Turkish Women Architects in the Late Ottoman and Early Republican Era, 1908–1950

This article examines the public status and educational background of Turkish women architects from 1908 to 1950. Writings on the history of architecture in Turkey, as in the West, have focused on heroic male figures. Key works produced before the late 1970s used data gathered mainly from Arkitekt, the first Turkish architectural magazine, whilst a second generation of Turkish architectural historians has preferred to investigate state and private archives. It is impossible to find a mention of women as architects in either bodies of work, although their contributions are indeed evident in the pages of Arkitekt. This article aims to fill some of these gaps in the highly gendered history of modern Turkish architecture by identifying and examining women’s work as architects in Turkey in the first half of the twentieth century. It also explores the relationship between the women’s liberation movement, the discipline of architecture, and modernization ideology associated with the Turkish Republic. It argues that women architects, who undertook important private commissions and were permitted to enter public competitions as anonymous entrants, did not encounter overt discrimination until the 1940s. Nevertheless, forms of indirect discrimination across the period served to silence women in the pages of the architectural press and to occlude them from key public commissions and offices.     

Filipino Elite Women and Public Health in the American Colonial Era, 1906–1940

This article is the first step in the process of writing Filipino elite women into the history of public health by focusing on those who were not health practitioners (not doctors, nurses or midwives), but who were heavily involved in the campaign against infant mortality in the American colonial period. It argues that Filipino elite women fulfilled the extremely important role of administrators of organizations that addressed infant care and maternal and child health, in the distribution of milk and the dissemination of information about maternal and children's health. Using hitherto unused sources from the archives of La Protección de la Infancia, the periodicals of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, and colonial records, this study reveals how the public health movement in the Philippines was gendered, and analyzes the contributions made by Filipino elite women that have to date not yet been acknowledged in the scholarship.     

The Nurturing Neighborhood: The Brownsville Boys Club and Jewish Community in Urban America, 1940–1990, by G. Sorin

Abstract

Corporal punishment (CP) refers to the deliberate infliction of physical pain on children in response to an apparent disobedience or disapproved behavior. It is still used in educational settings in numerous nations worldwide, including Bangladesh. Despite the government’s efforts to ban corporal punishment in Bangladesh, the practice is prevalent, with children routinely enduring various punishments in the school system. Questions remain related to how widespread this practice is and whether certain groups of children (e.g., low income or rural) are being affected more severely than others. This article explores the use of physical punishment in Bangladeshi elementary schools and the socioeconomic variables that may be predictors of its use. The primary research questions that guide this article are: (1) do socioeconomic characteristics (i.e., gender, age, education, school type, parental socio-economic status) predict physical punishment in the school system in Bangladesh? and (2) is there a statistically significant relation between poverty and physical punishment for elementary school children in Bangladesh? Findings indicate that of the 450 children included in the sample, more than 86.6% were subjected to at least one form of physical abuse (e.g., hit with a stick or slapped) and types of abuse varied by their demographics. Findings also show that poverty status is a strong predictor of physical punishment in the school within Bangladesh.     

Forgotten Feminists: the Federation of British Professional and Business Women, 1933–1969

Using archive documents of the British Federation of Business and Professional Women (BFBPW) this article explores the role of this early business organisation in campaigning for feminist issues in the post‐war period. It argues that the BFBPW is indicative of the complexities of the women’s movement in the post‐suffrage era when it fragmented into interconnecting campaigning organisations around a multitude of women’s issues. The article suggests that businesswomen in this period acted in ways that anticipated modern ‘femocratic’ practice in the way they sought to use business networks to gain access to parliamentary policy networks.     

Sporting Women and Machonas: negotiating gender through sports in Argentina, 1900–1946

This article shows how sports contributed to create new experiences and expressions of gender in Argentina in the first half of the twentieth century. The sportswoman embodied a new model of femininity, a novel type of modern, healthy and active womanhood that defied traditional constructions of gender. Sports affected women's experience of gender, providing a site for the development of an emotional and spiritual well-being by fostering personal and psychological qualities like self-esteem, self-satisfaction and self-determination. Participation in sports also helped to redefine how women related to their environment by widening their social circles and relationships. These changes triggered a number of fears and anxieties about sport's potential for gender dis-order. In particular, the figure of the machona, a masculinized, unattractive, and mannish woman, became a symbol of this dis-order. The use of humor, parody, and theatrical displays of gender became ways through which these fears were both expressed and negotiated.