Masculinity/Femininty: re-framing a fragmented debate


Book Description

The representations and performances of femininity and masculinity are no longer set in stone according to traditions imposed by society. Gender identity and gender roles are evolving. This ebook provides multiple perspectives on the issue that re-frame the debate in a modern context.







Feminist Methodology


Book Description

`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 Who would be a feminist now? Contemporary ′political realism′ suggests that the essentials of the battle have already been won, and the current generation of women entering University is used to seeing feminism presented as ′old fashioned′, ′extreme′ and ′unrealistic′. Challenging such assumptions, this important new book argues for the value of empirical investigations of gendered life, and brings together the theoretical, political and practical aspects of feminist methodology. Feminist Methodology - demonstrates how feminist approaches to methodology engage with debates in western philosophy to raise critical questions about knowledge production - shows that feminist methodology has a distinctive place in social research - guides the reader through the terrain of feminist methodology and clarifies how feminists can claim knowledge of gendered social existence - connects abstract issues of theory with issues in fieldwork practice. This timely and accessible book will be an essential resource for students in women′s studies, gender studies, sociology, cultural studies, social anthropology and feminist psychology.




Reframing difference


Book Description

Reframing difference is the first major study of two overlapping strands of contemporary French cinema, cinema beur (films by young directors of Maghrebi immigrant origin) and cinema de banlieue (films set in France's disadvantaged outer-city estates). Carrie Tarr's insightful account draws on a wide range of films, from directors such as Mehdi Charef, Mathieu Kassovitz and Djamel Bensalah. Her analyses compare the work of male and female, majority and minority film-makers, and emphasise the significance of authorship in the representation of gender and ethnicity. Foregrounding such issues as the quest for identity, the negotiation of space and the recourse to memory and history, she argues that these films challenge and reframe the symbolic spaces of French culture, addressing issues of ethnicity and difference which are central to today's debates about what it means to be French. This timely book is essential reading for anyone interested in the relationship between cinema and citizenship in a multicultural society.




Media and gender: a scholarly agenda for the Global Alliance on Media and Gender


Book Description

Subject: UNESCO, the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), and members of the Global Alliance on Media and Gender (GAMAG) have partnered to publish scholarly research agenda for GAMAG. The publication addresses both knowledge and actions linked to gender and media issues. It analyses existing research findings and their links to policies, foregrounds existing research gaps, and recommends research and policy actions to be taken by the Global Alliance on Media and Gender and other stakeholders globally. It covers a range of concerns highlighting major themes including violence against women; women in leadership/decision making of media; gender and media policies and strategies; journalism education, and media and information literacy




Special Operations Forces Mixed-Gender Elite Teams


Book Description

On 24 January 2013, the Secretary of Defense (SecDef) rescinded the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule (DCAR) that excluded women from assignment to units and positions whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground. In doing so, the SecDef directed the opening of all occupational specialties, positions and units to women; the validation of gender-neutral standards for those positions; and establishment of milestones for implementation. In a March 2013 memorandum, Commander USSOCOM directed several initiatives as a result of the SecDef's DCAR rescission. While other studies examined individual performance and standards, the JSOU Center for Special Operations Studies and Research examined the effects on team dynamics. The challenge for this study was to determine if changing the gender component of Special Operations Forces elite teams from single-gender (masculine) to mixed-gender would affect team dynamics in a way that would compromise the ability of the team to meet a mission objective.




Fortunes of Feminism


Book Description

Nancy Fraser’s major new book traces the feminist movement’s evolution since the 1970s and anticipates a new—radical and egalitarian—phase of feminist thought and action. During the ferment of the New Left, “Second Wave” feminism emerged as a struggle for women’s liberation and took its place alongside other radical movements that were questioning core features of capitalist society. But feminism’s subsequent immersion in identity politics coincided with a decline in its utopian energies and the rise of neoliberalism. Now, foreseeing a revival in the movement, Fraser argues for a reinvigorated feminist radicalism able to address the global economic crisis. Feminism can be a force working in concert with other egalitarian movements in the struggle to bring the economy under democratic control, while building on the visionary potential of the earlier waves of women’s liberation. This powerful new account is set to become a landmark of feminist thought.




