, and philosophers--of seminal significance in the emerging field of feminist science studies. Analyzing topics from the stereotype of the "Man of Reason" to the "romantic" language of reproductive biology, these fascinating essays challenge readers to take a fresh look at the limitations--and possibilities--of scientific knowledge.
Thoroughly updated and revised, the second edition of The Gendered Society explores current thinking about gender, both inside academia and in our everyday lives. Part I examines the latest work in biology, anthropology, psychology, and sociology; Part II provides an original analysis of the gendered worlds of family, education, and work; and Part III focuses on the gendered interactions of friendship and love, sexuality, and violence. As a result of his research, author Michael S. Kimmel makes three claims about gender. First, he argues that the differences between men and women are not as great as we often imagine, and that in fact women and men have far more in common with one another than we think they do. Second, he challenges the notions of the many pop psychologists who suggest that gender difference is the cause of the dramatic observable inequality between the sexes. Instead, Kimmel reveals that the reverse is true: gender inequality is the cause of the differences between women and men. Third, he argues that gender is not simply an aspect of individual identity but is also an institutional phenomenon, embedded in the organizations and institutions in which we interact daily. Kimmel concludes with a brief epilogue looking ahead to gender relations in the new century. First sentence of the book: "We need an appreciation of what science and technology are - at least at this historical moment within this culture - in order to understand feminist critiques of science and technology." Αξίζουν άραγε οι αρχαίοι Έλληνες τη θέση που κατέχουν στη συλλογική μας μνήμη; Πόσο αφορά η κληρονομιά τους τον σύγχρονο κόσμο; Ένα ολόκληρο ρεύμα αναθεώρησης και κριτικής (από σοβαρούς εκπροσώπους της πολυπολιτισμικότητας και του φεμινισμού μέχρι ακραίους οπαδούς της πολιτικής ορθότητας) έχει στρέψει την προσοχή του στη σκοτεινή πλευρά αυτού που οι λόγιοι της βικτωριανής εποχής χαιρέτησαν ως το "ελληνικό θαύμα" - σ' αυτούς τους "Αρχαιότερους Νεκρούς Λευκούς Ευρωπαίους Άνδρες", όπως μειωτικά αποκαλούνται. Πράγματι, η τελετουργία της θυσίας, ο θεσμός της δουλείας, η κατώτερη θέση των γυναικών και άλλες αντιλήψεις και πρακτικές της αρχαιότητας φαντάζουν ξένες, αν όχι αποκρουστικές για τα σύγχρονα ήθη. Ωστόσο, όπως υποστηρίζει μαχητικά εδώ ο κορυφαίος ελληνιστής Μπέρναρντ Νοξ, αυτή η εύλογη υπογράμμιση της "ετερότητας" των Ελλήνων δεν μπορεί να μας κάνει να ξεχάσουμε την εκπληκτική πρωτοτυπία τους: αυτοί επινόησαν την πολιτική, τη φιλοσοφία, τη ρητορική, το θέατρο, τους αθλητικούς αγώνες, την έννοια του λογοτεχνικού "κανόνα", τις ίδιες τις ανθρωπιστικές σπουδές ως παιδεία των ελεύθερων πολιτών για τη δημοκρατία. Γι' αυτό και "ο ρόλος τους στην ιστορία της Δύσης υπήρξε πάντα καινοτόμος, ενίοτε δε ανατρεπτικός ή ακόμη και επαναστατικός". Gender and International Migration in Europe is a unique work which introduces a gendered dimension into theories of contemporary migrations. As the European Union seeks to extend equal opportunities, increasingly restrictionist immigration policies and the persistance of racism, deny autonomy and choice to migrant women. This work demonstrates how processes of globalisation and change in state policies on employment and welfare have maintained a demand for diverse forms of gendered immigration. The authors examine state and European Union policies of immigration control, family reunion, refugees and the management of immigrant and ethnic minority communities. Most importantly this work considers the opportunities created for political activity by migrant women and the extent to which they are able to influence and participate in mainstream policy-making. This is volume will be essential reading for anyone involved in or interested in modern European immigration policy. Desire in Language traces the path of an investigation, extending over a period of ten years, into the semiotics of literature and the arts. But the essays of Julia Kristeva in this volume, though they often deal with literature and art, do not amount to either "literary criticism" or "art criticism." Their concern, writes Kristeva, "remains intratheoretical: they are based on art and literature in order to subvert the very theoretical, philosophical, or semiological apparatus." Probing beyond the discoveries of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Roman Jakobson and others, Julia Kristeva proposes and tests theories centered on the nature and development of the novel, and on what she has defined as a signifying practice in poetic language and pictural works. Desire in Language fully shows what Roman Jakobson has called Kristeva's "genuine gift of questioning generally adopted 'axioms,' and her contrary gift of releasing various 'damned questions' from their traditional question marks." Η κοινοτοπία μεγάλου μέρους της σύγχρονης ψυχολογίας - ότι οι άνδρες αποζητούν την ηδονή ενώ οι γυναίκες επιθυμούν σχέσεις - αποτελεί πλήρη αντιστροφή των αντιλήψεων της εποχής πριν από το Διαφωτισμό, οι οποίες, ανατρέχοντας μέχρι πίσω στην αρχαιότητα, συστοίχιζαν τη φιλία με τους άνδρες και το σαρκικό πόθο με τις γυναίκες. Οι γυναίκες, που σύμφωνα με την παλιά μορφή των πραγμάτων γνώριζαν απεριόριστες επιθυμίες και η λογική τους ελάχιστα αντιστεκόταν στο πάθος, σε κάποιες νεότερες αφηγήσεις έγιναν πλάσματα που θα μπορούσαν να ξοδέψουν ολόκληρο τον αναπαραγωγικό βίο τους χωρίς να αισθανθούν τις ηδονές της σάρκας. Στον ύστερο δέκατο όγδοο αιώνα, όταν πιθανολογήθηκε ότι "οι γυναίκες στην πλειοψηφία τους δεν ενδιαφέρονται ιδιαίτερα για ερωτικά αισθήματα", η παρουσία ή η απουσία του οργασμού σηματοδότησε βιολογικά τη γενετήσια διαφορά των φύλων. This is a book about the making and unmaking of sex over the centuries. It tells the astonishing story of sex in the West from the ancients to the moderns in a precise account of developments in reproductive anatomy and physiology. We cannot fail to recognize the players in Thomas Laqueur's story--the human sexual organs and pleasures, food, blood, semen, egg, sperm--but we will be amazed at the plots into which they have been woven by scientists, political activists, literary figures, and theorists of every stripe. Laqueur begins with the question of why, in the late eighteenth century, woman's orgasm came to be regarded as irrelevant to conception, and he then proceeds to retrace the dramatic changes in Western views of sexual characteristics over two millennia. Along the way, two "masterplots" emerge. In the one-sex story, woman is an imperfect version of man, and her anatomy and physiology are construed accordingly: the vagina is seen as an interior penis, the womb as a scrotum, the ovaries as testicles. The body is thus a representation, not the foundation, of social gender. The second plot tends to dominate post-Enlightenment thinking while the one-sex model is firmly rooted in classical learning. The two-sex story says that the body determines gender differences, that woman is the opposite of man with incommensurably different organs, functions, and feelings. The two plots overlap; neither ever holds a monopoly. Science may establish many new facts, but even so, Laqueur argues, science was only providing a new way of speaking, a rhetoric and not a key to female liberation or to social progress. Making Sex ends with Freud, who denied the neurological evidence to insist that, as a girl becomes a woman, the locus of her sexual pleasure shifts from the clitoris to the vagina; she becomes what culture demands despite, not because of, the body. Turning Freud's famous dictum around, Laqueur posits that destiny is anatomy. Sex, in other words, is an artifice. Our consumer culture sets exacting standards and norms for what constitutes an ideal child.The tough realities of life often create children and child-bearing and rearing circumstances that are outside the ideal. How do women whose experiences don't match the norm cope and adapt? How do they make sense of it to themselves and to the world? In a rich series of ethnographic case studies, Transformative Motherhood intimately conveys the experiences of women in the United States who, in each case, have reproductive encounters that do not match up to certain cultural standards. From women who choose to become surrogate, foster, or adoptive mothers, to others who give birth to children with disabilities or who have had a pregnancy loss, all creatively meet the challenges posed by their particular mothering experiences. It is often the language of giving and getting, so prominent in a consumer culture, that these women use to make sense of their situation. Women's Work traces the development process from the non-industrial societies to present-day socialist nations, includes scholars from the first and third worlds, and provides data for a comparative analysis of structural changes in gender relations, links production and reproduction, and redefines work to encompass women's "invisible" work. This book explores the highly topical issue of the gender divide of welfare. A common characteristic of welfare states of the OECD countries is a profound gender division of paid and unpaid work and care. This affects women's position in the family, the labour market and their access to social citizenship. Gender, Welfare State and the Market extends discussion about the relationship between the welfare state, market and family and its impact on women's economic, social and political (in)dependence in the modern western welfare societies. The book goes beyond the narrow focus on the labour market/welfare state arrangement to explore the relationship between production and social reproduction, paid and unpaid work and care within the framework of different welfare states. The volume specifically focuses on the shifting gender balance of employment and the restructuring of social care provisions. Moreover, using feminist critiques of welfare state research, the book brings gender-specific as well as gender-relational approaches to the analysis of social citizenship, and the importance of the family and other non-public agencies for the provision of social care. This digital document is an article from "The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology", published by Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Assoc. on February 1, 2005. The length of the article is 986 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser. History books tend to favor individual narratives and it is comparatively rare to find one written jointly by four people. But it is also perhaps fitting that a book which insists that a family should not be treated as an undifferentiated unit, acting or speaking with a single voice, should be produced by a "family" of authors.This was not a pre-planned team project, nor was it meant to conform to any traditional academic hierarchy. Rather this work grew organically as the authors realized that in their individual researches on fatherhood, singleness, illegitimacy, and domestic services they had common concerns and interests which could be linked in order to tell a wider family story. As the authors themselves state, rather than submitting an edited collection of chapters they decided to work together,despite their geographical distances and share the writing and editing of each chapter as they generated ideas during their frequent meetings. Rethinking Social Policy is a comprehensive introduction to, and analysis of, the complex mixture of problems and possibilities within the study of social policy. Contributors at the cutting edge of social policy analysis reflect upon the implications of new social and theoretical movements for welfare and the study of social policy. Topics covered include: criminology and crime control; race, class and gender; poverty and sexuality; the body and the emotions; violence; work and welfare in Europe. Examples are drawn from a variety of welfare sectors such as: social services and community care, health, education, employment, and criminal justice. This is a course reader for The Open University course (D860) "Rethinking Social Practice." This thoroughly documented book provides, for the first time, an overview of social policies affecting women in Germany, Italy, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Norway, France and Sweden. The central theme of the book is the relationship between paid and unpaid work, something very few European governments have been prepared explicitly to address as a social issue and which has yet to enter the European Commission's agenda. Contributors discuss the literature on women and welfare in each country and outline developments in social policies relating to women and the position of women in regard to reproductive and labour market behaviour in the post-War period. The competing pressures of globalization and immigration have forced people everywhere to think long and hard about what it means to be a citizen. In Citizenship, Ruth Lister argues for a new feminist notion of citizenship, one that can accommodate difference. Lister explores a range of disciplines and a burgeoning international literature on citizenship, pinpointing important theoretical issues and recasting traditional thinking about it, while exploring its political and policy implications for women in all their diversity. Themes of inclusion and exclusion (at the national and international level), rights and participation, inequality and difference are thus brought to the fore in the development of a "woman-friendly" theory of citizenship. Recent debates in contemporary feminist theory have been dominated by the relation between identity and politics. Beyond Identity Politics examines the implications of recent theorizing on difference, identity and subjectivity for theories of patriarchy and feminist politics. This book focuses on a question which feminists struggled with and were divided by throughout the last decade, that is: how to theorize the relation between the subject and politics. In a thoughtful engagement with these debates Moya Lloyd argues that the turn to the subject in process does not entail the demise of feminist politics as many feminists have argued. A resource for feminist theorists, women's and gender studies students, as well as political and social theorists, this is a carefully composed and wide-ranging text, which provides important insights into one of contemporary feminism's most central concerns.
Όπως στην όπερα τα πρόσωπα του έργου διηγούνται το θάνατό τους συνεχίζοντας να τραγουδούν, έτσι και οι ηθοποιοί της αρχαίας τραγωδίας απαγγέλλουν το θάνατο των γυναικών. Ως ηρωίδες, οι γυναίκες διαθέτουν τους δικούς τους τρόπους θανάτου - πότε αυτοκτονούν περνώντας το λαιμό μέσα από μια θηλεία όπως οι παντρεμένες, πότε, σαν τις παρθένες προσφέρονται θύματα σε θυσία. Καμιά φορά φτάνουν και μέχρι του σημείου να κλέψουν από τους ένδοξους πολεμιστές το θάνατό τους, τρυπώντας το κορμί τους με το ξίφος. Κάπως έτσι ιχνογραφούνται οι αρχαίες διαδρομές της φαντασίας και του λογισμού πάνω στο γυναικείο σώμα. Μα τον ανησυχητικά ανοίκειο τίτλο του, το βιβλίο αυτό είναι ουσιώδες για την αντίληψη του φαντασιακού σύμπαντος της αρχαίας Ελλάδας. "A lot of people in the general public think female bodybuilding is gross and freaky . . . that that's not what a woman is supposed to look like." So says Michelle, a national bodybuilding judge. In fact, athletic women, especially those in sports where strength, muscle, and sweat feature prominently, are typically viewed by the public as being outside the boundaries of appropriate femininity. And perhaps no group of women athletes embodies this gender outlaw status more than female bodybuilders, who by their bulk and sheer strength challenge our very notions of what it means to be a woman. Why would women choose to look like that? And what does it take to become and stay so muscular? Maria R. Lowe has interviewed more than one hundred people connected with women's bodybuilding, from the bodybuilders themselves, to trainers, family members, spouses, judges, and sponsors. In Women of Steel, Lowe introduces us to a world where size and strength must be balanced with a nod toward grace and femininity. Lowe, who actually worked out with a couple of the bodybuilders she interviewed, gets at the heart of what it is to be a woman bodybuilder. We learn about "paying the price"--doing the necessary exercise, and sometimes drugs--that allows women to rise to the top of their profession. We follow their successes and failures, and discover the benefits-- including increased self-esteem and physical strength--as well as the sometimes unhealthy effects of their training regimen, from dehydration to baldness to rampant acne to high blood pressure. We travel with the women from competition to competition and find that judges' standards seem to vary alarmingly depending on momentary notions of what constitutes "the overall package"--that elusive perfect body that catches the judge's eye and wins competitions. Since 1981, AIDS has had an enormous impact upon the popular imagination. Few other diseases this century have been greeted with quite the same fear, loathing, and prejudice against those who develop it. The mass media, and in particular, the news media, have played a vital part in "making sense" of AIDS. This volume takes an interdisciplinary perspective, combining cultural studies, history of medicine, and contemporary social theory to examine AIDS reporting. There have been three major themes dominating coverage: the "gay-plague" dominant in the early 1980s, panic-stricken visions of the end of the world as AIDS was said to pose a threat to everyone, in the late 1980s; and a growing routinising of coverage in the 1990s. This book lays bare the sub-textual ideologies giving meaning to AIDS news reports, including anxieties about pollution and contagion, deviance, bodily control, the moral meanings of risk, the valorisation of drugs and medical science. Drawing together the work of cultural and political theorists, sociologists and historians who have written about medicine, disease and the body, as well as that of theorists in Europe and the USA who have focused their attention specificaiiy on AIDS, this book explores the wide theoretical debate about the importance of language in the social construction of illness and disease. This text offers insights into the sociocultural context in which attitudes towards people with HIV or AIDS and people's perceptions of risk from HIV infection are developed as the responses of governments to the AIDS epidemic are formulated. What is a specifically feminist perspective on science and technology? Focusing in particular on the socio-cultural implications of the latest scientific and technological developments, this book proposes a site of resistance to hegemonic discourses and practices of science and technology. Four sections cover science as a whole, the new technologies of the postmodern era, bio-medical discourses and nature. A distinguished cast of contributors explore the central feminist concerns in each arena, through the metaphors of monster, mother goddess and cyborg. They argue that feminists cannot ignore the emancipatory as well as the oppressive potentials of technology. Bringing together 'natural' and 'social' scientists, the book paves the way for a specifically feminist strategy for science, technology and health care. This book reassesses how women are talked about and constructed visually across a range of popular media. Arguing for the importance of a historical approach, this book examines continuities and changes in dominant myths of femininity, especially in the transition from the modern to the postmodern period. The influences of feminism and consumerism on these developments are given particular attention. The book starts with an orientating chapter on the contributions of a variety of disciplines to our understanding of gender in relation to the media. Psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, art history and cultural studies are each critically reviewed, enabling students to compare perspectives and to locate the variety of approaches they may encounter in other readings. A chapter on gender and consumerism and a detailed analysis of myths of femininity are also included. Outlining key theoretical debates in an accessible manner this book offers a wide range of examples from advertising, women's magazines, popular television programmes and mainstream film. This is a theoretical legal treatise from activist attorney MacKinnon, co-author of the controversial Dworkin-MacKinnon anti-pornography civil rights ordinance. She begins with a discussion of feminism and Marxism, because (as she explains) the latter is the only contemporary political tradition to confront organized social dominance as a dynamic. She goes on to analyze feminist methodologies (in terms of consciousness-raising) and the knowledge it reveals; and what she calls feminism unmodified (radical feminism) as a post-Marxist methodology. She explores issues of sexuality/gender and how they contribute to women's oppression and the role of the liberal state in promoting it. Revealing, closely reasoned, densely written, this is not easy reading, but sure to be hotly debated among academicians and intellectuals.
