Reviewed by: Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category Anne Enke (bio) Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category by David Valentine. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007, 302 pp., $79.95 hardcover, $22.95 paper. David Valentine's ethnography of the category of transgender begins in a room full of gay people. Valentine describes sitting in the room as a gay man whose sex and gender have been consistently interpreted as male according to medical, legal, social, and personal sensibilities. The people who share the room with him do not share this cis-sex/gender status.1 [End Page 198] Instead, they are male-bodied people who identify themselves using a variety of culturally meaningful, gender-specific terms: they refer to themselves as girls, fem queens, women; most simultaneously refer to themselves as gay. It is a transgender support group, but no one in the room identifies as transgender, and they virtually never use that term. If they are, according to themselves, gay, then what is the category "transgender" doing in the room, and what impact does it have in their lives? Far from deriving organically from their diverse lives and identities, it seems that "transgender" has been imported—even imposed—from outside sources: Social service providers, academics, and some portions of what may be termed a transgender liberation or rights movement. Those same sources, along with parts of the gay and lesbian liberation movement, prefer to reserve the word "gay" for cis-sexual men who are attracted to cis-sexual men. The distinction between "gay" and "transgender" in this case reinforces social hierarchies in which only cis-sex/ gender male-bodied people (like Valentine) are "really" gay and have a rightful claim to the term; in the same rubric, women-identified male-bodied people are "really" transgender and mistaken or ignorant in their claims to gayness. Valentine thus wonders, can everyone in the room call themselves gay? Valentine's question derives in part from the apparent contradictions he encounters in the transgender support group. More importantly, his question effectively critiques the neatness of the constructed distinction between sexual and gender identity. A long history of medical practices, academic theorizing, social movement efforts, and social service provision have worked hard to construct distinctions between sexual preference (for example, homosexuality) and gender identity or expression (for example, transsexualism). But, as Valentine shows, the institutionalization of the categorical distinction between transgender, gay, and straight not only separates sexuality and gender, but simultaneously reinforces race and class hierarchies according to the priviledged logics of heteronormativity and homonormativity. Based on fieldwork conducted in New York City in the mid–1990s, Imagining Transgender is an exciting addition to the rapidly growing, interdisciplinary field of transgender studies. It offers a great deal to conversations taking place within gender and sexuality studies, women's studies, cultural studies, and disciplines such as history and Valentine's own field of anthropology. An activist as well as an academic, Valentine reminds us to be aware of the ways in which scholars participate in producing social categories that fail to serve the people who purportedly fall into them. Rather than analyzing the lives and plights of people who may or may not think of themselves as transgender, Imagining Transgender is first and foremost an analysis of the emergence, power, and failures of the category of transgender; in short, it is an ethnography of a category. [End Page 199] As such, the book elucidates "transgender" as a central cultural site for defining gender and sexuality and the relation between them. Although transgender is imagined as an umbrella category to serve an infinitely broad range of gender-variant people, its history as a field of knowledge makes it an inherently exclusionary category. Such categories then result in intellectual and social practices that ultimately fail to reflect a significant portion of people whom the category purports to encompass, and may even contribute to their disenfranchisement in various social contexts. Valentine's ethnography is rooted in several Manhattan neighborhoods and community spaces, each of which is characterized by subcultural expressions and understandings of gender/sex identities and behaviors. For instance, there is the support group for transgender-identified people with HIV at a hospital...
This article compares early texts from feminist ethicists (Nel Noddings and Sara Ruddick) that focus on care and/or mothering as the basis for ethical models with literary works by two German authors (Christa Wolf and Ingeborg Drewitz) that challenge these models and reveal their structural problems. Although the literary works appeared generally shortly before the feminist scholarship, they all participate in a discussion of how women's experiences as mothers and caregivers can and/or should factor into the construction of ethical models. Furthermore, the conflicts that come to the fore in the literary texts foreshadow the directions that feminist ethicists themselves went in a continuing dialogue about feminist contributions to the study of ethics. Specifically, the article 1) explores how these two authors illustrate the potential problems with an ethics based either on "maternal thinking" or on a more abstract notion of caring; 2) discusses the directions in which their work points us; and 3) uses feminist scholarly discussions on ethics as conceptual tools to illuminate more fully the central conflicts in the literary texts themselves.
