Queering the ‘straight’ line: men’s talk on paying for sex

This paper presents a qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with eight men who identified as clients of women sex workers, but who also spoke about paying to secretly explore their sexual desires for trans women and men. I draw on queer theory to approach the question of how, and to what extent, men’s paid sexual encounters functioned as sites where they could resist the constraints of compulsory heterosexuality and navigate more fluid sexual identities. Highlighting the complex nature and meanings of paying for sex, I argue that the secrecy of the paid sexual encounter provided a space for ‘breaking out’ of the confines of heterosexuality whilst simultaneously being the very thing that allowed men to stay ‘in line’ with what was expected of them within the heteronormative realities of their everyday lives.     

Anti-sexist men: A case of cloak-and-dagger chauvinism

The paper looks at the sexual behaviour of anti-sexist men as this is presented in writing, in discussion, and in personal experience of them. It shows that changes in the sexual behaviour of anti-sexist men have been those that serve their own interests. Some anti-sexist male writing about sex describes how some of them cannot get an erection without objectifying the women they're in bed with; and they don't tell these women about the misogynistic fantasies they have in order to objectify them. Drawing on this, on discussions with anti-sexist men and on personal experience, it seems that ‘impotence’ is a common reaction to stroppy feminists and sexually active women. The paper concludes that male anti-sexism is more a ‘cloak-and-dagger form of chauvinism’ than a genuine attempt to lose their power over women.     

‘Doing gender and gender equality’ through emotional expressions during a research interview. Views of highly educated Swedish young adults

The aim of this article is to contribute to the knowledge on how concepts of gender and gender equality are constructed within research interviews, deepening our understanding of the underlying gender system in society. We focus on emotions and emotional processes expressed during interviews on work and family when specific questions originating in the World Value Survey were asked. Our study is based on interviews with highly educated women and men, in two metropolitan areas of Sweden. In this article, we seek to shed more light on how incorporating emotional expressions and the evaluation of these emotions can grasp the construction of gender and gender equality. We highlight the range of emotional expressions that appear during the interviews, differences in their usage by women and men and the links to the construction of gender and gender equality. We explore how the specific situation of the interview influences ‘doing gender and gender equality’ through emotions. Our results reveal that men and women use similar but also different emotional expressions in conforming to the gender equality norm. Men and women, interviewers and interviewees agreed on this norm, but the ways they ’performed’ the norm are gender based.     

On the bottom rung: A discussion of women's work in sociology

Women, Women's Work and ‘Women's Studies’ are in a disadvantaged and marginal position within academic settings. This is a reflection of women's position in society in general, and it should be no surprise to find it to be the case in sociology as elsewhere. Women's studies has achieved some respectability within the social sciences, but rather than this being seen as a straightforward success, the disadvantages of this ‘respectability’ must be understood, as must the subtlety of male incorporation of feminist ideas not at a conscious level but within and through the male defined ethos of academia. The use of a qualitative methodology to get behind the ‘facts’ of qualitative differences in women's and men's positions is important. The lives of women postgraduates and researchers in Great Britain, those women on the bottom rung, can give us insights into the difficulties for women's studies and into the possibilities for the direction that attempts to redress the imbalances between men and women in academia might take.     

Colonial counterparts: the first academic women in Anglo-Canada,New Aealand and Australia

During the early years of the twentieth century, women first gained permanent academic positions in most universities across the Western world. This article considers the first academic women in Anglo-Canada, New Zealand and Australia as colonial counterparts. It argues that these women's experiences were shaped by a colonial setting that was infused with powerful gender-, race- and class-specific codes concerning knowledge and the institution of the university. The first academic women were simultaneously situated as ‘insiders’, as supporters of the institutions in which they worked, and as ‘outsiders’ because of their sex and the patriarchal attitudes of the time. In recovering some of their lives and experiences, it is shown how such a positioning shaped the careers of academic women, as well as how these women attempted to subvert and change their place within the university. As a group, the first academic women in Anglo-Canada, New Zealand and Australia were much more concerned with advancing the place of women in higher education than they were with critiquing the colonial knowledges that were a part of their various institutions.     

