|
| |
WOMEN'S MOVEMENT
Sociologyindex, Feminism, Gender and
Women, Women's Movement, Women's Liberation Theory, Abstracts, Bibliography, Books on Gender and Women, Syllabus, Journals,
Glass Ceiling Hypothesis, Sociology Books 2012
The term Women's Movement applies to a range of social and political organizations
and activities like research, writing and criticism that have the goal of advancing the
status of women in society overcoming cultural marginalization of women's perspectives and
experience in society.
“Towards a Female Liberation Movement” put it this way: “There is
something horribly repugnant in the picture of women performing the same menial chores all
day, having almost interchangeable conversations with their children, engaging in standard
television arguments with their husbands, and then in the late hours of the night, each
agonizing over what is considered to be her personal lot, her personal relationship, her
personal problem . . . And unmarried women cannot in all honesty say their lives are in
much greater measure distinct from each other’s. We are a class, we are oppressed as
a class, and we each respond within the limits allowed us as members of that oppressed
class. Purposely divided from each other, each of us is ruled by one or more men for the
benefit of all men. There is no personal escape, no personal salvation, no personal
solution.” - Toward a Female Liberation Movement by Beverly Jones and Judith
Brown, June 1968. redstockings.org
Redstockings - redstockings.org
Redstockings" was a name taken in 1969 by one of the founding women's liberation
groups of the 1960's to represent the union of two traditions: the
"bluestocking" label disparagingly pinned on feminists of earlier centuries--and
"red" for revolution.
Redstockings women would go on to champion and spread knowledge of vital women's
liberation theory, slogans and actions that have become household words such as
consciousness-raising, the personal is political, the pro-woman line, sisterhood is
powerful, the politics of housework, the Miss America Protest, and "speakouts"
that would break the taboos of silence around subjects like abortion..
Redstockings today is a new kind of grassroots, activist "think tank",
established by movement veterans, for defending and advancing the women's liberation
agenda. The Archives for Action is a project Redstockings established in 1989 to make the
formative and radical 1960's experience of the movement more widely available for the
taking stock needed for new understandings and improved strategies.
Gainesville Women's Liberation co-founder Carol Giardina said in 1989,
"If you know that we are a sex that fights for our freedom, then you already
understand the Pro -Woman Line. Now do we fight for it just in a movement, or were you
fighting for it before you even heard of [a movement]? Do you fight for it on the street,
in your bedroom, in your classroom? When you take a deep breath and say the thing in class
or to your boyfriend that you just can't help yourself from saying. You try to shut it up
but out it comes. This isn't really just women, it's all oppressed people who can't stop
themselves from fighting back. We call it the Pro-Woman Line because we discovered it
about women and developed it in the Women's Liberation Movement." - Carol Giardina,
"Women's Studies or Women's Liberation Studies," 1989 Women's History Month
speech at the University of Florida. redstockings.org.
Mass Media and the Women's Movement: 1900-1977
Francesca M. Cancian, School of Social Sciences, University of California
Bonnie L. Ross, School of Social Sciences, University of California
News coverage of women is strongly related to the women's movement. The quantity of
coverage was measured from 1900 to 1977 for the New York Times and the periodicals in the
Reader's Guide. Television coverage of the women's movement and newspaper reporting of the
civil rights movement were also examined. Coverage of women was highest when the women's
movement was strong; however, there was little media coverage of the early stages of the
current women's movement and civil rights movement. A content analysis showed that the
quality of news coverage also varies with the strength of the movement.
A Movement Moves ... Is There a Women's Movement in England Today? - Kate Nash,
Goldsmiths College, University of London
There is a diversity of views among feminists who have been debating whether or not a
women's movement exists in Britain today. In part this is due to the lack of a clear
working definition of social movement. This article uses social movement theory to discuss
the ambiguous signs that are taken to indicate either the movement's continuing existence
or its disappearance: the growth of mainstream political organizations; a focus on 'women'
in cultural production; the 'micro-politics' of everyday life (often enacted in the terms
of 'I'm not a feminist but ...'). The article looks at the history of second-wave feminism
in England using the two main schools of social movement theory: the 'contentious
politics' model focusing on organizations and formal political structures; and the
'submerged networks' theory that takes solidarity, conflict and challenging dominant
cultural codes to be central to social movements. -
ejw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/3/311
How Did the First Jewish Women's
Movement Draw on Progressive Women's Activism and Jewish Traditions, 1893-1936?
