The women's movement in Bulgaria in a life story

This article is a first attempt to research the activity of Dimitrana Ivanova, one of the most prominent Bulgarian feminists and, for almost two decades, chairwoman of the major feminist organisation in the country, the Bulgarian Women's Union (founded in 1901). It explores the social conditions of her life and provides a perspective for the understanding of gender relations in modern Bulgarian history. The article highlights the key issues that were addressed by the women's movement in Bulgaria as well as the international context in which Bulgarian feminism was situated.     

“She's not really a woman, she's half a man”: Gendered discourses of embodiment in a French farming community

This paper is about constructions of embodiment in farming families in a community of the Aveyron region in Southern France. More particularly, it explores how the discursive representation of women's bodies both reproduces and legitimates unequal gender relations between women and men on the farm and in the local community. It is argued here that gender is constituted through the ways in which individuals live and construct their bodies within a particular social, cultural, and economic context. But because what is constructed as masculine is valued over what is constructed as feminine, women's bodies and abilities are inferiorised and devalued. In the farming context discussed in this paper, farm women are never seen as having bodies which enable them to farm in the same terms as men. Women's work on the farm is seen as only secondary and complementary to that of farmers in the same way that women's bodies are seen to be lacking in masculine attributes which are defined as central to farming. So that even when women show that they can run farms by themselves and do work which is usually defined as masculine, they are either represented as only being able to do so because they have male help, or because their bodies and attributes do not conform to culturally constructed heterosexual norms of femininity.     

Memories of menarche: Age,preparation, and prior knowledge as determinants of initial menstrual experience

The relationships between age at menarche, preparation for menarche, and initial experience of menarche, were assessed in a retrospective questionnaire administered to 97 college-aged women. The more knowledgeable a girl was prior to menarche, the more adequate she perceived her preparation for menarche to have been; and the older she was at the time of menarche, the more likely she was to report a positive initial experience. These data support clinical anecdotes describing initial responses to menarche, and provide information about the factors which can moderate the extent to which menarche is experienced as a traumatic and disruptive event.Portions of this research were presented at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, Hartford, Conn., April 1980.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Tufts University. Major interests are psychobiology and adolescent development.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Clark University. Major interests are clinical psychology and personality development.Received Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University. Major interest is cognitive development.     

Caroline Phillips: balancing life as a journalist and a suffragette in a Scottish city

ABSTRACT

Aberdeen Art Gallery holds a unique collection in the history of the Scottish women’s suffrage movement: the correspondence of Caroline Phillips, journalist and honorary secretary of the Aberdeen branch of the WSPU, 1907-09. Through her correspondence, Phillips wrestled with the demands of London headquarters for more militant action, was tempted to join the Women’s Freedom League, and finally saw herself and her friend Helen Fraser replaced by the Pankhursts. Because of her involvement in the suffrage movement, Phillips found it difficult to gain entrance to some political events in the city, making it impossible to complete her work as a reporter, and was threatened with dismissal by her employer. She was also torn between the demands for militant action of the WSPU leadership and her own instinct for a more conciliatory approach. Her correspondence reveals the emotional and personal costs of working for ‘the cause’ in a city far away from the heart of the suffrage movement, but also the fulfilling friendships that sustained and supported her.     

Self-reported delinquency and home life: Evidence from a sample of British girls

This study examines the correlation between family variables and delinquency (both self-reported and official) in a small sample of British teenage girls. Factor analysis of the 72-item Home Life Questionnaire (from T. H. Hirschi [1969] Causes of Delinquency, University of California Press, Berkeley) revealed a clear four-factor structure of caring and communication, discipline, pressure and mother-daughter closeness, which cumulatively accounted for 31% of the variance. Multiple regression of these factors onto self-reported delinquency indicated the maternal factor to be most powerful, explaining 25% of the variance in self-reported delinquency. Institutionalized and noninstitutionalized girls showed only chance differences in terms of the quality of their home life.Anne Campbell's research interests are in sex differences in antisocial behavior, especially aggression.     

Two models of infant welfare in the first half of the twentieth century: New Zealand and the USA

In New Zealand, as elsewhere in the Western world in the early twentieth century, maternal and infant health became a national concern and the task of organising health services was taken up by women in a voluntary capacity. In the USA this culminated in the Sheppard-Towner (Maternity and Infancy) Act of 1921. However, within a decade American paediatricians had assumed control of the services. By contrast, the services in New Zealand remained in the hands of a female-run voluntary organisation, the Plunket Society. From the foundation of the Society in 1907, health services for mothers and their infants became the site of territorial disputes between various health providers – the Health Department, the Plunket Society and paediatricians. This article explores why and how the Plunket Society managed to retain control of this important area of public health in the face of challenges by these other health providers. It will be argued that the reasons relate to the tenacity with which the ‘maternalists’ claimed the territory as their own, their informal access to channels of power, their public support, and their success in maintaining medical respectability through their own honorary and paid professional staff.