Europeans, who constitute 121/2 per cent of the world's population, consume 50 per cent of the recorded world production of alcohol and this consumption, sometimes social, sometimes ceremonial, plays a significant role in the cultural, religious, and social identities of the people of these countries. The majority of studies on alcohol as a drug have focused on large, often diverse groups ignoring, up until recently, the importance of social variation. In Alcohol, Gender and Culture the contributors show how different groups define the proper use of alcohol, how state policies may affect drinking behavior, and highlight how beverages and comestibles must be seen in relation to each other. This study demonstrates how important sociocultural distinctions are made between and within communities, gender relations, ethnic groups, and socio-economic groups, and within religious ideologies. What one drinks, how one drinks, with whom, and where, all influence not only how alcoholic substances are regarded but also how social relations are experienced. How does the gender lens alter our vision of conventional accounts of globalisation and move us to more complex understandings of global restructuring? How does gender affect global restructuring and vice versa? What are the gendered effects of certain aspects of globalisation on women's lives in the rest of the world? How are gendered ideologies and relations changing in different national and regional contexts? These and many other questions are thoroughly analysed in this pioneering study.Taking us beyond the narrow limits of conventional approaches to globalisation, this book reveals the complexities and contradictions inherent in global restructuring. Restructuring does not just relate to the material but also relates to identity and geography. Gender blind analyses have previously ignored the differing national and regional contexts of restructuring states, markets, civil society as well as in the household, profoundly affecting the daily lives of men and women.
La seconde moitie du xxe siecle a ete proteuse, dans l'ensemble des pays developpes et tout particulierement en France, de transformations sociales majeures pour les femmes: liberte de l'avortement et de la contraceptions, droit de vote et parite, croissance spectaculaire de la scolarite et de l'activite professionnelle. Ces mutations ont-elles, pour autant, fondamentalement entame la dominantion masculine? Aucune reponse simple n'est possible. Nous vivons une epoque de paradoxes et de contradictions: plus de femmes instruites, actives, salariees, mais aussi plus de chomeuses, de salariees precaires ou pauvres; les lois sur l'egalite professionnelle se sont multipliees, mais la resorption des disparites de carrieres et de slaires stagne, peniblement.
Theorizing Feminist Policy avoids the usual clash between feminist analysis and non-feminist social science in mapping out the new field of feminist comparative policy. Instead, it intersects empirical feminist policy analysis with non-feminist policy studies to define and contribute to this new and emerging field of study. Consulting a wide sweep of empirical and theoretical work, the book first defines Feminist Comparative Policy showing how it dialogs with the adjacent non-feminist areas of Comparative Public Policy, Comparative Politics, and Public Policy Studies. It then seeks to strengthen one of the weakest links of this new area - the study of explicitly feminist government action. In the remaining chapters, the books defines feminist policy as a separate sector, with eight sub-sectors. It develops a qualitative and comparative framework for analysing the profiles and styles of feminist policy in post industrial democracies and uses the framework to examine twenty seven different cases of feminist policy formation across thirteen different countries. McClintock interprets 19th-century British imperialism as the focal point for that era's major "disclosures," including feminism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis. She describes Victorian urban space, including advertising, as being oriented to exhibit imperial spectacles based on racism and sexism. In turn, the colonies become stages for exhibiting a reinvented patriarchy, with Westerners symbolizing power and indigenous peoples a subdued domesticity. The fιrst collection to emphasize the complex interaction between gender and postcoloniality. Most people ίπ the world, from Africa to Asia and beyond, Ιίνθ ίπ the aftermath of colonialism. Their day-to-day liνes are defιned by their past history as colonized peoples, often ίπ ways that are subtle ΟΓ hard to defιne. lπ Dangerous Liaisons, eminent contributors address the issues raised by the postcolonial condition, considering nationhood, history, gender, and identity from an inter-disciplinary perspectiνe. Among the questions they address are: What are the boundaries of race and ethnicity ίπ a diasporic world? How haνe women been so effectiνely excluded from national power? What haνe been the historicaI aftermaths of different forms of colonialism? What are the cultural and political consequences of colonial partitions of the nation-state? Representing an essential interνention, Dangerous Lίaisons is a crucial guidebook for those concerned with understanding postcoloniality. This book reassesses theories of agency and gender identity against the backdrop of changing relations between men and women in contemporary societies. McNay argues that recent thought on the formation of the modern subject offers a one-sided or negative account of agency, which underplays the creative dimension present in the responses of individuals to changing social relations. An understanding of this creative element is central to a theory of autonomous agency, and also to an explanation of the ways in which women and men negotiate changes within gender relations.In exploring the implications of this idea of agency for a theory of gender identity, McNay brings together the work of leading feminist theorists - such as Judith Butler and Nancy Fraser - with the work of key continental social theorists. In particular, she examines the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Paul Ricoeur and Cornelius Castoriadis, each of whom has explored different aspects of the idea of the creativity of action. McNay argues that their thought has interesting implications for feminist ideas of gender, but these have been relatively neglected partly because of the huge influence of the work of Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan in this area. She argues that, despite its suggestive nature, feminist theory must move away from the ideas of Foucault and Lacan if a more substantive account of agency is to be introduced into ideas of gender identity. The women's Olympics are one of the best kept secrets of ancient Greek history! Dozens or maybe even hundreds of books have been published about the male games, but this is the only one examining the female ones. Harita Meenee, a classical studies expert specializing in women's studies, sheds abundant light on the young women's games which took place every four years in Olympia. They were called Heraia, as they were held in honor of Hera, and they may have been older than the male ones. The author emphasizes the female cults which existed in this area from age-old times honoring the Great Mother Gaia and other goddesses. She also expands on the theory of professor F. M. Cornford, who suggested that the purpose of the two games was to select the young man and woman who would incarnate Zeus and Hera, or the Sun God and the Moon Goddess, in the ritual of the Sacred Marriage. Her research draws upon ancient texts and archeological finds, as well as on the rich material provided by mythology, religion, symbols and language. Additionally, she utilizes the power of fiction in order to initiate the reader into the spirit of Olympia, starting the book with a fascinating love story. By splitting 20th-century American women into three broad generations, then funneling their commentary into musings on growing up, family, and work, this oral history by a mother-daughter team achieves rare focus and illustrates the arc of social change. Thankfully, the kaleidoscope of female experience presented is not homogenized. Within the first generation--when the sanctity of marriage was legally and morally enforced--Rebecca Rodin's radical parents never married, nor did most of their circle. Yet "when push came to shove," she remembers, "men were in control of the households." Not surprising, perhaps, is the number of second-generation women who greeted the women's movement with huge relief. In-depth life stories frame each section of short and long anecdotes. This book traces the social origins of the sexual division of labor. It gives a history of the related processes of colonization and "housewifization" and extends this analysis to the contemporary new international division of labor and the role that women have to play as the cheapest producers and consumers. First published in 1986, it was hailed as a major paradigm shift for feminist theory. Eleven years on, Maria Mies' theory of capitalist patriarchy has become even more relevant; this new edition includes a substantial new introduction in which she both applies her theory to the new globalized world and answers her critics.
In this collection of 14 essays, Trinh, a writer, feminist, and filmmaker, explores unconventional documentary filmmaking and literary techniques. Typically, documentary styles have kept a distance between subject and viewer, creating a sense of mastery in the viewer. By stressing form rather than content, boundaries of the acceptable in art form are transgressed, resulting in a nonlinear movement that leads the viewer into a profound experience that does not have to make sense. In this well-documented book, Trinh explores semiotic ideas of Michel Foucault and Roland Barthes, along with the works of Zora Neale Hurston and Helene Cixous, among others. Illustrated with footage from her films, the form of Trinh's book plays a major role in the presentation of its content.
This worthy successor to Juliet Mitchell's pathbreaking Psychoanalysis and Feminism is both a defense of the long-dismissed diagnosis of hysteria as a centerpiece of the human condition and a plea for a new understanding of the influence of sibling and peer relationships. In Mad Men and Medusas Mitchell traces the history of hysteria, arguing that we need to reclaim hysteria to understand how distress and trauma express themselves in different societies and different times. Mitchell convincingly demonstrates that although hysteria may have disappeared as a disease, it is still a critical factor in understanding psychological development through the life cycle. In 1974, at the height of the women's movement, Juliet Mitchell shocked her fellow feminists by challenging the entrenched belief that Freud was the enemy. She argued that a rejection of psychoanalysis as bourgeois and patriarchal was fatal for feminism. However it may have been used, she pointed out, psychoanalysis is not a recommendation for a patriarchal society, but rather an analysis of one. "If we are interested in understanding and challenging the oppression of women," she says, "we cannot afford to neglect psychoanalysis." In an introduction written specially for this reissue, Mitchell reflects on the changing relationship between these two major influences on twentieth-century thought. Original and provocative, Psychoanalysis and Feminism remains an essential component of the feminist canon.
Siblings and all the lateral relationships that follow from them are clearly important and their interaction is widely observed, particularly in creative literature. Yet in the social, psychological and political sciences, there is no theoretical paradigm through which we might understand them. In the Western world our thought is completely dominated by a vertical model, by patterns of descent or ascent: mother or father to child, or child to parent. Yet our ideals are 'liberty, equality and fraternity' or the 'sisterhood' of feminism; our ethnic wars are the violence of 'fratricide'.When we grow up, siblings feature prominently in sex, violence and the construction of gender differences but they are absent from our theories. This book examines the reasons for this omission and begins the search for a new paradigm based on siblings and lateral relationships. This collection of essays explores the effects of information technology on women's employment and the nature of women's work in the third world. Contributors discuss the challenges faced by women, along with their responses and organizing strategies, as they adjust to new technologies in less affluent communities. Also outlined are the roles that family, ideology, state policies and trade union structures can play in distributing information technology-related employment among women and men. Particular chapters highlight differences in the interests and needs of different groups of women, challenging the concept of a monolithic, specifically feminine vision of technology and science. The book provides a critique of postmodernism and ecofeminism and suggests ways in which modern technologies could promote gender equality in the developing world. This book presents a comparative study of women's roles in the Middle East as of 1990. The author draws together a large number of statistics and research as she discusses how and why women's status varies across the region. The book could be summed up in the following quote: "Many studies on the Middle East and commentaries by Islamists themselves tend to understate the heterogeneity of the region; they project a uniform culture and exaggerate its importance, elevating culture or religion to the status of a single explanatory variable. My alternative position is that there is an interactive relationship of economic processes, political dynamics, and cultural practices." In addition to describing the general situation throughout the region, the author presents two case studies: Iran and Afghanistan. The information in the case studies offers an illuminating and detailed discussion on these topics.
This introduction to feminist literary theory, the first full introduction to this field to be published in English, is intended for the general reader as well as for students of literature. The aim of this book is to present the two main approaches to feminist literary theory, the Anglo-American and the French, through detailed discussion of the most representative figures on each side. Though it gives an accurate and comprehensive account of the main tendencies within the field, the book does not set out to provide a survey of different feminist readings or interpretations of literary works. Its main concern is to discuss the methods, principles and politics at work within feminist critical practice. One of the central principles of feminist criticisms is that no account can ever be neutral. The presentation of the feminist field is therefore an explicitly critical one. The author arguing from a position that often leads to disagreement with other feminists, would seem that she is exposed to accusations of lack of solidarity with other women. Should feminists criticize each other at all? If it is true, as she believes, that feminist criticism today is stifled by the absence of a genuinely critical debate about the political implications of its methodological and theoretical choices, the answer to that question is surely an unqualified affirmative.
Building Bodies is an exciting collection of articles that strive toward constructing theoretical models in which power, bodies, discourse, and subjectivity interact in a space we can call the "built" body, a dynamic, politicized, and biological site. Contributors discuss the complex relationship between body building and masculinity, between the built body and the racialized body, representations of women body builders in print and in film, and homoeroticism in body building. Linked by their focus on the sport and practice of body building, the authors in this volume challenge both the way their various disciplines (media studies, literary criticism, gender studies, film and sociology) have gone about studying bodies, and existing assumptions about the complex relationship between power, subjectivity, society, and flesh. Body building - in practice, in representation, and in the cultural imagination - serves as a launching point because the sport and practice provide ready challenges to existing assumptions about the "built" body. Dangerous Sexualities takes a look at how our ideas of health and disease are linked to moral and immoral notions of sex. Beginning in the 1830s, Frank Mort relates his social historical narratives to the sexual choices and possibilities facing us now. This long-awaited second edition has been thoroughly updated to include new discussions of eugenics, race hygiene and social imperialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With a new and extended bibliography, introduction and illustrations, this second edition brings a classic into the 21st Century. The original essays in this book have been written by a number of leading international experts in the field of labour market studies to honour the intellectual contribution and lifetime achievement of Gόnther Schmid. The multidisciplinary contributions, which cover a variety of theoretical approaches, are all concerned with transitional labour markets and labour market policy in the new global economic environment. The authors first address current arguments and controversies regarding appropriate institutions for the formation and implementation of labour market and employment policies. They move on to focus on the policies and problems associated with enhancing gender equality in terms of labour market integration and transitions. Finally, they examine new institutional arrangements that they believe will both enhance the performance of transitional labour markets and improve the management of social risks. Combining a theoretical approach with empirical research and a strong policy emphasis, the scope and diversity of this book will ensure a broad audience amongst economists, political scientists and academics in the fields of labour market theory and policy.
Νέες φιλολογικές πηγές, καινούριο επιγραφικό υλικό, αλλά και νέα ερμηνεία του παλαιού κάνουν ώστε το βιβλίο αυτό της Κας Mosse να αποτελεί σταθμό για την έρευνα της ελληνικής ιστορίας των κλασικών χρόνων. Χρησιμοποιώντας μια καινούρια μέθοδο αναλύσεως, με την αντιπαράθεση των κειμένων, των γεγονότων, των θεσμών και των ιδεολογιών, αξιοποιώντας με ευστοχία ποσοτικές μετρήσεις, εντάσσοντας με ερευνητική δεξιοτεχνία και επινοητικότητα τη λεπτομέρεια στο θεσμό ή τη διαδικασία , η διαπρεπής Καθηγήτρια της Σορβόννης, κατορθώνει να συνθέσει έναν απαράμιλλο πίνακα της Αθηναϊκής Δημοκρατίας κατά την περισσότερο κρίσιμη αλλά και γόνιμη σε ιδέες περίοδο της διαδρομής της. Και δεν είναι μόνο τα γεγονότα και οι θεσμοί που προβάλλονται τώρα κάτω από ένα νέο, περισσότερο ακριβή και αντικειμενικό φωτισμό, όπως λ.χ. το μεγάλο θέμα της δουλείας και της δουλικής εργασίας. Κατά την παραδοσιακή αντίληψη, η ιστορία της Αρχαίας Ελλάδας αρχίζει με την άφιξη ελληνόφωνων πληθυσμών στη Βαλκανική χερσόνησο και κλείνει με την υποταγή των ελληνιστικών μοναρχιών στη Ρώμη. Το βιβλίο υπογραμμίζει τα προβλήματα που θέτουν οι ουσιώδεις φάσεις της ιστορίας αυτής. Εξετάζονται πρώτα οι συζητήσεις που γίνονται σήμερα σχετικά με τη πρωτο- ιστορία των Ελλήνων, πριν από την εμφάνιση της πόλης που είναι το παλλόμενο κέντρο της ιστορίας τους. Η θέσπιση πολιτικών συστημάτων μέσα σ' έναν ελληνικό κόσμο που εξαπλώνεται σ' ολόκληρη τη λεκάνη της Μεσογείου, η σύγκρουση με την περσική αυτοκρατορία που οδηγεί στην ηγεμονία της Αθήνας, και η φύση της ηγεμονίας αυτής σε συνάρτηση με την πρωτόφαντη εμπειρία που είναι η εφεύρεση της δημοκρατίας, ο μακροχρόνιος Πελοποννησιακός πόλεμος που καταστρέφει την προηγούμενη ισορροπία του 5ου αιώνα και η δύσκολη αναδιοργάνωση του ελληνικού κόσμου στον 4ο αιώνα πριν την αναμέτρηση με τον Φίλιππο το Β' της Μακεδονίας αποτελούν τα κύρια θέματα της μελέτης.