Crisis,what crisis? A feminist analysis of discourse on masculinities and suicide

High male suicide rates are often constructed as evidence for an apparent ‘crisis of masculinity’. Conversely, ‘crisis of masculinity’ has been used to explain differential rates of male and female suicide in the UK (and elsewhere). We analyse three public cases where male suicide and ‘masculinity-crisis’ discourse are employed together. Our feminist analysis demonstrates that ‘crisis talk’ and male suicide are addressed in divergent ways. We therefore distinguish between ‘progressive’ and ‘conservative’ crisis narratives. Conservative narratives position high male suicide rates as a pernicious outcome of ‘threats’ to traditional gender roles and norms, suggesting the solution is to return to them. Contrastingly, progressive crisis accounts use male suicide to demonstrate that existing gender norms harm men as well as women and argue they should be altered to address male suicide. Conservative narratives often map on to anti-feminist politics, whereas progressive accounts reflect aspects of feminism. There is no neat feminist/anti-feminist distinction, however, as postfeminist ideas are also evident. We argue that, overall, each of the articulations of a ‘crisis of masculinity’ as evidenced by high rates of male suicide reinforces problematic gender politics. Further, in reifying simplistic, dualistic models of gender, they may ultimately constrain efforts to reduce suicide.     

The ‘Wrongs’ of Women: Sex and Sexuality in Irish American Women's Writing

A key trait distinguishing the writing of Irish American women from that of their male counterparts is a strong feminist bent often expressed in stories featuring sex and sexuality. In ignoring these characteristics, Irish studies scholars have disregarded a trait established by Irish women writers in oral traditions as early as 600 and in written English since 1685. Much of this material was categorized as the ‘Wrongs of Woman’, a phrase used to describe stories about physical and sexual abuse. These same themes can be traced in the writing of Irish American women since the late nineteenth century. By focusing on these ‘wrongs’, Irish American women have not only carried on the tradition begun by their foremothers; they have also battled patriarchal bonds on three fronts: religion, which created such bonds; society, which reinforced them; and politics, which tries to recreate and re-impose them. A complete understanding of Irish American writing therefore depends on recognizing and adding the contributions of these women to the definition of the literature. This essay defines that cohort, then provides a historically contextualized examination of their literary attempts to address the ‘wrongs’ of women inflicted by religion, society and politics from 1899 to the present. In so doing, this discussion demonstrates the role played by Irish American women writers in promoting, protecting and perpetuating the rights of women in the United States and around the world.     

The conscientization of women: A rite of self- initiation with the flavour of a religious conversion process

In traditional societies, young men and women are initiated separately into the adult world and, for various reasons, the male rite has typically been much more dramatic and elaborate. In western industrialized society, the formal education system became the initiation rite, par excellence, by which boys passed from childhood and the world of women into the public, adult world of men. By gaining access, albeit belatedly, to this male initiation rite, many women have thus gained access to the public, adult world but have found that they have had to give up being women. Other women have remained with the traditional female initiation rites of marriage and motherhood and have discovered that society does not really consider them to be adults. Another group of women have tried both routes to adulthood and have been unable to integrate their identities as women and adults.When these women get together in consciousness-raising groups they find themselves undergoing a rite of self-initiation made necessary by the fact that neither the traditional female rites of marriage and motherhood nor the masculine rites of formal education are adequate for women who wish to be considered both female and adult. Women in CR groups develop a strong sense of themselves as adult women and then are faced with the crucial question of how to relate to a patriarchal society which does not accept or affirm this new identity. There is a parallel in the process of religious conversion which, if probed, can help feminists to reflect on what are the most effective ways for a minority group to influence the mainstream of society without losing its identity and original values in the process.     

Cause for concern: young women and leisure, 1930–50

During the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s the leisure of young women attracted much interest from youth workers, psychologists and educationalists. Indeed, in 1939 their leisure became an organised and respectable focus of state intervention. This article addresses how, and in what ways, the leisure of young women came to acquire significance as an issue of concern, object of analysis, and sphere of intervention. The argument developed here is that public approaches to young women's leisure need to be understood in terms of the ways in which ‘leisure’ was discursively constructed during the inter-war period as a social phenomenon of considerable significance, and how this intersected with discourses on female adolescence within a framework of concern for the stability of British society and democracy. Such concerns about society were strong throughout the inter-war period but were intensified during and immediately after the Second World War. The interconnection of these three themes of ‘leisure’, ‘adolescence’ and societal stability are illustrated with reference to discussions in the 1930s and 1940s about what constituted the problem of young women's leisure and suggestions concerning young women's leisure needs.     