Reviewed by: Radical Sisters. Second-Wave Feminism and Black Liberation in Washington, D.C. Anne Meis Knupfer (bio) Radical Sisters. Second-Wave Feminism and Black Liberation in Washington, D.C. by Anne M. Valk. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008, 253 pp., $40.00 hardcover. Anne M. Valk's book, Radical Sisters, offers readers a complex and nuanced examination of the limits of and opportunities for inter- and intra-racial as well as cross-class collaborations of women's organizations during the 1960s and 1970s. She capably accomplishes this through her focus on Washington, D.C., a critical site not only because of its governmental, public policy, and activist organizations, but also because of its significantly large African American population. Rather than discussing distinct models of feminism, Valk astutely portrays how various women's groups worked in conjunction and disjunction during the "second wave" of feminism. She correctly argues that scholarly [End Page 208] distinctions between liberal and radical are often deceptive. For example, it was not unusual for radical women to moderate their positions during the 1970s in order to work with more conservative groups. Some white middle-class women's groups attempted to collaborate with their African American counterparts. In this case, their efforts were stymied not only by differences of race and class but also ideologies in terms of motherhood, women's sexualities, and concepts of community. At the same time, each book chapter reveals how, despite these differences, there was a cross-fertilization of ideas and practices among various women's organizations. Chapter 1 begins with a portrait of Mary Treadwell, a middle-class African American graduate of Howard University. Valk traces Treadwell's activism from co-founding Pride, Inc., an organization for poor, young black men, to her involvement with the antiwar movement, prison reform, and reproductive rights. Valk also recounts Treadwell's and others' participation in civil rights organizations, such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). In both groups, African American women were relegated to subordinate leadership roles and experienced sex discrimination. Still, a few African American women broke those barriers in the D.C. offices of CORE, working with African American churches and social settlements. There, these female leaders created employment opportunities for some public housing residents, who in turn mobilized their communities of women. In chapter 2, Valk examines the critical issue of welfare rights. She begins, again, with the example of remarkable African American activist, Etta Horn, founding member of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO). By 1968, the NWRO had five chapters in D.C., headed mostly by African American women. Working in conjunction with the national organization, these chapters organized protests and marches. Signs with the slogan "Mother Power" attested to welfare mothers' deep concern for their children's well being and their opposition to the war appropriations which cut into vital social programs for families. As might be expected, some women's organizations held differing ideological ideas about welfare rights, in large part because of social class differences. For example, the Citywide Welfare Alliance (CWA), comprised of recipients from Aid to Dependent Families and Children, favored more public assistance. In contrast, the local League of Women Voters, which included mostly middle-class women, emphasized the economic independence of mothers. Nonetheless, some women's organizations did attempt cross-class coalitions. The National Organization for Women's (NOW) D.C. chapter established a task force on Women in Poverty in 1971 and invited low-income women to join. The Friends of Welfare Rights also tried to forge connections between welfare activists and middle-class women. Once again, though, class differences mattered: Whereas middle-class women advocated for child care centers, poorer [End Page 209] women contested the imposition of work requirements, arguing that motherhood itself was work. Despite their ideological differences, many activist groups were forced to change their strategies when the government cut appropriations. As Valk points out, women's organizations joined forces with city administrators to protest decreased funds and programs. The D.C. Family Rights Organization, for one, switched from street protests to working more closely with government agencies. The group also promoted work programs, advocacy centers, and child...
Reviewed by: Playing With Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India Kelly Hudgins Ball, Alina Bennett, Lindsay Bernhagen, Naazneen Diwan, Stacia Kock, Jennifer Lang, Mary Thomas, and Melissa Wiser Playing With Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India by Sangtin Writers and Richa Nagar. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006, 181 pp., $60.00 hardcover, $20.00 paper. In Awadhi, a language spoken in parts of rural Uttar Pradesh (UP), India, sangtin means friendship. As with any translation, such literalness masks the deeper, more powerful, implications of words. Sangtin also denotes enduring friendship among women, and invokes closeness, solidarity, and reciprocal relations. Intended for a diverse readership, and not to be missed, Playing With Fire: Feminist Thought and Activism through Seven Lives in India, traces nine sangtins' yatra (or sangtins' journey) through the struggles against social, economic, religious, and caste hierarchy and privilege; the perils of NGO (nongovernmental organization) activism; and the wonders of feminist friendship. The Sangtin Writers consist of seven village-level activists (Anupamlata, Ramsheela, Reshma Ansari, Shashi Vaish, Shashibala, Surbala, Vibha Bajpayee), one district level NGO activist (Richa Singh), and a University of Minnesota scholar (Richa Nagar) who came together as workers at an NGO called Nari Samato Yohana, or NSY, in the Sitapur District of UP. NSY (a pseudonym) is an organization working to empower rural women. It spawned a new NGO named Sangtin, begun by these eight NGO workers in 1998 (Nagar joined the group in 2002). Playing with Fire is the English publication of their yatra as rural activists working together to understand both the differences that mold their lives, and the paradoxes of NGO politics which can be both empowering and elitist. The seven women began their journey by writing and sharing personal diaries on designated topics chosen collectively by the group, including childhood, adolescence, marriage, motherhood, and NGO employment (the book's chapters are largely organized by these themes). Their reflexive debate on their writings and experiences, coupled with growing trust and respect, allowed the women to face painful memories together