Strippers, peepshow dancers, and porn stars trade spiked heels for footnotes while demonstrating their often overlooked ability to engage in scholarly discourse in this collection of essays focusing on the subject of feminism as practiced by those who call themselves "sex workers." Along with the first-person accounts by such underground luminaries as Nina Hartley, Tracy Quan, and Annie Sprinkle, are forays into the sex dens by a number of academics. The writing is frank, though hardly pornographic, and many of the points raised and discussed are treated with more seriousness and considerably more insight than they usually are in the mainstream press. This book, which is intended as a contribution to a better understanding of women's participation in terrorism, deals with four main issues: 1) the study of women's participation in violent terrorist movements to try to discover the key to the psychological and sociological interpretation of their involvement in a life experience with which they are not traditionally associated 2) the different responses to "penintentism" between men and women 3) the psychological and social interpretation of women's support of armed struggle and an enquiry -through the personal experience of the women terrorists interviewed - into the reasons for women's greater resistance to repentance 4) the use in the criminal justice system of the leads this enquiry has furnished for prognostic purposes and to predict and create conditions that facilitate repentance. Information was collected through a questionnaire to assemble specific data on the personal experience of each of the women terrorists interviewed. The answers obtained are interest. To mention only one, the greater obduracy and "fidelity" to the cause demonstrated by Italian women terrorists as compared to men does not depend on a specific context or culture, but instead seems to be a general "hallmark" of the feminine way of living the subversive violent struggle or the adoption of terroristic ideologies. Psychologists, nutritionists, sociologists, and others in the medical field have offered many statistics about body image and self-esteem as they relate to teenage girls. In this summation of a three-year study, Nichter (Anthropology, Univ. of Arizona) lets 240 American teenage girls speak for themselves. The results, which make up the core of this work, cover weight, appearance, relationships with mothers, and race as variables in the girls' perception of body image and reveal that girls don't diet as much as they talk about dieting. In the third year of the project, 50 additional African American girls joined the study so that Nichter could further explore cultural differences, and of all the issues discussed, the differences in the answers about race were the most interesting. Nichter's writing style is pleasant, using the actual words of the subjects to supplement her theories and observations. Statistical data are supplied at the end. This book (is) extremely useful in discovering the other, less known and silenced women's' suffering during the Yugoslav War... a timely contribution, I would certainly purchase this book for myself and my students." Professor Svetlana Slapsack, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, 1999 "This book powerfully reveals, from the concrete experiences of women victims, that evil and aggression could be awakened almost anywhere, anytime." Professor Marina Blagojevic, Women's Study Centre, Belgrade, 1999
Offering a unique look at this controversial subject, Sexuality is the only reader of its kind that organizes material chronologically and covers such a long time period. Part I forms a chronological narrative of the development of thinking about sexuality from the ancient Greeks to the present. Part II discusses nineteenth-century investigation of phenomena such as hysteria, prostitution, and fetishism. Part III brings together contemporary conceptions of the sexual body, and Part IV addresses the issue of whether the sexual revolution of the late sixties and seventies has brought about a profound and permanent change in the sexual landscape of western civilization. Three leading figures in the field make this important contribution to debates about social policy and gender relations in an era of economic restructuring and market liberalism. Structured thematically and systematically comparative, the book analyzes three key policy areas: labor markets, income maintenance and reproductive rights. It explores the question of whether liberal states should intervene in workplaces or families to guarantee the rights and welfare of all individuals within them. The experiences of Canada, the UK, United States and Australia are the focus of the book. A thoughtful collection of original essays on feminism in the 1990s, edited by two leading feminist scholars. A useful anthology that provides the kind of critical self-awareness and vigor that will help to keep feminism alive, exciting, and deeply relevant. This book argues that increasing engagement between international institutions and sectors of civil society is producing a new form of global governance. Authors investigate 'complex multilateralism' by studying the relationship between three multilateral economic institutions (the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organization), and three global social movements (environment, labour, and women's movements). Servants of Globalization is a poignant and often troubling study of migrant Filipina domestic workers who leave their own families behind to do the mothering and caretaking work of the global economy in countries throughout the world. It specifically focuses on the emergence of parallel lives among such workers in the cities of Rome and Los Angeles, two main destinations for Filipina migration. The book is largely based on interviews with domestic workers, but the book also powerfully portrays the larger economic picture as domestic workers from developing countries increasingly come to perform the menial labor of the global economy. This is often done at great cost to the relations with their own split-apart families. The experiences of migrant Filipina domestic workers are also shown to entail a feeling of exclusion from their host society, a downward mobility from their professional jobs in the Philippines, and an encounter with both solidarity and competition from other migrant workers in their communities. The author applies a new theoretical lens to the study of migration-the level of the subject, moving away from the two dominant theoretical models in migration literature, the macro and the intermediate. At the same time, she analyzes the three spatial terrains of the various institutions that migrant Filipina domestic workers inhabit--the local, the transnational, and the global. She draws upon the literature of international migration, sociology of the family, women's work, and cultural studies to illustrate the reconfiguration of the family community and social identity in migration and globalization. The book shows how globalization not only propels the migration of Filipina domestic workers but also results in the formation of parallel realities among them in cities with greatly different contexts of reception. Οι γυναίκες εργάζονται αιώνες τώρα: στα χωράφια, στο σπίτι, στην οικοτεχνία ή το μικρεμπόριο. Τι μεσολάβησε λοιπόν, ώστε στη σύγχρονη εποχή ή εργασία τους να δημιουργεί πρόβλημα; Αυτό που συνέβη είναι ότι η ίδια η εργασία επαναξιολογήθηκε συνολικά και μετουσιώθηκε σε κοινωνική αξία. Έγινε αξία μετρήσιμη, ποσοτική. Παράλληλα, μέσα από μια διαδικασία, που έχει ενδιαφέρον αν αναλυθεί, η προσωπική εργασία των γυναικών εξοβελίστηκε. Πως όμως και γιατί; Η ιδιαίτερη εργασία των γυναικών, η οικιακή εργασία έπαψε να μετράει, είναι σαν να βγήκε από το λογαριασμό. Την αποκαλούμε αναπαραγωγική, αλλά όπως όλοι ξέρουμε, δεν είναι "παραγωγική" σύμφωνα με τη μαρξιστική θεωρία, για παράδειγμα. Θα έπρεπε να εξετάσουμε τους λόγους για τους οποίους ο Μαρξ, αλλά και η μαρξιστική σκέψη γενικότερα, αντιμετώπισαν έτσι αυτό το ζήτημα.. ο Μαρξ ήταν άνθρωπος της εποχής του: δε διαφοροποιείται στο σημείο αυτό από τη σκέψη του καιρού του. Τελικά, όπως λέγεται όλο το 19ο αι., η νοικοκυρά είναι μια "γυναίκα που δε δουλεύει". Η προσωπική της εργασία είναι σα να μην υπάρχει. Peterson and Lewis are joined by 86 other scholars of economics, politics, and feminist thought, to introduce readers to key concepts in feminist economics, feminist critiques, and reconstructions of major economic theories. Ninety-nine entries include brief economic histories of dozens of regions and countries, as well as the coverage of topics of more general subjects. Each entry includes cross-references and a thorough bibliography. A highly readable textbook for undergraduates that describes both women's roles in world politics and the impact of world politics on women's roles.
Η σεξουαλική διαπαιδαγώγηση παιδιών και εφήβων απασχολούσε και απασχολεί εκατοντάδες εκατομμύρια σε όλο τον κόσμο. Το βιβλίο Πλάθοντας τη ζωή είναι η απάντηση στην ανάγκη για σωστή σεξουαλική διαπαιδαγώγηση και αποτελεί ένα πολύτιμο μάθημα, που προχωρά πολύ πιο πέρα από την απλή αύξηση των γνώσεων του εφήβου για τη σεξουαλικότητα του και τη χρήση αντισυλληπτικών μέσων. Το βιβλίο Πλάθοντας τη ζωή προσφέρει στον έφηβο στοιχεία που του επιτρέπουν να σκέφτεται σωστά και τον βοηθούν να παίρνει τις αποφάσεις του με τρόπο ενημερωμένο, ελεύθερο και συνειδητό. Συγχρόνως τον οδηγεί στη βελτίωση της σεξουαλικής του υγείας και τον διευκολύνει στην αναζήτηση της ταυτότητάς του και την ωρίμανση του σε σωματικό, συναισθηματικό, πνευματικό και κοινωνικό επίπεδο.
The battle to conquer aging is not only the oldest war but one of the oldest mysteries regarding human development and growth. Ancient philosophers, and specifically Greek philosophers, displayed a keen interest in old age and the aging process. Aristotle, in Rhetoric, looks at old age from a pessimistic point of view and sees very little remaining in old age. On the other hand, Plato, in his Republic, comments that old age brings a profound freedom to the individual from love and other passions. According to most accounts, since the publication of Zerbi's Gerontomania, in 1489, medicine is the only scientific field that showed a continuous interest in the health status of older people, and in the determination and explanation of old age. However, research interest in other aspects of aging is a new phenomenon. The rapid rise in the percentage of the aged population in most industrialized nations in the last century and the changing status of old people, has produced the need for research, evaluation and practical solutions to the many faceted problems of old age. Numerous controversies exist in studies of adjustment to the later years of life. Social gerontologists have followed three basic lines of inquiry while studying adjustment to aging. The first of these has dealt primarily with theoretical explanations of adjustment and was dominated by the two major theories of aging-disengagement theory and activity theory. The second one has dealt with the conceptualization and measurement of adjustment and the third one placed major emphasis in the development of typologies of adjustment to aging. This book focuses on the two first cases. This book aims to explain the factors affecting the levels of well-being of older Greeks, as well as the meanings placed on these factors by the older persons themselves. Si Shakespeare avait eu une soeur, comme lui genialement douee pour las poesie et la theatre, la posterite n'en aurait rien su. C'est ce qu'imaginait Virgina Woolf dans Une chambre a soi; Judith Shakespeare, rejetee, humiliee, incomprise, aurait ete condamnee a la folie et a une mort solitaire. Balzac, lui, avait une soeur cadette, Laure Surville, qui a ecrit et publie. Elle est encore connue aujourd'hui, ses oeuvres le sont moins. Nul destin tragique ne la guettait pourtant, mais un mariage et une vie conformes aux conventions. Au xixe siecle en France, il n'est pas impossible pour une femme d'ecrire, ni meme de publier: seulement difficile, et douloureux. Pour rendre compte de la situation des femmes vis-a-vis de la litterature, on ne peut donc se satisfaire des mythologies tragiques de la creation feminine etouffee. Ou plutot, l'etouffement est autre: celue des conventions litteraires et sociales, qui refusent a la femme le statut d'artiste et de sujet. This book has had a long gestation, and finally became something quite different from what was originally intended. Indeed, the book has been drafted in at least three different forms with varying problems over a number of years. It started in 1978 as an empirical study of sexual diversity sponsored by the then Social Science research Council in which the life histories of "paedophiles", "transvestites" and "sadomasochists" were to be analyzed sociologically. Some remnants of that study remain, but the main contribution of that research to this book was to suggest the problem of how and why people are willing to provide such interview material of their sexual life stories. A second version was informed much more by feminist debates during the 1980s and was concerned with the rise of new social movements around sexuality. Neither of these books saw the light of day, but they led to this one. Anyone who writes about sex these days stands at the intersection of a vast amount of literature speaking about sex from every conceivable persuasion. It is indeed one argument of this book that we have become the talking, babbling sex. Large computer-based bibliographies on every aspect of sex from every discipline and angle can now be found or created: but anyone would be hard put to actually read all the available material. When one thinks of Edith Wharton, the grandeur of upper-class life in turn-of-the-century New York City is immediately conjured. Hanson cabs wait curbside in front of Washington Square townhouses. Chandeliers glow above the heads of waltzing couples. What does not come to mind immediately is the tough-mindedness of Wharton herself and the efforts she put forth on behalf of others. Alan Price illuminates this side of Wharton in The End of the Age of Innocence: Edith Whartonand the First World War. During World War I, Wharton saved the lives of thousands of Belgian and French refugees. When the war began, the expatriated Wharton and Henry James saw any possible German victory as "the crash of civilisation", thus prompting their early involvement in the allied cause. In the opening weeks of the conflict, Wharton wrote war reportage at the front and organized relief efforts in Paris. Before the first year of the war was over, she had created organizations and raised funds for three major war charities that bore her name. As the war sank into a stalemate of trench warfare, Wharton continued to write magazine and newspaper articles, organize fundraising schemes, and rally the world's best painters, composers, and writers to raise money for her refugees and to sway American popular opinion. The End of the Age of Innocence tells the dramatic story of Wharton's heroic crusade to save the lives of displaced Belgians as well as the suffering citizens of her adopted France. "Les p?res fondateurs de la sociologie europ?enne ?laborent leurs concepts dans un contexte instable, riche de d?bats passionn?s m?lant regrets et proph?ties, nostalgies du pass? et r?ves utopiques."
Emmeline Pankhurst was perhaps the most influential woman of the twentieth century. Today her name is synonymous with the "votes for women" campaign and she is remembered as the bravest and most inspirational suffrage leader in history. In this absorbing account of her life both before and after suffrage, June Purvis documents her early political work, her active role within the suffrage movement and her role as a wife and mother within her family. This important book ranges across contemporary debates in the study of gender and political economy. It situates differing gender-based theories in the context of wider political and historical processes such as colonialism, post-colonialism, Cold War politics, the New World Order, globalization and democratization. Shirin Rai focuses on the gendered nature of the political economy of development, and the shifts that have occurred as economies and states have moved from a development process that is state-focused to one that is clearly framed by globalization. Differences between men and women, and differences between women in contrasting social and geographical positions, are explored in relation to their influence on political practice. Rai considers how the structures of economic and political power frame men and women and examines the consequences of these gendered positionings. She makes important connections between the political narratives of different levels of governance and examines the discourse of empowerment at these different levels. Women and the State: International Perspectives explores the historical and structural boundaries within which women act, relate to each other and deal with the state in the Third World. it is conscious of the fact that 'much Western feminist state theory has largely ignored the experience of Third World Women.' This is true both in terms of knowledge of the diverse forms of activities women undertake and in the application of theoretical constructs about gender relations and the status of women which may be of little relevance to Third World women. "An accessible, clearly explained review of difficult concepts within this arena as well as relevant debates. Its strengths are in outlining possible considerations that need to be taken into account when making methodological choices. It also clearly explains how these choices impact knowledge production. This book would undoubtedly be of considerable use to anyone seeking to understand and get to grips with feminist methodological issues" - Feminism and Psychology The major environmental problems facing Egypt are overpopulation, pollution, depletion of resources, and the inability to bring population growth down to a rate that can be sustained by available natural resources. In effect, Egypt is currently undergoing tremendous environmental stress which seriously threatens the quality of the country's scarce natural resources. This is attributed to a magnitude of factors, including: high population density concentrated in the narrow Nile valley, absolute reliance on the Nile for water supply, expansion of industry, change in people's consumption habits owing to higher standards of living among certain sections of the population, the continuing rise in the number of vehicles on the streets and their use of leaded gasoline, use and abuse of pesticides and fertilizers in agriculture, and loose governmental control over the dumping of hazardous waste materials. Almost all pollutants detected in Egypt's water and airs exceed international standards.
"Both compelling and certain to be controversial...it is hard to resist her conclusion that many reproductive experiments can represent another form of violence against women. Highly recommended." Library Journal "A radical feminist's call for an end to reproductive...violence against women...Challenging ideas, expressed clearly and forcefully, that go provocatively against the grain." Kirkus Review The interlinkages between gender and poverty have, until recently, escaped careful analytical scrutiny. The contributors to this edited volume critically reflect on some of the key methodological and analytical issues that a gendered analysis of poverty needs to address. The conclusion emerging from this collection is that it is impossible to integrate gender into an understanding of poverty unless the reading of evidence and the analysis are grounded on the relational processes of accumulation and impoverishment. These are foundational issues, and have serious implications for public action to reduce/eradicate the different kinds of poverty that men and women experience.
The EU has recently launched a framework for policy development in education, training and the labor market. While equal opportunity is identified as important in the model framework, Mainstreaming Equality in the European Union argues that the gendered nature of these fields is not incorporated into the analysis upon which the policies are based. This book traces and critiques the record of the EU on equal opportunities from equal treatment, then positive action, through to the current agenda--mainstreaming equality. The author combines insights from feminist theory on conceptualizing equality, familiarity with Eurospeak and original research on the programs and projects of the Commission to offer an accessible, jargon-free account of the EU's attempts to encourage equal opportunities. Examining the wide range of feminist research methods, Shulamit Reinharz explains the relationship between feminism and methodology, and challenges existing stereotypes. Concluding that there is no one correct feminist method, but rather a variety of perspectives, Reinharz argues that this diversity of methods has been of great value to feminist scholarship. With an extensive bibliography cataloguing the important work accomplished over the last two decades, Feminist Methods in Social Research is an essential resource for students of sociology and women's studies. An interdisciplinary group of European feminist scholars critically explores the European gender policies from the founding of the European Community to the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam. They offer different interpretations of the contradiction between the exceptional development of gender equality policy within Community social policy and actual gender inequality. Analysis of the EU policies on the equality of women reveals their central role in the making of the common market and the Community's modernizing action to reform employment patterns and welfare systems. From different, and at times contrasting, feminist perspectives, the contributors propose new policies to challenge the current situation and overcome the EU juridical defect in women's rights, which exacerbates the European "citizenship deficit" and "democratic deficit."
This book examines the far-reaching changes in gender relations in all fifteen member states of the European Union. Looking at women's labor in the 1990s, the book analyzes trends in terms of changes which have taken place in international and national economies, within enterprises, and in the behavior and aspirations of individuals and households. The subject of bisexuality continues to divide the lesbian and gay community. At pride marches, in films such as Go Fish, at academic conferences, the role and status of bisexuals is hotly contested. Within lesbian communities, formed to support lesbians in a patriarchal and heterosexist society, bisexual women are often perceived as a threat or as a political weakness. Bisexual women feel that they are regarded with suspicion and distrust, if not openly scorned. Drawing on her research with over 400 bisexual and lesbian women, surveying the treatment of bisexuality in the lesbian and gay press, and examining the recent growth of a self-consciously political bisexual movement, Paula Rust addresses a range of questions pertaining to the political and social relationships between lesbians and bisexual women. By tracing the roots of the controversy over bisexuality among lesbians back to the early lesbian feminist debates of the 1970s, Rust argues that those debates created the circumstances in which bisexuality became an inevitable challenge to lesbian politics. She also traces it forward, predicting the future of sexual politics.
