Visualising the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’: emotion work and the representation of orgasm in pornography and everyday sexual interactions

Visual representations of orgasm – whether in the flesh or mediated through a screen – are produced in a context of intense uncertainty about whether what is being seen represents an authentically experienced bodily event. Despite detailed scientific scrutiny and close attention to bodily signs, the authenticity of women's orgasm remains a site of cultural anxiety and contested gender politics. This uncertainty is exacerbated by the construction of female orgasm as inherently invisible or un-see-able, and ‘faking’ orgasm as a prevalent social practice. Drawing on existing literature from psychology, sociology and porn studies, this theoretical paper explores the problem of visually representing orgasm in the context of these uncertainties, and examines how the distinction between the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’ is structured by discourses of authenticity. Pornography and everyday sexual interactions provide ideal contexts for exploring the practices of producing and consuming visual representations of embodied experience because both necessitate a see-able orgasm which consumers/lovers can read as ‘real’. This paper demonstrates that considerable interpretative work is necessary to read the female body as authentically orgasmic in the context of cultural uncertainty, and that distinctions between the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’ are continually reworked. Drawing on the contrast between ‘surface’ and ‘deep’ acting (Hochschild, 1983), I argue that the distinction between the ‘real’ and the ‘fake’ cannot be established by recourse to unmediated bodily experience, and instead, researchers should consider how and when this distinction has traction in the world and the implications of this for gendered power relations, subjectivities and practices.     

the new woman and ‘the dusky strand’: the place of feminism and women's literature in early Jamaican nationalism

This essay analyzes the prominent role played by first wave feminism and by women writers between 1898-1903 as the Jamaica Times articulated a broad-based, middle class nationalism and launched a campaign to establish a Jamaican national literature. Largely overlooked, this archival material is significant because it suggests a subtle yet significant modification of anglophone Caribbean feminist, literary and nationalist historiography: first wave feminism was not introduced to Jamaica exclusively through black nationalist organizations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but rather, it emerged in a broader phenomenon of respectable, middle class nationalism, encompassing the overlapping projects of Jamaican nationalism and Pan Africanism. Thus, it becomes clear that first wave feminism, including white women writers, played a key but brief role in the formation of the middle class nationalism that would later dominate Jamaica's transition to independence. During the first five years of publication of the Jamaica Times, women wrote a significant proportion of the short stories published. However, they became marginalized as black folk culture became the defining symbol of national authenticity. The marginalization of middle class women writers reflects a broader pattern. In adopting first wave feminism from Britain and the United States, Jamaican nationalists reproduced colonial race and class dynamics that established an unbridgeable divide between middle class women, who served as ‘ladies bountiful,’ and the usually darker-skinned compatriots to whom they ministered. This class division continued to limit feminist activism in Jamaica throughout the first and second waves.     

“Disrupting the surface of order and innocence”: Towards a theory of sexuality and the law

Conclusion The dominant male discourse as expressed in the law of sexuality constructs the male subject. In each area — rape, incest and prostitution, it creates and extends the power which underpins the sexuality of the male subject to facilitate the non-consensual taking of women in rape and incest and the buying of them on the subject's own terms in prostitution.Further, the law constructs the female as Other not as freely consenting subject but as Other for the male subject in the space of unreason, for the logic of desire.In these constructions, lie the paradox of the law of sexuality. It exists purportedly to defend and protect the victims of rape, incest and prostitution but even in so far as it does so, it reasserts, through its constructions, the power of the speaking male subject through and the exclusion of the woman as Other from, the dominant male discourse as it is expressed in and enshrined by that law.The author is grateful for the comments of Glynis Cousin, Mike McConville, Brendan McSweeney and an anonymous referee on this work.     

