women developing women: Islamic approaches for poverty alleviation in rural Egypt

Through an ethnographic account of a social reform project led by Islamic activist women in the village of Mehmeit in rural Egypt, this article analyses women's Islamic activism as a form of worship. Women's experiences of activism are at the centre of this account, which highlights their attempts to economically and socially develop a destitute rural community. Their development ideals mirror the embedded principles of liberal secular modernity and offer a tangible example of the concomitance of these so-called binaries of religion and secularism in women's religious activism. Normative assumptions regarding religion and secularism as two binary constructs have largely dictated a monolithic view of women who engage in Islamic activism as religious subjects primarily devoted to a spiritual, internal faith. Persistent models of religious selves engaged in a continuous exercise of self-fashioning towards a fixed ‘religious ideal’ overlook the complexity and seamlessness of the desires that animate these subjectivities. Moreover, it is inaccurate to represent participants in Islamic activism as homogenized into one overarching group that adheres to standardized religious membership criteria. Discourses of modernity have also constructed separate spheres of what is defined as religion and secularism. Yet, these spheres, in practice, are not always so neatly demarcated as they are in modern principles. Societies shaped by the historical and temporal dynamics of colonialism, modernization, secularization and nation building projects present more complex and heterogeneous forms of subjectivities in their members. This article illustrates how a theoretical concomitance of religion and secularism opens up new possible considerations of women's activism in Islamic movements. The author argues that the desires and subjectivities of Islamic women that inform their activism are ultimately linked to the historical emergence of secularism and state modernization schemes aimed at transforming Muslim subjects into modern citizens of liberal democracies.     

Home and the materialization of the divergent subjectivities of older women in Hong Kong

Although the social status of women in Hong Kong has changed significantly in recent decades, Hong Kong women continue to perform mothering, caregiving and homemaking tasks into late adulthood. Employing an agential realist approach to analyse the homes and discursive–materialist practices of three older women, this paper explores how the entanglement of materialities, discourses and subjectivities at home as a site of cultural action contributes to the ongoing enactment of divergent subjectivities of older Hong Kong women. The structural–spatial configurations of the three homes manifest the patrilineal and male-dominated family system in Hong Kong, and such older women perform a set of ‘normal’ (house) wifely and motherly duties linked to the maintenance of the male-dominated family system. Nevertheless, these older women’s subjectivities and their domestic worlds evolve through ongoing discursive–materialist practices. This paper further argues that, even if such factors as materialities, structures and practices either are neutral or indeed reinforce existing power imbalances, the dynamic and ongoing intra-action of these factors results in exclusionary but open conditions that may stabilize or subvert social phenomena, such as the ones discussed in this study: patriarchal domestic practices in Hong Kong homes.     

‘First in man’: the politics and ethics of women in clinical drug trials

Within the world of pharmacology, the male body has traditionally been taken as the biological norm. Coupled with this, concern about danger to the unborn foetus has meant that, until very recently, ‘women of childbearing potential’ were routinely excluded from most of the early phases of clinical drug testing. Consequently, most drugs tested during Phase I trials were initially carried out on healthy male volunteers. During subsequent phases when drugs were tested on patients, women remained largely under-represented. As a result, some drugs prescribed for women have later been discovered to be lacking in efficacy, and women are more likely to suffer adverse drug reactions than men. The exclusion of women during the early phases of clinical drug trials has now been lifted and drugs are currently being more widely tested on women. This paper examines the differing political and ethical positions adopted by the pharmaceutical industry, drug regulators, pharmacologists, women's groups and patient activists in relation to the exclusion and inclusion of women in clinical drug trials.     

colluding with neo-liberalism: post-feminist subjectivities,whiteness and expressions of entitlement

This discussion contributes to the ongoing debates regarding the (re)sexualisation of female bodies in popular and visual culture. Visual texts display the upper middle-class white female as the carrier of mainstream neo-liberal values in Western societies, and the success of this approach is the twinning of the culture of individualism, self-interest and market values with feminist vocabularies; namely, choice, freedom and independence. Drawing on a broad feminist scholarship that includes discussions on the influence of the HBO series Sex and the City, semiotic analysis is combined with intersectionality to gain an understanding of how gender, class and sexuality shape and reinforce whiteness as entitled to luxury in an advertising campaign for Michael Kors luxury goods. Contemporary representations have expanded to include representations of affluent women who appear to have it all. These new post-feminist subjectivities promote an aesthetic of wealth, to display privileged whiteness, heterosexuality, normative Western beauty ideals and individualism. An intersectional approach reveals the apparent neutrality of neo-liberal values as being an expression of whiteness, specifically in representations of white women as economically independent neo-liberal subjects who display their status through the conspicuous consumption of luxury brands.     

