A CELEBRATORY FEMINIST AESTHETICS IN POSTFEMINIST TIMES

In 2011, something surprising happened in terms of Australian feminist cultural memory: a celebratory feminism arrived in the shape of the hugely popular ABC television mini-series, Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo. Eschewing dour social realism for a stylish and ludic narrative, Paper Giants uses the story of the women's magazine Cleo to tell the story of Australian women's liberation. This essay analyses the components of the mini-series' celebratory feminist aesthetics, examining the ways in which it mobilises feminist tropes to speak an intelligible feminist language in postfeminist times. Further, I detail how women's liberation becomes central to the national historical narrative underpinning the programme.     

Women educators and the confucian tradition in Meiji Japan (1868–1912): Miwada Masako and Atomi Kakei [1]

Historians of the women's movement in Japan tend to equate the women's movement with opposition to the state and with Western liberal thought. Consequently, women who played a public role and contributed significantly to the modernisation of Japan, but who supported the imperial state, have received little attention. This article will examine the life, thought and activities of Miwada Masako (1843–1927) and Atomi Kakei (1840–1926). Both were educated in the Confucian tradition and were among the first to promote education for girls, establishing private schools for girls in Tokyo which still exist today. Although they did not fight for Women's rights in opposition to the state and were not led by Western ideas, they helped redefine the role of women, linking it to the well-being of the nation. Thus, they contributed to creating a society with increasing opportunities for women     

‘I'm going to get a job at the factory’: attitudes to women's employment in a mining community, 1945-65

This article examines how couples in mining households managed the increasing opportunities for women to work outside of the home in the period following the Second World War. Households in mining communities have regularly been characterised in research literature as operating strictly segregated gender roles and the lack of employment opportunities in mining areas appears to have accentuated the rigid division of labour. However, in some areas where the mining industry was in decline, new employment opportunities for married women increased, which inevitably placed a strain on the male provider model. This article explores these issues in relation to the ironstone mining district of East Cleveland and uses data generated from thirty-three semi-structured interviews. It will be argued that whilst the separation of the male provider and female homemaker role remained the ideal for many couples, others chose to avail themselves of the economic and psychological benefits of female employment. However, even amongst those couples where the women did undertake paid employment, the image of the male as provider was still preserved by the use of various strategies.     

Transitional employment training for SSI recipients with mental retardation.

Transitional employment training is a promising method for assisting persons with mental retardation to gain and hold regular marketplace jobs. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has concluded a large scale demonstration project in which this training was provided to recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) with mental retardation. This article introduces the concepts and practices of transitional employment and presents findings of the SSA demonstration derived from observation of demonstration operations. A followup article will discuss the effects of the demonstration services on the employment, earnings, and SSI payments of the trainees, as derived from analysis of SSI administrative records and other quantitative data.     

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.