Gendering the union: imperial feminism and the ladies’ land league

The Act of Union of 1800, establishing Westminster control over Irish affairs, had important repercussions for the development of feminism within nineteenth-century Ireland, as well as contributing towards adifferentiation of Irish from British feminism. Feminism within Ireland was shaped by class, religion and racial identification: one strand followed theBritish model of Protestant philanthropy, while the other was concerned with asserting women's right to take part in nationalist political struggle. ‘Imperial’ feminists in Britain and Ireland, concerned with establishing their right to take part in the affairs of the ‘nation’, perceived those Irish who rejected British imperial rule as uncivilised, reserving sympathy for those whose economic position was threatened by the activities of those who campaigned against the landlord system. The period of the Land War of 1879–82 illustrates these conflicting discourses. The subsequent decline of imperial power in Ireland can be traced through a gradual change within Irish feminism from an initial support for the Union to a later embrace of nationalism, as young middle-class women, many from Catholic backgrounds, became involved in the movement     

Managing the ‘main force’: The communist party and the peasantry in the Philippines

Despite the success of the Communist Party of the Philppines in winning rural support, its work has consistently been characterised by an instrumentalist approach to the peasantry. The article begins with an examination of the foundations of the party's attitude toward the peasantry and its roots in Marxist‐Leninist theory and practice. It goes on to consider evidence of the party's instrumental approach in practice, examining the impact on legal peasant organisations and the experience of socio‐economic projects in the countryside. Attention next turns to an analysis of the party's attitude toward ‘united front work’ and its impact on coalition building among the peasantry. Finally, the author considers the implications of the current split and debates in the ranks of the CPP for the peasantry and for the future of radical politics in the country.     

Adolescents’ Identity Formation: Linking the Narrative and the Dual-Cycle Approach

The narrative and dual-cycle approach conceptualize and operationalize adolescents’ identity formation in different ways. While the narrative approach focuses on the construction of an autobiographical life story, the dual-cycle approach focuses on the formation of identity commitments. Although these approaches have different emphases, they are conceptually complementary. Yet, their empirical links and distinctions have only scarcely been investigated. Empirical knowledge on these links in adolescence and across time has been especially lacking. In the present research, it was therefore examined whether key characteristics of adolescents’ narration (autobiographical reasoning and agency) were concurrently and prospectively related to engagement in the dual-cycle processes of commitment making, identification with commitment, exploration in breadth, exploration in depth, and ruminative exploration. The findings from a cross-sectional sample of 1,580 Dutch adolescents (M_age?=?14.7 years, 56% female) demonstrated that autobiographical reasoning was significantly positively associated with the commitment and more adaptive exploration processes (i.e., in breadth and in depth). In addition, agency was significantly positively associated with the commitment processes and exploration in depth. Yet, these associations between the narrative characteristics and dual-cycle processes were only weak. Subsequently, the findings from a two-year longitudinal subsample (n?=?242, M_age?=?14.7 years, 62% female) indicated that on average commitment strength remained stable but exploration increased across middle adolescence. A stronger increase in identification with commitment and adaptive exploration (i.e., in breadth and in depth) was predicted by a higher degree of agency in adolescents’ narratives. Overall, these findings indicate that both approaches to identity formation are associated, but the small size of these associations suggests that they predominantly capture unique aspects of identity formation. Both approaches could thus complement and inform each other.

     

Augusta Webster’s Mother and Daughter and the only child debate

The enduring debate about family size has roots in Victorian England, most notably in literary works addressing the issue of balancing motherhood and a writing career. One Victorian writer and activist, Augusta Webster (1837–1894), directly addressed the issue of family size in her uncompleted sonnet sequence Mother and Daughter (1895), which she began when her only child was a newborn. In this posthumous series of 14-line poems, Webster defends her decision to have one child and, in doing so, challenges popular assumptions that only women with multiple children could be considered ‘complete’, socially-acceptable mothers. Despite her efforts, however, and despite the rising popularity of one-child families, the results of numerous scientific studies and the lingering critiques of mommy blogs make it clear that challenges to mothers of ‘onlies’ remain.     