What differences do welfare state variations make for women? How do women and men fare in different welfare states? Diane Sainsbury answers these questions by analyzing the United States, Britain, Sweden and The Netherlands, whose welfare policies differ in significant ways. Building on feminist research, she determines the extent to which legislation reflects and perpetuates the gendered division of labor in the family and society, as well as what types of policy alter gender relations in social provision. She offers constructive proposals for securing greater equality between women and men. Gender and Welfare State Regimes focuses on the interrelationships between aspects of the welfare state and labour market policies in structuring and transforming gender relations across a broad spectrum of countries. The book examines the construction of gender in various government welfare policies and illustrates how the specific qualities of the welfare state reinforce or counteract gender inequalities. The book argues that policy variation across the countries surveyed can be attributed to a variety of factors, including differing strategies and demands of the women's movements, the organisational strength of labour movements and industrial relations frameworks, the constellation of parties supporting equality measure, traditional values and state structures. This collection extends the boundaries of global feminism to include Islamic women. Challenging Orientalist assumptions of Muslim women as victims of Islam, these essays focus on women's negotiations for identity, power, and agency as participants in religious, cultural and nationalist movements. This book gathers Signs essays on women in the Middle East, South Asia, and the Diaspora to explore how women negotiate identities and attempt to gain political, economic, and legal rights, and provide an alternative, revolutionary paradigm to Eurocentric liberal humanism and western feminism? Is Islam more oppressive to women than the modern secular state? How are the lives and texts of Arab and Muslim women constructed for local or western consumption? These essays expose the shortcomings of the secularist assumptions of many recent feminist analyses, which continue to treat religion in general and fundamentalism in particular as a tool of oppression used against women, rather than as a viable form of feminist agency producing contradictory effects for its participants. The essays in this book first appeared in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. This short historical account of the Women's Studies programme at the Faculty of Arts of Utrecht University aims at celebrating 15 years of hard work, intellectual commitment and academic success. In a relatively brief span of time the department has managed to create a cutting-edge programme of education and research that enjoys a solid international reputation. Women's Studies at Utrecht University have constantly been on the move and it is still developing. This book both accounts for and reflects on the extraordinary adventure of the programme itself, the institution-building efforts of its team and the conditions that allowed it to flourish. A growing anthropological literature addresses the articulation of gender roles and ideology with health status, the organizing of health care, and health policy. This book presents as interdisciplinary focus on these issues viewed in a cross-cultural perspective. The book will be relevant to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and to clinicians and others interested in public health policy. Most of the contributors to the book are anthropologists engaged in cross-cultural research. Others include a literary theorist, a physician, and an ethicist, all of whom are primarily concerned with medical discourse, medical research, and the delivery of health care within North America. The premise of all these authors is that women and men seeking medical care should be conceptualized as gendered persons functioning in particular socioeconomic contexts. In addition, all the authors share the assumption that analysis of the production of health, as well as the provision of health care, must consider gender, ethnicity, and class as relevant factors. From Hannah Arendt's "banality of evil" to Joseph Conrad's "fascination of the abomination," humankind has struggled to make sense of human-upon-human violence. Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology is the only book of its kind available: a single volume exploration of social, literary, and philosophical theories of violence. Edited by two of anthropology's most passionate voices on this subject, Violence in War and Peace is a sweeping collection that looks at various concepts and modes of violence. Drawing from a remarkable range of sources, the editors juxtapose the routine violence of everyday life---what scholars Taussig and Benjamin have termed "terror as usual"---against the sudden outcropping of unexpected, extraordinary violence such as the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the state violence of Argentina's "Dirty War", revolution, vigilante "justice," and organized criminal violence. Despite the impulse to distance ourselves from such acts, Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois take care to remind us that concepts of violence and aggression have often failed to acknowledge symbolic and structural forms. Yet, the most violent acts often involve conduct that is socially permitted---even encouraged---rather than condemned as deviant. In Violence in War and Peace, the editors offer a thought-provoking tool for students and thinkers from all walks of life: an exploration of violence at the broadest levels: personal, social, and political. This collection of classic essays in feminist body studies investigates the history of the image of the female body; from the medical 'discovery' of the clitoris, to the 'body politic' of Queen Elizabeth I, to women deprecated as 'Hottentot Venuses' in the nineteenth century. The text looks at the ways in which coverings bear cultural meaning: clothing reform during the French Revolution, Islamic veiling, and the invention of the top hat; as well as the embodiment of cherished cultural values in social icons such as the Statue of Liberty or the Barbie doll. By considering culture as it defines not only women but also men, this volume offers both the student and the general reader an insight into the interdisciplinary and cross-cultural study involved in feminist body studies. Se demande-to-on depuis quand les hommes travaillent? Non, bein sur. Se demande-t-on pourquoi ils travaillent? Pas plus. les interroge-t-on pour savoir si le travail a temps partiel leur conviendrait, s'ils aimeraient se consacrer seulement a l'entretien de la maison et a l'education des enfants? Guere. Pour les femmes, i en va tout autrement. Leur travail est toujours presente comme fortuit et recent. On feint d'ignorer que les femmes ont aussi ete paysannes, commercantes, ouvrieres, employees, infirmieres, institutrices. Depuis toujours. Dans la continuite de son precedent livre, La Citoyenne paradoxale, Joan W. Scott etudie la maniere dont la question de la difference des sexes a eterecemment rouverte, analysee et traitee dans un cadre politique et philosophique propre a la theorie republicaine francaise. L'emergence, dance les annees 1992-1993 d'un Mouvement pour la parite, dont le but a ete d'assurer aux femmes l'egal acces a la representation politique, lui permet de montrer les derniers avatars d'une tension diseculaire qui s'est instauree entre les exigences de groupes ou de categories exclues en droit d'abord, en fait ensuite, de la representation nationale comme de la realite du pouvoir politique, et la necessaire adaptation des institutions publiques aux ideaux democratiques. [Original English:] France today is in the throes of a crisis about whether to represent social differences within its political system and, if so, how. It is a crisis defined by the rhetoric of a universalism that takes the abstract individual to be the representative not only of citizens but also of the nation. In Parit?! Joan Wallach Scott shows how the requirement for abstraction has led to the exclusion of women from French politics. During the 1990s, le mouvement pour la parit? successfully campaigned for women's inclusion in elective office with an argument that is unprecedented in the annals of feminism. The paritaristes insisted that if the abstract individual were thought of as sexed, then sexual difference would no longer be a relevant consideration in politics. Scott insists that this argument was neither essentialist nor separatist; it was not about women's special qualities or interests. Instead, parit? was rigorously universalist-and for that reason was both misunderstood and a source of heated debate. "In many ways, the book that turned queer theory from a latent to a manifest discipline.", - From Voice Literary Supplement. "Universally cited as the text that ignited gay studies." -From Rolling Stone Islam is a complete lifestyle and world order with a clear and distinct view of the universe. Its adherents are endowed with a unique Muslim personality steeped in the values and ideals of Islam and charged with the propagation of the message of Islam toward the development of an ideal Muslim community in an ideal Muslim world. The institutions of marriage and the family have a central position in this scheme. The subject of Islamic Fundamentalism is as relevant today as ever before. With the twentieth century behind us and a new millennium dawning, it is opportune to take stock of some of the forces that shaped the twentieth century on the political, social, economic, religious, and cultural levels, and study them analytically. While some may argue that the political rhetoric of fundamentalists is of small consequence, being mere discourse, this book differs and argues that Islamic political rhetoric is part and parcel of political strategies that influence the perceptions and actions of the ruling elite and their opponents alike. Certain forms of this rhetoric facilitate fundamentalist efforts to create political openings and power, being based in utilitarian pragmatism. One such rhetoric is gender discourse.
Drawing on postmodernist analyses, Leaky Bodies and Boundaries presents a feminist investigation into the marginalization of women within western discourse that denies both female moral agency and bodylines. With reference to contemporary and historical issues in biomedicine, the book argues that the boundaries of both the subject and the body are no longer secure. The aim is both to valorize women and to suggest that "leakiness" may be the very ground for a postmodern feminist ethic. The contribution made by Margrit Shildrick is to go beyond modernist feminisms to radically displace the mechanisms by which women are devalued. The anxiety that postmodernism cannot yield an ethics, nor advance feminist concerns is addressed. "Essential to any collection of work on the body, health and illness, or social theory" --Choice "Sophisticated... and acutely perceptive of the importance of the complex dialectic between social institutions, culture and biological conditions" - Times Higher Education Supplement "Chris Shilling has done us all a splendid service in bringing together and illustrating the tremendous diversity and richness of sociological thinking on the topic of human embodiment and its implications" - Sociological Review
Women and farming: Property and Power looks at women on family farms. It argues that farming culture affords more power to men than to women. This is because men and women on family farms have different relationships to property. Traditions and customary practices sanction the transfer of land from father to son, thus restricting women's access to property. Economic power follows from property ownership and this in turn leads to political, ideological and organizational power. Access to property is regulated by farming culture, and discriminates against women. Using comparative examples, different chapters consider the transfer of land between men, the changed role of women in the dairy industry in the nineteenth century, women in farming organizations, women in agricultural education programmes, and the role of the state in shaping the lives of farm women. The common themes of power and property underpin all the chapters. This book compares the links between women's social rights and democratic citizenship in three different citizenship models: republican citizenship in France, liberal citizenship in Britain, and social citizenship in Denmark. Birte Siim argues that France still suffers from the contradictions of pro-natalist policy, and that Britain is only just starting to reconceptualize the male-breadwinner model that is still a dominant feature. Examination of the dual-breadwinner model in Denmark reveals new research about Scandinavian social policy. Feminisms and Internationalism addresses the theme of the history of internationalism in feminist theory and praxis. It engages some of the following topics: the ways in which 'internationalism' has been conceived historically within feminism and women's movements; the nature of and historical shifts within 'imperial' feminisms; changes in the meaning of feminist internationalism both preceding and following the end of most formal empires in the twentieth-century; the challenges to, and the reformulations of, internationalism within feminism by women of color and by women from colonized or formerly colonized countries; the fragmentation of internationalism in response to a growing emphasis on local over global contexts of struggle as well as on a variety of different feminism instead of a singular feminism; and the context for the re-emergence of internationalism within feminisms and women's movements as a result of the new modes of globalization in the late twentieth-century. Gender is increasingly recognized as central to the study and analysis of the traditionally male domains of war and international relations. This book explores the key role of gender in peace research, conflict resolution and international politics. Rather than simply 'add gender and stir', the aim is to transcend different disciplinary boundaries and conceptual approaches to provide a more integrated basis for research and study. To this end Gender, Peace and Conflict uniquely combines theoretical chapters alongside empirical case studies to demonstrate the importance of a gender perspective to both theory and practice in conflict resolution and peace research. The theoretical chapters explore the gender relationship and engage with the many stereotypical elisions and dichotomies that dominate and distort the issue, such as the polarized pairs of femininity and peace versus masculinity and war. The case study chapters (drawing on examples from South America, South Asia and Europe, including former Yugoslavia) move beyond theoretical critique to focus on issues such as sexual violence in war, the role of women in military groups and peacekeeping operations, and the impact of a 'critical mass' of women in political decision-making. Gender, Peace and Conflict provides an invaluable survey and new insights in a central area of contemporary research. It will be essential reading for academics, students and practitioners across peace studies, conflict resolution and international politics. Many people consider their weight to be a personal problem, but when does body weight become a social problem? Until recently, the major public concern was whether enough food was consistently available. As food systems began to provide ample and stable amounts of food, questions about food availability were replaced with concerns about "ideal" weights and appearance. These interests were aggregated into public concerns about defining people as "too fat" and "too thin." The chapters in this volume offer several perspectives that can be used to understand the way society deals with fatness and thinness, considering historical foundations, medical models, gendered dimensions, institutional components, and collective perspectives. These different views illustrate the multifaceted nature of obesity and eating disorders, providing examples of how a variety of social groups construct weight as a social problem.
This book has three major aims. First, it is in a broad sense concerned with exploring the ways in which "gender makes the world go around" and suggests ways in which feminist theories furnish us with conceptual and theoretical tools to construct knowledge about the world. It does not, however, attempt to construct a single feminist theory of International Relations, nor does it advance a particular perspective on how gender can best be understood in an international or global context. Rather, the approach adopted is in sympathy with the view that whilst partial in themselves, feminist theories have collectively produced a great many insights which contribute to our understanding of many of the concerns of International Relations as conventionally defined. For this reason, the organization of the book mirrors the conventional concerns of the discipline, for example issues of political identity, conceptions of political community and citizenship, the nature of power, the state, violence, peace and security, global political economy and development. "This leftist academic examination of our collective fascination with dieting depicts it as a manifestation of capitalist consumer culture duking it out with the secular remnants of puritanism. Stearns, founding editor of the Journal of Social History and a historian at Carnegie Mellon University (Millennium III, Century XXI, 1996, etc.) approaches our concern over personal poundage as a construct that, exceeding the demands of fashion or good health, can be understood only in larger cultural terms. We Americans relish the consumer goods with which we surround ourselves but feel a mite guilty about indulging in them. So we have contrived a way to--literally and figuratively--have our cake and eat it too: We diet. Focusing intensely on limiting caloric intake lets us feel virtuous and self-controlled even as we ignore our profligacy as consumers. We are not all equally affected; notably, from the 1920s to the 1960s "weight morality bore disproportionately on women precisely because of their growing independence, or seeming independence, from other standards.'' In France, the other society considered, Stearns does not detect a view of weight loss as a moral crusade or fat as an outward sign of guilt. For Americans, rewards (a better job or social life) will come when they become thin and healthy; for the French, being thin and healthy is the reward. Interesting as the cross-cultural comparison is, one senses that its neat findings slight some untidy questions. For example, why does Stearns focus on the gender of the target of antifat comments but not on that of their source? To what extent are unattainable standards of slenderness invaluable in allowing people to devote a portion of each crowded day to self- absorption? Does that count as an expression of guilt? Those who agree with Stearns's premise from the first page will readily accept his illustrations as proof. Others may see this as an interesting study that suggests the complexity of a phenomenon more convincingly than it accounts for it." -- ©1997, Kirkus Associate American women invest millions of dollars in a quest for a body that meets our culture's standard of beauty-slenderness. Since we define a woman's sexual attractiveness as essential to her social worth, it is no wonder that "fat is a feminist issue." Commercial weight loss organizations have come under attack from feminist scholars for perpetuating the very social values that cause women to obsess about their weight. In Women and Dieting Culture, sociologist Kandi Stinson asks how these values are transmitted and how the women who join such organizations actually think about their bodies and weight. Stinson fully participated in a national, commercial weight-loss organization as a paying member. Her acute analysis and sensitive insider's account vividly illustrate the central role dieting and body image play in women's lives. In Race and the Education of Desire, ann Laura Stoler offers a colonial reading of Foucault's History of Sexuality and challenges the marginalization of empire in his genealogy of the nineteenth-century bourgeois self. Drawing on Foucault's little-known 'College de France lectures on 'racisms of the state' as well as her own extensive colonial archival research, Stoler argues that a history of nineteenth-century European sexuality must also be a history of race. This book will change the way we think about Foucault and address how racial thinking in the past has shaped racial discourse today.
Bisexuality: A Critical Reader brings together for the first time in one volume some of the most important and influential writings on bisexuality of the last 100 years. The pieces in this unique collection explore this slippery and often controversial concept from a range of perspectives, placing it in its historical and cultural contexts and interrogating its many meanings and uses. The reader is divided into four sections: -Genealogy of the Concept of Bisexuality traces the ancestry of the concept and the ways in which its meanings have changed since the 1890s -Bisexual Identities and Bisexual Behaviors samples some of the most important international research from the 1970s to the 1990s, discussing what it means to call oneself--or not to call oneself--"bisexual." -Bisexual Epistemologies examines recent arguments that bisexuality is a revolutionary concept with a dangerous potential to subvert old ways of thinking about gender and sexuality -Differences explores the inner dynamics of bisexuality and its possible futures in cyberspace. This book evaluates the major debates around which the discipline of international relations has developed in the light of contemporary feminist theories. Three debates (realist versus idealist, scientific versus traditional, modernist versus postmodernist) are discussed against the backdrop of feminist activities and theories that were ignored as the field unfolded, and in the context of feminist empiricist, standpoint and postmodern epistemologies of the moment.
Since the 1970s, conflict studies and feminist studies have benefited greatly from a convergence of interest by widely different people, including practitioners, theorists, and researchers. The academic study of conflict, conflict management, and conflict resolution has grown, and applications of conflict resolution strategies have become integral to legal, corporate, and bureaucratic structures and widespread in personal and interpersonal problem solving. Concurrently, the 20th century women's movement brought major challenges to social and political organizations and changes in personal lives, at least in developed Western cultures. Yet, curiously, these developments have remained largely separate from each other. Although many, if not most, practitioners of interpersonal conflict management are women, most of those involved in the academic study of conflict and its resolution are not. This book covers different forms and contexts of conflict and includes chapters about theory and chapters about research. Taken as a whole, this book raises more questions than it answers and poses problems for which we have no definitive solutions. Yet, its questions and problems are of such consequence that we believe it important to stimulate dialogue that might lead to answers and solutions. "In this persuasively argued social history, Terry, an associate professor of comparative studies at Ohio State University, contends that homosexuality "has acquired a symbolic centrality in American culture" as a dominant marker between the "normal" and the "abnormal" across a diverse range of disciplines and milieus. Drawing upon a wide range of materials from personal memoirs to legal cases, yellow journalism, pulp fiction, religious writings, psychology texts and "scientific" studies (which prove to be not all that scientific. Terry demonstrates how, over the past 100 years, theories about the causes, nature and possible "cure" for homosexuality have focused far more on notions of sexuality, sin, gender and "social good" than on homosexuality itself. Analyzing the work of such 19th-century sexologists as Krafft-Ebing, Magnus Hirschfeld and Havelock Ellis, she illustrates how their naive, often contradictory theories became so influential that they still inform contemporary thought, including "gay gene" studies and the religious beliefs and rhetoric of the Christian right. While her broad survey is vital to the book, Terry's real strength is her detailed explorations of individual groups such as the Committee for the Study of Sex Variants, a multidisciplinary group of physicians and scientists who, in 1935, attempted to understand the "problem" of homosexuality on a scientific basis and events, such as the harsh religious, psychoanalytic and cultural backlash against Kinsey's work in the early 1950s. Her exhaustively researched, astute synthesis is not only an original and important contribution to lesbian and gay studies, but sheds new light on the sociology of American life and the history of science." From Publishers Weekly.
Radical Feminism Today offers a timely and engaging account of exactly what feminism is, and what it is not. Author Denise Thompson questions much of what has come to be taken for granted as 'feminism' and points to the limitations of implicitly defining feminism in terms of 'women', 'gender', 'difference' or 'race//gender//class'. She challenges some of the most widely accepted ideas about feminism and in doing so opens up a number of hitherto closed debates, allowing for the possibility of moving those debates further. Ann Tickner--an established scholar in international relations and a well-informed and thoughtful feminist--rethinks from a feminist point of view virtually every conventional category used by theorists and practitioners of international relations: the state, the international system, security, rationalism, citizenship, and more. "The Great Migration of the early twenieth century represents for African-Americans both immigration and freedom. These were voluntary movements, initiated by the individual or the family, in pursuit of what they saw as their own best interests...Through their 'immigrant' experience they have profoundly altered the culture that all late twentieth-century Americans share." from the Forward, by Nell Irvin Painter. Sexual Politics in the Enlightenment constitutes the first book-length feminist study of Rousseau's sexual politics and the reception of his works by women readers. By today's standards, Rousseau's sexual politics appear reactionary, paternalistic, even blatantly misogynist; yet, among his female contemporaries, his works often met with enthusiastic approval and had tremendous impact on their values and behavior. To probe Rousseau's paradoxical appeal to eighteenth-century readers, Mary Trouille examines how seven women authors responded to his writings and sexual politics and traces his influence on their lives and works. The writers include six Frenchwomen (Roland, d'Epinay, Stael, Genlis, Gouges, and an anonymous woman correspondent who called herself Henriette) and the English feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.