The art of being “just right”: Language and gender—still a matter of power

In Norway the pioneering era in many ways is over with women in top politics and other important positions. After 25 years of explicit work towards equal opportunities for women and men, Norwegian society today seems to be characterized by “a declared equality”. Modern femininity and masculinity in a society where male dominance is illegitimate seem to be characterized by a common project: to hide the fact that men still dominate women. Women are socialized to communicate in specific ways and to choose conversational roles in interaction with men that contribute to concealing their subordinate position. This pattern may be described as the art of being “just right”.     

gender,migration and the ambiguous enterprise of professionalizing domestic service: the case of vocational training for the unemployed in France

This article aims to contribute to current debates about international migration and the restructuring of the Welfare state in Europe, by highlighting the specificities of the French context. It draws on ethnographic research about the training of unemployed migrant women as domestic workers in Paris to address the ambiguities that underlie the enterprise of professionalizing domestic service. The qualitative data presented in the article show how essentialist ideologies operate within training practices of domestic workers. They reveal that the training practices challenge the association of the job with domesticity, but fail to acknowledge the racist organization of domestic service. Hence, they endorse essentialist constructions of cultural difference. Training practices are also consistent with current neoliberal policies and discourses on unemployment and ‘employability’, as they are framed by the normative reference to an entrepreneurial model of society. Finally, the data suggest that migrant women's experience of domestic service as a prospective job and their scepticism about the enterprise of professionalizing radically differ from the instructors’ views.     

‘i pray for the factory to continue earning money’: the familial factory regime of the ‘Sun’ food factory in Turkey

This paper explores the factory regime in the ‘Sun’ food processing factory in Turkey, drawing on participant observation in the factory, informal interviews with women workers and in-depth interviews with the managers of the factory’s ‘gherkin department’ in which I worked. This paper argues that the ‘Sun’ bottling and canning factory is best understood through my concept of the ‘familial factory regime’. By ‘familial factory regime’ I mean a factory regime in which the features of the extended patriarchal family are used to manage the labour force by obtaining women workers’ consent. Indeed, the paper suggests that there is a tendency for patriarchy to be reconstituted in the workplace through the presence of a familial factory regime.     

Being women in a male preserve: an ethnography of female football ultras

This article looks at the characteristics of contemporary sports audiences from the perspective of gender, focusing on the phenomenon of female ultras or ‘professional’ football fans. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in an Italian football ultras group composed of male and female fans, this paper offers an analysis of female participation in communities of organized supporters. In examining the role and position of women inside the considered group, the paper pays attention to their perception of the existing gender differences showing how female ultras explain inequalities on the basis of ‘natural’ and ‘innate’ differences and capacities between men and women. Existing patterns of male dominance are supported by female fans’ own discourses and performance of their gender identity in the ‘male preserve’. Rather than questioning male dominance and gender hierarchies, female supporters’ efforts appear aimed at being recognized as ultras ‘despite being women’.     

Women’s Organizations of Political Parties: Formal Possibilities,Informal Challenges and Discursive Controversies

Feminist research focusing on gender policy successes in the 1990s and 2000s emphasized the strengths of women’s organizations of political parties in advancing key gender equality issues in Finland. However, both the “feminism” and “politics” of political parties’ women’s organizations, hitherto apparent in Finland and elsewhere in Europe, are now deemed outdated, a paradox that is critically explored in this article. The analysis is based on interview data with women and men politicians and party workers and is structured around the key research question: how are the women’s organizations of political parties discursively constructed by the interviewed politicians and party workers and with what effects? These discursive constructions are studied in relation to: (i) the formal institutional position of the women’s organizations of political parties, (ii) informal institutional position vis-à-vis the mother party, and (iii) discursive controversies surrounding their feminism and politics. The discourse analysis reveals the contradictions and challenges faced by women’s political organizations in contemporary politics.     

Motherhood at center: Ellen key's social vision

The new Swedish women's movement was hampered in its analysis in part by the association of ‘feminism’ with a glorification of traditional feminity attributed to turn-of-the-century essayist Ellen Key. This paper examines Key's production during one controversial decade (1896–1905) and finds that she, in fact, sought freedom for women to be true to their own characters rather than follow patriarchal definitions or emulate male behavior. She advocated a new world-view based on social solidarity and the ‘self-assertion and self-surrender’ of the mother-child relationship, as well as a transformation of society that would put motherhood at the center of public life. Dismayed at sexual hypocrisy and the suffering it caused, she wanted to remove reproduction from its patriarchal moral and legal strictures and replace ‘man's erotic dualism’ with genuine love and a new understanding of sexuality based on ‘maternal feeling’. Several interpretive questions are raised: Where is the locus of feminism? How do we recognize it when we see it? Why is the so-called ‘exaltation’ of motherhood so problematic for modern feminists?     