‘Between Slavery and Freedom’: the expulsion and enslavement of free women of colour in the US South before the Civil War

For free black women in the pre-Civil War American South, the status offered by ‘freedom’ was uncertain and malleable. The conceptualization of bondage and freedom as two diametrically opposed conditions therefore fails to make sense of the complexities of life for these women. Instead, notions of enslavement and freedom are better framed as a spectrum. This article develops this idea by exploring two of the ways in which some black women negotiated their status before the law—namely though petitioning for residency or for enslavement. While these petitions are atypical numerically, and often offer tantalizingly scant evidence, when used in conjunction with evidence from the US census, it becomes clear that these women were highly pragmatic. Prioritizing their spousal and broader familial affective relationships above their legal status, they rejected the often theoretical distinction between slavery and liberation. As such, the petitions can be used to reach broader conclusions about the attitudes of women who have left little written testimony.     

Wet and wobbly harmonies: music and saloon-life in the industrial workers of the world, 1905–1920

ABSTRACT

During the first fifteen years of its existence, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) gained a reputation for being an exceedingly musical labor organization. Where did this proclivity originate? This article complements and elaborates existing explanations by sourcing the roots of IWW music to the institution that was both historically and contemporaneously integral to working-class culture – namely the saloon. It demonstrates strong and persistent links with the culture of proletariat drinking establishments. First, it investigates the ease with which individuals and songs travelled between the recreational environments of the barroom and activist environments of the IWW. Second, by comparing the values and attitudes associated with the musical cultures of the IWW and the saloon, it demonstrates an enduring compatibility between these two working-class institutions. Finally, it demonstrates the value of these findings for historians of the IWW organization, labor historians, and theorists of social movements.     

Where Have All the Women (and Men) Gone? Reflections on Gender and the Second Palestinian Intifada

The authors ground their reflections on gender and the complex realities of the second Palestinian intifada against Israeli occupation in the political processes unleashed by the signing of the Israeli–Palestinian rule, noting that the profound inequalities between Israel and Palestine during the interim period produced inequalities among Palestinians. The apartheid logic of the Oslo period – made explicit in Israel's policies of separation, seige and confinement of the Palestinian population during the intifada and before it – is shown to shape the forms, sites and levels of resistance which are highly restricted by gender and age. In addition, the authors argue that the Palestinian Authority and leadership have solved the contradictions and crisis of Palestinian nationalism in this period through a form of rule that the authors term ‘authoritarian populism’, that tends to disallow democractic politics and participation. The seeming absence of women and civil society from the highly unequal and violent confrontations is contrasted with the first Palestinian intifada (1987–91), that occurred in a context of more than a decade of democratic activism and the growth of mass-based organizations, including the Palestinian women's movement. The authors explore three linked crises in gender roles emerging from the conditions of the second intifada: a crisis in masculinity, a crisis in paternity and a crisis in maternity.     

The suffragist and the “average woman”

This paper questions the marginality of women's suffrage to the new social history of women in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain. In so doing, it seeks to challenge any notion of the suffragist and the “average woman” as absolutely distinct categories. Its argument draws on two major revisions underway in the historiography of this field: firstly, the growing recognition that “votes for women” was not simply a single-issue, equal rights demand, reflecting only a restricted liberal perspective; secondly, the equally significant insistence on the need to apply more extended definitions of both the “political” and the “public” to women's history in this period. The autobiographical writings of Helena Swanwick, Hannah Mitchell and Mary Gawthorpe, it is argued, suggest that the meaning of the vote lies in the mesh experienced by such suffragists between the politics of ordinary, everyday life and their subsequent involvement in the formal politics of parliament and political parties.     

‘Stepping back and moving in’: the role of the state in the contemporary food regime

In recent years, a number of middle-income countries and influential multilateral institutions have instigated actions that frame food system governance around social protection and rights. These state-centered mobilizations raise fundamental questions about how to portray the global politics of food. Since the late 1980s, analysts have largely concurred that US hegemony in the global politics of food has given way to diverse and volatile neo-liberalist and corporate-led food system governance. However, what should we make of a situation where state and supra-state actors are flexing their powers to reshape food systems in line with rights-based models? Should this be understood as reflexes which aim to preserve national order, at a time of intensified food and nutrition insecurities? Or, does it lay the foundations of a re-governed system which curbs and molds a corporate-led politics of food within frameworks of justice? This contribution responds to these questions by tracing the evolution of social protection and rights-based approaches to the politics of food at the multilateral level and in two influential jurisdictions (India and South Africa). We argue that these initiatives underline a robust and continuing role of state power in global food politics, albeit in a novel fashion compared to previous entanglements.     