Abstract: The first Jewish women's movement in the United States began after the
upsurge of eastern European immigration to the United States in the 1880s and continued
until around 1920. Those who composed the movement were mostly middle- and upper-class
women who had emigrated from Germany and Central Europe. These women frequently referred
to the triumphs of biblical women to help persuade other Jewish women to join their
movement, but the Great Migration of 1881 was the primary factor that energized Jewish
women to begin an organized fight for social reform. Many of the affluent, German Jewish
"uptown" women who had immigrated during the first wave committed themselves to
helping these immigrants begin to make a life for themselves in America. Modeling
themselves to a large extent on the American settlement-house movement of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the actions of secular Progressive reformers,
the leaders of this first Jewish women's movement identified both with American
Progressivism and Judaic traditions. The women who participated in the movement worked in
many ways to improve the lives of the poor. As the movement grew, its focus shifted, from
an early emphasis on "charity and religion," to broad concerns for immigrants'
Americanization, white slave traffic, peace and arbitration, as well as protection for
women's and children's health and welfare. The achievements of the first Jewish women's
movement were substantial. While the women were unable to eradicate poverty and the myriad
problems that beset immigrant Jews, they were responsible for many achievements that
provided the foundation upon which future Jewish women's movements would build. -
binghamton.edu/womhist/jewishfem/abstract.htm
How Did Diverse Activists in the Second Wave of the Women's Movement
Shape Emerging Public Policy on Sexual Harassment?
Abstract: A close look at the history of the emergence of sexual harassment activism
reveals a diverse group of people involved in conceptualizing and theorizing sexual
harassment, and creating legal prohibitions against it. African-American women,
blue-collar women, as well as middle-class white women participated in different ways to
create a powerful movement that changed the social landscape of U.S. workplaces and
schools. Activists against sexual harassment approached the problem on three fronts.
First, individual women around the country began filing lawsuits in the early 1970s.
Second, the organized women's movement began to raise awareness about sexual harassment
through speak-outs, surveys, and media work. Third, individuals, representatives of
feminist organizations, union activists, and government officials lobbied Congress for
changes in public policy. At the intersection of these three strands of activism emerged
increased awareness of sexual harassment, government policies to discourage it, and legal
prohibitions against it. This project presents documentary evidence of how this racially
and economically diverse array of activists first articulated the issue of sexual
harassment in the 1970s. - binghamton.edu/womhist/harass/abstract.htm
Social Action Theory and the Women's Movement: An Analysis of
Assumptions
Bill Lee and Wendy Weeks, Bill Lee is Associate Professor of Social Work at McMaster
University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and Wendy Lee, Director, Department of Social Work,
Philip Institute Melbourne, Australia
Community organizing theory, implicit in the writings of "social action" authors
such as Alinsky, Freire and Piven and Cloward is based on assumptions about class, poverty
and unity, as well as the nature of politics and community. These assumptions are both
important to and challenged by the experience of Women's Movement organizing. The authors
assert that gender as well as the structure of women's lives are important variables that
must be included in social analysis. While there appear to be linkages between community
organizing theory and Women's Movement organizing - for example, Freire's notion of
"consciousness" and the Movement's identification of "the personal is
political" - there has been insufficient interchange of ideas and challenge of the
theoretical assumptions. It is suggested that a dialogue can and should take place so that
both areas will benefit. - cdj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/26/3/220
News Media Portrayals of the Women's Movement, 1969–2004
Maryann Barakso, Department of Government, School of Public Affairs, American
University
Brian F. Schaffner, Department of Government, School of Public Affairs, American
University
Contemporary feminist scholars and activists often criticize the women's movement for
focusing on a narrow agenda that does not represent the true needs of American women.Yet a
review of the agendas of women's movement organizations reveals a broad concern for many
of the issues that they are criticized for ignoring. What explains this disconnect? The
authors argue that the news media plays a crucial role in shaping the perceptions of
social movements by choosing to cover some agendas and not others.Analyzing coverage of
women's movement organizations in television and print news media, the authors find that
reporters have exercised a great deal of discretion over which women's movement issues
they have chosen to report on during the past three decades. In particular, this has led
to overrepresentation of the abortion issue in news coverage of women's movement
organizations and an underrepresentation of issues that women believe should be more of a
priority for the movement. The authors’ findings underscore the importance of the
news media not only for bringing attention to social movements, but also for how they
portray the issue agendas of these movements. -
hij.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/4/22
The Women's Movement and the Media: Constructing a Public
Identity
Elisabeth A. van Zoonen
Despite being an issue of much concern, the relationship of the women's movement with news
media has rarely been subjected to systematic analysis. This article presents the results
of an extensive study of the interaction between the media and the women's movement in the
Netherlands at the time of the movement's resurrection in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The core questions of this study concern the construction of a public identity of the
movement in the media, which is conceived as the product not merely of a collision of
discourses of gender and politics, but also of conflicting organizational routines of
movement and media, and of diverging individual preferences of journalists and activists.
