Literary feminism

Susan Sheridan, Christina Stead, Key Women Writers, (Harvester Wheatsheaf). Hemel Hempstead, 1988; Janet Todd, Feminist Literary History, (Routledge), New York, 1988; Jane Heath, Simone de Beauvoir, Key Women Writers, (Harvester Wheatsheaf), Hemel Hempstead, 1989; Linda Kauffman, (ed.), Gender and Theory: Dialogues on Feminist Criticism, (Basil Blackwell), New York, 1989; Patricia Waugh, Feminine Fictions: Revisiting the Postmodern, (Routledge), London, 1989.     

Fashion and feminism

Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Beauty from the Victorian Era to the Jazz Age (Oxford University Press), New York, 1985; Elizabeth, Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity (Virago), London, 1985.     

Anarchism and feminism

Abstract

Sharif Gemie has recently pointed out in Women's History Review, 5, (1996), pp. 417-444, that patriarchalism and adherence to strict gender roles in the early twentieth century were an integral part of French and Spanish anarchist political culture. Nevertheless, any analysis of the sexual politics of a particular movement must also take into account the sexual culture of the times and the role of the ‘homosexual menace’ in securing ‘correct’ heterosexual behaviour. This short article illustrates some of the wider influences on anarchists and attempts to show the importance of the fear of homosexuality as a disciplinary factor in the sexual politics of their movement.     

Philosophy and feminism

Ellen Kennedy and Susan Mendus (eds) Women in Western Political Philosophy (Wheatsheaf Books) Brighton, Sussex, 1987; Gail Tulloch, Mill and Sexual Equality (Harvester Wheatsheaf) Hemel Hempstead, 1989; Andrea Nye, Feminist Theory and the Philosophies of Man (Routledge) New York, London, 1988.     

the reinvention of feminism in Pakistan

This article argues that there has been a significant turn in the discourse of feminist politics in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The author suggests that the rise of a new feminism – rooted in Islamic discourse, non-confrontational, privatized and personalized, whose objective is to ‘empower’ women within Islam – is not a post-9/11 development but rather a result of unresolved debates on the issue of religion within the progressive women's movement. It has been due to the accommodation of religion-based feminist arguments by the stronger secular feminist movement of the 1980s that paved the way for its own marginalization by giving feminist legitimacy to such voices. The author argues that the second wave of feminism may have become diluted in its effectiveness and support due to discriminatory religious laws, dictatorship, NGO-ization, fragmentation, co-option by the state and political parties in the same way as the global women's movement has. Yet it has been the internal inconsistency of the political strategies as well as the personal, Muslim identities of secular feminists that have allowed Islamic feminists to redefine the feminist agenda in Pakistan. This article voices the larger concern over the rise of a new generation of Islamic revivalist feminists who seek to rationalize all women's rights within the religious framework and render secular feminism irrelevant while framing the debate on women's rights exclusively around Islamic history, culture and tradition. The danger is that a debate such as this will be premised on a polarized ‘good’ vs ‘bad’ Muslim woman, such that women who abide by the liberal interpretation of theology will be pitted against those who follow a strict and literal interpretist mode and associate themselves with male religio-political discourse. This is only likely to produce a new, radicalized, religio-political feminism dominating Pakistan's political future.     

Teacher education and feminism

In this article I argue that recent years have seen a steady “reform” of teacher education. In the latest of a long line of initiatives, teaching is being restructured via a framework of National Professional Qualifications and Standards. These both centrally define the activity of teaching at various stages of the teaching “career” and establish new modes of progression for teachers. I argue that the framework neglects teachers' responsibilities in relation to social justice in ways that are particularly worrying for feminists. In addition, I argue that the masculinist nature of the standards, the managerialist restructuring of the social relations within schools, and the drive to recruit more men into teaching all connect to the international epidemic of concern about the “underachievement” of boys. The article draws evidence from two externally funded projects undertaken with Ian Hextall between 1995–1999.     

A centenary of organized feminism in Norway

Today's feminist movement in Norway, like that of other countries, builds on the ground prepared by the early feminists. Though in many respects differing from their sisters of the late nineteenth century, common characteristics between feminists past and present abound. Never very dominant in number, feminists now as then gradually win support for their views. Drawing on the experiences of early strategies, today's feminists widen the goals of feminism to include fundamental changes in the lives of both women and men. This achievement has in the case of Norway been assisted by favourable economic, social and political circumstances.