and to grapple with the differences of caste, religion, and privilege that often divided them. Years later, the group began work on the book, first published in Hindi in early 2004 with the title, Sangtin Yatra. Through their collective authorship, their seven voices merge, disperse, and regroup to create what the writers call a "blended we." Solidarity was forged in the joys of friendship and love, and the oppressions, violence, and hunger encountered by women; yet, the processes of sharing, challenging, sympathizing, and finally, authoring, illuminate the durability of their alliance. This solidarity became even more vital to the women after the publication [End Page 209] of Sangtin Yatra, when a storm of angry backlash erupted from NSY. These village activists, who had so deeply challenged the hierarchy of NGO organizations that often discount rural women's knowledge and expertise, now faced the daunting task of countering the NGO's international reprisals. Throughout the book, the collective's candid accounts reveal the complex intersections of difference that distinctively imbue all aspects of their lives and work. Even admitting that there are limits to empathy, the sangtins starkly reflect on the difficulty of overcoming each of their own caste and religious prejudices through reflexivity. Nevertheless, the sangtins refused to allow the social stratification ingrained by caste, religion, language, and other differences to hinder the pursuit of social justice in their battles against poor women's disempowerment. The biggest lesson of the book is not to refuse complexity in the service of an easy analysis or specialization. The challenge of these words also relates to the women's commitment and labors for NSY, and to the structures of funding and administering NGOs more generally. The women's diary-writing and reflexive work as a collective allowed the sangtins to assess critically such issues as privilege, casteism, and knowledge production within NSY. Using their experiences as NGO employees, the authors evaluate NSY's movement away from grassroots activism towards donor-driven priorities and evaluations. The sangtins condemn the lack of communication to marginalized groups that NSY serves by calling to the fore the caste and class biases that...
Reviewed by: Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon Ruth Trinidad Galván (bio) Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon by Lynn Stephen. London: Duke University Press, 2007, 375 pp., $84.95 hardcover, $23.95 paper. Based on eight years of research, Lynn Stephen narrates a telling story of migration and transborder existence and identity. She spotlights the experiences of Indigenous Oaxacans who have journeyed back and forth between the United States and Mexico in the last six decades. Her contribution to the literature on transnational migrants lies in the concept of transborder existence and drawing our attention to the myriads of borders, geographic as well as sociocultural, that many Mexicans cross. Their movement within Mexico, the United States, and the U.S.-Mexico border requires that they not only transcend gender, racial, ethnic, class, and state borders but also form collective efforts, interlinked networks, and transborder identities. Ultimately, her analysis moves beyond identities and relations defined by any one nation-state—Mexico or the United States—to the multiple ways people are read physically, legally, and otherwise. Because Indigenous Oaxacans on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border are consistently read as indigenous (physically), undocumented (non-citizens), and poor (rural), they are not recognized as full citizens of either nation-state. Hence, in addressing the multiple ways transmigrants negotiate their livelihood and identities, Stephen casts a wide net and addresses numerous topics and issues related to these communities and their transborder existence. Three themes stand out in Stephen's analysis of Mixtec and Zapotec Oaxacans' transborder existence: The actual movement and history of migration for Mexicans in general and Oaxacans in particular, economic globalization and the incorporation of Mexicans into the United States' labor force, and questions of individual and collective ethnic and racial identity. Transmigration The migratory history of Zapotec and Mixtec Indigenous peoples portrayed in Transborder Lives contributes to the well-established field of migration studies, cultural citizenship, and globalization. The book does an excellent job of revisiting Mexican migration in relation to the U.S. immigration policies since the early twentieth century and reminding readers that 9/11's militarization of the border and demonizing of undocumented immigrants is not new to U.S. history. Critical analyses of such policies as the Immigration Act of 1917, Bracero Program (post–WWII to 1964), Operation Wetback (1954 to 1959), and the Immigration Reform [End Page 204] and Control Act (IRCA, 1986) demonstrate quite profoundly the persistent movement of Mexicans in and out of the United States, their continued incorporation into numerous U.S. communities, and the ways in which they have transformed specific national spaces into communal Mexican territories of the imaginary. This history of migration is especially pertinent in areas such as Los Angeles, Oxnard, and Santa Ana in California, Salem and Woodburn in Oregon, and San Agustín Atenango and Teotitlán del Valle in Oaxaca, the area from which the study's participants originally migrated. As early as the 1940s with the Bracero Program, Mixtecs and Zapotecs were actively recruited to work as laborers and agricultural workers. Since then, their physical presence in multiple spaces in both nation-states has changed the cultural fabric of these places. The cultural, economic, and political ties created via people's movements are some of the dimensions Stephen highlights in her attempt to demonstrate the transborder existence of Oaxacans. Other dimensions she analyzes, and which I discuss below, include the manner in which Oaxacans' labor and identities transcend borders. By revisiting the various immigration acts and policies, Stephen addresses the roots of anti-immigrant sentiment most recently felt in the post–9/11 U.S. context. The book makes clear that the surveillance Oaxacan farmworkers in Oregon are subjected to, as well as their invisibility, are deeply connected to the conditions that initially drive them to migrate. That is, their surveillance is connected to the U.S. labor market that demands their employment and their invisibility to immigration policies that hinder their safe entry and residency in the United States. Stephen argues for a racialized reading to expose the racial perceptions underlying immigration policies and attitudes that place immigrants under constant surveillance from...
