Beyond the Centre: women in nineteenth-century Iceland and the grand narratives of European women’s and gender history

In recent years, women’s and gender historians have paid attention to the dissonance between the grand narratives of European women’s history and the history and experiences of marginal regions and countries. This article discusses the challenge of writing women’s history from the margins—Iceland—into the framework of the grand narratives of European women’s and gender history. It is argued that this framework grounded in theories of progress and modernisation is too narrow, offering little space for different or marginal voices from rural societies. Using the case study of the ‘ordinary’ woman Sigríður Pálsdóttir (1809–1871), the article argues that more voices from the margins and different histories, broaden our understanding of the multi-vocal and multi-levelled history of women in Europe.     

‘history’ is now: feminist theory and the production of historical feminisms1

Over the last decade, feminist practitioners across a variety of disciplines have been invoking history as an important grounding for both feminist politics and feminist theory. At the same time, however, insufficient account is taken of the extent to which standardized versions of ‘the feminist past’ are being invoked to represent a wide variety of feminist experiences and an equally heterogeneous set of historical circumstances and cultural contexts. It is suggested that if feminist reconceptualizations of history are to be taken seriously – if, in other words, history is the production of knowledges about the past and is itself contingent on the conditions of the present – feminist theorists must begin to reference both the imperial legacies of Anglo-European feminism and the multiplicity of feminist movements around the world. Only when feminists of all disciplinary persuasions begin to acknowledge the complex historical legacies of modern feminisms and situate their own critiques within them will feminist theory be properly grounded in, and responsive to, the exigencies of feminist history.     

linking radical traditions and the contemporary Dalit women’s movement: an intergenerational lens

Anti-caste movements in India have a long history. Cultural heritage became and remains a site of political contestation by excluded communities searching for identity and equality, and gender remains at the core of their engagements. The meanings underlying the more homogenous term of ‘Dalit’ used today are part of a historical process of self-definition. Moreover, diverse Dalit countercultures suggest varied social domains in which Dalit communities are located. South Asian historiographies have been critiqued as denying histories and historical agency to Dalits. Yet Dalit studies have developed epistemologies, bringing articulations and ideas from the margins to the centre of writings on history, leading to debates around caste that have transformed notions of politics. This paper draws from one such trajectory through a nonlinear narrative, juxtaposing the intergenerational contexts of engagements: my mother Dakshayani’s political and life experiences, as narrated in her autobiography (1912–1978), and my own experience in the Dalit women’s and other movements in the 1980s and 1990s. While my experience saw the onset of liberalisation and the emergence and growth of ‘new social movements’, the context of Dakshayani’s narrations is the Pulaya (agrestic slave caste) community in the early 1900s in Cochin, a community in the process of transforming itself. Both narratives highlight how radical traditions within the Dalit women’s movement over time have consciously and critically addressed anti-caste movements, social reform, the state, peoples’ movements and the nation within a conceptual framework of equality, liberty and non-discrimination.     

Structures of feeling: contemporary research in women’s film and broadcasting history

ABSTRACT

This special issue is the second volume originating from the ‘Doing Women’s Film and Television Histories III’ international conference held at the Phoenix Cinema, Leicester, England, in May 2016. It connects with concerns and questions of women’s production histories related to the constructed nature of history and how we write a ‘history from below’ to foreground the hidden, marginalised or forgotten histories of our women ancestors. This collection captures something of the dominant ‘structures of feeling’ of women’s film and broadcasting history scholarship in the contemporary period ranging from considerations of women working in both above and below-the-line roles in film, television and radio, to those whose labour fell outside of mainstream cinema production, as in the instance of the amateur film in the UK between the 1930s and 1980. Together, these case studies span from 1926 to the contemporary period, providing particular flashpoints of women’s history across the UK, North America, Italy and Australia.     

Beyond the ‘big three’: the development of feminist theory into the 1990s

Abstract

This paper examines some of the changes that have taken place in Western feminist theory during its recent past. It begins by questioning whether previous practices of labelling feminism as liberal, Marxist or radical are still useful. It then considers those influences that have especially effected feminist thinking, particularly Lacanian psychoanalysis and post-structuralism. The paper argues that the nature of feminist theory has been profoundly transformed since the early days of second wave feminism. While some of these changes have been positive, others have had unfortunate and negative consequences. The paper concludes with some suggestions as to how the usefulness and political potential of feminist theorising might be harnessed for the future.     

the home,the veil and the world: reading Ismat Chughtai towards a ‘progressive’ history of the Indian women's movement

This paper discusses the work of Ismat Chughtai (1911–1991), a controversial writer whose long literary career extending over four decades roughly corresponds to the formative stages of the Indian women's movement. It interprets Chughtai's novella The Heart Breaks Free (1966) to forward an anti-teleological enquiry of the women's movement in India. This progressive teleology often suggested by a discussion of the ‘waves’, ‘stages’ or ‘phases’ of the Euro-American women's movement and adopted to postcolonial women's movements, such as those in India, Jamaica and South Africa, is belied by the piecemeal legislative gains won by activist efforts. Some of the questions governing my enquiry are: What lessons can a questioning of teleology teach us about the gains and losses of postcolonial women's movements? If the alternative to teleology is, as I suggest, a genealogy, then what constitutes a genealogical enquiry into the women's movement in India? In face of apparent and self-acknowledged losses and ineffectiveness in recent times, would the movement's apparent unity across religious differences be a way of initiating such an inquiry or is another mode of analysis required? The paper directs attention to the Indian women's movement's attempts at bringing together women of different religious persuasions, legislative, and religious edicts related to Muslim women's right to co-habitation and divorce, and ‘cases’ that serve as testing points of the movement's struggle against religious and state authority. It also points to the neglected factor of economic security for women as a way in which a genealogical inquiry can proceed so as to strengthen the legislation and the movement itself.     