The "new Woman" Revised


Book Description

In the years between the world wars, Manhattan's Fourteenth Street-Union Square district became a center for commercial, cultural, and political activities, and hence a sensitive barometer of the dramatic social changes of the period. It was here that four urban realist painters--Kenneth Hayes Miller, Reginald Marsh, Raphael Soyer, and Isabel Bishop--placed their images of modern "new women." Bargain stores, cheap movie theaters, pinball arcades, and radical political organizations were the backdrop for the women shoppers, office and store workers, and consumers of mass culture portrayed by these artists. Ellen Wiley Todd deftly interprets the painters' complex images as they were refracted through the gender ideology of the period. This is a work of skillful interdisciplinary scholarship, combining recent insights from feminist art history, gender studies, and social and cultural theory. Drawing on a range of visual and verbal representations as well as biographical and critical texts, Todd balances the historical context surrounding the painters with nuanced analyses of how each artist's image of womanhood contributed to the continual redefining of the "new woman's" relationships to men, family, work, feminism, and sexuality.




Empowering Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries


Book Description

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781315180250, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license Adolescence is a pivotal time in a girl's life. The development of educational, physical, psychosocial, familial, political and economic capabilities enable girls to reach their full potential and contribute to the wellbeing of their families and society. However, progress is still significantly constrained by discriminatory gender norms and the related attitudes and practices which restrict girls’ horizons, restrain their ambition and, if unfettered, allow exploitation and abuse. Empowering Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries explores the detrimental impact of discriminatory gender norms on adolescent girls’ lives across very different contexts. Grounded in four years of in-depth research in Ethiopia, Nepal, Uganda and Viet Nam, the book adopts a holistic approach, recognising the inter-related nature of capabilities and the importance of local context. By exploring the theory of gendered norm change, contextualising and examining socialisation processes, the book identifies the patriarchal vested interests in power, authority and moral privilege, which combine in attempts to restrict and control girls’ lives. Throughout the book, Empowering Adolescent Girls in Developing Countries demonstrates how efforts to develop more egalitarian gender norms can enable disadvantaged adolescent girls to change the course of their lives and contribute to societal change. Accessible and informative, the book is perfect for policy makers, think tanks, NGOs, activists, academics and students of gender and development studies.




Handbook of Gender and Women′s Studies


Book Description

This breathtakingly broad, interdisciplinary reader demonstrates how widely feminist thinking has spread, how deeply it has shaken settled assumptions in the disciplines and how much new light it throws on contemporary controversies. - Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin-Madison "A timely intervention and highly engaged, thoughtful and scholarly analysis of the state of gender and women′s studies in the West by three eminent feminist scholars... Highly cognisant of the central issues that have fractured, blocked and enhanced western feminism." - Bev Skeggs, Goldsmiths "The comprehensiveness and the interdisciplinary range of themes are impressive, and they make the Handbook into a wonderful tool for teachers and students of women′s and gender studies." - Nina Lykke, Linkoeping University Gender and women′s studies is one of the most challenging fields within the social sciences - the dynamics of gender relations and the social and cultural implications of gender constructions offer a lively forum of debate. The Handbook of Gender and Women′s Studies presents a comprehensive and engaging review of the most recent developments within the field, including the study of masculinity, the feminist implications of postmodernism, the ′cultural turn′ and globalization. The authors review current research and offer critical analyses of women′s and gender studies in work, the welfare state, family, education, religion, violence and war and feminist global politics. Edited by three leading academics from Europe and the United States, and with 25 chapters written by scholars based throughout the world, the Handbook situates the most important debates in the field within a uniquely international and interdisciplinary context. The Handbook is a useful introduction to gender theory and an exciting starting-point for fresh debates.