Discourse analysis of news coverage shows that the movement's public identity is
constructed within a liberal feminist framework and is built upon three `foundations':
`emancipation' is legitimate, `feminism' is deviant; movement activists are quite
different from and not representative of `ordinary' women; the movement is directed
against men. The article argues that the observed construction of women's political
activity is not particular to the Netherlands or to the particular time period. -
ejc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/4/453
Male Power and the Women's Movement
Barbara Bovee Polk - jab.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/3/415
The power relationship between females and males is explored using four differing
perspectives found in the contemporary women's movement: analysis of socially defined sex
roles, conflicting cultures, power analysis, and the socialist perspective. The sources of
male power suggested by these perspectives are identified, and the varying activities of
the women's movement are discussed in terms of their potential impact on these forms of
power.
GENDER AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
Gender Processes in Women's Self-Help Movements
VERTA TAYLOR
Ohio State University
Mainstream theory and research in the field of social movements and political sociology
has, by and large, ignored the influence of gender on social protest. A growing body of
feminist research demonstrates that gender is an explanatory factor in the emergence,
nature, and outcomes of all social movements, even those that do not evoke the language of
gender conflict or explicitly embrace gender change. This article draws from a case study
of the postpartum depression self-help movement to outline the relationship between gender
and social movements. Linking theories of gender to mainstream theories on social
movements allows us to recognize gender as a key explanatory factor in social movements
and, in turn, to identify the role that social movements play in the social construction
of gender.
What Are Social Movements and What Is Gendered About Women's Participation in
Social Movements? A Sociological Perspective
by Benita Roth and Marian Horan.
Abstract
This project differs from others on this website in two ways: it is written from a
sociological rather than an historical perspective, and it discusses scholarly
interpretations rather than specific historical events. A theoretical discussion of social
movements can inform our historical understanding of specific historical examples of women
and social movements. This summary of sociological interpretations of social movements
will help visitors to the site bring larger theoretical questions to bear on the empirical
evidence contained in the site's other projects.
Health care reform and social movements in the United States. Hoffman B.
Department of History, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb 60115, USA. beatrix@niu.edu
Because of the importance of grassroots social movements, or "change from
below," in the history of US reform, the relationship between social movements and
demands for universal health care is a critical one. National health reform campaigns in
the 20th century were initiated and run by elites more concerned with defending against
attacks from interest groups than with popular mobilization, and grassroots reformers in
the labor, civil rights, feminist, and AIDS activist movements have concentrated more on
immediate and incremental changes than on transforming the health care system itself.
However, grassroots health care demands have also contained the seeds of a wider critique
of the American health care system, leading some movements to adopt calls for universal
coverage.
From Wollstonecraft to Mill: What British and European Ideas and Social Movements
Influenced the Emergence of Feminism in the Atlantic World, 1792-1869?
Prepared under the direction of Nancy Hewitt, revised by Kitty Sklar.