Pregnancy makes visible and immediate many critical issues in introductory courses in gender, including compulsory heterosexuality, balancing work and family life, and the processes by which we become gendered subjects. The pregnant professor appears to have a body that upholds normative beliefs about marriage and reproduction, an appearance that softens students' introduction to the critical interrogation of such beliefs. Yet the pregnant body also takes up too much space—both literally and metaphorically—potentially undermining the teacher's institutional authority by aligning her with "mom" in a setting that has historically depended upon the absence of the (female) body. This essay thus considers the ways that both the classroom and the university are pregnant with opportunities to reconsider power dynamics surrounding the body.
In her analysis of the dialectical structure of reproductive consciousness, Mary O'Brien argued that the physical labor involved in women's reproductive experiences affirms women's connections with their children and integration in the human species, whereas men's discontinuous experiences negate such connections and integration. Patriarchy enables the reconciliation of this negation for men by allowing them to claim ownership of the products of women's reproductive labor. Drawing on interview data with eighteen postpartum women, this paper re-examines O'Brien's central argument in conjunction with empirical data. The findings support O'Brien's assertions that (1) labor is viewed by some women as an essential component of childbearing and (2) childbearing results in a sense of greater connectedness and integration in the human species for some women. However, women also emphasized the importance of another element of childbearing—an indescribable, incomprehensible, experiential component—that is missing from O'Brien's analysis and much feminist literature on reproduction. This paper concludes by merging the current findings with O'Brien's analysis and discussing the implications in relation to men's roles in reproduction.
The events of 9/11 shifted into prominent view the interconnected discourses of security and finance. The role of individuals and corporations in securing the state in its political and economic dimensions appears to some to be changing. This change is one of dominance and demand in identity terms, shifting back and forth between gendered citizen-consumer, citizen-investor, and citizen-soldier. Participation in the formal market is patriotic, trading is a defense of a way of life against outside threats, and in the first few days after the attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, investors/consumers/workers were the first to be in a position to demonstrate their resolve. The dominant discourse reinvests meaning in such a way that reinterprets the actions of individuals and corporations as heroic, "defensive," and patriotic. "Real" men and women are made heroes because of their actions and because of what they represent—they are at once workers/investors/consumers, all soldiers in the "civilizational fight" for an American-led "market civilization" (Gill 1995).
In all countries, across all sectors and in all fields, the percentage of women obtaining patents is not only less than their male counterparts but it is less than the percentage of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in the field in the country. This raises several questions: First, why aren't women obtaining patents at the same rate as their male counterparts? Second, is this a feminist issue? Finally, what can we apply from Women's Studies to close this gender gap in patenting? Articulating the goals for commercialization of science to link them directly with making society better and helping people should provide powerful incentives for women to patent and participate in technology transfer.