"This well researched study of the Czech Republic challenges conventional wisdom about the fate of women in post-socialist transitions in Eastern and Central Europe and shows how women, although they have lost ground in terms of formal political representation and employment opportunities, are finding ways to participate informally in building democracy from below. Linking her study to the broader international context, Jacqui True convincingly demonstrates how global forces shape and are shaped by gender relations in the family, the workplace, and in politics. True convinces us that we cannot understand the processes of globalization without paying attention to gender. This is not only an important contribution to a growing body of empirical feminist IR; it should also be of great interest to those concerned with post-socialist transitions as well as with the political, economic and cultural aspects of globalization." -- J. Ann Tickner, University of Southern California Europe and the United States confront common challenges in responding to the transformations of work and welfare in the 'new economy', and there are signs of far-reaching changes in the role of government as a direct result. This volume presents the latest research by a team of outstanding international contributors. Parts One and Two examine new approaches to the governance of work and welfare in the EU and the US respectively; and Part Three surveys emergent trends and reflects on future possibilities. From Eve to Madonna, the normative conceptions of female identity have been largely associated with fashion and appearance. Now, in The Masque of Femininity, author Efrat Tseelon draws from interdisciplinary theory, empirical resources, and original research to examine how fashion, the body, and personal appearance have defined the female self. This volume explores femininity through an analysis of key concepts--modesty, duplicity, beauty, seduction, and death--and sheds light on such topics as the religious constructions of woman, the power of the prostitute metaphor, the female gaze, and cosmetic surgery. Elias, Freud, Lacan, Goffman, and Baudrillard are just a few of the scholars and theorists to whom the author makes reference in highlighting the paradoxical nature of the expectations that lie at the root of the contemporary feminine experience in the West. The Masque of Femininity will serve as an ideal supplement for courses in gender studies, cultural studies, and social psychology.
L'individualisme est souvent invoque pour expliquer la desyndicalisation et le manque persume d'engagement des travailleurs dans des projects collectifs. Cet ouvrage propose une alternative a cette lecture fataliste. La these defendue ici est que le lien social dans le travail n'est pas en train de se dissoudre drans un individualisme croissant. La nature et les formes de ce lien social s'expriment differement. Toutefois, si l'on reste prisonnier des categories heritees de l'epoque industrille, on ne continuera a voir que du vide social la ou se tissent de nouveaux reseaux. Cette transformation du lien social dans le travail s'explique a la fois par une nouvelle donne industrielle mais egalement par une evolution des individus eux-memes: leur maniere de s'engager dans le travail et de se lier aux autres change.
Η ιστορία του βιασμού έρχεται να αφηγηθεί μια σύνθετη διαπλοκή ανάμεσα στο σώμα, το βλέμμα και την ηθική. Περνώντας από τη σχετική σιγή σε μια θορυβώδη παρουσία, το έγκλημα του βιασμού είναι σήμερα όσο ποτέ άλλοτε παρόν στις αστυνομικές έρευνες, στο δικαστικό ρεπορτάζ, στα άρθρα του τύπου, στις αντιδράσεις της κοινής γνώμης. Η φρίκη άλλαξε περιεχόμενο: η σκοτεινή μορφή των αστυνομικών μυθιστορημάτων που συνδύαζε το αίμα με τη ληστεία έδωσε τη θέση της στην περισσότερο ψυχολογική μορφή του διαταραγμένου και διεστραμμένου ατόμου που συνδυάζει αίμα, επιθυμία και σεξουαλικότητα. Το πιο σημαντικό στοιχείο δεν είναι οι αριθμοί, όσο διαφωτιστικοί και αν είναι: πολύ γρήγορα η έρευνα αποκαλύπτει ότι αυτό που πραγματικά υποβάλλεται στην ιστορία είναι τα όρια και η σημασία του εγκλήματος, ο τρόπος που το ορίζουμε και το κρίνουμε. Οι δικαστές των κλασικών χρόνων δεν αποδίδουν πίστη στη μήνυση μιας γυναίκας, παρά μόνο όταν τα υλικά στοιχεία (ορατές σωματικές βλάβες κ.λπ.) επιτρέπουν την επιβεβαίωση των ισχυρισμών της. Κατά συνέπεια, η ιστορία του βιασμού είναι ταυτόχρονα η αργή αναγνώριση ότι ένα υποκείμενο μπορεί να είναι "απόν" από τις κινήσεις που είναι καταδικασμένο να υφίσταται ή να εκτελεί.
Το βιβλίο αυτό πραγματεύεται και αναλύει μια διαφορετική προσέγγιση, της φεμινιστικής οπτικής, που δεν επιδιώκει τίποτε περισσότερο από το να αναδείξει τους μηχανισμούς της συμπληρωματικής ή ατελούς ένταξης των γυναικών στις ιεραρχικές οργανώσεις και οργανισμούς, αλλά και στα ελεύθερα επαγγέλματα. Ουσιαστικά, το παρόν πόνημα αποτελεί μια αναδρομή στο γνωστικό αντικείμενο που αφορά στην έμφυλη διάσταση της μελέτης για την οργάνωση των επιχειρήσεων. Συγκεκριμένα, επιχειρείται η σκιαγράφηση του ερευνητικού πεδίου "Οργάνωση και Φύλο". Συγκεκριμένα, περιγράφεται η ανάπτυξη του εν λόγω γνωστικού πεδίου και επισημαίνονται τα κυριότερα αποτελέσματα της έρευνας σε θεωρητικό και εμπειρικό επίπεδο. Το έργο ολοκληρώθηκε στο πλαίσιο της ιδιότητάς μας ως ερευνήτριες και καθηγήτριες του συγκεκριμένου ερευνητικού πεδίου και φιλοδοξεί να καλύψει το κενό από την έλλειψη εισαγωγικού εγχειριδίου, η οποία επισημαίνεται από τους ειδικούς του κλάδου.
This book presents a chronological selection of Watney's writings from the 1990's with new contextualising introductory and concluding essays that offer a chronicle of the changing and often confusing course of the AIDS epidemic.
"This is an important and timely book which draws recent theorizing about the body into the frame of everyday experience in a manner that is directly relevant to the practical concerns of health promotion. Using accounts by men moving from youth to maturity, Jonathan Watson skillfully explores lay accounts about health and interprets them in terms of different concepts of embodiment." Professor Gareth Williams, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. o How do men perceive their bodies? o How can empirical study of the body inform our understanding of the social world of men? o What are the implications of such understanding for public health? This major new introductory textbook in social policy breaks new ground in arguing for the centrality of race, gender and class in welfare theory and practice. The book describes and evaluates the major theoretical perspectives on welfare, as well as the different strands of feminism and work on racism which are relevant to social policy. The author develops a new analytical framework for the study of the welfare state which takes account of factors deriving from capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism and the international division of labour. In this theoretically sophisticated and thoroughly accessible treatise on gender, work and domesticity, Williams offers a new vision of "family-friendly" feminism that would support women in all the various roles on the worker-caregiver continuum. With special attention to the diversity of women's experience in terms of race and social class, this book challenges common assumptions about gender roles and women's choices concerning work, family and career. Arguing that the liberal feminist ideal of full equality in the workforce and the anti-feminist call to full-time domesticity do not represent a satisfactory range of options, Williams, who is the co-director of the Gender, Work and Family Project at the American University Law School, says that the time is ripe to acknowledge the "norm of parental care," and work to develop flexible employment policies that will mitigate the stresses of the work/family dilemma. Williams proposes a major shift in feminist strategy, focusing on the needs of diverse families, broad recognition of the value of domestic work and an expansion of the limited scheduling options available to women and men in the workplace. Of interest to feminists, working women and caregivers as well as policy makers, this groundbreaking study presents an important new perspective on this evolving discourse. From Publishers Weekl In an original and stimulating analysis of gender and AIDS, Tamsin Wilton assesses safer sex health promotion and health education discourse and considers their unintended consequences for the cultural construction of gender and sexuality. Taking a queer/feminist constructionist position, she links issues of power, gender, sexuality, and nationalism in an attempt to offer a sound theoretical foundation for an effective and radical HIV/AIDS health promotion strategy. EnGendering AIDS draws on safer sex materials from the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Scandinavia and sets current practice against the historical context of VD/STD education, dissecting the role played by STDs in the cultural construction of gender. Wilton debates the meanings that erotic minorities read into bodies and desires, and how these have been transformed by AIDS, and suggests a new model of pornography that disengages the sexually explicit and/or erotically arousing from gendered power relations. EnGendering AIDS suggests a radically innovative approach to the development of effective safer sex promotional strategies based on new thinking in health promotion and on the insights of both radical feminism and queer theory. This book will be of interest to professionals in health promotion and health education, and also to students and academics in womens studies, gender studies, lesbian and gay studies, sexuality, cultural studies, media studies, social policy, and medical sociology.
"Wittig ( The Lesbian Body ) is a key figure in French feminism, perhaps the foremost theorist of a profoundly radical lesbianism. Half of the nine essays in this brief collection deal directly with the politics of gender, a battlefield on which Wittig has staked out a nearly unique position: "There is no sex. There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses." Drawing on de Beauvoir, Wittig strenuously resists both biological determinism and its twin, essentialism, arguing that sex itself is a social, ergo ideological, construct and that man and woman are not eternal categories. For women, she concludes, lesbianism is the logical escape from patriarchal domination. Wittig's prose is methodical and aggressive, combative and dense. The book's first half, containing the political essays, is a bit repetitive. The author is at her most elegant in the literary essays, which explicate the complex relationship between literary form and ideology. As a result, these ostensibly literary essays offer the most cogent statement of her political beliefs and, consequently, the most satisfying reading." From Publishers Weekly; In the early days of Pong and Pac Man, video games appeared to be little more than an idle pastime. Today, video games make up a multi-billion dollar industry that rivals television and film. The Video Game Theory Reader brings together exciting new work on the many ways video games are reshaping the face of entertainment and our relationship with technology. Drawing upon examples from widely popular games ranging from Space Invaders to Final Fantasy IX and Combat Flight Simulator 2, the contributors discuss the relationship between video games and other media; the shift from third- to first-person games; gamers and the gaming community; and the important sociological, cultural, industrial, and economic issues that surround gaming. In a country where the average woman is 5-foot-4 and weighs 140 pounds, movies, advertisements, and MTV saturate our lives with unrealistic images of beauty. The tall, nearly emaciated mannequins that push the latest miracle cosmetic make even the most confident woman question her appearance. Feminist Naomi Wolf argues that women's insecurities are heightened by these images, then exploited by the diet, cosmetic, and plastic surgery industries. Every day new products are introduced to "correct" inherently female "flaws," drawing women into an obsessive and hopeless cycle built around the attempt to reach an impossible standard of beauty. Wolf rejects the standard and embraces the naturally distinct beauty of all women. Writing in an age when the call for the rights of man had brought revolution to America and France, Mary Wollstonecraft produced her own declaration of female independence in 1792. Passionate and forthright, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman attacked the prevailing view of docile, decorative femininity and instead laid out the principles of emancipation: an equal education for girls and boys, an end to prejudice, and the call for women to become defined by their profession, not their partner. Mary Wollstonecraft's work was received with a mixture of admiration and outrage-Walpole called her "a hyena in petticoats"-yet it established her as the mother of modern feminism.
Η παρούσα επιλογή έγινε με βάση τα θέματα που απασχόλησαν τη Woolf κατά τη δημιουργική περίοδο της ζωής της. Θέματα όπως: φεμινισμός, κοινωνική ισότητα, η αξία των βιβλίων, η σχέση της τέχνης με την πολιτική και τον άνθρωπο, η γραφή και η ανάγνωση σαν δημιουργία και σαν απόλαυση, καθώς επίσης και η λογοτεχνική παράδοση. Μέσα από αυτά ο αναγνώστης αποκτά μια κατά το δυνατόν σφαιρική εικόνα του προβληματισμού της Woolf και έτσι μπορεί να σκιαγραφήσει την πολυμερή προσωπικότητά της καθώς και τη θεματογραφία του σημαντικού και πολύπλευρου έργου της.
Αποφάσισα να σώσω από την κακολογία και τη λήθη μερικές συζύγους μεγάλων ανδρών. Θα πάω να τις ξετρυπώσω μέσα στις κουζίνες τους, πλακωμένες κάτω από τα στρώματα της ιστορικής σκόνης, και μετά θα τους χτενίσω τα μαλλιά, θα τους ξαναβάλω κοκκινάδι στα μάγουλα και το σπουδαιότερο, θα τις αγαπήσω γιατί έζησαν, όλες, έναν έρωτα έξω από τα συνηθισμένα. Είτε πρόκειται για την Ξανθίππη, τη γυναίκα - παιδί του Σωκράτη, που το όνομά της έχει καταντήσει συνώνυμο της μοχθηρίας, είτε για την κυρία Φρόιντ, την ολυμπία, την ευτυχισμένη, που από ένστικτο είχε συλλάβει (γιατί έτσι το θέλησα εγώ) όλο εκείνο το σύστημα που ο σύζυγός της θα βάφτιζε ψυχανάλυση, είτε για την Αντέλ Ουγκώ, την διάσημη ηλίθια, είτε πάλι για την Τζένη, τη μικρή βαρόνη, τη γυναίκα του Καρλ Μαρξ, που η αθλιότητα της ζωής της υπήρξε σκληρότερη απ' των ηρωίδων του Ντίκενς, είτε για την Άλμα Μάλερ, την ζηλόφθονη Άλμα, την επιθετική Άλμα, την δυστυχισμένη Άλμα, στην οποία, από το ύψος της ιδιοφυΐας του, ο μνηστήρας της, είχε απαγορέψει να συνθέτει. This monograph presents a particular interest because of the multidimensional approach to the subject of femal criminality. After identifying the peculiarities of female criminnality on the basis of statistical data and research of several countries (part A), the author tries to explain these peculiarities and looks at their probable evolution in the future from the criminological and feminist standpoint within the wider framework of the actual conceptions of Human Rights (part B).
Gender relations and the ways they affect and are affected by national projects and processes, Nira Yuval-Davis argues that the constructions of nationhood usually involve specific notions of both manhood and womanhood, although their explicit inclusion in the analytical discourse around nations and nationalisms is only a very recent endeavor. She promotes this analytical project by examining systematically the crucial contribution of gender relations into several major dimensions of nationalist projects, reproduction, national culture, citizenship, as well as national conflicts and wars. The author sharply differentiates national projects from nation-states and she emphasizes that membership on nations can be sub-, super-, and cross-states. Gender and Nation is an important contribution to the debates on citizenship, gender, and nationhood. Gender and Nation will be essential reading for academics and students of women's studies, race and ethnic studies, sociology, and political studies.
Η ανθρώπινη ύπαρξη, υπόσταση και οντότητα και η ανθρώπινη ζωή είναι ιερές. H ανθρώπινη διάσταση, η ανθρώπινη προσωπικότητα και η ανθρώπινη αξιοπρέπεια αποκτούν με την "Χάρτα των Παρισίων" το ευρύτερο δυνατό περιεχόμενο και αποτελούν αντικείμενο προστασίας από οιανδήποτε προσβολή από οπουδήποτε και αν προέρχεται. Η ανθρώπινη, όμως ύπαρξη και ζωή βρίσκει καταξίωση στην πνευματική θεώρηση της ζωής, διότι μόνο οι πνευματικές αξίες δίνουν πνοή στο πανανθρώπινο μήνυμα της "Χάρτας των Παρισίων". "...Η γυναικεία σεξουαλικότητα αποτελεί βασικό στοιχείο ανταγωνισμού, κυρίως σε ό,τι αφορά τον έλεγχο της και μάλιστα τον έλεγχο της αναπαραγωγής, μεταξύ ατόμων αλλά και ομάδων. Δημιουργεί ιεραρχίες, αξιολογήσεις και είναι διαχρονικό υποκείμενο εξουσιαστικών σχέσεων. Το ερώτημα είναι συνεπώς εύλογο: Γιατί μια τέτοια ανταγωνιστική διαδικασία στο δημόσιο χώρο θεωρείται βαθύτατα πολιτική, ενώ στον ιδιωτικό χώρο ανάγεται στη σφαίρα της "φυσιολογίας"; Οι όροι εξουσία, καταναγκασμός, νομιμότητα, σε πείσμα των υποστηρικτών της "φυσικής τάξης πραγμάτων", τυγχάνουν ευρείας προσαρμογής στον ιδιωτικό χώρο και στο σύστημα ανθρώπινων σχέσεων αναπαραγωγής που στηρίζουν τελικά τη θεωρία και την πρακτική της πατριαρχίας..."