Abstract
Feminist ideas and social movements emerged in Europe, Great Britain, and the United
States in an international context that promoted the migration of people and ideas across
national boundaries. Between the publication of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the
Rights of Women (1792) and John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women (1869), ideas,
social movements, and individual feminists migrated across land and sea, generating a
powerful new context for the advancement of women's rights. These documents illuminate
that process.
How Did Oberlin Women Students Draw on Their College Experience to Participate in
Antebellum Social Movements, 1831-1861?
by Professor Carol Lasser and Oberlin College Students.
Abstract
Oberlin College, founded in 1833, opened to train teachers and preachers during the fervor
of the Second Great Awakening. Based on egalitarian principles, the college began
accepting students of color in 1835. It also became a center for antislavery activities.
Oberlin was a pioneer in coeducation, accepting female students from its beginning. The
female students at Oberlin embraced their gendered responsibilites for domestic virtue and
discovered an empowering call to action in their communities. The following documents
reveal how female students in the antebellum era drew on their college experience to
participate in local as well as national social movements.
How Did Sarah Bagley Contribute to the Ten-Hour Movement in Lowell and How Did Her
Labor Activism Flow into Other Reform Movements, 1836-1870?
by Teresa Murphy and Thomas Dublin.
Abstract
Sarah Bagley was an outspoken advocate of shorter workdays for factory workers and
campaigned tirelessly to make ten hours of labor per day the maximum in Massachusetts. As
Bagley campaigned for this cause, she entered a much broader network of reformers. The
documents brought together in this project both illuminate Bagley's activism in the
ten-hour movement and demonstrate how early factory employment not only brought women's
work out of the home but it provided women a collective experience that supported their
participation in the world of broader social reform movements -- such as antislavery,
moral reform, peace, labor reform, and women's rights campaigns. Furthermore, the
documents reveal that working women, like workingmen in this period, drew initially on
republican traditions to defend their rights and interests but ultimately came to justify
their concern for social justice on a combination of religious and rationalist grounds,
opposing the growing inequality evident in American society and demanding for themselves
as workers and as women greater rights and rewards in that society.
How Did Diverse Activists Shape the Dress Reform Movement, 1838-1881?
by Melissa Doak and Melissa Karetny.
Abstract
This project focuses on three different strands of dress reform activity: the water
curists, the Oneida community, and woman's rights reformers. Each of these groups
attempted to reform women's dress for a variety of reasons. An examination of the three
currents in the dress reform movement allows for a complex picture of the varied reasons
why women attempted to break free of the restraints of nineteenth-century women's
fashionable clothing.
How Did Lucretia Mott Combine Her Commitments to Antislavery and Women's Rights,
1840-1860?
by Carol Faulkner and Beverly Wilson Palmer.
Abstract
Lucretia Mott attended the 1840 London World Anti-Slavery Convention where she was denied
participation because of her gender. In the succeeding two decades Mott remained a leading
figure in Quaker abolitionist and women's rights activities. Her correspondence offers a
window on these interrelated reform activities in the antebellum decades and reveals the
interconnections between Quaker reformers in Great Britain and the United States.
Why Did Some Men Support the Women's Rights Movement in the 1850s, and How Did
Their Ideas Compare to those of Women in the Movement?
by Gretchen Becht and Kathryn Kish Sklar
Abstract
This project focuses on the efforts of some of the nineteenth-century male supporters of
women's rights, examining the beliefs that led them to promote women's rights and
analyzing how their values compared to those of women reformers. The documents are
presented in three groups: the beginnings of the woman's rights movement; the beliefs of
male advocates of women's rights; and conflict within the movement. Taken together, the
documents illustrate that traditional notions of women's "proper sphere" still
remained during the latter half of the nineteenth century and slowed the advancement of
women for several decades.
How Did Women Participate in the Underground Railroad?
by Catherine Clinton.
Abstract
Women were highly visible in the abolitionist movement for three decades before the
outbreak of the Civil War, and their activism has been well documented by historians. Less
well-known was their participation in the underground railroad, that clandestine network
of individuals that assisted runaway slaves gain their freedom in the North and Canada.
This project documents the escapes of female runaways recorded by the noted Philadelphia
stationmaster William Still and the efforts of Harriet Tubman, the most famous underground
railroad abductor. The project shows that women were extremely active in this most
important form of resistance to slavery in the late antebellum years.