This paper explores the implications of embodied ways of knowing for research, teaching, and activism. The concept of embodied knowledges/pedagogies draws attention to bodies as agents of knowledge production. I first outline a theoretical framework that connects embodied knowledges to lived experiences, performance, and bodily intelligence. This theoretical framework has emerged from the collaboration among four groups and institutions: Ananya Dance Theatre (ADT hereafter), environmental justice researchers/advocates, the College of St. Catherine (CSC hereafter), and the 2008 Inclusive Science Conference (ISC hereafter). By evaluating this collaborative project, I develop three pedagogical models that foreground embodied knowledges. Qualitative evidence suggests that embodied pedagogies foster a sense of community and challenge Eurocentric and male-centered systems of knowledge production predicated upon the body/mind binary. In the civic arena, activists use embodied pedagogies to provide emotional access to science-based information, and to mobilize for social change. I invite artists, activists, and educators to consider the potential of embodied knowledges to forge creative alliances, and to radically transform our work, our institutions, and knowledge production in general.
Reviewed by: Dietrich Icon, and: Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image Marilyn Hoder-Salmon (bio) Dietrich Icon, Eds. Gerd Gemünden and Mary Desjardins. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007, 420 pp., $89.95 hardcover, $24.95 paper. Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image by Benetta Jules Rosette. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007, 368 pp., $60.00 hardcover, $25.00 paper. The use of the word "icon" in the titles of both of these absorbing new books of cultural anthropology alludes to the familiarity and recognition commonly associated with that rare celebrity, recognized even by just one name. To this day, the names of both Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker evoke images they made famous over decades as performers and celebrities. So much so that one might wonder: when a considerable number of biographical publications already exist, including memoir and documentary films on the lives and art of each of these two stars, is more work, including scholarly studies, useful? The answer is an unequivocal "yes." Benetta Jules-Rosette's Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image is a thoroughly researched and thoughtfully, expertly written study that merits attention. It offers new ways of thinking about a woman in our history whose identity and life as a uniquely talented female beauty with a lasting public career led to her becoming a cultural icon. Germünden and Desjardins's book is a collection of essays presented at the international conference, "Dietrich at 100," held at Dartmouth College in 2001. Including multiple authors and themes and encompassing memoir, theory, and cultural studies, the essays in the Dietrich anthology cohere in their analysis of constructs of femaleness and femininity adjutant to women's history via their examination of Dietrich's thoroughly captivating personal and professional story. One of the surprising revelations that comes from reading these two books together is the extent to which the career trajectories of these two icons resemble each other. Both were enormously accomplished in building and maintaining their success. Each reflects a combination of innate talent and beauty, personal wisdom, unyielding perseverance tethered to good luck, and a highly structured ability to control her individual destiny. That each succeeded, in spite of numerous obstacles that came her way, is remarkable. Both women were born in the first decade of the twentieth century, Dietrich in 1901 and Baker in 1906. They came of age in the vibrant American Jazz era when options for women were expanding. Both found success in foreign countries—Baker fleeing American racism and seeking opportunity in France and Dietrich breaking away from German rigidity and politics to make her career in the United States. Both crossed gender categories through various personal and performance practices, such as [End Page 213] cross-dressing, that can be seen as a source of feminine empowerment through their "shock value" (illustrations are included in both books). Both had successful stage and film careers, published their writings, managed their family lives, and kept their images alive for the public. Dietrich, like Baker, began her career as a cabaret singer and danced as a chorus girl; Dietrich, of course, became famous as a film star while Baker remained a stage performer for most of her career. Undoubtedly, Baker's film career floundered on racial terms as the dominant Hollywood industry showed little interest in her. Both kept their stage careers going well into the later decades of life, as images of Baker and Dietrich on stage in their later years attest. Baker and Dietrich both made their home in France, albeit at different stages in their careers. Dietrich, who spoke French from the age of four and always loved France, moved to Paris for the last twelve years of her life, where she lived in seclusion. Baker's former home, the Château des Milandes, is open to tourists and attracts Baker's fans who honor her for her achievements and activism. The city of Paris has honored each performer by dedicating the Place Marlene Dietrich as well as the Place Josephine Baker. Even as their careers faded away, the two stars' personal falls from security intersected...
In this essay, a university professor tells the story of her sexual harassment by her graduate school adviser in order to explain the institutional cultures and structures that exist to perpetuate this type of behavior in higher education as well as to communicate the steps she took to create change and accept the events that occurred. Characterizing the documentation as a "coming out process," she describes the events that occurred from 2002–2006, using a semi-autoethnographical approach augmented with document and literature analyses. The essay goes beyond a mere re-telling of the events to an analysis of the cultural constructs that foster sexual harassment at institutions of higher education.