"Το ζήτημα της ηγεσίας στην εκπαιδευτική διοίκηση βρίσκεται στο επίκεντρο πολλών σύγχρονων εκπαιδευτικών συστημάτων, καθώς θεωρείται ότι συναρτάται άμεσα με την επίτευξη της ποιότητας και αποτελεσματικότητας των εκπαιδευτικών οργανισμών. Παράλληλα, το γεγονός της υπο-αντιπροσώπευσης των γυναικών σε θέσεις στελεχών στην πρωτοβάθμια και δευτεροβάθμια εκπαίδευση συγκροτεί ένα ζήτημα κατ' εξοχήν πολιτικό, καθώς οι έμφυλες στερεότυπες προκαταλήψεις και προϊδεάσεις υψώνουν κοινωνικούς φραγμούς στις γυναίκες-γεγονός που παραπέμπει στο πολυσυζητημένο φαινόμενο της γυάλινης οροφής (glass ceiling)-προβάλλοντας έτσι την κυριαρχία των ανδρών σε θέσεις στελεχών εκπαιδευτικής διοίκησης ως κάτι το "φυσικό" και το αυτονόητο. Η παρούσα μελέτη διερευνά την ποικιλία διευθυντικών-ηγετικών πρακτικών, αλλά και τη συγκρότηση πολλαπλών έμφυλων "ταυτοτήτων", μέσα από την καταγραφή και ανάλυση της άσκησης διευθυντικών-ηγετικών καθηκόντων διευθυντών και διευθυντριών σχολικών μονάδων, ενώ με βάση τον "οστρακισμό" των γυναικών από την άσκηση εκπαιδευτικής διοίκησης καταλήγει στο συμπέρασμα ότι ο χώρος της εκπαιδευτικής διοίκησης ως κοινωνικο-πολιτισμική και ιστορικο-πολιτική κατασκευή αντιλήψεων και πρακτικών μπορεί να αποτελέσει "υπο-κείμενο" αλλαγών αλλά και υπέρβασης, με νέες -και πιθανόν ουτοπικές-τροχιές και κατευθύνσεις και με στόχο την επίτευξη του πολιτικού οράματος για έμφυλη κοινωνική συμμετρία. Το βιβλίο απευθύνεται σε εν ενεργεία εκπαιδευτικούς, σε διευθυντές/ντριες και προϊστάμενους/ες σχολικών μονάδων, σε στελέχη εκπαίδευσης, σε φοιτητές/τριες παιδαγωγικών σχολών και σε όσους/ες ενδιαφέρονται για ζητήματα φύλου στα πλαίσια της εκπαιδευτικής διοίκησης. "
Η ασυμμετρία, ή μάλλον η ανισότητα, μεταξύ των φύλων ήταν ένα από τα πρώτα ζητήματα που απασχόλησαν την ανθρωπολογία πριν από ενάμιση αιώνα, όταν αυτή άρχισε να διαμορφώνεται σε αυτόνομη επιστήμη. Οι όροι "μητριαρχία", "αρπαγή των γυναικών" κ.α. διατυπώθηκαν εκείνη την εποχή. Ακολούθησε ένα μακρύ διάστημα κατά το οποίο το ζήτημα παραγκωνίστηκε, εξαιτίας κυρίως των ιδεολογικών επιδράσεων που έστρεφαν το ενδιαφέρον είτε στους "πρωτόγονους", για της ανάγκες της αποικιοκρατίας, είτε στην κοινωνική ευταξία και ομοιογένεια, για την ενίσχυση του συντηρητισμού. Κατά την κρίση της 10ετίας του '70, που συνεχίζεται, μαζί με τα άλλα κοινωνικά κινήματα εκδηλώθηκε και το φεμινιστικό, οπότε το πρόβλημα των σχέσεων των φύλων βρέθηκε πάλι και με νέες διαστάσεις στο προσκήνιο. Η ανθρωπολογία επανήλθε στην εξέταση του αλλά με νέα οπτική, αναθεωρώντας πολλές κατηγορίες της, ενισχύοντας νέους κλάδους, όπως είναι η ανθρωπολογία του σώματος, και συνδέοντάς το με άλλες διαστάσεις του κοινωνικού προβληματισμού, όπως είναι η διάσταση της δύναμης. Οι μελέτες που περιέχονται στο συλλογικό αυτό τόμο εξετάζουν από διάφορες πλευρές τις σχέσεις των φύλων. Ταυτόχρονα, παρουσιάζουν το νέο πρίσμα της ανθρωπολογικής προσέγγισης. Με το πρίσμα αυτό φωτίζεται η κοινωνική δυναμική και προβάλλονται η ετερογένεια και οι αντιθέσεις αντί της ομοιογένειας, η διαδικασία αντί της ουσίας, η κοινωνική κατασκευή των φύλων αντί του βιολογικού ντετερμινισμού, η εξάρτησή τους από την κοινωνική οργάνωση και ο ρόλος τους στην ανέλιξη των σχέσεων δύναμης. Από την άποψη αυτή, προσφέρει ένα θεωρητικό υπόβαθρο στην πολιτική του γυναικείου ζητήματος. "Με την "επανάσταση κατά του κατεστημένου" (γονέων, σχολείου, κοινωνίας) που καλλιεργήθηκε και την αντικατάσταση των αξιών ΘΡΗΣΚΕΙΑ - ΠΑΤΡΙΔΑ - ΟΙΚΟΓΕΝΕΙΑ από την ελευθερία (ασυδοσία) στη χρήση παντός ναρκωτικού, αντισυλληπτικού, πορνό, βίας, αναρχισμού κλπ. Υποβιβάστηκε το πνευματικό επίπεδο των νέων, διαλύθηκε η παιδεία τραυματίστηκε ανεπανόρθωτα η νεανική ευαισθησία." "Κανείς στην Αίθουσα αυτή δεν μπορεί να αμφισβητήσει ότι τόσο η εθνική μας ανεξαρτησία όσο και η εδαφική μας ακεραιότητα εξαρτιούνται από την ύπαρξη ενός ανανεούμενου και αυξανόμενου πληθυσμού. Δεν είναι, επομένως, υπερβολή να λεχθεί ότι πέρα από τις κοινωνικές και οικονομικές επιπτώσεις του, το δημογραφικό πρόβλημα είναι θέμα κυριολεκτικά εθνικής επιβίωσης". Μανόλης Γ. Δρεττάκης, Βουλευτής Ηρακλείου Επερώτηση, Βουλή των Ελλήνων 12-2-1979
Η δημογραφική κατάσταση της Ελλάδας στις αρχές της δεκαετίας του 1990 συνίσταται στη μείωση της γεννητικότητας, στη δημογραφική γήρανση, στην ανορθολογική κατανομή του πληθυσμού στο χώρο, στη μετανάστευση προς το εξωτερικό που φαίνεται ότι έχει αρχίσει και πάλι από ορισμένες περιοχές της χώρας, στον περιορισμό της παλιννόστησης, στην είσοδο των Ποντίων από τη τέως Σοβιετική Ένωση. Δύο ευνοϊκές εξελίξεις σημειώθηκαν τα τελευταία χρόνια. Η προσδοκώμενη ζωή των Ελλήνων ανδρών είναι η καλύτερη στις χώρες της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης και μία από τις καλύτερες στον κόσμο, ενώ η βρεφική θνησιμότητα μειώθηκε αισθητά, αν και εξακολουθεί να παραμένει υψηλή σε σύγκριση με τις άλλες Ευρωπαϊκές χώρες. Ξεκινώντας από τη δημογραφική ανάλυση και με τη βοήθεια μελετών και ερευνών δημογράφων κοινωνιολόγων, οικονομολόγων, ψυχολόγων, ιατρών και άλλων επιστημόνων εξετάζονται τα αίτια και οι επιπτώσεις των δημογραφικών φαινομένων και επιχειρείται η "ανθρωποκεντρική" προσέγγιση της δημογραφικής κατάστασης της χώρας μας. Η Γυναικεία Απασχόληση ή Γυναικεία Εργασία είναι ένα θέμα που εμφανίζεται συχνά, στον ημερήσιο και περιοδικό τύπο, στα ειδικά έντυπα των γυναικείων οργανώσεων, στην επιστημονική αρθρογραφία. Ειδικότερα, από το 1974 και μετά, στην Ελλάδα της μεταπολίτευσης, η Γυναικεία Εργασία είναι ένα θέμα που εμφανίζεται διάχυτο στον κοινωνικό χώρο και διαπνέει, σε διάφορα επίπεδα, την ευρύτερη κοινωνική προβληματική. Η ανισότητα στις αμοιβές μεταξύ ανδρών και γυναικών, η προώθηση της ισότητας ευκαιριών, η γυναικεία ανεργία είναι μερικές από τις Όψεις της γυναικείας Εργασίας που επανέρχονται, με μεγάλη συχνότητα, στις σελίδες του ημερήσιου και περιοδικού τύπου. Παράλληλα το θέμα αυτό φαίνεται να κερδίζει έδαφος στην επιστημονική προβληματική και να μετατρέπεται σε αντικείμενο μελέτης και διερεύνησης. Φαίνεται να αποτελεί έναν κεντρικό άξονα γύρω από τον οποίο περιστρέφονται γενικότερες θεματικές , όπως η κοινωνική αλλαγή, οι σχέσεις των δύο φύλων, οι αλλαγές στη διάρθρωση του εργατικού δυναμικού, ή ακόμα ανάγεται σε βασική κατηγορία που χρησιμοποιείται ως ενδεικτική ορισμένων κοινωνικών εξελίξεων που σχετίζονται ειδικότερα με τη χειραφέτηση των γυναικών στην Ελλάδα.
Από τα πιο σημαντικά στοιχεία που ο αναστοχασμός ως ρεύμα σκέψης εισήγαγε στις επιστήμες του ανθρώπου ήταν η αμφισβήτηση των ιεραρχικών δομών ανάμεσα στον ερευνητή και τα υποκείμενα της έρευνάς του. Η αντιεξουσιαστική αυτή λογική του αναστοχασμού στη φεμινιστική σκέψη πήρε διαστάσεις καταστατικής μεθοδολογικής διακήρυξης καθώς συγκλίνει με το αξίωμα ότι, όταν πρόκειται για την απελευθέρωση των γυναικών, το επιστημονικό αποδεικνύεται και πάλι πολιτικό. Πράγματι, όπως φαίνεται από τη εισαγωγική επισκόπηση των εξελίξεων που σημειώθηκαν στο χώρο των γυναικείων σπουδών τα τελευταία 30 χρόνια, ο σύγχρονος φεμινισμός υιοθετώντας τις προτάσεις του αναστοχασμού συνέβαλε ουσιαστικά στην κατανόηση ευρύτερων θεωρητικών ζητημάτων. Οι εργασίες που περιέχονται στο βιβλίο αυτό, και οι οποίες έχουν προκύψει όλες από έρευνες πεδίου, δείχνουν ακριβώς πως η αναστοχαστική μεθοδολογία εμπλουτίζει τη μελέτη του κοινωνικού φύλου στους τομείς της ψυχανάλυσης, της εθνογραφίας αλλά και της κριτικής των κειμένων. Η μελέτη - έρευνα με τίτλο "Η γυναικεία απασχόληση στον τουριστικό τομέα, διερεύνηση της αγοράς εργασίας και επισήμανση προοπτικών" πραγματοποιήθηκε με χρηματοδότηση του Γραφείου Ίσων Ευκαιριών της ΕΟΚ και του κέντρου Κοινωνικής Πολιτικής και Κοινωνικής μορφολογίας του Παντείου Πανεπιστημίου (ΚΕΚΜΟΚΟΠ). Αρχικά είχε αποφασιστεί η συμμετοχή της Γενικής Γραμματείας Ισότητας σ' αυτή την ερευνητική προσπάθεια, αλλά οι κυβερνητικές αλλαγές που έγιναν την εποχή εκείνη στο αρμόδιο υπουργείο και στη Γραμματεία αυτή, εμπόδισαν τυπικά την τελική έγκρισή της. Έτσι, ο αρχικός σχεδιασμός, που προέβλεπε επιτόπια δειγματοληπτική έρευνα στις περιοχές Ρόδο, Αράχοβα - Δελφούς και στην περιοχή της πρωτεύουσας, εγκαταλείφθηκε και στη θέση του διενεργήθηκε έρευνα σε βάθος σε επιλεγμένους φορείς που συνδέονται με τον τουρισμό. Ειδικότερα, η προσοχή στράφηκε στην κατάσταση της αγοράς εργασίας και πιο συγκεκριμένα στη δομή της απασχόλησης και την τουριστική εκπαίδευση, καθώς επίσης και στην ανάλυση αυτών των χαρακτηριστικών σε επίπεδο κλάδου.
Αν και μόλις μια πεντηκονταετία μας χωρίζει από το τέλος του Β΄ Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου, ριζικές ανακατατάξεις και αλλαγές σημάδεψαν όχι μόνο τον οικονομικό, πολιτικό, κοινωνικό και πολιτισμικό χάρτη της Ευρώπης (και της Ελλάδας) αλλά και τις δημογραφικές δομές των πληθυσμών τους. Παράλληλα, η δημογραφία ως επιστήμη του πληθυσμού, γνώρισε ταχύτατη ανάπτυξη: ελκύοντας έναν αυξημένο αριθμό εξειδικευμένων επιστημόνων και ερευνητών, κατέκτησε οριστικά την αυτονομία της, αναπτύσσοντας τις μεθόδους και τις τεχνικές της, διευρύνοντας το πεδίο της, ξεπερνώντας τις εφηβικές αδυναμίες της (δυνάστευση του ποσοτικού και περιγραφικού). Ταυτόχρονα, στην ίδια περίοδο, πολλαπλασιάστηκαν οι προσπάθειες αξιολόγησης-αιτιολόγησης των δημογραφικών φαινομένων, της αναζήτησης των αιτιωδών σχέσεων που τα συνδέουν με τον περιρρέοντα χώρο (ως και των επιδράσεων που εξασκούν σ' αυτόν), προσπάθειες που τα αποτελέσματα της δημογραφικής ανάλυσης συνδυάζονται με τα κεκτημένα συναφών γνωστικών πεδίων, στοχεύοντας να ερμηνεύσουν - και εν μέρει να προβλέψουν - την πορεία των δημογραφικών συνιστωσών. Το Εθνικό Κέντρο Κοινωνικών Ερευνών (Ε.Κ.Κ.Ε.), αναλαμβάνοντας την πρωτοβουλία για τη διοργάνωση ενός πανελληνίου συνεδρίου τον Οκτώβρη του 1994 με κεντρικό θέμα: Οι δημογραφικές αλλαγές στη μεταπολεμική Ελλάδα και οι προοπτικές εξέλιξής τους, προσπάθησε να προβάλλει τη δημογραφική έρευνα, συμβάλλοντας στην ανάπτυξη του προβληματισμού και του διαλόγου γύρω από τα δημογραφικά δρώμενα. Σαράντα διακεκριμένοι επιστήμονες, προερχόμενοι από διαφορετικούς χώρους, ανταποκρίθηκαν στην πρόκληση αυτή, παρουσιάζοντας αξιόλογες εργασίες που εκδίδονται σήμερα σε συλλογικό τόμο. Η έκδοση αυτή ελπίζουμε να προκαλέσει το ενδιαφέρον τόσο του ευρύτερου κοινού, όσο και της επιστημονικής κοινότητας και να αποτελέσει έναυσμα για την περαιτέρω διερεύνηση των δημογραφικών μας εξελίξεων.
