Women talking : Creating knowledge through difference in cross-cultural research

This paper discusses the research process of a cross-cultural study investigating the health care experiences of Chinese Canadian and Indo-Canadian women. Employing the notion of reflexivity, the paper discusses the use of an accepted feminist method, the in-depth interview, in a study involving women from racialized groups. The paper discusses the layering of power relations at the different sites of data gathering, and the negotiation of “difference” between researchers, research assistants, and study participants throughout the study. The position of research assistants, as mediators of the research process, is given particular attention. In discussing our attempt to put the principles of feminist research into practice in cross-cultural research, we argue that problems encountered in the interview method require critical reflection, not only on the grounds of the practical issues of gaining detailed, narrative accounts of women's lives, but also in relation to the way in which “others” are constructed through research practices.     

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.     

Motherhood as a national mission: The construction of womanhood in the legal discourse in Israel

The paper looks at the notion of womanhood that emerged from the discourse around two laws passed in the first years of the State of Israel: the 1949 “Defense Service Law” and the 1951 “Women's Equal Rights Law.” Law is conceived of as “producing” the cultural meaning of “women” as a social category and defining its relations to the state. My main argument is that in this discourse, the Jewish-Israeli woman is constructed first and foremost as a mother and a wife, and not as an individual or a citizen. The construction of a distinct category of women that emphasizes women's difference takes place within an ideological context of the self-conscious myth of gender-equality. Motherhood is defined as a public role that carries national significance. And it is via this notion of “motherhood as a national mission” that women are incorporated into the state and not through the universal characteristics of citizenship. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, coupled with the central role that the family and the military play within the Israeli culture and society are the major determinants of this specific definition of Jewish-Israeli women's citizenship.     

Gender, nation, landscape and identity in narratives of exile and return

This article is concerned with issues of nation, landscape, and identity in narratives of exile and return. It is based on the oral testimonies and written narratives of German Jewish Marxist women who were driven out of their homeland by German fascism, yet returned after the end of World War II, dedicated to the building of socialism, or more precisely to realising the dream of a society free of prejudice and discrimination. What interests me here is to elicit a sense of the complex ways in which people construct their sense of identity in relation to notions of nation and belonging. In particular, I am fascinated by what impelled this largish group of refugees from Hitler's Germany to return, and how they felt about Germany as “their” country (Vaterland), their “homeland” (Heimat), or at the very least their country of origin. Nor was this relationship static. This is a group of women who have “migrated” twice in one lifetime: the first time fleeing their homeland in a forced migration to escape persecution and death; the return a voluntary “re-migration” in the name of an ideological commitment. Their narratives present both exile and return in retrospect. Thus, their subjective identifications with notions of nation are also retrospective, relating to Germany first from the perspective of involuntary exile, or second, towards the end of their lives, from the vantage point of a united Germany, achieved at the expense of the death of the socialist dream in whose service they returned. This means that they have been forced—through moments of historical crisis—to renegotiate both their own identities and their relationship to Germany multiple times during a single lifetime. The intimate inter-relationship of the personal and the political in these women's lives, and the retrospective reworking of their historically driven life decisions makes these women's narratives on the issues of landscape and homeland particularly rich sources on the subject of identity and belonging.     

Narratives of race and nation in china: Women's suffrage in the early twentieth century

This paper explores the ways in which the Chinese women's suffrage movement used racializing narratives to alter the boundaries that had excluded women from full participation in politics in the first two decades of the 20th century. It extends existing work on the connection between narratives of race and women's suffrage in countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA to explore how “race” was mobilized in China in the late-Qing and early Republican period. The article has three main areas of innovation. First, it explores the deployment of racializing narratives within the broader discourses of modernity circulating in China wherein modernization was premised on a racialized notion of national identity—that is “modernization as Han chauvinism.” Second, this article aims to participate in the process of extending the history of women's suffrage from primary reliance on class analysis and towards methods that explore the multiple categories of exclusion and inclusion. Third, this article aims to explore the manner in which narratives of race were invoked within a feminist political campaign that occurred in a nation without a history of European colonization. The article demonstrates that the multiplicity of possible gains sought under the banner of “race” makes it an unreliable category to invoke for struggles that are ultimately determined by “gendered” divisions.     

