Beyond hagiography: new books on gay and lesbian life writing

Abstract

The records of women's rights organisations active in Birmingham during the 1870s and 1880s indicate that these societies were dominated by women and men from families connected with the city's leading Unitarian chapel, the Church of the Messiah. In this article, I explore this phenomenon as a way of illuminating the relationship between religious belief and feminist activism. The shared social, economic and political values and progressive outlook of the Unitarian elite underpinned their emergence as a feminist network. This collective reformist consciousness was channelled into concern to improve the position of women by the ‘feminist gospel’ preached by Henry Crosskey, the minister of the chapel from 1869 to 1893. Furthermore, Crosskey's influential role, along with the substantial presence of other Unitarian men in local women's rights associations, reveals how denominational affiliation could operate to stimulate male support for feminism.     

“So distant and wild a scene”: language,domesticity and difference in Hannah Kilham's writing from West Africa, 1822-1832

Abstract

Hannah Kilham (1774-1832), a Sheffield Quaker, was involved in philanthropic, educational and missionary work with women in Britain, Ireland and West Africa in the early nineteenth century. In this article the author focuses upon Hannah Kilham's. engagement in the religious and domestic education of African girls and women in the 1820s and 1830s. Through representations of African women as in need of her ‘civilising influence’, Kilham was able to construct a powerful role for herself, and for other white middle-class British women, in the colonial/missionary enterprise. The article explores the significance of notions of gender, domesticity and the Protestant family to the construction of ideas about Africa's ‘difference’ and, through this, British national identity.     

Charismatic women in religion. Power,media and social change

ABSTRACT

‘Charisma’ can be a catch-all term that obfuscates more than it reveals. What it does reveal often says more about the historical and cultural context in which ‘charisma’ was deployed than about its subject. In this introduction we trace the concept’s contextual shifts across its intersections with gender, religion and power. We explore the different ways in which women in the religious sphere have been considered charismatic, thereby addressing Max Weber’s definition of ‘charisma’ as well as its subsequent reinventions in the social sciences and the humanities. Particular focus goes to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the mediatization of ‘charisma’ created new opportunities and risks for women in religion.     

Words as Deeds: debates and narratives on women's suffrage

Abstract

This article is about the experience of menstruation, a function which many women spend much of their lives concealing. It is a topic which many regard as intensely private. Some, men and women, consider it distasteful and others still, historically unchanging and inconsequential. The authors argue that menstruation has played an important role in the twentieth-century construction of ‘womanhood’, and in constituting women as ‘the other’ in the eyes of male non-menstruators. This New Zealand study draws principally on two narratives about women's bodies. One is derived from cultural representations of the modern feminine body through sanitary product advertising, some of it international in origin, covering the time span 1935 to 1969. This is considered alongside the practical lives of bodies, the personal narratives given to us by 50 women relating their experiences of menarche and subsequent periods.     

‘Religious virtuosi’ and charismatic leaders. The public authority of mystic women in nineteenth-century Italy

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the fama sanctitatis of three mystic women who lived in Italy in the nineteenth century. Through their exceptional phenomena, they earned celebrity and notoriety, becoming charismatic leaders in their communities. These women had an impact on contemporary society by providing innovative models. For the nuns locked in monasteries, Maria Rosa Serra (1766-after 1806) was a model of an active nun. To the ‘angels of the hearth’, Elisabetta Canori Mora (1774–1825) proved that holiness could also be achieved in the domestic sphere. In contrast to the image of the secluded virgin, Maria Domenica Lazzeri (1815–1848) was a model of the ‘victim souls’ in a semi-public place. The analysis of these women allows us to learn more about the charismatic power in the construction of religious celebrities; the women’s role in the nineteenth century; the creation of new models and the autonomy granted them by the Church.     

Physical purity feminism and state medicine in late nineteenth-century england

Abstract

Late nineteenth-century England saw the development of a number of campaigns and social movements which were connected by both a hostility towards the medical profession and by the use of discourses of purity and sanitary reform. This article explores the involvement of women within these movements, analysing their activism as an aspect of social purity feminism. It argues that many of these movements drew on widespread female anxiety regarding male violence – both physical and sexual – towards women. The anti-medical feminists claimed that some pieces of ‘sanitary’ legislation represented a state-sanctioned violation of the bodies of women and children. Finally, this article analyses the use made, by some of these activists, of the discourses of sanitary reform to challenge the gender ordering associated with the reason/nature dualism in Victorian society.     

Dainty little fairies: women,gender and the Savoy Operas

Abstract

Since the 1890s, amateur operatic societies have enabled middle-and lower middle-class women to overcome any stigma associated with public stage performance through their constitution as ‘serious’ leisure organisations. Some women have occupied positions of (situated) prestige, though others were confined to supporting roles. Amateur ‘operatics’ have generated a carnival atmosphere around the activity of performance, where boundaries between members' leisure, social and performing identities became permeable and easily crossed. The Gilbert and Sullivan operas, a staple of the amateur repertoire since their late-Victorian composition, draw on a range of representations of masculinity and femininity that acquired new cultural relevance for the middle classes from the inter-war period. Positive representations of femininity are predominantly youthful. More negative representations of older women have their origins in the grotesque, cross-dressed dame of burlesque. Nevertheless, interview evidence demonstrates that older women in particular, aided by the possibilities of moving between performing and social identities that this leisure activity encourages, have made empowering and selective imaginative appropriations from these gender ideals.     