Dancing on the head of a pin? Foetal life and the european convention

The case of Vo v. France represents the latest phase of the European Court of Human Rights’ thinking on the scope of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to life) in relation to foetal life where a foetus had been lost owing to a medical accident. The Court by a majority decided that, “even assuming” Article 2 applied to the instant case (albeit to the life of the pregnant woman rather than that of the foetus), it had not been violated. While the facts in Vo were extreme and exceptional, the Court will shortly hear the case of D v. Ireland concerning access to abortion for foetal anomaly, an application made under Articles 3, 8, 10 and 14 of the European Convention. If the case of D were declared admissible, the Court would then have to consider whether a denial of access to abortion for foetal anomaly constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment contrary to Article 3, or an interference with a pregnant woman’s right to respect for private life under Article 8 (and if so, how the doctrine of the margin of appreciation applies). The Grand Chamber precedent of Vo displays ambivalence about whether Article 2 should apply to foetal life, and its resort to the “even assuming” formula spared Member States the difficulty of having to justify their various abortion regimes, by reference to this Article. It remains to be seen whether in a case like D that is directly concerned with abortion, the Court will take a more definite stance on the correct balance to be struck between the State’s interest in protecting foetal life and the Convention rights of pregnant women. Vo v. France [G.C.], judgment of 8th -July 2004, no. 53924/00; D v. Ireland [4th section], no. 26499/02, oral hearing on admissibility and merits, 6 September 2005     

Union labels and boycotts: Cooperation of the knights of labor and the cigar makers international union, 1885–6

Hard‐Rock Epic: Western Miners and the Industrial Revolution, 1860–1910. By Mark Wyman. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979. x, 331 pp. $15.95.

Wage‐Earning Women: Industrial Work and Family Life in the United States, 1900–1930. By Leslie Woodcock Tentler. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. 266 pp. $14.95.

Feigned Necessity: Hawaii's Attempts to Obtain Chinese Contract Labor, 1921–1923. By John E. Reinecke. San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, Inc., 1979. xvi, 697 pp., n.p.

Lumber and Politics: The Career of Mark E. Reed. By Robert E. Ficken. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979. xi, 276 pp. $14.95.

The Mess in Washington: Manpower Mobilization in World War II. By George Q. Flynn. Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 1979. xi, 294 pp. $17.95.

The Great Fear: The Anti‐Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower. By David Caute. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978. 638 pp. $14.95.

Which Side Are You On? The Brookside Mine Strike in Harlan County, Kentucky. By Lynda Ann Ewen. Chicago: Vanguard Books, 1979. 139 pp. Appendix. $4.95.

A Ghetto Grows In Brooklyn. By Harold X. Connolly. New York: New York University Press, 1977. xv, 248 pp. $15.00.

Voices of Discord: Canadian Short Stories from the 1930's. Edited by Donna Phillips. Introduction by Kenneth J. Hughes. Toronto: New Hogtown Press, 1979. 220 pp. $7.95.

Popular Disturbances in England: 1700–1870. By John Stevenson. New York: Longman, 1979. vii, 374 pp. $24.00.

Before The Welfare State: Social Administration in Early Industrial Brit‐tain. By Ursula R. Q. Henriques. New York: Longman, 1979. 294 pp. $10.50.

Aristocracy and People: Britain 1815–1865. By Norman Gash. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. vii, 375 pp. $20.00.

Artisans and Politics in Early Nineteenth‐Century London: John Gast and His Times. By I. J. Prothero. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. 418 pp. $30.00.

The Edwardian Age: Conflict and Stability 1900–1914. Edited by Alan O'Day. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1979. 199 pp. $19.95.

