Scottish women's studies

Abstract

This article outlines the content of the first Women's history course established in Bulgaria, at Sofia University, in 1999. The course focuses on Bulgarian women over the period from 1840 to 1940 and includes discussion of statistical data about Women's lives, the family, education and employment, as well as Women's subjectivities and cultural identities. Attention is also given to the analysis of powerful discourses about Women's role in society and the challenge of the Women's movement to these ideas. Wherever possible, comparative material from other Balkan societies and Western Europe is explored, as well as gender differences between men and women     

Feminist literary studies

Elaine Showalter (ed), The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on women, literature and theory (Virago) London, 1985.

Gayle Green and Coppélia Kahn (eds), Making a Difference: Feminist literary criticism (Methuen: New Accents) London, 1985.

Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Theory (Methuen: New Accents) London, 1985.     

Rural studies in France

The article examines a number of criteria by which to categorise rural households into distinct socio‐economic classes. Based on the author's sample survey of 211 households in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico, the study argues that an analysis of rural class structure must focus not only on access to the means of production and the extent of participation in the labour market but also on key structural features of domestic units such as household size, generational composition, and the division of labour by gender and age. Statistical tests strongly support the thesis that considerations of household structure sharpen and enrich the concept of class. The results also define and distinguish three main class types in the survey region ‐ commercial, subsistence, and landless households.     

When two become one: sexuality studies and critical studies of men and masculinities

Men think about sex … a lot. Is this a problem or is this a site for reformation? In this paper, we set out to think actively, deeply, about the question of sexuality, to penetrate the limits of men and masculinity studies, and to tease at a range of questions that it seems the field is not attending to for any number of reasons. When men’s studies scholars speak of sex, we often speak of rape culture, violent sex, ideas of entitlement to sex, sex workers and pornography. Many of these approaches would be framed and understood by many as ‘sex negative.’ This paper sets out to think about what a ‘sex positive’ vision of men’s studies might look like – and also to ask if a sex positive vision of the field is even possible, desirable or necessary. In this paper, we braid together sex positive feminist theory, queer theory and men’s studies to complicate the matter of sexuality, both as an actual site of the kinds of things we do, and as a site of psychic and affective possibility.     

Gender studies at Griffith University

The opposition to the introduction of a women's studies concentration area (a related set of courses) at Griffith University reveals the close links between opposition by the Right to feminist demands for change, (for example for women's reproductive and occupational choices), and opposition to the introduction of tertiary women's studies courses. The history of this battle at Griffith University also reveals the university's retreat from a commitment to the professional autonomy and competence of the women's studies planning team to a politicisation of the university's internal decision-making process.     

On teaching women's studies in Hungary

The author taught Women's Studies courses for 2 years in Hungary. In the beginning she thought it would be a simple matter, but as she and her students explored the differences in experience in Hungary and the United States, she realized that there were profound epistemological differences. She explores some of those differences here. Evidence presented is taken from student writings and discussions and from oral history interviews.     

Some recent East African peasant studies

Torben Bager, Marketing Cooperatives and Peasants in Kenya Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1980, pp. 116. Ño price.

John Carlsen, Economic and Social transformation in Rural Kenya Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1980, pp. 230. No price.

Frederick Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labour and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890–1925, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1980, pp. 328, £15.75.

The author discusses three recent books on agrarian Kenya: Marketing Cooperatives and Peasants in Kenya by Torben Bager, Economic and Social Transformation in Rural Kenya by John Carlsen, and From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labour and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya 1880–1925 by Frederick Cooper. It is argued that the data presented in these books confirm that a middle peasantry preponderates in areas outside the White Highlands, although one of the authors, Carlsen, asserts the contrary. Some fundamental methodological issues with respect to the analay sis of the development of capitalism in the countryside — in particular, the treatment of differentiation of the peasantry — are discussed.     

Minority studies and women's studies: Do we want to kill a dream?

When we engage in integration of new subject matter into the existing university curriculum, or when we speak of mainstreaming into the existing curriculum, we are engaging in the proliferation of the sickness of the dream deferred. The mainstream is very sick, and rightfully near death. We must be about ultimately replacing it through transformation. Yet neither Women's Studies nor Minority Studies has been transformed; we must be involved in a pluralistic, generative, interactive process that transforms Women's Studies, Minority Studies and the traditional disciplines.     

Ego development in adolescence: Longitudinal studies

Adolescents from four schools (one inner-city, two suburban, and one private) were tested two or three times using the Washington University Sentence Completion Test of Ego Development. Testing intervals ranged from 1.5 to 6 years. About half (N=193) the original pool was retested at twelfth grade. Every sample showed a mean rise in ego level; for six of eight samples that rise was statistically significant. Every pair of testings showed a postive correlation between scores; 10 of 14 correlations were significantly different from zero. Thus both test-retest correlations (about 0.5) and change scores support the hypothesized sequence of ego development. Significant correlation between ego level and intelligence occurred in two schools (0.6 at elementary and junior high grades and 0.4 at twelfth grade), but correlation was about zero in the private school.These studies were supported by Grant MH-05115 and Research Scientist Award MH-00657, both from the National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health Service.Received her Ph.D. from Washington University. Main interest is adolescent development.Received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Main interest is theory and measurement of ego development.     

Varieties of women's studies

The distinction between ‘autonomous’ Women's Studies programs and ‘integrationist’ projects as adumbrated by Bowles and Duelli Klein is a false one; in fact, this is all part of the same work. Several factors (funding sources, publicity, terminology, administrators' attitudes and the relationship of curriculum change programs to the disciplines) have made it seem as though these are different kinds of work. This paper argues that we should try to see our varied efforts as complementary and some of our differences as due to necessary strategic choices.     

Why women's studies?

This paper considers arguments about what Women's Studies is, asserting that it must also be feminist studies, and addresses the conflicts and contradictions involved in doing WS in the academy. It also argues for recognition of the contribution WS and feminist theory has to make to the Women's Liberation Movement. It is written out of my experience as a student of WS in the academy.     

The rhetoric of positioning in women's studies

The article examines the requirement of positioning (or localization) often presented in the recent epistemological discussions of women's studies. The paper argues that these discussions include two different epistemological conceptions. First, there is the moderate idea according to which researchers should explicate their personal and political positions, not only their theoretical starting points. The paper demonstrates that this requirement is not feasible, if imposed on individual researchers. Secondly, there is the more radical view according to which adequate positioning is impossible in principle. Against this relativist notion the paper argues that theories about radical differences are self‐defeating.