Iranian women's pathways to imprisonment

Using official data and interviews with 101 women in Evin prison, Tehran, this article explores prisoners' pathways to incarceration. The concept of “intersection” is used to help understand how traversing and diverging networks of power position women in ways that encourage their criminal actions, criminalization, and contribute toward their imprisonment. The term also highlights points of overlap and distinction between Iranian and Western women's experiences. Importantly, it encourages us to consider the global context of criminal justice.     

Pioneering women revisited: Representations of gender in some Israeli settlement museums

This study examines the representation of women in museums that are devoted to the preservation and celebration of the Zionist nation-building ethos of the 1920s and 1930s (i.e., Israel's pre-state era). These representations are encoded in the rhetoric of the museum guides. In the official discourse and the interpretive stances to which they give voice, the museums that provided ethnographic sites for this inquiry uphold the prevalent myth of gender equality in pioneering groups as if relates to women's participation in the male-dominated pubic sphere of “productivity” in agricultural and road construction work. At the same time, they reproduce representations of women as ambivalent participants in the pioneering enterprise. Their positioning within the redefined domestic sphere of communal living, women all too often remain marginalized participants; at times they are even “storified” as essentially objects of the male gaze.     

An honest human body : Sexuality and the continuum of resistance

Theories of resistance have informed ethnographic research over the last two decades. Researchers have been concerned to document the significance of counter-cultural acts of resistance and have highlighted intersections of class, gender and “race” within the processes of resistance. However, questions of sexuality have been largely silenced. This paper focuses on the experiences of six women who identify themselves as lesbian and attempts to assert the importance of sexuality within debates on resistance and accommodation. The experiences of these women reveal that lesbians are willing and able to use a conscious collage of bodily signifiers to resist the discourse of compulsory (hetero)sexuality. The “continuum of resistance” illuminated in this paper can encompass both the lesbian who wears her sexuality on a t-shirt and the lesbian who “passes” in a heterosexual frock.     

Depoliticising the personal : A feminist slogan in feminist therapy

One of the great insights of second wave feminism was the recognition that “the personal is political.” Many feminist psychologists (both practitioners and researchers) claim a strong commitment to this slogan and attempt to implement it through their theory and practice. This article explores four interpretations of “the personal is political” in feminist psychological writing. It is argued that far from achieving radical feminist goals, psychological interpretations serve: (1) to personalise the political, translating social, economic, and ecological concerns into individual psychological matters; (2) to foster revolution “from within” at the expense of political change in the outside world; (3) that insofar as it aims uncritically to “validate women's experience,” it ignores the social and political factors which shape experience; and (4) that the concept of “empowerment” depends upon a radical split between the “personal” and the “political”. In sum, it is concluded that femenist acknowledgement that the personal really is political means rejecting psychology.     

Women and substance use/abuse: Towards a feminist perspective or how to make dust fly

The purpose of this paper is to offer a feminist perspective in the area of women and substance abuse. A major strand of thinking highlighted throughout this paper is that a women- orientated response rooted in the identity and consciousness of women substance users/abusers is essential. Five key areas are explored and these include: (1) the need for a feminist perspective which moves beyond ‘masculinist’ truths; (2) substance abuse as a “gender illuminating notion”; (3) the “unacceptable” and “acceptable” faces of dependency; (4) the development of a women- orientated methodology in the field of substance abuse; and (5) substance abuse and “pleasure”: is this relevant for women? While pointers for future research are indicated, it is suggested that more work “by women and for women” is needed in the area.     