Goodbye to the Working Class: A Study of 122 Former Grammar School Children from Dagenham. By Roy Greenslade. London: Marion Boyars, 1979. 192 pp. $ 5.95.

The Action Française and Revolutionary Syndicalism. By Paul Mazgaj. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979. 281 pp. $24.95.

Paths To Authority: The Middle Class and the Industrial Labor Force in France, 1820–1848. By Peter N. Stearns. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978. 222 pp. $12.95.

French Peasants in Revolt: The Insurrection of 1851. By Ted W. Marga‐dent. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. xxiv, 379 pp. $25.00.

The Service City: State and Townsmen In Russia, 1600–1800. By J. Michael Hittle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. viii, 297 pp. $20.00.

Karl Marx, Romantic Irony and the Proletariat: The Mythopoetic Origins of Marxism. By Leonard P. Wessell, Jr. Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. 297 pp. $20.00.     

Migrating Within “the Gender-equal Nordic Region”: Icelandic Migrants in Norway and the Gendered Division of Work and Care

Migration is a gendered process that shapes the lives of men and women differently, because they generally occupy dissimilar positions within the household, the labour market, and society. This article examines gender and migration within a Nordic context, between two countries that are often presented as gender-equal in cross-national comparisons. The focus is on how the gendered division of labour is manifested in the experiences of Icelanders who migrated to Norway in the wake of the Icelandic financial crisis of October 2008. The results are based on interviews with people who migrated to Norway both with and without their families. In our analysis, we show how the gender-segregated labour market and gender norms lead to different positions and opportunities for men and women at times of economic crisis and migration. For study participants who migrated with their families, the relocation was often organized around the labour-market position and opportunities of men. Those who migrated without their families emphasized their roles as providers for their families. However, only the women described how their absence was perceived as a failure to fulfil childcare responsibilities. The findings highlight the resilience of the notions of men as providers and women as primary parents within “the gender-equal Nordic region”, and indicate how these roles may facilitate or discourage the migration of men and women.     

Technology and the housewife in nineteenth‐century America

ALICE JAMES: A BIOGRAPHY by Jean Strouse. Boston. Houghton, Mifflin, 1980. 367 pp. ($15.00).

THE DEATH AND LETTERS OF ALICE JAMES edited by Ruth Bernard Yeazell. Berkeley. University of California Press, 1981.214pp. ($12.95)

CONVERSATIONS WITH KATHERINE ANNE PORTER by Enrique Hank Lopez. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1981). 326 pp., $14.95.     

Kirishima Yōko and the Age of Non-Marriage

The “Age of Non-Marriage” describes major demographic trends evident in Japan since the 1980s: declining rates of marriage, delay in marriage, and rising divorce rates. As familiar stereotypes continue to exert influence over gender roles, many frustrated women opt out of marriage and child-bearing. Award-winning non-fiction writer Kirishima Yōko (1937– ) pioneered new ideas and lifestyles as a successful single mother in the 1960s and 1970s. Now in her sixties, Kirishima continues to encourage readers to free themselves from societal expectations in order to fulfill their potential. Japan is now more and more experiencing change in gender roles for men as well as women.     

Anorexia nervosa and the problem of “men”

The essay explores anorexia nervosa as clinical historiographical performance, focusing in particular on the role of masculinity and male subjectivity in the development of diagnostic standards for the “disorder” and in contemporary non-traditional patients diagnosed with the condition.     

A new dawn? french women and the liberation

This article draws on extensive archival and oral sources from Britanny, Toulouse, and Paris. It will discuss a number of aspects of the Occupation and Liberation experience for French women. It will first explore the importance attributed to the fact that women eventually gained their political rights in 1944, a measure that also saw an end to the “first wave” feminist movement that had believed that suffrage would resolve the “women's condition” and herald the start of a new era for women. This article will then move into an analysis of women and Collaboration during the Occupation offering a new approach to women's political involvement during the war. It finishes by presenting an overview of women's relationship to paid employment, the area where there was perhaps the greatest unfulfilled potential for women to experience a new beginning in the post-war period.