Faking it : The Story of “Ohh!”

This paper examines the phenomenon of faking orgasm in order to construct a critical analysis of heterosexual relations. Such an analysis, we argue, is central to the task of developing effective HIV/AIDS educational campaigns for heterosexual people. In the paper we examine the different narratives upon which heterosexual men and women rely when they are discussing their sexual and relationship experiences. We analyse these in terms of recent feminist theories of embodiment. We conclude by arguing the importance of this kind of analysis to HIV/AIDS prevention and education.     

Off-island hawaiians “making” ourselves at “home” : A [gendered] contradiction in terms?

This article explores some of the recent developments in movements to reassert Hawaiian sovereignty that occur in Hawai‘i, but with special reference to displaced nationalisms and political formations in Hawaiian communities off-island. I examine the gendered nature of the terms in which activists in the Hawaiian Islands describe and invoke diasporic Hawaiians, particularly in the calls they send out for diasporas to “return home” to Hawai‘i. I call attention to Hawaiian women’s prominence in some areas of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and the symbolic bases on which they draw in the process of forging such a position. The very process of making and remaking oneself, whether at home or not, is, among other things, always gendered. I argue for the difference that the infusion of a diasporic feminist sensibility could make to Hawaiian nationalist projects, pushing them further in the direction of specifically gendered possibilities of decolonization.     

Performing Social Reparation: “Comfort Women” And The Path To Political Forgiveness

During WWII, 200,000 girls and young women from across Asia were sexually enslaved by Japan—a tragic history unearthed less than 20 years ago and still inadequately addressed by the Japanese government. This paper examines, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the legacy of this “comfort women” history, problematizing its attendant rituals of apology, “political forgiveness,” and reparation. The author analyzes the meaning of apology and forgiveness, and develops a typology of “reparation,“ concluding that what surviving “comfort women” have articulated is a model of “social reparation,” or a holistic goal of mending the past and restoring an international human community.     

Inside an integration project: A case study of the relationship between balancing the curriculum and women's studies

This paper presents an ‘inside view’ of a federally-funded integration project in a small women's college in the Eastern US from the perspective of the project director. The author illustrates various stages and kinds of ‘Women's Studies’, pointing out that the integration project has resulted in increased Women's Studies course offerings, as well as a minor at the college. She makes distinctions between superficial integration and more profound efforts, which lead to a real struggle between traditional and feminist scholarship.     

White women as burden: On playing the role of feminist “experts” in china

This article explores the problems of international, collaborative feminist research by telling the story of two Canadian academics who embarked on a journey to do feminist research with a group of Chinese academics. The literature warns of the difficulties of collaboration and the dangers of power imbalances that are positional, procedural and representational. In this instance, the Canadians, despite their positional advantages, experienced little power in the planning of the research, feeling themselves as a burden rather than a boon at many points during the process. They analyze the reasons for this, and conclude that the content of their conversation mattered less than the form in which it was delivered. Despite a number of difficulties, the project was of value for the collaborators. For the Chinese, it was a chance for women faculty in less privileged universities to work together, with new resources, on a topic that needed validation. For the Canadians, it resulted in an increased appreciation for the specificity of North American feminism, varieties of Chinese feminism and the contextual nature of research methodologies. The article concludes with a discussion of the value and limits of universities' new emphasis on internationalism and its meaning for feminists with an emphasis on the value of such projects, if appropriately conceived and managed.     

The history of women in science: A women's studies course

Women have always done scientific work but have rarely received the recognition they deserved. As a result most of us learn, from elementary school on through university, that science is and always has been the province of men. Women are seldom mentioned in history of science courses and their contributions are often attributed to male scientists. This paper describes a lower division course in the history of women in science, offered jointly through the Women's Studies Program and the Biology Department at Portland State University. It includes a discussion of the topics and issues covered in the course and the types of questions raised about women scientists. Examples are given to illustrate historic trends and some of our experiences in the classroom are described. A representative bibliography provides an introduction to various aspects of the subject.     

“She's not really a woman, she's half a man”: Gendered discourses of embodiment in a French farming community

This paper is about constructions of embodiment in farming families in a community of the Aveyron region in Southern France. More particularly, it explores how the discursive representation of women's bodies both reproduces and legitimates unequal gender relations between women and men on the farm and in the local community. It is argued here that gender is constituted through the ways in which individuals live and construct their bodies within a particular social, cultural, and economic context. But because what is constructed as masculine is valued over what is constructed as feminine, women's bodies and abilities are inferiorised and devalued. In the farming context discussed in this paper, farm women are never seen as having bodies which enable them to farm in the same terms as men. Women's work on the farm is seen as only secondary and complementary to that of farmers in the same way that women's bodies are seen to be lacking in masculine attributes which are defined as central to farming. So that even when women show that they can run farms by themselves and do work which is usually defined as masculine, they are either represented as only being able to do so because they have male help, or because their bodies and attributes do not conform to culturally constructed heterosexual norms of femininity.     

New directions in the political history of women: A case study of the National Woman's Party's campaign for the equal rights amendment, 1920–1927

This paper examines the National Woman's Party campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1920s as an important chapter in the history of organized feminism in America. The analysis focuses on the NWP's two major objectives: to create gender equality and female autonomy and to redefine the agenda of American politics to include women's special interests. Drawing on the work of women's historians and feminist anthropologists, this paper also suggests several new perspectives for studying the political history of women. The relationship between the public and domestic spheres in general, and the relationship between women's politics and women's culture in particular, are discussed as central components for any new theoretical perspectives on women's political history.