Forum: Women in Sport

This short introduction reflects upon the relatively improved representation of women in sports history and its historiography. It highlights the similar challenges faced by those researching women in sport and those researching women's history more generally. In addition to identifying the need for more empirical research around female participation in ‘sport’, it notes the importance of moving beyond this conceptual territory to physical culture. Only then can an adequate understanding of the kinesthetic experiences of girls and women in particular times, places and spaces be achieved.     

Suffering as esthetic and ethic among Pashtun women

Along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, in the Pashtun society, pain and suffering are an emic criterion of honor among women. This aesthetic ethic is expressed outwardly in statements and narratives by women in everyday life, but especially when their sons or husbands die, get ill or are the victims of accidents. On these occasions, related and non-related women are under obligation to visit the mother (or wife) and bring condolence. The woman entertains her female guests with a performed detailed narrative account of the event, in which she portrays herself as the devastated woman. Aesthetics and ethics are here combined, as the audience judges a ‘beautiful story’ by the amount of suffering the woman performer expresses having endured.Mothers must suffer over their sons in order to gain status and recognition, and a wounded or dead son presents an ideal occasion for a mother to attain this recognition by way of a narrative of the event, which acts as a vehicle through which she can publicly display her actions for the benefit of the community.The same image of the devoted, self-sacrificing woman can be observed throughout popular culture, (e.g. films, chapbook romances, songs, folk poetry), which is created and performed by men.This paper examines this ‘tragic aesthetic’ more closely, comparing one woman's personal narrative performed for visitors on the occasion of her son's shooting,² with a chapbook romance which is very popular among Pashtuns because it is considered to illustrate a woman's ideal behavior within the code of honor.³ In effect, her honor here results in her self-effacement and death. I compare women as bearers of folklore (the personal narrative) with women in folklore (the popular romance written by a male poet), and conclude by raising questions as to the identity and image of women as painted in each case.     

Silences: Irish Women and Abortion

This article considers the forces which act to prevent women in Ireland from speaking about their experiences of abortion. It considers the various forms such silencing can take and the complexity of feelings and circumstance which women who have had abortions are subject to. In so doing it raises important questions about the way public debate about abortion between pro-choice and pro-life arguments - couched in terms of rights - acts to further silence women. Finally, the article calls for the creation of a new public and intellectual space in which the complexities of the issues can be realized. A new public space such as this could then facilitate the enactment of permissive legislation which in turn could enable women to decide the best pregnancy option available for them at any particular moment in their lives.     

Sketching Women in Court: The Visual Construction of Co-accused Women in Court Drawings

This paper explores the visual construction and representation of co-accused women offenders in court drawings. It utilises three case studies of female co-defendants who appeared in the England and Wales court system between 2003 and 2013. In doing so this paper falls into three parts. The first part considers the emergence of the sub-discipline, visual criminology and examines what is known about the visual representation of female offenders. The second part presents the findings of an empirical investigation, which involved engaging in a critical, reflexive visual analysis of a selection of court drawings of three female co-offenders. The third part discusses the ways in which the court artists' interpretation, the conventions of court sketching, and motifs of female offenders as secondary actors, drew on existing myths and prejudices by representing the women as listening, remorseless ‘others’.