In the present study, fourteen science and engineering faculty members who identified as lesbian or gay at two research universities described the workplace climate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) faculty, the role pressures and choices they face, and the effects of the climate on their work performance and careers. While some faculty describe overt hostility toward them, invisibility, interpersonal discomfort, and pressure to "cover" their sexuality are much more pervasive, as is a felt obligation to be supportive to LGBT students and junior colleagues. Based on our analyses of the interview data, we propose a model of the career consequences of the academic work environment for sexual minority faculty in science and engineering. We conclude by recommending specific future research and suggesting institutional actions that can be taken to make campus climates more affirming for LGBT faculty in science and engineering, and other disciplines.
Inclusive Science:Articulating Theory, Practice, and Action Cynthia G. Norton (bio) and Deborah D. Wygal (bio) This cluster of articles is not the first to examine the intersections of Women's Studies and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). For example, the 2000 Women's Studies Quarterly issue "Building Inclusive Science," edited by Sue Rosser, recounted the recent history and status of women in science and engineering, and focused on classroom and curriculum as a means of transformation. In 2004, the NWSA Journal published a special issue on "(Re)Gendering Science Fields," edited by Jill Bystydzienski, which grew out of a National Science Foundation-sponsored conference on "Retaining Women in Early Academic STEM Careers." The articles in that issue represented a shift in thinking, away from how to fit women into STEM to looking at systemic barriers and analyzing how these fields must change at the institutional level to attract and retain women and those in minority groups. The inspiration and motivation for the current cluster of articles in "Inclusive Science: Articulating Theory, Practice, and Action" came from a June 2008 conference by the same name (www.stkate.edu/inclusive_science), focused on the intersections of science, gender, race, and class. The conference was greatly enriched by three keynote speakers. Dr. Marlene Zuk, Professor of Biology and the Associate Vice-Provost for Faculty Equity and Diversity at the University of California-Riverside, addressed "Sex and the Scala Naturae: The Use of Males as a Model System." She cautioned that our preoccupation with the use of model systems could bias the way we see nature, preventing us from understanding the full diversity of natural systems, and urged scientists to look at problems from more diverse perspectives. Dr. Sue Rosser, Professor and Dean of the Ivan Allen College, Georgia Institute of Technology, in her talk, "Are Women Included in Leading Edge Trends in Science and Technology? Gender and Patents," presented information about global underrepresentation of women in obtaining patents, and suggested how applying theory from Women's Studies could be helpful in closing this gender gap (see her article in this cluster). Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, President of Spelman College, drew on relevant psychological literature on stigma and stereotyping as well as life histories of black women in science and observations at two women's colleges for her presentation: "The Psychology of Persistence: Facilitating the Success of Underrepresented Women of Color in Science." In her address, Dr. Tatum highlighted promising practices for facilitating the success of underrepresented women of color in science. [End Page vii] The intention of the Inclusive Science conference was to bring together scholars in STEM and Women's Studies to discuss critiques of science from multiple perspectives, to examine pedagogies that engage those typically underrepresented in STEM fields (particularly white women and men and women of color), and to develop strategies for transforming the ways we learn, teach, and practice science—admittedly a broad set of goals. But, in actuality, the conference did more than that—it brought individuals with a common passion for addressing issues of inclusion in STEM together in space and time to address topics of pressing importance so often neglected in their own fields. This sense of community countered the isolation expressed by many and articulated by Anne Fausto-Sterling in 1992 that "there is no intellectual community, be it the community of scientists or the community of feminist scholars, to which I can fully belong" (336). The synergy which resulted from this intellectual and practical exchange of ideas and strategies left us with a sense that by working together, we can make science, technology, engineering, and mathematics more inclusive. So what would inclusive science look like? The answer to this question obviously depends on who answers it, so before I answer, I will identify my perspective. I am a white, middle-class woman, trained as an evolutionary and behavioral biologist, and currently Professor of Biology at a Catholic liberal arts college for women. Although I have identified as a feminist for more than thirty years, I have no formal training in Women's Studies. I am a member of the core faculty in our interdisciplinary Women's Studies program, and have come to feminist...
Cells within the nervous system are generally divided into two types: Neurons and glia. Neurons have the capacity to change their electrical potential, hence to be "active," and have received the bulk of attention from researchers. However, recent evidence shows that one form of glial cell, the astrocyte, contributes to communication within the nervous system in a fashion that is increasingly characterized as "active." Astrocytes were previously regarded as passive supporting elements. Metaphorical descriptions of the cells changed from lifeless "packing material" to "housekeepers," "nursemaids," and other social roles characterized by female gender and subordinate status. A turning point in the conceptualization of glial cells came when researchers reported that chemicals released from glial cells appeared to regulate the formation of synapses, the communication points between neurons. With this evidence that glial cells not only contributed to, but actively regulated, a process highly valued by neuroscientists, glial cells moved up in social rank and changed gender, becoming "masters of the synapse" and "architects of the brain." The metaphors clearly imply that as cells become more valuable to nervous system function, they become metaphorically masculine.