How Did Gender and Family Divisions among Shoeworkers Shape the 1860 New England
Strike?
by Mary H. Blewett.
Abstract
The adaptation in 1852 of the sewing machine to stitch light leather and its use in early
steam-powered factories resulted in the deterioration of the pre-industrial work of women
shoebinders who sewed by hand at home in rural New England and in shoe centers such as
Lynn, Massachusetts. Outworkers quickly identified and opposed the threats of
mechanization and centralization to their ability to earn wages and contribute to the
family wage economy. For other women, the emergence of mechanized stitching in small
factories offered a chance of full-time work outside the home at relatively high wages for
females. Like the women operatives in early New England textile factories, shoe stitchers,
drawn to factories in Essex County, Massachusetts, demanded factory reform. Both groups
participated in the New England shoe strike in 1860, the most powerful demonstration of
labor unrest prior to the Civil War. The following documents demonstrate the potential
during the process of mid-nineteenth-century industrialization of a gender/class coalition
among women laboring at home and in shoe factories.
Why Did African-American Women Join the Woman's Christian Temperance Union,
1880-1900?
by Thomas Dublin and Angela Scheurer.
Abstract
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was one of the first national women's reform
organizations that welcomed the reform efforts of middle-class African-American women.
This project explores the achievements of African-American women through the Union's
Colored Department between 1880 and 1900 and the tensions that emerged in an era which saw
declining opportunities for interracial work.
How Did a Multi-Racial Movement Develop in the Baltimore YWCA, 1883-1926?
by Kimberly Crandall Bowling and Kriste Lindenmeyer.
Abstract
After the Civil War, industrialization and urbanization dramatically changed the United
States. New jobs in cities like Baltimore, and the promise of a better life drew many
people from the countryside. Additionally, rising rates of immigration during the late
nineteenth century further swelled urban populations. In these circumstances, many people
faced difficult problems in Baltimore and other cities. The demand for city services grew
with the rising population, much more rapidly than cities could supply these services.
Concerns for young, single women alone in cities led to the growth of the Young Women's
Christian Association movement. Given the practice of segregation in the Baltimore,
however, two YWCA's emerged, the (white) Baltimore YWCA founded in 1883 and the Colored
YWCA founded in 1896. This project traces the founding of the two Y's and the fitful
process that resulted in their merger in 1920 and the emergence of interracial efforts to
meet the needs of white and black young women on their own in the city.
How Did Gender and Class Shape the Age of Consent Campaign Within the Social
Purity Movement, 1886-1914?
by Melissa Doak, Rebecca Park and Eunice Lee.
Abstract
"Age of consent" referred in the late nineteenth century to the legal age at
which a girl could consent to sexual relations. Men who engaged in sexual relations with
girls before they reached the legal age of consent could be found guilty of statuatory
rape. American reformers were shocked to discover that the laws of most states set the age
of consent at ten or twelve. Women reformers and social purists initiated a campaign in
1885 to petition legislators to raise the legal age of consent to at least sixteen in all
states in the nation, although their ultimate goal was to raise the age to eighteen. The
documents brought together in this project show that the age-of-consent campaign inspired
a broad base of support because it expressed deep cultural tensions over gender, class,
and race.
What were the Origins of International Women's Day, 1886-1920?
by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Lauren Kryzak.
Abstract
International Women's Day originated in the first decade of the twentieth century,
building on traditions drawn from the eight-hour and woman's suffrage movements in the
United States as well as the organizing activities of the Socialist Party in the United
States and the Second International in Europe. The documents brought together in this
project permit readers to explore the interplay of different national traditions at the
turn of the twentieth century.
How Did Black and White Southern Women Campaign to End Lynching, 1890-1942?
by Thomas Dublin, Kathryn Kish Sklar, and Karen Vill.
Abstract
African-American women took the lead in the 1890s in vocally opposing lynching in the
South. The growth of an interracial movement after 1920 contributed to the organization of
white women in the Association of Southern Women to Prevent Lynching. Under the leadership
of Jessie Daniel Ames, the Association undermined traditional justifications for lynching
and mobilized middle- and upper-class white Southerners to oppose the practice.
