The breakdown of the sex/gender distinction in anthropological discourse

This contribution to the ongoing process of questioning the sex/gender distinction in feminist research sets out from two different points of departure. First, from an anthropological perspective, examples are given to help us “rethink” sex as a universal “given”. Second, it is examined how the distinction, when used in feminist analyses, has confused rather than clarified our understanding of sex/gender. Finally, the implications of the breakdown of the sex/gender distinction for feminist research are discussed in brief.     

学科对话和文学话语读解空间的拓展

文学话语读解进入语言学、文学、美学－哲学等学科视野,需要在整合互动的关系中重新定位,通过学科对话和不同经验系统的相互激活,调整读解位相、重辟读解路径,在理论资源共享、学科优势互补的良性运作中,拓展文学话语的读解空间。     

Pulses from the multitude: virtuosity and black feminist discourse

Using a dialogic format this conversation between two authors uses political theorist Paolo Virno's conception of the “multitude” to examine and compare two different arenas of black feminist protest that took place on social media in the latter half of 2013. As a performative article, it offers historical and theoretical background to the terms “multitude,” “public intellect,” and “virtuosic labor” in racialized capitalist formations, situating them to provide an alternative to the power of the State – an alternative that unlike the State does not claim to confer rights. The article looks at the Facebook response to a call from the Crunk Feminist Collective to white feminists to speak out on the verdict exonerating Trayvon Martin’s killer and offer counter images to those that describe Martin's killing as justified. It then looks at the public dialogue around the applicability of the term “feminism” to Beyoncé's self-titled “visual album.” Through aesthetic inquiry, the authors look at the form these examples of protest take to situate and propose the active viewing of these aesthetic forms by others on social media, as well as by the authors of this article, as a kind of virtuosic labor. The article concludes with a series of poems created using the “cut-up” technique designed to transmit feeling through subjective action and a task manifesto for white feminists to use as a guide.     

Performing sinners: The Asobi and the Buddhist discourse of Tsumi

This essay addresses how Oprah's book choices are inevitably affective but not necessarily feminist. By reading Oprah's book choices as highly individualistic, I analyze how her choices might be more aggressive and more complex, thereby offering a sense of community rather than the power of individuality to her huge audiences. My argument is based on a belief in Oprah's communicative power, and especially if her book choices were invested with more complications than individual resolutions.     

Sell-out or challenge? The contradiction of a masters in women's studies

This is an account of planning a part-time Masters degree in Women's Studies at a British Polytechnic. We explain how we obtained approval from the necessary authorities for the course, and discuss the conflict between—on the one hand—the need to conform to these institutional procedures in order to get the course established, and—on the other hand—the desire to keep faith with the political origins of Women's Studies in the Women's Movement. We discuss a number of major issues which have confronted the members of the committee responsible for planning this course including the struggle to demonstrate within the college the academic legitimacy of WS; decisions about what kind of course to offer students—a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary curriculum, with or without optional elements—and how to defend these proposals during the lengthy process of seeking formal approval; the institutional politics of launching the course; and anticipated problems associated with the eventual teaching of the course.     

Queer nations: Nationalism, sexuality and the discourse of rights in Quebec

Gays and lesbians are full-fledged members of the great Quebec family, and it is perhaps time to reinvent and enlarge our family. The research on which this article is based was undertaken while I was a visitor at the Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal, in 1996. I would like to thank the University and colleagues in the Faculty of Law for their collegiality during my stay. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Critical Legal Conference, University of East London, 6 September 1996. My thanks to the participants for their insightful questions and comments, and thanks also to Didi Herman and Davina Cooper for their help on a previous draft.     

Women's work,artisanal discourse,and community: a response to Sheila Blackburn

This article is a comment on Sheila Blackburn's response to the author's original essay, ‘Gender Constructions and Gender Relations in Cotton and Chain-making in England: a contested and varied terrain’, which appeared in Women's History Review (6[3], 1997). As the author repeats in this response, the apparently dominant artisanal discourse of the male chainmakers of nineteenth-century Walsall, supporting the exclusion of female labor from the trade, was undermined by conditions existing in Cradley Heath, where the community depended on that labor. Foregrounding this division regarding gender understandings, it is argued, provides a vantage point from which to gain a fuller and more accurate picture of the ways in which those understandings, as well as gender and community relations, were negotiated in one industry towards the end of the nineteenth century     

Sex,sex roles,and self-image

The purpose of this research was to compare the self-images of male and female children in order to determine whether females were at a particular disadvantage and, if so, why. A random sample of 1988 children from grades 3–12 were interviewed in Baltimore in 1968. Findings show more disturbance among White adolescent females than among White males or Black females: White girls become much more self-conscious and show greater self-image instability and somewhat lower self-esteem. Three sets of factors appear to explain part of these differences: (1) attitudes toward present and future sex role, (2) peer relationships in general and opposite sex relationships in particular, and (3) attitudes toward changing looks in adolescence.The work of the first author is currently supported by a Research Development Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, No. 5-K1-MH-41, 688-03. The work was also partly supported by USPHS Grants 1-F3-MH-41, 688-01 and MH-197541-01.The data were collected in 1968.Received her Ph.D. from Columbia University and has been interested in the social determinants of the self-image and in studies of the social psychological consequences of organ transplantation.Received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and is interested in social psychology in general and sex roles in particular.