Child care: Love, work and exploitation

In Western countries child care is considered the private affair of parents, but it is in fact the responsibility of women. Thus child care is intimately linked with the sexual division of labour and leads directly to inequality and manifold discrimination against women. The situation of mothers with school-age children in western Germany shows that changes are more a question of ideology than of economic resources. Personal convictions and values on the subject of motherhood and femininity, as well as attitudes toward social structures supportive of these, lead to paradoxes which confuse women's perception and slow down change. This article contends that the discussion of child care must take account of the situation of mothers and that the ideological notion of the “normality” of motherhood has to be made visible as fictitious.     

Public toilet provision for women in Britain : An investigation of discrimination against urination

This article investigates the problem of the inadequate and unequal nature of public toilet provision in Britain, where men are required under current statutory to be provided with almost twice more provision than women. The cultural and urological attitudes which legitimate this situation are investigated with reference to medical, sociological, town planning, building, and plumbing literature. It is found that “women's toilets” are a topic which does not quite fit into the jurisdiction of either medical or municipal authorities, although the issue should be seen as a key component of any preventative, public health programme, as was the case in Victorian and Edwardian times. But the need for better facilities is generally not taken seriously by the predominantly male committees who set provision standards. Recommendations are made for the amelioration of the situation by means of introducing mandatory enlightened standards operated through zoning compliance procedures within the town planning system.     

A world in which women move freely without fear of men: An anthropological perspective on rape

In western scholarly debate, there is nearly universal acceptance of rape as a male trait typical of all time periods and cultures. However, cross-cultural data provide insight into societies where rape is rare or unknown and can therefore be helpful to develop strategies for prevention. The paper focuses on the question why men do not rape in these societies with rape being understood as a crime that reflects male dominance and entitlement.An earlier finding by Sanday [J. Soc. Issues 37 (1981) 5] that such “rape-free” societies attach importance to the “contributions women make to social continuity” is further analyzed by taking an in-depth look at matrilineal societies. The category “matrilineal” is chosen because these cultures recognize women's contributions to social continuity, and absence or rareness of rape has been repeatedly reported. Data from matrilineal cultures from the relevant literature including my own work in South America are compared with a select body of data discussing western rapists. As the discussion demonstrates, the specific gender dynamics in matrilineal cultures reduce the significance of man's sexual persona and thus male heterosexual authority which mitigates the potential of male dominance and rape.     

Beyond defensiveness: Feminist research strategies

In the course of doing research for a book on utopian fiction by women, it became evident that my formulation of the project constituted a trap, for it affirmed the very thing I wanted to challenge: the assumption of the centrality of utopias by men and the ‘otherness’ of works by women. As I reoriented my research, I came to see that this contradiction pervades much feminist scholarship and is present as well in the very notion of ‘Women's Studies’. This essay describes the process by which I came to identify the problem; how the techniques of defamiliarization and reversal pointed toward a solution; and the two research strategies that evolved. These strategies, both of which depend upon reversal of the usual rules of relevance and irrelevance, can be applied to feminist research endeavors in other fields as well.     

Tensions in israeli feminism: The mizrahi ashkenazi rift

The idea of women's liberation was imported in the 1970s from the West by liberal feminist activists who immigrated to Israel. The first Israeli feminists adopted all the liberal feminist slogans and ideology together with their advantages and the disadvantages. The implantation of these ideas in the Israel—a country torn ethnically—has produced a conflict from which Mizrahi feminism has evolved. By the 1990s, Mizrahi women who participated in feminist activity, and who found themselves excluded and marginalized by the Ashkenazi women who dominated the Israeli feminist movement began to give expression to their feelings of oppression. This reached a peak in 1995 in Natanya with the First Mizrahi Feminist Annual Conference. This article outlines the historical, social, political and ideological processes in which Mizrahi feminism developed. It shows how slogans such as sisterhood and solidarity, have been used to endorse activities which do not benefit women of all the different ethnic groups in Israel. The article includes a discussion of dilemmas that arise from “tokenism” and the purportedly universalist feminist agenda. The Mizrahi feminist agenda and its ideological framework, as well as its strategic aspects, are also critically reviewed.     