Οι άντρες είχαν το λόγο ανέκαθεν. Αυτοί αποφασίζουν τι είναι σπουδαίο, αληθινό, καλό. Στις γυναίκες απομένει να σκεφτούν και να δράσουν κατά συνέπεια. Κι αν οι γυναίκες σκέφτονταν, αγαπούσαν, βούλονταν διαφορετικά απ' αυτούς; Τότε θα 'πρεπε να μη ζήσουν. Θα ήταν μια γυναικεία φωνή, ένας άλλος λόγος. Λόγος που δε σέβεται τις υψηλότερες αξίες τις οποίες υπερασπίζεται ο ανδρισμός. Γιατί στο στερέωμα του ανθρώπινου μεγαλείου δεν βρίσκουμε παρά τις αρετές του καταχτητή, του ιδιοκτήτη, του κυρίου. Λόγος που είναι εκπληκτικός επίσης γιατί γεννιέται από το ίδιο το κορμί της γυναίκας. Κορμί ευτυχισμένο γιατί το διαπερνάνε βαθιές απολαύσεις που ποτέ δεν αναγνωρίζονται και πάντα χλευάζονται όπως η περίοδος, η εγκυμοσύνη, η γέννα, ο θηλασμός, το ζευγάρωμα και που αποτελούν εξωτερικές κι ερωτευμένες με τη ζωή εμπειρίες. Οι "Γυναικείες κουβέντες" είναι ένα βιβλίο που σε κάνει να γελάς με τα πιο σοβαρά πράγματα, να χαίρεσαι με τα ταπεινότερα, ν' ανακαλύπτεις ξανά τον κόσμο. Ένα βιβλίο που δίνει στην πάλη των γυναικών "ψυχή" όχι μόνο για την απελευθέρωσή τους αλλά και για τον θρίαμβο της ζωής, παντού όπου την καταπνίγουν. Η ανάπτυξη του θέματος της δημογραφίας, του σημαντικότερου όλων των προβλημάτων που αντιμετωπίζει η χώρα μας σήμερα, είναι δύσκολη και πολύπλοκη. Το έθνος μας, κατά τη μακρόχρονη ιστορία του, όχι μόνο αντιμετώπισε, αλλά και πλήρωσε ακριβά την υπογεννητικότητα. Ο ιστορικός Πολύβιος αναφέρει ότι "η υποδούλωση της χώρας μας στους Ρωμαίους οφείλετο στην υπογεννητικότητα", αλά και η Ρώμη αργότερα αυτοκτόνησε λόγω της εκούσιας ατεκνίας. Το έθνος μας και σε άλλες ιστορικές περιόδους πλήρωσε για την υπογεννητικότητα, όπως ο Παπαρηγόπουλος και άλλοι ιστορικοί αναφέρουν. Όμως, σήμερα ο κίνδυνος οριστικής εθνικής εξαφάνισης είναι μεγάλος. Ακόμη, σε επιστημονικές ή κοινωνικές συγκεντρώσεις, όλοι συναινούν, εκφράζουν τη γνώμη τους, κρίνουν και επικρίνουν, αλλά ένα αόρατο χέρι, πολύ ισχυρό τυλίγεται σα βρόγχος που παραλύει και εξουδετερώνει σοφές σκέψεις, σωστές και γρήγορες πράξεις που θα βοηθούσαν το έθνος μας να ξεφύγει από την αναπόφευκτη γήρανση και το μαρασμό. Το φύλο της σύγχρονης δημοκρατίας είναι ανδρικό. Με το υπάρχον σύστημα σχέσεων των φύλων η "ουσιαστική" δημοκρατία, ακόμη και ως κοινωνική επιδίωξη, είναι αδύνατη. Ο εκσυγχρονισμός της γυναικείας κοινωνικής κατωτερότητας, που επιχειρείται μέσω προνοιακών πολιτικών και θεσμικών μεταρρυθμίσεων, παρά τις επιμέρους βελτιώσεις, αναπαράγει τη διάκριση πολιτών πρώτης και δεύτερης κατηγορίας. Όπως δείχνει άλλωστε και η ελληνική περίπτωση, πολιτικές που δεν αμφισβητούν τη διχοτομία γυναίκες-άνδρες εμπεδώνουν τελικά τον ανδρικό χαρακτήρα της δημοκρατίας. Με αναφορές στην παράδοση της ουτοπικής σκέψης, η συγγραφέας επιχειρεί ένα νέο προσδιορισμό της έμφυλης υπόστασης του υποκειμένου και μας προσφέρει μια ρεαλιστική προοπτική για την υπέρβαση της υπάρχουσας διχοτομίας του φύλου. Μια υπέρβαση που θα καθοδηγείται από, αλλά και θα οδηγεί σε νέες πολιτικές για τους έμφυλους πολίτες, συμβάλλοντας στην πραγμάτωση μιας ουσιαστικότερης δημοκρατίας. Στο παράρτημα, για πρώτη φορά, πενήντα χρόνια από τη θέσπιση της γυναικείας ψήφου στην Ελλάδα, παρουσιάζονται αναλυτικά στοιχεία για τη συμμετοχή γυναικών στα κέντρα λήψης αποφάσεων. Πριν μελετηθεί κοινωνιολογικά, η οικογένεια ήταν αντικείμενο φιλοσοφικών θεωριών που την αντιμετώπιζαν σαν ενσάρκωση πλατωνικών ιδεών, σχετικών με τη δικαιοσύνη και την αγάπη - άποψη που θριάμβευσε με τον Αύγουστο Κοντ και με τον Προυντόν. Η οικογένεια άρχισε να αντιμετωπίζεται επιστημονικά όταν μερικοί συγγραφείς του δεύτερου μισού του 19ου αιώνα ( ο Μόργκαν, ο Ένγκελς, ο Μπαχόφεν και άλλοι) την συνέλαβαν σαν ιστορικό κοινωνικό θεσμό, η δομή και η λειτουργία του οποίου προσδιορίζονται από το βαθμό ανάπτυξης της κοινωνίας στο σύνολό της. Υιοθετώντας την άποψη αυτή που διατηρήθηκε με τη Σχολή του Ντυρκάιμ, οι συγγραφείς δεν υποτιμούσαν τα δεδομένα της εθνολογίας και της ιστορίας αλλά δεν τα υπέβαλαν σε κανένα έλεγχο και τα ερμήνευαν με βάση το αξίωμα του μονογραμμικού εξελικτισμού. Η τρίτη φάση αναπτύχθηκε γρήγορα στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες αμέσως μετά το τέλος του πρώτου παγκοσμίου πολέμου, όταν η διαντιδραστική Σχολή του Σικάγου, όπου κυριαρχούσε ο Έρνεστ Μπέρτζες, κατέστησε την οικογένεια αντικείμενο συγκεκριμένων εμπειρικών ερευνών. Η δη, στις έρευνες εκείνες, η μεθοδολογία κατείχε σημαντική θέση. Στη Γαλλία ο Κλωντ Λεβί-Στρως εγκαινίαζε τη δομιστική πρόσβαση προσαρμόζοντας την στα συστήματα συγγένειας και αγχιστείας των αρχαϊκών κοινωνιών. Η εκλογή των θεμάτων που πραγματεύεται η εργασία αυτή σήμαινε αναγκαστικά την απόρριψη κάποιων χώρων όπου η έρευνα αφορά λιγότερο την κοινωνιολογία και περισσότερο κάποια παραπλήσια επιστήμη. Δεν αναπτύχθηκαν εδώ οι συνθήκες ζωής των οικογενειών ή η σχετική με την οικογένεια νομοθεσία, γιατί οι χώροι αυτοί ενδιαφέρουν περισσότερο τον οικονομολόγο ή τον νομικό παρά τον κοινωνιολόγο. Παρουσιάζονται επίσης από τη Λουκία Μουσούρου στοιχεία για την ελληνική οικογένεια ούτως ώστε ο αναγνώστης να μπορέσει να τοποθετήσει τα φαινόμενα που χαρακτηρίζουν την ελληνική οικογένεια στα πλαίσια της όλης σύγχρονης προβληματικής της κοινωνιολογίας της οικογένειας. Το ειδικό τεύχος του φεμινιστικού περιοδικού Δίνη, με θέμα την παραγωγή του "κοινωνικού σώματος", επιθυμεί να συνεισφέρει στην αποδόμηση της "ύποπτης γενικότητας" του σώματος, αλλά και να προχωρήσει πέρα από αυτό. Στοχεύει στη μελέτη και την ανάλυση των τρόπων με τους οποίους το σώμα, ο ορισμός και οι πρακτικές του αποτελούν κάτι παραπάνω από ένα (φυσικό) γεγονός, αποτελούν ένα κοινωνικό επίτευγμα κεντρικής σημασίας για τη σύσταση και τη διακυβέρνηση των σύγχρονων κοινωνιών. Η ευρύτερη θεωρητική συζήτηση στην οποία εντάσσονται η αποδόμηση και η επαν-εννοιολόγηση του έμφυλου υποκειμένου που επιχειρεί το έργο της Τζούντιθ Μπάτλερ εξελίσσεται με πληθώρα εντάσεων από τη δεκαετία του 1990 και μετά, κυρίως στις ΗΠΑ, την Αγγλία και τη Γαλλία. Κάτω από την επίδραση των αναζητήσεων και αναθεωρήσεων του μεταμοντερνισμού, οι οποίες καθιστούν προβληματική οποιαδήποτε επίκληση του "ατόμου" ως σταθερής και αυτονόητης οντότητας ή αναλυτικής κατηγορίας, και μαζί με τη φεμινιστική εμπειρία των κινδύνων που ελλοχεύουν όταν "οι γυναίκες" θεωρούνται εκ προοιμίου ομογενοποιημένη κατηγορία, αναπτύχθηκε εκ νέου μια συζήτηση που είχε ως αντικείμενο το αυτονόητο των διαφόρων φεμινισμών, την κατηγορία "γυναίκα". Το πρακτικό εγχείρημα του τεύχους είναι να συμβάλλει στο σύγχρονο διεπιστημονικό έργο διερεύνησης του κόμβου λόγος-εξουσία στον τόπο του έμφυλου σώματος. Το τεύχος μπορεί να συνεισφέρει στη σχετική διεθνή επιστημονική συζήτηση μέσα από τη συστηματική ανάλυση διαφορετικών τρόπων κατασκευής του κοινωνικού σώματος, διαδικασιών εξάλειψης αλλά και παραγωγής συγκεκριμένων ειδών σωμάτων και υποκειμένων. Στόχος των μελετών που περιλαμβάνονται στον παρόντα συλλογικό τόμο είναι η διερεύνηση βασικών ζητημάτων οικογενειακής πολιτικής και η σύνδεσή τους με τις σύγχρονες θεωρητικές αναφορές και τις τρέχουσες πρακτικές στην Ελλάδα. Το εμπειρικό υλικό της μελέτης συγκεντρώθηκε στο πλαίσιο του διακρατικού ερευνητικού προγράμματος IPROSEC ( Improving Policy Responses and outcomes to Socio-Economic Challenges) με αντικείμενο την αλληλεπίδραση των πολιτικών για την οικογένεια με τις μεταβαλλόμενες ανάγκες των σύγχρονων οικογενειών στις νέες κοινωνικές και οικονομικές συνθήκες. Από τα ερευνητικά ερωτήματα του προγράμματος επελέγησαν εννέα που συνδέονται με τη χάραξη και την εφαρμογή της οικογενειακής πολιτικής - αυτής της εν πολλοίς άρρητης ελληνικής οικογενειακής πολιτικής. Οι συγγραφείς των αντίστοιχων κεφαλαίων χρησιμοποίησαν κατά βούληση το εμπειρικό υλικό, όχι απλώς καταθέτοντας τις προσωπικές τους "αναγνώσεις", αλλά και εντάσσοντας το στα συμπεράσματα των δικών τους ερευνών. Το φαινόμενο της γυναικείας απασχόλησης στις σύγχρονες βιομηχανικές κοινωνίες συνδέεται με την όλη κοινωνικο-οικονομική εξέλιξη σ' αυτές και συμβάλλει στον προσδιορισμό της κατεύθυνσης (αν όχι και των ρυθμών) περαιτέρω κοινωνικών μετασχηματισμών. Η δυνατότητα οικονομικής δραστηριότητας που έχουν οι γυναίκες στα πλαίσια μιας συγκεκριμένης κοινωνίας ποικίλει σημαντικά μέσα σ' αυτήν: ποικίλουν οι επιλογές επαγγελματικής απασχόλησης που προσφέρονται σε γυναίκες(ποιες δουλειές είναι ανοικτές σε ποιες γυναίκες) και η κατάρτιση που τους παρέχεται (τι εκπαίδευση παίρνουν ποιες γυναίκες). Ποικίλει σημαντικά η αποδοχή ή έστω η ανοχή από το κοινωνικό περιβάλλον της γυναικείας απασχόλησης - ποικίλουν επίσης και οι προϋποθέσεις των γυναικών (επιθυμία, δυνατότητα διευθέτησης της οικογενειακής ζωής κλπ) να επωφεληθούν της όποιας παραδοχής ή ανοχής. Η εργασία αυτή επιχειρεί, με αναφορά στη διεθνή βιβλιογραφία αλλά και σε στοιχεία της ελληνικής πραγματικότητας, να απαντήσει στα εξής ερωτήματα: Πόσο και πώς η απόφαση της γυναίκας να εργαστεί επηρεάζεται από τη συγκεκριμένη φάση της οικογενειακής της ζωής Πόσο και πώς η εργασία της γυναίκας επηρεάζει τη διαμόρφωση των φάσεων της οικογενειακής της ζωής Πόσο και πώς η δομή της οικονομίας επηρεάζει την απόφαση γυναικών (που βρίσκονται σε ποιες συγκεκριμένες φάσεις της οικογενειακής τους ζωής) να εργαστούν. Πόσο και πώς η εργασία γυναικών (που βρίσκονται σε ποιες συγκεκριμένες φάσεις της οικογενειακής τους ζωής) επηρεάζει τη δομή της οικονομίας. Με τη μονογραφία αυτή παρουσιάζονται στο ευρύ κοινό τα αποτελέσματα μιας εμπειρικής έρευνας που έγινε στην Αθήνα μεταξύ Μαρτίου και Μαΐου 1983. το θέμα της έρευνας ήταν "Σχήματα οικογένειας και στάσεις απέναντι στο παιδί" και υποκείμενα τις μητέρες ενός τουλάχιστον παιδιού κάτω των 6 ετών. Τα πολλά και πρωτότυπα στοιχεία που προέκυψαν από την έρευνα, επιτρέπουν την επισήμανση ασαφών και άγνωστων ως σήμερα χαρακτηριστικών της σύγχρονης ελληνικής αστεακής οικογένειας, της ελληνίδας μητέρας παιδιών της ηλικίας που ερευνήθηκε, της θέσης των παιδιών μέσα στην οικογένεια και της αντιμετώπισής τους από αυτήν.
Στις σύγχρονες κοινωνίες, η απασχόληση των γυναικών είναι ένα κοινωνικό φαινόμενο που, με την έκταση και την δυναμική του, σηματοδοτεί ουσιώδεις κοινωνικές μεταβολές. Πράγματι, η μαζικότητα της γυναικείας απασχόλησης σημαίνει ουσιαστική αναδιάρθρωση τόσο της αγοράς εργασίας όσο και του κοινωνικού βίου - και απαιτεί την επανεξέταση τόσο της λειτουργίας και των μηχανισμών της αγοράς αυτής όσο και της οργάνωσης και της δυναμικής της κοινωνίας. Τα δέκα ζητήματα που συνοπτικά παρουσιάζονται στο βιβλίο αυτό συνιστούν δέκα διαφορετικές προσεγγίσεις του κοινωνικού φαινομένου της γυναικείας απασχόλησης. Με τις προσεγγίσεις αυτές επιχειρείται η επισήμανση όχι μόνο της έκτασης και της σημασίας της αναδιάρθρωσης που προαναφέρθηκε αλλά και της ανάγκης διατύπωσης νέων αναλυτικών εργαλείων, ερμηνευτικών σχημάτων, αξιολογικών εννοιών και συστημάτων τα οποία επιτρέπουν την παρατήρηση της καινούριας πραγματικότητας, την περιγραφή της, την αξιολόγησή της, την διαχείρισή της και την πρόβλεψη της περαιτέρω εξέλιξής της.
Η οικονομική και κοινωνική αναδιάρθρωση που συντελείται εδώ και τρεις περίπου δεκαετίες επηρέασε σημαντικά όχι μόνο τη φύση της εργασίας, αλλά και το ρόλο της μέσα στην παραγωγική διαδικασία και στην κοινωνία γενικότερα. Η χρήση των νέων τεχνολογιών και η πορεία των ευρωπαϊκών κοινωνιών προς την κοινωνία της γνώσης δημιούργησαν νέα δεδομένα και προκάλεσαν διεύρυνση των οικονομικών και κοινωνικών ανισοτήτων μεταξύ νέων κοινωνικών ομάδων. Οι ομάδες υψηλού κινδύνου δεν είναι οι ίδιες με το παρελθόν. Η γνώση και η κατοχή δεξιοτήτων αποτελούν σημαντικούς παράγοντες οριοθέτησης στη σημερινή εποχή, των φτωχών, των ανέργων και των κοινωνικά αποκλεισμένων. Η εργασία, στην παρούσα φάση, δεν δείχνει να εκμεταλλεύεται, όσο θα ανέμενε κανείς, αυτές τις τεχνολογικές εξελίξεις προς όφελός της. Ταυτόχρονα παρατηρείται, υπό τη πίεση της παγκοσμιοποίησης και των οικονομικών και δημογραφικών περιορισμών, ο πολλαπλασιασμός των νέων μορφών εργασίας και η μη αντιστοίχηση των κοινωνικών αναγκών με την προσφορά των υπηρεσιών του συστήματος κοινωνικής προστασίας. Ποιο είναι λοιπόν το μέλλον της εργασίας; Επιστροφή στο παρελθόν, στην εποχή του άγριου καπιταλισμού, ή φυγή προς τα εμπρός; Η απάντηση είναι και θα είναι μόνο πολιτική.
Αυτό το βιβλίο κρύβει μια αντίφαση. Είναι κατά της στειρότητας και υπέρ των στείρων ζευγαριών. Ξάφνιασμα για την ελληνική πραγματικότητα. Πρόκληση, ίσως για το συντηρητικό μυαλό. Γραμμένο έτσι, για να εκτοξεύει ηθικά κεντρίσματα, λογικές απορίες και απωθημένα βιώματα. Αυτό το βιβλίο: έχει αντικείμενο τη στειρότητα, χωρίς να πειθαρχεί στα αυστηρά ιατρικά πλαίσια. Ξεφεύγει και συναντά τον άνθρωπο. Τη Γυναίκα και τον Άντρα, που δειλά-δειλά ξεδιπλώνουν το ψυχολογικό μυστήριο, το συνυφασμένο με τη γονιμότητά τους. Τολμά να πλησιάσει σε άγνωστους χώρους, σαν αυτόν της Βιοηθικής και έρχεται να προβάλει απόψεις, που αρνούνται στην επιστήμη να πειραματίζεται αυθαίρετα με το ζευγάρι στο όνομα ενός αμφισβητούμενου ένστικτου, της Μητρότητας, και ενός επιβεβλημένου ρόλου, της εξουσιαστικής Πατρότητας. Αναγνωρίζει ωστόσο την αναγκαιότητα ελευθερίας της επιστημονικής έρευνας στον τομέα της αναπαραγωγής, για κατακτήσεις που δίνουν το δικαίωμα στο άτομο να ελέγχει τη γονιμότητά, σύμφωνα με τις δικές του επιλογές.
"Η ανακάλυψη του κοινωνικού φύλου, η διαπίστωση δηλαδή ότι το φύλο είναι κοινωνική σχέση και πολιτισμικό σύμβολο και όχι δεδομένο της φύσης, προκύπτει μέσα από την πολιτική ρήξη με τη δυτική κοινοτοπία του φυσικού προορισμού και την αποδόμηση της επιστημονικοφανούς της εκδοχής, που προσδίδει στην έννοια του βιολογικού φύλου αναλυτικό περιεχόμενο. Οι κοινωνικές επιστήμες ανακαλύπτουν ένα νέο αντικείμενο, μια νέα περιοχή του κοινωνικού γίγνεσθαι..." Η βασική αυτή διαπίστωση αποτελεί τη σπονδυλική στήλη αυτού του συλλογικού τόμου. Οι συγγραφείς του εξετάζουν την πολιτισμική κατασκευή της ταυτότητας και ειδικότερα αναλύουν το πολιτισμικό περιεχόμενο του ανδρισμού και της θηλυκότητας σε διάφορες περιοχές της Ελλάδας. Βασική τους διαπίστωση είναι ότι σε μια σύνθετη κοινωνία όπως η ελληνική, η ταυτότητα του κοινωνικού φύλου ποικίλλει κατά ηλικία, κοινωνική τάξη ή βαθμό ένταξης, ότι στη συγκρότηση της ταυτότητας διαπλέκονται σύμβολα και σημασίες που απορρέουν από τη θρησκευτική συνείδηση, την εθνοτική αναφορά, την οικονομική και πολιτική δράση, και ότι το περιεχόμενό της είναι συχνά ετερογενές και αντιφατικό. Έτσι, υπό το πρίσμα του φύλου αμφισβητείται η στατική και μονολιθική θεώρηση του ελληνικού πολιτισμού, ενώ καταδεικνύεται ο ενιαίος αλλά και αποσπασματικός, ομοιόμορφος αλλά και πολυσχιδής του χαρακτήρας.