silent voices: mothers who kill their children and the women’s liberation movement in 1970s Japan

In the early 1970s Japan witnessed the emergence of a new women’s liberation movement that put forward an unprecedented gendered critique of Japanese post-war society. Known as ūman ribu (woman lib) or simply ribu (lib), this movement appeared at a historical time when the numerical increase in cases of mothers who killed their own children prompted the news media to describe maternal filicide as a dramatic social phenomenon. This article explores ribu’s engagement with the increased public visibility of mothers who kill. It contends that the solidarity and support the movement demonstrated for these criminalised mothers radically challenged idealised notions of motherhood, maternal love and the sanctity of the mother–child bond, and deeply questioned the post-war nuclear family as the cornerstone of society. The article investigates the revolutionary potential of ribu’s preoccupation with murderous mothers by framing it in the context of the movement’s call for consciousness transformation and for the pursuance of a more genuine relationality, and it gestures towards an understanding of what might be at stake in reading maternal filicide through the interpretative grid of a revolutionary agenda.     

‘Where There’s a Will There’s a Woman’: Exploring the Gendered Nature of Will-Making

This paper explores the gendered nature of the formal will-making process. Longer female life expectancy means that women often make the final decision regarding the disposal of relational assets. Inheritance is thus identified as a rare opportunity for them to enjoy power and control over family wealth. There are, however, questions as to whether that enjoyment may be inhibited by the presence of men. Drawing on a series of interviews conducted with professional legal practitioners this paper discusses how, when couples seek will-making advice together, that process is largely dominated and driven by women. It argues that this situation is primarily attributable to a combination of the multi-faceted nature of will-making and, crucially, women’s position and role within the family. Having identified the possibilities available to women to exercise power and authority over men in this context, the paper concludes with a brief consideration of the potential implications for both practitioners and policy-makers.     

Young women’s negotiations of gender,the body and the labour market in a post-feminist context

This article explores the ways the body and femininity is understood and negotiated in relation to employment. This article draws on interview data from an Australian study which aimed to explore what it meant to be a ‘young woman’ in neoliberal late modernity, and in relation to the paradoxes of post-feminism. Though there has been an unprecedented rise in youth post-secondary school participation in Australia and elsewhere, girls’ and young women’s increased investment and participation in education has not provided the same gains as for their male counterparts. All interview participants described being aware of gender inequalities and gender discrimination in the workplace, including the glass ceiling, the gender pay gap, and demands and pressures on women to balance career and motherhood, however many did not associate these issues with ‘feminism’. We explore the dynamics of notions of equality, difference and the body in participants’ discussions of work and their anticipation of motherhood and the logics by which gender inequalities are sustained.     

woman’s reappearance: rethinking the archive in contemporary art—feminist perspectives

Recent debates in the field of contemporary art have underlined the political importance of creative reworkings of the past, especially for those subjects that have been traditionally marginalised. A feminist perspective has been nevertheless quite absent from such debates. This article addresses feminist uses of archival documents in the visual arts through the analysis of three works produced in the past two decades: The Fae Richard’s Photo Archive (1997) by Zoe Leonard and Cheryl Dunye, Some Chance Operations (1998) by Renée Green and Queen of the Artists’ Studios (2004–2007) by Andrea Geyer. These works share an interest for women’s histories and representations by composing a series of documents (both factual and fictive) into complex narratives where history and subjectivity intersect.     

The women’s liberation movement,activism and therapy at the grassroots, 1968–1985

The women’s liberation movement was the impetus for the founding of new institutions of psychological and mental health care for women in the late 1970s and 1980s. This article draws upon the archive of one such site, based in Islington, North London, to explore the ways that members of the movement interacted with local politics and were attentive to racial and economic oppression. It demonstrates that consciousness-raising groups and feminist magazines made women’s distress visible and that this visibility led to the development of feminist critiques of mainstream psychiatric care. The critiques of mainstream provision laid the ground for grassroots interventions into women’s mental healthcare in the community.     

Falling in love with a [sperm] warrior: conscripting women’s wombs to the dissemination of a religio-political ideology

This article focuses on the screening and marketing of sperm in Israel as a mechanism for enlisting women’s wombs to political goals. The background for the analysis is the recent rise in demand for sperm from combat soldiers during the war between Israel and Hamas. The data-set for the project is comprised of multiple sources which converge to provide evidence for the transfusion of Zionist ideology into sperm donation. The article suggests the compatibility of the venerated status gained by donors who are Israeli Defense Force combatants with Zionist militarism. The banks screen candidates for sperm donation based on their military service and military health profile. The discursive climate which glorifies ‘warriors’ permeates sperm marketing, contributing to the cultural reproduction of a militaristic ideology. The article concludes by contending that sperm banks provide a platform for a subversive discourse that triggers Enloe’s thesis of patriotic motherhood and the role of women in the process of militarization.     

‘A crisis in woman's history’: Frances power cobbe's duties of women and the practice of everyday feminism

The article explores the ways in which Cobbe's Duties of Women grapples with new challenges facing the late nineteenth-century feminist movement, with an emphasis on the particular force of Cobbe's text that results from her unique role as a mainstream journalist of mid-Victorian feminism to non-feminist-identified audiences. It argues that Duties of Women participates in the ongoing negotiation of the representation of suffrage, both within feminist communities and in the ways that feminism is represented and understood by a non-feminist public. Specifically, the author argues that Cobbe's lecture series and book are generically linked to the conduct book. They offer advice for the appropriate daily practice of emancipated womanhood at a time when significant changes in feminist practice, such as the increasing emphasis on suffrage, threatened, in Cobbe's view, the larger public perception of that movement.