“abandoned women and bad characters”: prostitution in nineteenth-century Ireland

Abstract

This article examines the extent of prostitution in nineteenth-century Ireland. It centres on the problem of prostitution as one of visibility and the prostitute as a site of possible contagion, both physical and moral. The legal powers given to the police to control prostitution were used when prostitution became a particular problem and the focus of public and clerical condemnation. However, for the public prostitution was most acceptable when it was hidden from public view. Attempts to rescue and reform prostitutes came from lay and religious women in particular. The establishment of Magdalen Asylums offered the Irish public a place of confinement for their ‘wayward’ daughters, placing them away from the public gaze. Examining the registers of these asylums reveals that ‘fallen women’ were capable of using these institutions for their own ends, particularly in the nineteenth century. The decline in prostitution evident in Ireland from the 1870s owned much to the new ‘morality’ being imposed on the Irish people by the middle classes and the Catholic church.     

An Exploration of Religion and Education in the Life of Constance Maynard,Mistress of Westfield College

This article provides an overview of the motivation for digitising Maynard's writings, evaluates the benefits and challenges of reproducing and publishing archives, and considers the implications of greater digitisation. Maynard's writings reveal that she drew on her evangelical belief system as a means of protection and inspiration, and never overcame the concerns of early educationalists to maintain ‘decorum’ and ‘femininity’ in the management of the college. Published and unpublished sources are considered to review Maynard's decision to enter higher education, the inspiration for a Christian college for women, impact of contemporary arguments opposing education for women on Maynard and Westfield College, and Maynard's reaction to the development of a science faculty in the early twentieth century.     

Sex research and the construction of sexuality: A tool of male supremacy?

The social construction of sexual knowledge is analyzed by examining the model of sexuality which underpins ‘scientific’ sex research. It is an essentialist model, in which ‘sex’ is equated with heterosexuality, and coitus is assumed to be a biological imperative; male violence against women is legitimated; and sexual practices based on dominance and submission are ‘normalized’ on the basis of biological determinism. Male-defined sex research can thus be seen as constructing and promoting, by means of spurious scientific legitimation, a model of sexualiy which both reflects and reproduces the interests of male supremacy. The particular form of male sexuality that exists under male supremacy has been ‘naturalized’ and ‘universalized’, and presented as the scientifically objective model, not merely of male sexuality, but of sexuality in general. Conceptions of female sexuality based on the same model must be rejected, if feminist sexual practices are to be developed.     

The impact of gay friendly cultures on religious expression: a study of inclusive attitudes and behaviours among religious adolescent American male athletes

Abstract

This article investigates the way attitudes inclusive of homosexuality have proliferated among 11 high school athletes on 1 sporting team, despite those athletes representing various beliefs. Utilizing an in-depth, six-question interview schedule, as well as Huber’s centrality of religion scale (CRS-10), the respondents’ varied religious backgrounds, attitudes towards homosexuality and religiosity are discerned via semi-structured interviews. Results show that these young men reconcile their church’s stances with their own inclusive beliefs, reported ostensibly inclusive environments within their church communities, and articulated their belief in equality through secular discourse. As church communities in inclusive locales deemphasize anti-gay principles and posture inclusivity, young people may maintain religious identities as a function of secularization as declining religious authority. Finally, I discuss the relationship between inclusive masculinities, religiosity and secularization; in doing so, I explore mechanisms by which dominant cultural narratives (in this case, the acceptance of homosexuality) might transform religious expression and religious institutions.     

Being women in a male preserve: an ethnography of female football ultras

This article looks at the characteristics of contemporary sports audiences from the perspective of gender, focusing on the phenomenon of female ultras or ‘professional’ football fans. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in an Italian football ultras group composed of male and female fans, this paper offers an analysis of female participation in communities of organized supporters. In examining the role and position of women inside the considered group, the paper pays attention to their perception of the existing gender differences showing how female ultras explain inequalities on the basis of ‘natural’ and ‘innate’ differences and capacities between men and women. Existing patterns of male dominance are supported by female fans’ own discourses and performance of their gender identity in the ‘male preserve’. Rather than questioning male dominance and gender hierarchies, female supporters’ efforts appear aimed at being recognized as ultras ‘despite being women’.     