How Did Florence Kelley's Campaign against Sweatshops in Chicago in the 1890s
Expand Government Responsibility for Industrial Working Conditions?
by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Jamie Tyler.
Abstract
With her arrival at Hull House in Chicago in 1891 Florence Kelley spearheaded a campaign
to regulate garment sweatshops and limit the hours of labor of women and children. The
documents in this project depict this reform effort and some of the opposition it
generated. Kelley served four years as Illinois's first Factory Inspector, though her work
was constrained by a ruling of the Illinois Supreme Court that declared the eight-hour
provision of the law unconstitutional.
How Did the First Jewish Women's Movement Draw on Progressive Women's Activism and
Jewish Traditions, 1893-1936?
by Joyce Antler, Nina Schwartz, and Claire Uziel.
Abstract
The first Jewish women's movement in the United States began after the upsurge of eastern
European immigration to the United States in the 1880s and continued until around 1920.
Those who composed the movement were mostly middle- and upper-class women who had
emigrated from Germany and Central Europe. These women frequently referred to the triumphs
of biblical women to help persuade other Jewish women to join their movement, but the
Great Migration of 1881 was the primary factor that energized Jewish women to begin an
organized fight for social reform. Many of the affluent, German Jewish "uptown"
women who had immigrated during the first wave committed themselves to helping these
immigrants begin to make a life for themselves in America. Modeling themselves to a large
extent on the American settlement-house movement of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries and the actions of secular Progressive reformers, the leaders of this
first Jewish women's movement identified both with American Progressivism and Judaic
traditions. The women who participated in the movement worked in many ways to improve the
lives of the poor. As the movement grew, its focus shifted, from an early emphasis on
"charity and religion," to broad concerns for immigrants' Americanization, white
slave traffic, peace and arbitration, as well as protection for women's and children's
health and welfare. The achievements of the first Jewish women's movement were
substantial. While the women were unable to eradicate poverty and the myriad problems that
beset immigrant Jews, they were responsible for many achievements that provided the
foundation upon which future Jewish women's movements would build.
What Gender Perspectives Shaped the Emergence of the National Association of
Colored Women, 1895-1920?
by Thomas Dublin, with Franchesca Arias and Debora Carreras.
Abstract
At the nadir of white-black relations in the United States, in the mid 1890s,
African-American women founded the National Association of Colored Women, in order to
promote self-improvement and to show what African Americans had the power to do. Drawing
on correspondence, speeches, and Association publications, this editorial project examines
how the Association's early leaders reflected and reshaped conceptions of gender within
the African-American community.
How Did the General Federation of Women's Clubs Shape Women's Involvement in the
Conservation Movement, 1900-1930?
by Kimberly A. Jarvis.
Abstract
The American conservation movement, with its sense of public responsibility for the
protection of America's natural resources and beauty, reflected the social consciousness
of the Progressive Era. Middle- and upper-class white women, who participated in many
Progressive reform efforts, were important players in the conservation movement. Through
local, state, and national women's clubs, as well as through various conservation and
outdoor organizations, women became involved in conservation campaigns ranging from
planting trees to creating national parks. Women's conservation efforts sometimes drew on
popular support for protection of wildlife, natural resources, and places of natural
beauty, thereby offering a bridge between the male elite leaders of the conservation
movement and a wider audience. This project focuses specifically on the activities of
middle- and upper-class white female reformers. It addresses the question of how the
women's club movement encouraged and shaped women's involvement in the conservation
movement as well as the influence of women's networks on the success of conservation
campaigns between 1890 and 1930.
How Did the Debate about Widows' Pensions Shape Relief Programs for Single
Mothers, 1900-1940?
by S. J. Kleinberg.
Abstract
Public concern about the welfare of widows and orphans in the United States intensified
during the Progressive Era. Because changing social values heightened concern over child
welfare, reformers viewed widows' economic strategies as less acceptable in the industrial
society of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries than they had in the pre- or
early-industrial eras. Previously widows with young families to support had relied upon a
combination of their own and their children's labor. Fearing that children's lives would
be permanently blighted by premature labor or inadequate upbringing, social reformers
sought to keep them out of the labor force until they were fifteen or sixteen. They hoped
to accomplish this end both through labor laws banning the employment of young children
and the institution of widows' pensions, which would enable mothers to stay at home to
look after their families. This document project examines the debate over whether to
provide widows with pensions, and how that debate shaped subsequent programs to provide
relief to single mothers.
