Performative Rhetorics in Invisibility: Phoebe Philo's Undone Authorship

ABSTRACT

This inquiry analyses the rhetoric of intentionally unfinished fashion contained in the collections from Céline as designed by Phoebe Philo and explicates the implications of this approach to fashion as a feminist text. Shoshana Felman’s seductive promise of speech, modified with insights from Paul de Man’s theory of autobiography as both giving face and defacement, is applied to Philo’s ‘new minimalism’ in order to highlight its appeal to modern female audiences. Using insights from the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, I examine ways in which wearers may seek to create a signature citationality via clothing that produces its own ‘unwriting’ therefore allowing the wearer to believe she inscribes her own iteration while maintaining control. Wearers are offered the chance to identify with a designer who is enlightened beyond fast and flashy fashion while hinting at the notion of the clothing having the substantialising effect that language has (instead of representational). Through this examination, clothing is shown to be a decision, and clothing is also shown to be a fiction. These decisions and fictions are open to failure; yet Felman offers that this failure acts as an opening remaining inadvertent or unacknowledged. Philo's designs invite an exploration of clothing as performative rhetoric.     

Reconsidering Women’s Empowerment: the Contradictory Effects of Microfinance for Guatemalan Women

In light of changing global trends that connect women’s empowerment and development, this paper extends debates by exploring how projects aimed at empowering women in the Global South intertwine with diverse women’s lived realities in ways that complicate assessments of “success” or “failure.” The article begins by analyzing the incorporation of the concept of empowerment into mainstream development, demonstrating that the conceptual fuzziness of empowerment has allowed it to be associated with vastly different development strategies: some have interpreted it narrowly to promote self-help strategies whereas others have interpreted it broadly to promote structural change. The former has targeted women with “choice-enhancing” resources that are thought to have spillover effects; the latter tends to adopt a more holistic approach. In order to explore how these contrasting strategies affect women’s empowerment experiences and outcomes on the ground, this article then draws on comparative ethnographies of two microfinance non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are emblematic of these diverging approaches. It finds that despite their differences, both spillover and holistic approaches lead to diverse and contradictory experiences that defy easy classification as “empowering” or “disempowering.” This finding reveals the advantages and limitations of relying on the concept of empowerment for evaluating development outcomes and raises questions about our ability to generalize about the effects of the varying approaches encompassed under the current feminization of policy. The analysis also suggests that we should adjust our understanding of women’s agency to include the agency women exercise when they transform, challenge, or reject empowerment projects themselves.     

Party and Gender Stereotypes in Campaign Attacks

Research on negative campaigning has largely overlooked the role of stereotypes. In this study, we argue that the gender and partisan stereotypes associated with traits and policy issues interact with a candidate’s gender and partisanship to shape the effectiveness of campaign attacks. We draw on expectancy-violation theory to argue that candidates may be evaluated more harshly when attacks suggest the candidate has violated stereotypic assumptions about their group. Thus, attacks on a candidate’s “home turf,” or those traits or issues traditionally associated with their party or gender, may be more effective in reducing support for the attacked candidate. We use two survey experiments to examine the effects of stereotype-based attacks—a Trait Attack Study and an Issue Attack Study. The results suggest that female candidates are particularly vulnerable to trait based attacks that challenge stereotypically feminine strengths. Both male and female candidates proved vulnerable to attacks on policy issues stereotypically associated with their party and gender, but the negative effects of all forms of stereotype-based attacks were especially large for democratic women. Our results offer new insights into the use of stereotypes in negative campaigning and their consequences for the electoral fortunes of political candidates.     

Understanding the Influence of Mental Health Diagnosis and Gender on Placement Decisions for Justice-Involved Youth

Justice-involved youth have high rates of psychiatric diagnoses, and these youth are often placed out-of-home, although evidence identifies several negative implications of juvenile confinement, especially for youth with psychopathology. Furthermore, youth in the justice system may be processed differently based on gender. As males and females tend to manifest symptoms differently, the psychopathology of youth may act to moderate the relationship between gender and placement in the juvenile justice system. The present study used a large, diverse sample (n?=?9?851, 19.8?% female) to examine whether youth placed in various types of out-of-home facilities differed in terms of externalizing, internalizing, substance use, or comorbid disorders, and to determine the predictive value of mental health diagnoses in placement decisions. The moderation effect of psychopathology and substance use on the relationship between gender and placement also was explored. The results indicated that each type of disorder differed across placements, with internalizing being most prevalent in non-secure, and externalizing, comorbid, and substance use being most prevalent in secure settings. Mental health diagnoses improved the prediction of placement in each out-of-home placement beyond legal and demographic factors such that externalizing and substance use disorders decreased the likelihood of placement in non-secure settings, and internalizing, externalizing, and substance use disorders increased the likelihood of placement in secure and state-secure facilities. The relationship between internalizing pathology and placement in more secure facilities was moderated by externalizing pathology. The relationship between gender and placement was significantly moderated by mental health such that females with mental health diagnoses receive less secure placements. Implications for policymakers and practitioners are discussed, as well as implications for reforming juvenile justice within a developmental approach.     

My Career as a Teacher and a Political Scientist: If I Knew Then What I Know Now

This article addresses my professional development as a teacher and political scientist throughout the span of a 15-year career in political science. Also included are reflections on graduate education and the compatibility and necessary dual focus on both political science and teaching in the academy today as it relates to my present-day professional position.     

For the Want of a Nail: The Interaction of Managerial Capacity and Human Resource Management on Organizational Performance

Human resource management and managerial capacity are well documented in the public management literature as integral management functions. The field has devoted attention to the importance of human resources, but it has yet to consider whether human resource management interacts with capacity in attaining organizational outcomes. Using a large‐N, multiyear data set of public organizations, this article seeks to rectify this gap in the literature. The findings validate scholarly arguments on the importance of public organizations’ need to manage human resources and capacity effectively, identifying just the right combination for performance gains. Empirical results encourage practitioners to consider the ways in which human resource management and capacity work together to influence performance but sometimes undermine each other in counterintuitive ways.     

In Brief

COURAGE AND TOOLS: THE FLORENCE HOWE AWARD FOR FEMINIST SCHOLARSHIP 1974–1989, edited by Joanne Glasgow and Angela Ingram. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1990, 277 pp., $35.00 hardcover, $15.00 paper.