Act Natural: Dubious Proposals in The Mill on the Floss,The Pastor’s Wife,Vera and Rebecca

Abstract

Following George Eliot, Elizabeth von Arnim showcases a male rhetoric of naturalness. Her men cultivate and punish their women when they resist naturalizing. Without denigrating the intelligence of women, von Arnim shows their unwitting complicity in their subjection. In The Pastor’s Wife (1914) and in Vera (1921), the highly literate women have read the wrong books or missed the unfriendly truths about relationships in those they have read. The husbands and lovers make shallow use of philosophical and scientific reasoning to justify their control and enforce female uniformity deemed ‘natural’. Darwin is misappropriated by the tyrannical Wemyss: evolutionary theories support his imperious dismissal of Lucy’s aunt and friends. Wemyss’s most monstrous actions suggest an atavistic patriarchal dominance like the hereditary reversion theorized by Samuel Butler as unconscious memory. Wemyss brings up the issue of England’s inheritance, and a disturbing vision dawns as the philistine and self-appointed natural man subdues Lucy. Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938) follows Vera’s plot, but it does not interrogate naturalness in the same way. Entrapped in her husband’s vision of a natural woman, the narrator registers Rebecca’s wild transgressiveness as more powerful and universal than her own tamed naturalness.     

‘You can tell which ones are the laddy lads’: young women’s accounts of the engineering classroom at a high-performing English university

This paper explores how four young women narrated accounts of their interactions with their male peers in the engineering classroom. Drawing on data collected in a qualitative case study conducted at one high-performing English university, this paper details how the four women described two different versions of laddish masculinity evident within their engineering classroom; a hostile laddish masculinity, and a ‘friendly’ or ‘genial’ upper/middle-class laddish masculinity. Whilst the hostile lads were seemingly frowned upon and socially excluded, the ‘friendly’ or ‘genial’ upper/middle-class lads appeared largely liked and tolerated by the women. This paper thus adds to our understanding of women’s current experiences in engineering education, and works to extend research in the area of laddism in formalized learning contexts in higher education (HE). In particular, this paper draws attention to the existence of subtle or nuanced degrees of laddism in engineering at the university under study, and highlights a possible relationship between ‘lad’ discourses and gendered disciplinary discourses.     

Wounding and Healing: dealing with difference in Christian narratives of migrant women in East London since the 1980s

Setting oral histories conducted with a group of female Christian migrants to East London from various backgrounds and different stages in the life cycle alongside interviews with male migrants and non-migrant women, this article seeks to explore the relationship between gender, mainstream religious affiliation and the negotiation of the migratory experience. Informed by mimetic and feminist theory on religious subjectivities, the article focuses on the preoccupation with sacrifice and healing which emerges from these life stories and highlights the ways in which the emotional realities of pain, separation and suffering also give rise to powerfully reconceptualised, individual faith resources and creative strategies for claiming agency within familial, vocational and religious settings. Through a focus on domestic life, work and church leadership within ‘mainstream’ Christian churches, this article complicates assumptions about the nature and historical trajectory of ‘traditional’ religious organisations, and interweaves migrant women's experience closely with that of other members of their church communities. Through these ‘moving stories’, gender forms an integral part of these women's spiritual narratives and is constitutive of their articulation and negotiation of their faith, migration and inculturation.     

Women's political participation in inter-war Poland: opportunities and limitations

Abstract

This article analyses women's participation in public lifewithin the framework of the democratic-parliamentarian Polish state (Poland's Second Republic), rebuilt in the wake of the First World War. It examines the activity of women in parliamentary elections in connection with obtaining political rights equal to those enjoyed by men, as well as the role of women's representation in the two male-dominated chambers of Parliament (the Sejm and the Senate). The minimal presence of women in the state apparatus and in political parties and professional organisations is explained in relation to male hostility towards women's active participation in political life, religious opposition (especially from the Catholic Church) and the unwillingness of women themselves to become engaged in ‘pure politics’. Finally, it examines the rapid growth of women's associations (cultural, educational, cooperative, and professional) which, whilst weakly linked to feminism, bonded with competing political parties and blocks. The associations were divided along the lines of national allegiances within the multiethnic state and, during the 1930s in particular (the era of the authoritarian rule of Pi?sudski and the socalled sanacja camp), succumbed to nationalistic tendencies. Nevertheless, it is possible to see women's growing involvement in education and professional careers as a form of participation in public life.     

Entering Religious Life,Claiming Subjectivity: Irish nuns, 1930s–1960s

Despite the number of Irish women who entered religious life, especially in the decades following independence, very little is known about their motivations for joining or experiences therein. Based on their oral histories, this article explores how Irish women religious articulated their attraction to religious life. Providing the reader with a contextual background in which to place the narratives, it highlights the significance of several factors affecting the women’s decision to enter and, in particular, illuminates the claims to subjectivity revealed in the women’s accounts. Through varied responses, the women collectively rejected any notion that they were forced into religious life, asserting the decision to enter as truly their own. Comparing the ways the women framed their vocation with their families’ response to it, the article draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic capital to explore the ways in which women are positioned as ‘social objects’ but present themselves as ‘subjects’.     

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN IN MULTICULTURALISM?

Abstract This article discusses the need to re-imagine multiculturalism and feminism in order to better accommodate women in minority cultures who are religious. It begins and ends with comments about multiculturalism and ‘difference feminism’ in Australia. In the body of the paper I use anthropological field-work in Indonesia, first to show that culture and religion are not separate and immutable, and secondly to show how Muslim women in the women's movement in Indonesia are using Islam to build a multicultural discourse. Finally I apply my findings about Muslim women activists in multicultural discourse in Indonesia to multiculturalism in Australia.