Rethinking Monastic Suppressions in Revolutionary and Napoleonic Italy: how women religious negotiated for their communities

Female religious communities and individual women religious confronted the monastic suppressions in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Italy by actively negotiating with authorities both during and after the suppression decrees. The lack of the voices of the suppressed women religious in current scholarship has led scholars to argue for top-down, predetermined reorganization and destruction of religious life in revolutionary and Napoleonic Italy. A comparison of the three main suppression decrees reveals, instead, an evolving approach to religious institutions during this period. The petitions by women religious underscore how compromise and accommodation characterized the interactions between female communities and local and central authorities. The suppression of monasteries was not imposed on monastic women unilaterally; rather, these women actively negotiated the suppressions to optimize the outcome for their communities and for themselves.     

Identity and dating commitment among women and men in college

Lower division and upper division college women's and men's commitment in a dating relationship was examined in connection with their (a) gender role attitudes, (b) educational aspirations, (c) certainty about their future vocation, and (d) the importance they attach to work vs. marriage as a source of life satisfaction. Dating commitment was also examined for women in relation to their dedication to work for pay after marriage, and for men in terms of their ideas about their future wife working. The more certain upper division college women's vocational identity, the more committed they were to their dating partner, but the more they planned to work after marriage the less involved they were in a relationship. Additionally, upper division women who placed more importance on a job than marriage and who had a clearer vocational identity were less involved in a relationship. The clearer upper division men's vocational identity, the more committed they were in a relationship. Lower division men who placed more importance on work compared to marriage were less involved in a dating relationship. The results are discussed in light of Erikson's stages of identity development and more recent research that suggests women's identity development follows a different course from men's.Received Ph.D. in child development and family relationships at the University of Texas at Austin. Current research interests include the influence of parent-child interaction on children's mastery and achievement motivation, peer and intimate relationships, and identity development.Received Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Albany. Research focuses on the development of relationships from courtship into marriage and first-time parenthood.Received Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Program of research concerns the developmental origins, correlates, and consequences of identity formation in adolescence. Recent research addresses the dynamics of relationships in adoptive families and the consequences of openness in adoption on family members.Received B.A. in child development and family relationships program at the University of Texas at Austin.     

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.     

Social relations and group identity among women fishsellers in the Congo

Social status influences people's values and their way of thinking. Similarly, folklore is a reflection of both social structure and culture. Although pertaining integrally to the field of anthropology and economic development, and entirely ignored by folklorists, market activities in Africa, encompassing the daily give-and-take ritual between buyer and seller, can be said to hold a richly-knit web of folklore. In the Congo, a market place viewed at macro and micro levels is a store of culture. The present paper seeks to investigate crucial hints embedded in the folklore of Congolese women fishsellers. It focuses on salient cultural values and social practices which constitute the inexorable backbone of the fishsellers' identity and solidarity. The undertaking should prove useful in a better understanding of the Congolese culture in general, and of the pattern of social interaction among buyers and sellers, and the binding dynamics that mold the latter into a unique world, in particular.     

Love and guilt: Normative orientations and their implications for accommodation and resistance among women

In the New Women's Movement we have discovered internal limitations to our liberation efforts. To a great extent these problems are the result of normative orientations of women. Internalized sex-role expectations lead women to reproduce the external conditions which serve to oppress them. Therefore women must begin to reflect critically upon these role models as a prerequisite for strategies for empowerment.However, the central sex-role expectations are contradictory: on the one hand women are socially obligated to behave in a loving and caring manner. The self denial and self-effacement which are demanded of women serve to maintain patriarchic dominance. On the other hand, this feminine social behavior encompasses a counterforce to the dominant values of exchange and competition: therefore it points beyond existing power relationships. Normative orientations of women ensure their accommodation and also their resistance to existing social relations.     

Contraceptive embarrassment and contraceptive behavior among young single women

The objective of this paper was to determine factors predictive of contraceptive embarrassment and to determine the relationship of contraceptive embarrassment to contraceptive use among young unmarried females. Contraceptive embarrassment was measured by an eight-item scale (a=0.88]. Data were obtained from 265 nonvirgin high school and university females who were currently dating. Using simple multiple regression, 30% of the variance of the embarrassment scale was explained, with the most important predictors being parental attitude to premarital intercourse and sexual guilt. Other significant predictors were attitude to planning ahead to use contraception, perveived difficulty in obtaining contraceptive devices, and peer attitudes toward premarital intercourse. The embarrassment scale had significant correlations with contraceptive use.Sponsorship from Health and Welfare Canada through Family Planning Grant No. 4470-5-10 provided for the data collection, and sponsorship from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, DH&W, Contract No. N01-HD-92809 provided for the data analysis.Received his Ph.D. from Department of Sociology, Iowa State University and is interested in the sociology of adolescence, particularly dating, sexual relations, and use of contraception.