This essay analyzes the development of Girls' Studies as a field of critical inquiry. Although scholars from across the academy and around the world currently conduct girl-centered research, considerable barriers prevented the coalescence of Girls' Studies until the late twentieth century. The first section of the essay explores the marginalization of girls in youth research and feminist scholarship prior to the 1990s, two fields where one would expect girls, girlhood, and girls' culture to be of interest. The second section focuses on transformations within and outside the academy that led to the rapid growth of girl-centered research in recent years. The third section provides a map of Girls' Studies scholarship to date, including a survey of topics explored in specific disciplines and those that deserve more attention, as well as an analysis of broader trends in such research across the academy over the past fifteen years.
Reviewed by: The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London Lee Tunstall (bio) The Wealth of Wives: Women, Law, and Economy in Late Medieval London by Barbara A. Hanawalt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, 336 pp., $99.00 hardcover, $19.95 paper. Medieval women's history has grown into a vibrant branch of women's history over the past three decades. Much of this growth has been due to [End Page 212] the painstaking efforts of female historians who have pored over mountains of archival data to uncover discrete pieces of information from women's lives and weave them into a tapestry of knowledge for fellow scholars and students. Barbara Hanawalt has achieved a distinguished career by scouring diverse sets of documents in order to learn about the lived experiences of diverse medieval populations. Her earlier works focused on medieval crime, the lives of medieval peasants, and the experience of childhood in medieval London, and all of her books made extensive use of legal and other administrative sources.1 Her current work is truly foundational in that no substantial work on the legal status and rights of women in medieval London existed before. The Wealth of Wives is a major contribution not only to medieval women's legal history but also to English legal and economic history and the history of marriage in medieval times. In this book, Hanawalt concentrates on the lives of women in late medieval London, and, early on, puts forward her central thesis that "the circulation of wealth, talent, and service through women contributed to capital formation in late medieval London, and paved the way for London to become an international player" (4). This led London women to operate within a system of "constrained" or "self-limiting" patriarchy, as wealth was not concentrated in the hands of men, as in some other urban centers, such as Venice. Instead, wealth was much more fluid, with women playing a central role in its circulation. Hanawalt thus departs from the more traditional approach to viewing women's economic contributions through roles as laborers or entrepreneurs, and instead positions them squarely as conduits of wealth, having their own, if limited, agency. Much of this agency still focused around the traditional institution of marriage, and the transfer of wealth which occurred at the time of marriage (dowry), and at the time of widowhood (dower) and remarriage, which often occurred. Hanawalt is careful at all times to remind the reader that the concepts of equity and feminism that we in the twenty-first century understand were simply not present in the minds of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Londoners. As the late medieval period includes the Black Death, Hanawalt mentions this event as having a significant impact on women. The plague caused the population of London to be halved within two years of 1348, and it remained low until the end of the fifteenth century. Hanawalt makes the point clearly that this did not constitute, as some scholars argue, a "golden age" for women. This theory states that because of the depopulation after the Black Death, women had more opportunities to secure paid employment outside the household or conduct their own businesses, which in turn led to greater independence for greater numbers of women. The Black Death did indeed lead to increased economic opportunities for women, but it was because the transfer of wealth was [End Page 213] concentrated in fewer hands, and marriages and especially remarriages aided in this concentration. Hanawalt's selection of London as the study's geographic focus is important as London laws differed markedly from other jurisdictions outside the urban area. Those women who were classified as "citizens" of London were eligible to receive wealth from their families and from their husbands. As the system of primogeniture—according to which the eldest son received the entire inheritance—did not exist in London, women had many more opportunities there than elsewhere. A London man's estate was divided three ways: One-third for debt and salvation of his soul; one-third for his children's inheritance (which included his daughters); and one-third as a dower for his widow for use during her life...
This article compares early texts from feminist ethicists (Nel Noddings and Sara Ruddick) that focus on care and/or mothering as the basis for ethical models with literary works by two German authors (Christa Wolf and Ingeborg Drewitz) that challenge these models and reveal their structural problems. Although the literary works appeared generally shortly before the feminist scholarship, they all participate in a discussion of how women's experiences as mothers and caregivers can and/or should factor into the construction of ethical models. Furthermore, the conflicts that come to the fore in the literary texts foreshadow the directions that feminist ethicists themselves went in a continuing dialogue about feminist contributions to the study of ethics. Specifically, the article 1) explores how these two authors illustrate the potential problems with an ethics based either on "maternal thinking" or on a more abstract notion of caring; 2) discusses the directions in which their work points us; and 3) uses feminist scholarly discussions on ethics as conceptual tools to illuminate more fully the central conflicts in the literary texts themselves.