"Η χώρα μας - δυστυχώς - έχει μπει σε μια φάση εθνικά επικίνδυνης απαιδίας: το 1951 με πληθυσμό 7,5 εκ. είχαμε "καθαρή" πληθυσμιακή αύξηση (γεννήσεις μείον θάνατοι) 87.085 ατόμων. Το 1995 με πληθυσμό 10,5 εκ. το πληθυσμιακό "πλεόνασμα" είχε κατέβει στα 1.000 άτομα! Με τους ρυθμούς αυτούς τα προσεχή 2-3 χρόνια, υπολογίζεται ότι θα σπάσει το "φράγμα του θανάτου": Από το 2000 θα πεθαίνουν περισσότεροι 'Έλληνες απ' όσους θα γεννιούνται!...Βέβαια, ιστορικά, τα έθνη ακολουθούν τους ρυθμούς ενός "βιολογικού κύκλου", παρόμοιου εκείνου των ζωντανών οργανισμών: Γεννιούνται, μεγαλώνουν, ωριμάζουν, παρακμάζουν, εξαφανίζονται. Ορισμένα έθνη έχουν αποδειχθεί προνομιούχα: Μολονότι οι μορφές των κοινωνιών που συγκροτούν, αλλάζουν, διαλύονται, εξαφανίζονται, τα έθνη επιβιώνουν... Αναμφίβολα, εμείς οι Έλληνες είμαστε από τους "προνομιούχους" της Ιστορίας. Κατορθώσαμε πάνω από 3.000 χρόνια τώρα, να επιβιώσουμε στην ίδια τούτη γωνιά του ευρωπαϊκού νότου. Όμως, να που ό,τι δεν κατόρθωσε ο πανδαμάτωρ χρόνος και οι αδυσώπητοι νόμοι του "βιολογικού κύκλου" υπάρχει κίνδυνος να το "πετύχουμε" μόνοι μας: να αυτοεξοντωθούμε!" Ο τραπεζικός κλάδος βρίσκεται, για άλλη μια φορά, σε αναδιάρθρωση. Η επιτάχυνση της διεθνούς κινητικότητας των κεφαλαίων, η προοπτική της Ευρωπαϊκής Νομισματικής Ενοποίησης με την καθιέρωση του ενιαίου νομίσματος και ο εντεινόμενος ανταγωνισμός, προερχόμενος από άλλους χρηματοπιστωτικούς φορείς, πιέζει τις τράπεζες να υιοθετήσουν νέες επιχειρηματικές στρατηγικές. Ο σκοπός της παρούσης μελέτης είναι να διερευνήσει πώς διαπλέκονται και πώς αλληλενεργούν η τεχνική της παραγωγής, οι συνθήκες ανταγωνισμού και η οργάνωση και το περιεχόμενο της εργασίας στον τραπεζικό κλάδο, στην Ελλάδα, κατά τη διάρκεια μιας συγκεκριμένης χρονικής περιόδου. Η τεχνική της παραγωγής, δηλαδή το μείγμα των συντελεστών παραγωγής, είναι σημαντικός παράγοντας καθώς η εφαρμογή των νέων τεχνολογιών (των ηλεκτρονικών υπολογιστών, της τηλεματικής και της πληροφορικής) μεταβάλλει άρδην τον τρόπο που συνδυάζονται η εργασία και το κεφάλαιο (ο πάγιος εξοπλισμός με ενσωματωμένη τη νέα τεχνολογία) και επηρεάζει την παραγωγικότητα των συντελεστών.
Οι επίμονες αναφορές στην αντιστροφή της ιδιότητας της Ελλάδας ως χώρας αποστολής μεταναστών και στην απουσία πολιτικής για την "υποδοχή των ξένων", θέτουν πολλά και εύλογα ερωτήματα: πώς επιβιώνουν οι νεοαφιχθέντες παρά τους επιβεβλημένους φραγμούς; Κατά πόσο η παρουσία τους διαψεύδει ή επιβεβαιώνει κυρίαρχες αναπαραστάσεις; Ποια η συνάφεια του επίσημου με τον ανεπίσημο (αντι)ρατσιστικό λόγο; Η ανθρωπολογική προσέγγιση των προσφύγων με διαφορετική φυλετική ταυτότητα - πρώτη στο είδος της παρά το ενδιαφέρον με το οποίο οι ερευνητές σκύβουν στα σύγχρονα μεταναστευτικά ρεύματα - επιτρέπει την κατανόηση των μορφών επικοινωνίας που υφαίνονται μεταξύ Ερυθραίων και γηγενών, ενώ παράλληλα ενθαρρύνει τον προβληματισμό γύρω από τις μεθόδους και τις εννοιολογικές κατηγορίες που κυριαρχούν στην τρέχουσα εργογραφία. Η αναζήτηση των διαδικασιών με τις οποίες οι Ερυθραίοι εντάσσονται στην αθηναϊκή κοινωνία φέρνει στο φως τις ιδιαίτερες στρατηγικές μέσω των οποίων μετασχηματίζουν την περιθωριακότητά τους σε αυτάρκεια και δεσμούς αμοιβαιότητας. Η ανίχνευση των σχέσεων που συνάπτουν είναι δυναμική: στρέφεται στην ιστορική τους μνήμη, την απήχηση του δημοσιογραφικού λόγου στους τρόπους αντιμετώπισής τους, τις διαπραγματεύσεις στο χώρο της δουλειάς και του σπιτιού, τη διαχείριση της εικόνας για τον "εαυτό", τις συμβολικές πρακτικές με τις οποίες αντιδρούν στην υπεροψία που συναντούν. Δύο κόσμοι αλληλενεργούν, συγκρούονται, παγιώνουν ή αναπλάθουν πεποιθήσεις στο πλαίσιο της κοινωνικής και συμβολικής αλληλόδρασης. Ποιες ήσαν οι, κατά τη ροίδειο διατύπωση, "γράφουσες Ελληνίδες", και για να κυριολεκτήσουμε η γυναικεία ελληνόγλωσση λογιοσύνη του Ι9ου αιώνα; Από τις πρώτες σποραδικές φανερώσεις των γυναικών στον αρχόμενο 19ο αιώνα μέχρι την αξιοσημείωτη πύκνωσή τους στις τελευταίες πλέον δεκαετίες -μολονότι η παρουσία τους υπήρξε πάντοτε ισχνή-, η απόσταση που έχει διανυθεί είναι ασφαλώς πολύ μεγάλη. Απόσταση συνυφασμένη με τις γενικότερες μεταβολές που συντελούνται στην ελληνική κοινωνία, με την εξέλιξη και τη μορφοποίηση του ίδιου του λογοτεχνικού πεδίου, με το ρεύμα της γυναικείας χειραφέτησης και την ιδιαίτερη έμφασή του στη λογοτεχνική διάπλαση και τη δημόσια έκφραση των γυναικών και, βέβαια, συναρτημένη με την ανάπτυξη της γυναικείας εκπαίδευσης ως αναγκαίας προϋπόθεσης για τη συμμετοχή των γυναικών στο χώρο της παιδείας και των γραμμάτων. Η μελέτη εξετάζει τη σχέση των γυναικών με τη γραφή και τη δημοσιότητα, αναδιφώντας τα έργα τους, τις μαρτυρίες τους στον Τύπο καθώς και τα σχετικά δημοσιεύματα των ανδρών για την πρόσληψη του έργου τους. Τι εμπόδισε και τι διευκόλυνε την παρουσία των γυναικών στο χώρο των γραμμάτων του Ι9ου αιώνα, είναι εδώ το κυρίως ερώτημα. Οι σχέσεις των δύο φύλων και η θέση των γυναικών στην ιεραρχία του φύλου, ο έμφυλος καταμερισμός του ιδιωτικού και του δημόσιου χώρου συνιστούν όρους ασυμβίβαστους με τις προϋποθέσεις της γραφής και της δημοσιότητας. Και ενώ ο ορισμός αυτός των έμφυλων ταυτοτήτων περιορίζει, αν μάλιστα δεν απαγορεύει, τη σχέση των γυναικών με τη γραφή, οι αντιφάσεις του και οι ποικίλες ιστορικές συγκυρίες επιτρέπουν τη διείσδυση ορισμένων, διαρκώς όμως περισσότερων, γυναικών στο χώρο των γραμμάτων. Οι έμφυλες σχέσεις έτσι αναπροσδιορίζονται καθιστώντας τη σχέση των γυναικών με τη γραφή ένα δυναμικό πεδίο πολλαπλών ανακατατάξεων.
Τα κείμενα αυτά δεν είναι μόνο για τους ειδικούς. Στηρίζονται πάνω σε ιστορικές πηγές δίχως παραπομπές μέσα στο κείμενο, που, σύμφωνα με τη συγγραφέα, κουράζουν τον αναγνώστη, ακόμη και τον ειδικό. Όπως μας πληροφορεί, θέλησε να δώσει τα πορτραίτα μερικών σπουδαίων γυναικών η προσφορά των οποίων θάφτηκε και μερικών συκοφαντήθηκε, μέσα απ' τη σκέψη και την ψυχολογία μιας γυναίκας. Όπως ισχυρίζεται και η ίδια "Έκαναν πράγματα πολύ σπουδαία, αλλά πολύ λίγο τους το αναγνώρισαν."
Το βιβλίο αυτό πραγματεύεται τη σχέση φύλου και τεχνολογίας έτσι όπως διαμορφώθηκε στη διάρκεια του τεχνολογικού εκσυγχρονισμού του τραπεζικού συστήματος στην Ελλάδα Ειδικότερα, παρουσιάζει τον τρόπο που "κατασκευάστηκε" το φύλο των διατρητριών, των ταμειολογιστών και των επιστημόνων της πληροφορικής στον μεγαλύτερο τραπεζικό οργανισμό της Ελλάδας, την Εθνική Τράπεζα, σε συνθήκες αυξανόμενου ανταγωνισμού στον τραπεζικό κλάδο και σε μια κοινωνία με έντονα ιεραρχικές σχέσεις ανάμεσα στα φύλα. Αποτελεί συνεισφορά στη διερεύνηση των επιπτώσεων των νέων τεχνολογιών στην ανθρώπινη εργασία. Στηρίζεται σε εκτενή επιτόπια έρευνα και στη θεωρία της κοινωνικής ενδογένειας του φύλου και της τεχνολογίας.
Το βιβλίο αυτό μελετά την κατασκευή της κοινωνικής ταυτότητας των φύλων στα εγχειρίδια γλωσσικής διδασκαλίας του δημοτικού σχολείου. Ξεκινάει από την προσφορότητα των βασικών αυτών μέσων μάθησης να εγγράφουν συστήματα αξιών και κριτηρίων και καταλήγει στη διαπίστωση, αποκρυπτογραφώντας κείμενα, ασκήσεις και εικόνες, ότι, παρ' όλες τις αγαθές προθέσεις και τις κανονιστικές εξαγγελίες για την ισότητα, και τα σημερινά αναγνωστικά προδιαγράφουν διακριτούς για τα φύλα ρόλους στην οικογένεια, το σχολείο και την παρέα των συνομηλίκων. Η καθημερινή δράση όσο και οι εξαιρετικές πράξεις προσφέρονται ανεμπόδιστα στον Κωστάκη, τον Βασίλη και τον πατέρα τους, ενώ για τη μητέρα, την Τζένη και τα ανώνυμα κορίτσια, που πολλές φορές προσδιορίζονται με μόνη την ιδιότητα της κόρης ή της αδελφής, η θέση είναι προκαθορισμένη: να παραμένουν δηλαδή αδρανείς πίσω από το τζάμι, συμβολική αναπαράσταση που παραχωρείται στο φύλο τους. Η αυλή του Δημοτικού Σχολείου είναι πεδίο ιδιωτικό, συλλογικό αλλά και μυθικό όπου τα κορίτσια των έξι έως έντεκα ετών αρθρώνουν τον δικό τους λόγο: είναι ακόμα νωρίς για να συνθηκολογήσουν με τους κατεστημένους ρόλους με τους οποίους τις αναπαριστά το περιβάλλον. Στο παιχνίδι τους συναντώνται με επείσακτες κοινωνικές επιταγές που τις διαχειρίζονται με τρόπους χαρακτηριστικούς του φύλου τους. Εκφράζουν με ένταση το θυμό, τη σύγχυση, την εσωτερική δύναμή τους, τις επιθυμίες τους. Εφευρίσκουν δικούς τους κώδικες επικοινωνίας, αφήνουν ελεύθερη τη φαντασία και το σώμα τους και ξεπερνούν συμβολικά περιορισμούς και απαγορεύσεις. Το παιχνίδι στην αυλή του σχολείου αποκαλύπτει τις ψυχοκοινωνικές διαδικασίες που συγκροτούν την ταυτότητα του φύλου και αναδεικνύεται τόπος μαθητείας στην προσαρμογή αλλά και την αμφισβήτηση. Η Αλεξάνδρα Φρειδερίκου και η Φανή Φολερού είναι κοινωνιολόγοι της εκπαίδευσης. Η ερευνητική τους δραστηριότητα επικεντρώνεται στην πολιτική διάσταση του σχολικού θεσμού. Το 1991 δημοσίευσαν μαζί το βιβλίο Οι δάσκαλοι του δημοτικού Σχολείου: Μια κοινωνιολογική προσέγγιση, το οποίο, με ποσοτικά δεδομένα και ποιοτική ανάλυση συνεντεύξεων, σκιαγραφεί το προφίλ του έλληνα δασκάλου την περίοδο που προηγήθηκε της αναβάθμισης των παιδαγωγικών Ακαδημιών. Τα τελευταία χρόνια το ενδιαφέρον τους εστιάζεται στο φύλο. Η Αλεξάνδρα Φρειδερίκου δημοσίευσε το βιβλίο Η Τζένη πίσω από το τζάμι (19980 όπου μελετώνται οι αναπαραστάσεις των φύλων στα εγχειρίδια γλωσσικής διδασκαλίας του Δημοτικού Σχολείου. Στο ίδιο πεδίο εντάσσεται και η επτάχρονη κοινή έρευνά τους για το παιχνίδι στην αυλή του Δημοτικού Σχολείου, από την οποία προέκυψε η παρούσα μελέτη. Έχουν επίσης δημοσιεύσει άρθρα σε συλλογικούς τόμους και περιοδικά. "Κατά τη διάρκεια του Δεκαπεντάυγουστου πήγαμε στο χωριό μας την Αγία Ειρήνη που είναι κοντά στον Κορμακίτη, ήταν ένα μικτό χωριό. Οι Τούρκοι κάτοικοι που είχαν μείνει στο χωριό βοήθησαν τους εγκλωβισμένους επειδή ήταν φίλοι και ήξεραν ο ένας τον άλλον στα γειτονικά χωριά. Πρόσφατα έγινε ένας τουρκοκυπριακός γάμος στην Αγία Ειρήνη. Ο άντρας ήταν οικοδόμος και είχε βοηθήσει πάρα πολύ τους εγκλωβισμένους με κάθε τρόπο. Προσκάλεσε τους γονείς μου στο γάμο και πήγαμε. Εκεί στο γάμο βρήκαμε πολλούς ελληνοκύπριους που είχαν έρθει ειδικά για τον γαμήλιο εορτασμό. Για μένα ήταν πολύ συγκινητικό να δω ανθρώπους από διαφορετικές κοινότητες να τιμούν τη φιλία." ( Μαρωνίτισσα, 2003)
Όπως ο Κάιν, είμαι σημαδεμένη και κηλιδωμένη. Αν έρθεις μαζί μου, Μαίρη, ο κόσμος θα σε αποστραφεί, θα σε καταδιώξει, θα σε πει βρόμικη. Η αγάπη μας μπορεί να είναι ακλόνητη έως το θάνατο και πέρα απ' αυτόν- αλλά ο κόσμος θα την αποκαλεί βρόμικη. Μπορεί να μην πειράζουμε κανένα πλάσμα ζωντανό με την αγάπη μαςo μπορεί εξαιτίας της ν' αποκτήσουμε τη μεγαλύτερη κατανόηση, τη μεγαλύτερη ευσπλαχνία, αλλά τίποτα απ' αυτά δεν θα με σώσει από τη μάστιγα του κόσμου, που θα αποστρέψει το βλέμμα και από τις πιο γενναιόδωρες πράξεις σου, καταλογίζοντάς σου μόνο διαφθορά και αθλιότητα. (...) Γιατί σ' αυτό τον κόσμο υπάρχει ανοχή μόνο για τους λεγόμενους φυσιολογικούς. Και όταν θα γυρέψεις σ' εμένα προστασία, θα σου πω: Δεν μπορώ να σε προστατεύσω Μαίρη, ο κόσμος μου έχει αφαιρέσει το δικαίωμα να προστατεύω, είμαι εντελώς ανήμπορη, το μόνο που μπορώ είναι να σ' αγαπώ. Το πηγάδι της μοναξιάς, ένα σχεδόν αυτοβιογραφικό μυθιστόρημα, είναι η ιστορία της Στήβεν Γκόρντον, μιας γυναίκας που γεννιέται σε μια μεγαλοαστική οικογένεια της Αγγλίας, στη θέση του πολυπρόσμενου γιου, και από τότε μεγαλώνει (τη μεγαλώνουν) με συμπεριφορές ασυνήθιστες για τα κορίτσια της εποχής της. Κάνει αθλητισμό, ιππεύει, ξιφασκεί. Συνέπεια άμεση της διαφοράς της από τα άλλα κορίτσια, η απομόνωσή της - μοτίβο που κυριαρχεί σε όλο το βιβλίο.
|
Εμφάνιση Όλων
Απόκρυψη Όλων
Copyright (C) 2005. Gender.panteion.gr - Τελευταία ενημέρωση: 13/12/2018.
Designed & Hosted by
Designed & Hosted by