MIND THE GAP? MASCULINITY STUDIES AND CONTEMPORARY GENDER/SEXUALITY THINKING

This paper considers the location of Masculinity Studies within the Gender/Sexuality field. Such a location offers possibilities and problems for theorising and coalition, as well as for policy and curriculum development. Importantly, the three major subfields of Gender/Sexuality—Feminist, Sexuality and Masculinity Studies—are not simply commensurable bits that fit together neatly like pieces of a jigsaw. This paper concentrates upon potentially dissonant theoretical directions between the subfields with the aim of clarifying the issues at stake. The implications of this dissonance are of particular significance for the present positioning and future directions of Masculinity Studies.     

THE GOODS AND SERVICES DIRECTIVE: LIMITATIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES

The Goods and Services Directive adopted in December 2004 is the very first European Community instrument to implement the principle of gender equality outside the workplace. As such it has the potential to close an important gap in European Union law. This note, however, contends that the limited scope of application of the Directive, together with doubts surrounding its legal base and position within the overall gender equality framework of the Union, have significantly undermined its potential. Nevertheless, it is suggested that for the future, should these criticisms be adequately addressed, then the Directive may provide an important platform for the wider diffusion of the gender equality principle beyond the sphere of European employment law. Council Directive 2004/113/EC of 13 December 2004 implementing the principle of equal treatment between men and women in the access to and supply of goods and services OJ L373 (2004) 37     

SATI AND PERFORMATIVITY

This article explores some of the conceptual and representational difficulties sati presents for Western feminist analysis, and draws upon Judith Butler's concept of performativity to generate an account of the constitution of satis’ subjectivities and agencies that may also provide a basis for theoretical and political contestations of sati.     

YOUNG WOMEN AND HOUSEWORK

Despite much research which demonstrates the remarkable stability of the inequitable division of domestic labour within heterosexual couples, this key feminist issue is frequently neglected in the literature about contemporary young womanhood. This article begins with a review of literature about the politics of housework. Following this, young women's expectations and experiences of housework are explored through analysis of qualitative interview data in order to explore how they make sense of and respond to the resilience of the traditional sexual division of labour. Men's unequal contribution to housework is conceptualised in this article as an ‘awkward relic of modernity’ because it represents evidence of structures of male dominance at odds with widespread beliefs about progress towards sexual equality. The post-feminist environment of Western neo-liberal democracies, in which assumptions of individualised female empowerment co-exist with the continuation of manifestations of gendered inequality, provides the context against which these issues are theoretically considered.