Learning about “the curse”: An anthropological perspective on experiences of menstruation

Learning about menstruation typically focuses on providing education about the biology and reproductive functions of a woman. This approach ignores individual variations of experience and the social influences in managing the menstrual event. A qualitative study of 20 women was conducted to explore how women learnt about the menstruation and its effect on their lives. With reference to medical discourse and medical anthropology, three themes will be examined: pollution, rites of passage, and the concept of secrecy and social seclusion. These themes are used to explore the role of menstruation in the emergence of female identity, the forces around women that influence their beliefs, and how these women manage their bodies. Some reference is made to the effects of menstruation on a woman's physical and mental health, sexual relationships, and perceived constraints during leisure time. A more phenomenological approach to menstruation should be considered by policymakers interested in “educating” young women about menstruation, where the emphasis should be on addressing women's experiences and concerns.     

“All my life is one big nursing home”: Russian immigrant women in israel speak about double caregiver stress

Adding elder care to the list of women's multiple roles may significantly jeopardize their well-being and health. This qualitative study explored the experiences with multiple roles among 20 middle-aged Jewish women who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union with their extended families. Before emigration, most informants were professionals or white-collar workers, but in Israel they experienced occupational downgrading and ended up working as attendants or nurses in geriatric care. At home, these women of the “sandwich” generation acted as informal caregivers to their husbands, children and elderly parents. Coupled with the challenges of resettlement, this double caregiver stress led to significant emotional and physical burnout. Exhaustion and tight time budgets led to health problems and poor self-care among these women. The informants' social networks were mainly coethnic, and their coping tools drew on the Israeli–Russian community. The study concludes that, even in the relatively egalitarian Russian–Soviet gender system, women function as principal caregivers, often at the expense of other life goals.     

Hidden transcripts: The micropolitics of gender in Commonwealth universities

The knowledge economy is a globalised policy discourse which relates particularly to higher education. The findings from the empirical data in the five countries, backed up by international literature, suggest that for many women, entry into higher education can be a means of mitigating gender oppression e.g. via social mobility, financial independence, professional identity and academic authority. However, this is accompanied by contradictions and tensions as women experience a range of discriminatory practices, gendered processes and exclusions within higher education itself. Women report male privilege in pedagogical processes, assessment, promotion and research opportunities and management. A repeated theme is how women perceive fewer opportunities to develop academic capital and how women's professional and intellectual capital are devalued and misrecognised in the knowledge economy.All five countries reported that gender has a significant impact on academic and professional identity formation. Gendered power relations symbolically and materially construct and regulate women's everyday experiences of higher education. Similar concerns about women's unequal status are articulated in spite of different socio-economic and national policy contexts. The gendered environment impedes women's progress as staff and has a detrimental effect on the learning environment for students. Gendered differences are relayed and reinforced in classrooms, boardrooms, and via everyday social practices. These practices need to be exposed and challenged in order for the wider aspirations of gender equity policy initiatives to be achieved.

Endnote

¹ This means something below standard, of poor quality.     

"Sort of part of the women's movement. But different": mothers' organisations and Australian feminism

In spite of the ‘maternal turn’ in feminist theory, at the level of policy and practice feminism has neglected the politics of motherhood. This article explores the ambivalent relationship between the Australian women's movement and mothers' organisations formed to contest the management of childbirth and lactation. It argues that the advent of a ‘politics of difference’ allows greater acceptance of seemingly non-feminist positions on maternity and recognition of the role played by childbirth reformers in effecting social change. It examines Australian feminist attitudes to motherhood before discussing the response to feminism of women's groups which saw themselves as possibly part of a wider women's movement, but ‘different’ from mainstream feminism. A strong familial orientation was often contradicted by the everyday lives of activist women, who gained new skills and self-confidence in a significant challenge to medicalised reproduction.     

The continuum of violence against women in canadian universities : Toward a new understanding of the chilly campus climate

This paper examines various components which constitute the “chilly climate” for women in universities and argues that such behaviours and institutional practices must be understood as forms of violence against women. The instances of violence against women on campus are connected to each other because each incident represents men's attempts to socially control women through force, coercion, abuse, and silencing.