(Re)creating gender hierarchies within northern landscapes: a study of stories about nature and gender

This article examines how gender hierarchies are (re)created within the context of northern landscapes. We analyse data from fieldwork and interviews with middle-class female Russians having settled in a small town in northernmost Norway, most of them as marriage migrants. Inspired by the phenomenology of the body, feminist phenomenology and gender theory, the analysis shows how the participants talk about nature as ‘recreation’ and ‘poetry’, but also as a venue that is vital for (re)shaping their gendered identities. In particular, the Russian women talk about their strong, skilful outdoors Norwegian husbands as ‘experts’ in nature, and about themselves as ‘novices’. This ‘expert–novice’ relationship creates a hierarchical distinction between the Norwegian man and the Russian woman, but also attributes additional value to the equality-oriented, but in several cases neither highly educated nor highly paid, Norwegian husband. Through this ‘re-masculinisation’ of their Norwegian partners, the Russian women create a complementary, but subordinate space for themselves. The analysis reveals that our participants situate themselves in contrast to the Norwegian equality ideal while creating a room of their own where they can form a separate and unique Russian femininity. This illustrates how constructions of gender are interwoven in translocal ‘minoritising’ and ‘majoritising’ processes.     

Women’s perspectives on the value of a father’s initiative in shifting gendered practices within families

This paper explores the qualitative perspectives of women about a community embedded fathers’ initiative in Northern England. Projects to improve the well-being of men and their children are less common within the landscape of parent and child support, with mothers more often being the target recipients. Asking women about their perceptions of an initiative for fathers then offers original insights from women who are positioned as ‘related outsiders’, in that they were ‘outside’ the project but ‘inside’ the family and community. Findings suggest that women are able to see the positive impact of such a project, identifying that it offers a shared space for men and children, time for mothers without their children and can help with shifting roles and attitudes around childcare and emotional labour in the home. The initiative was also seen by the women as offering men more healthy means of coping, including men moving away from traditional hegemonic practices, which in turn shifted some women’s long held gendered beliefs about men as fathers. This research then offers a relational gendered backstory to a father’s initiative, demonstrating how such initiatives can potentially ‘undo’ gender and the positive implications this could have for families.     

Governing the souls of young women: exploring the perspectives of mothers on parenting in the age of sexualisation

The sexualisation of young women has emerged as a growing concern within contemporary western cultures. This has provoked adult anxieties that young women are growing up too fast by adopting inappropriate sexual practices and subjectivities. Psychological discourses have dominated, which position sexualisation as a corrupting force that infects the ‘true self’ of young women, so they develop in abnormal ways. This in turn allows psychological practices to govern how to parent against sexualisation within families. To explore this further, six mothers each with daughters aged between 8 and 12 took part in one to one semi-structured interviews designed to explore how they conceptualised and parented against the early sexualisation of young women. A Foucauldian inspired discourse analysis was employed, which suggested that the mother's talk was situated within a psychological discourse. This enabled sexualisation to be positioned as a corrupting force that disrupted the natural development of young women through deviant bodily practices (e.g. consuming sexualised goods), which prevented them from becoming their ‘true self’. Through the disciplinary gaze of psychology, class inequalities were reproduced where working class families were construed as ‘chavs’ who were bad parents and a site of contagion for sexualisation.     

Ouch! Western Feminists' ‘Wounded Attachment’ to the ‘Third World Prostitute’

‘Trafficking in women’ has, in recent years, been the subject of intense feminist debate. This article analyses the position of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) and the writings of its founder, Kathleen Barry. It suggests that CATW's construction of ‘third world prostitutes’ is part of a wider western feminist impulse to construct a damaged ‘other’ as justification for its own interventionist impulses. The central argument of this article is that the ‘injured body’ of the ‘third world trafficking victim’ in international feminist debates around trafficking in women serves as a powerful metaphor for advancing certain feminist interests, which cannot be assumed to be those of third world sex workers themselves. This argument is advanced through a comparison of Victorian feminist campaigns against prostitution in India with contemporary feminist campaigns against trafficking.The term ‘injured identity’ is drawn from Wendy Brown's (1995) States of Injury, Power and Freedom in Late Modernity. Brown argues that certain groups have con.gured their claims to inclusion in the liberal state in terms of ‘historical ‘injuries’. Antoinette Burton (1998) extends Brown's analysis to look at Victorian feminists’ relationship to Empire, arguing that the ‘injured identities’ of colonial ‘others’ were central to feminist efforts to mark out their own role in Empire. This paper builds on Burton's analysis, asking what role the ‘injured identities’ of third world sex workers play in the construction of certain contemporary feminist identities. The notion of ‘injured identities’ offers a provocative way to begin to examine how CATW feminists position the ‘traficking victim’ in their discourse. If ‘injured identity’ is a constituent element of late modern subject formation, this may help explain why CATW and Barry rely so heavily on the ‘suffering’ of ‘third world traficking victims’ in their discourses of women's subjugation. It also raises questions about the possible repressive consequences of CATW's efforts to combat ‘traficking in women’ through ‘protective’ legislation.