This essay examines the ways in which Margaret Mead's research findings in New Guinea were transmitted to a Chinese-speaking audience through Yang Mei-hui's annotated Chinese summary of part 4 of Mead's Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935). In so doing, Yang served as a cultural intermediary who transmitted Mead's concept of cultural relativism on gender-role formation to her Chinese-speaking audience. Yang's annotated summary (1973) serves as a case study of the ways in which a cultural intermediary's injections of her personal commentaries within a specific cross-cultural context can facilitate her audience's understanding of the arguments made in the original English text. In this essay, I undertake a textual comparison of Yang's Chinese annotated summary with Mead's original English text for the purpose of evaluating Yang's effectiveness in conveying Mead's main arguments. In the 1970s and thereafter, Taiwanese feminists applied Mead's concept of cultural relativism of socially constructed gender to subvert the rigid gender roles in Taiwanese society. In so doing, they contributed to women's self-determination during the era of Taiwan's democratization.
Reviewed by: Women's Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks Harriet Margolis (bio) Women's Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks edited by Robin Blaetz. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007, 421 pp., $94.95 hardcover, $25.95 paper. Women's Experimental Cinema: Critical Frameworks is a collection of seventeen essays on fifteen individual women filmmakers by and large associated with the New York art scene since the 1950s. There is also an introduction by the editor, Robin Blaetz, and a final essay by Scott McDonald on pedagogical issues associated with the material in question. The contributors include many well-known film scholars, such as Maureen Turim and William Wees, whom one would expect to see in such a collection. Some of the contributors also know their subjects personally; for instance, Robert Haller's chapter focuses on filmmaker Amy Greenfield, who is his spouse. While some of the subjects, such as Yvonne Rainer and Barbara Hammer, continue to make films, many others have moved on to other art forms and a few have died. Blaetz, though, is interested in recovering the "avant-garde and experimental film (terms that I am using interchangeably here)" work that comes from "the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, when there was a window of opportunity for the assimilation of the rich field of women's experimental cinema into the wider arena of cinema studies" (1). The women in Blaetz's anthology have tended to work on non-narrative pieces, often of short duration, and often engaged in intense debates with other art forms about the very nature of art. Because of who these women were, what they were doing, and when and where they were [End Page 217] doing it, learning about them and their work means also learning about their male counterparts and their work. Reading Women's Experimental Cinema involves learning generally about structuralism and minimalism as aesthetic movements across the arts—especially dance and painting—of the time, along with variations on and successors to these movements. As stated, "The ultimate goal of this book is to insert the work of these less known filmmakers into film history, widely conceived to include, for example, the American avant-garde, minimalism, or ethnography, and also to enrich the definition of feminism in the cinema" (5). A few black-and-white illustrations are scattered helpfully throughout the book, but these are not widely known films. The authors, however, do a good job of indicating the environment in which these films were produced and, often, in which they have been screened. There are many wonderful stories about the screening experiences, from both the audience and the filmmaker's point of view. For example, from M. M. Serra and Kathryn Ramey's chapter on Carolee Schneeman, we learn that Schneeman's film Fuses (1964–1967) had one of its first public screenings "at Cannes, in a sidebar called 'Radical Films of 1969'" (109–10). A response in part to films made by Stan Brakhage about birth and intercourse, Fuses' sexually explicit nature and the technical difficulties of printing Schneeman's physically dense film posed problems for its public exhibition. Schneeman recalls standing in the back of the theater with Susan Sontag. At the end of the screening of Fuses, there was a great agitation in the front of the theater with men jumping up and down, howling, and slashing the seats with razors and knives. The police had to be called. Sontag surmised that male audience members responded so vociferously because the film did not fulfill their pornographic expectations with its visual fractures and its egalitarian representation of genitals and of orgasm. (113) In another chapter, Ara Osterweil's discussion of Barbara Rubin and her films shows how Jonas Mekas and P. Adams Sitney, along with Rubin, illegally projected one of Rubin's films at the Third International Experimental Film Exposition in Knokke-le-Zoute, Belgium on New Year's Eve 1963: "As a riot erupted, Rubin shouted encouragement to the audience while hurling curses at the police. Unrestrained by the probability that she could be prosecuted for showing the film . . ., Rubin attempted to project the film on the face of the Belgian Minister of Culture" (142...