How Did Iowa Women Activists Lobby for the Passage of the Juvenile Court Law in
1904?
by Shannon O'Connor.
Abstract
In 1904, Iowa passed their version of the juvenile court law. This legislation was similar
to legislation passed in several other states and was part of the national movement to
establish juvenile courts during the Progressive Era. The champion of the bill in Iowa was
Cora Bussey Hillis, an upper-middle class woman with years of organizing experience as an
active member in the National Congress of Mothers. The juvenile court bill was just one of
Hillis's reforms centered on children, but it was notable because the law demonstrated the
influence of organized women in progressive reform.
How Did the Perceived Threat of Socialism Shape the Relationship between Workers
and their Allies in the New York City Shirtwaist Strike, 1909-1910? by Thomas
Dublin, Kathryn Kish Sklar, and Deirdre Doherty.
Abstract
This project focuses on the relationships among strikers, the strike's wealthy women
supporters, and socialist activists during the 1909 New York garment workers strike,
commonly known as the "Uprising of Twenty Thousand." The project examines the
tensions between socialist women and wealthy allies over language, participation, and
credit. These documents illustrate cross-class alliances, as well as cross-class debates.
How Did Cross-Class Alliances Shape the 1910 Chicago Garment Workers' Strike?
by Karen Pastorello.
Abstract
This project documents the activism of women strikers as they allied with the Chicago
reform community during the 1910 Chicago Garment Workers' Strike. The project highlights
the conditions of working-class immigrant women in progressive era Chicago, gendered and
ethnic relationships among strikers, and the cooperative alliance forged between working
women and Chicago allies–particularly Hull House residents and Women's Trade Union
League members.
How Did Immigrant Textile Workers Struggle to Achieve an American Standard of
Living? The 1912 Strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
by Thomas Dublin and Kerri Harney.
Abstract
In the early twentieth century, Lawrence, Massachusetts was the leading woolen textile
factory town in the nation. There, in January 1912, more than 20,000 factory
operatives--who were predominantly foreign-born--went on strike to protest wage cuts. This
project documents the role of women in the strike and shows how striking immigrant workers
struggled successfully against the combined forces of mill management, local police, and
state militia.
How Did Belle La Follette Oppose Racial Segregation in Washington, D.C.,
1913-1914?
by Nancy C. Unger.
Abstract
Beginning in 1913, progressive reformer Belle Case La Follette wrote a series of articles
for the "women's page" of her family's magazine, denouncing the sudden racial
segregation in several departments of the federal government. Those articles reveal
progressive efforts to appeal specifically to women to combat injustice, and also
demonstrate the ability of women to voice important political opinions prior to suffrage.
How Did the Debate Between Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett Shape the
Movement to Legalize Birth Control, 1915-1924?
by Melissa Doak and Rachel Brugger.
Abstract
The Comstock Law of 1873 essentially ended two centuries of free dissemination of
information about how to prevent pregnancy, but it met with relatively little opposition
until the second decade of the twentieth century, when reformers Mary Ware Dennett and
Margaret Sanger took up the "birth control" cause. The two women adopted
differing approaches to the birth control question, however. Although many activists who
fought for the legalization of contraception urged Sanger and Dennett to unite for the
good of the cause, the differences between the two women set the stage for a very
competitive and at times confrontational relationship. The intense rivalry that developed
between them is documented in the letters, organizational reports, and published articles
included in this project, allowing examination of the conflict's impact on the successes
and failures of the birth control movement.
How Did the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Campaign against
Chemical Warfare, 1915-1930?
by Allison Sobek.
Abstract
The German's first use of poison gas in Belgium in 1915 set off a wave of protests against
the use of chemical weapons in warfare. After the war was over, the Women's International
League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) mobilized to outlaw the use of chemical weapons in
future conflicts. Because many people believed that the next war would bring massive
civilian casualties from poison gas, WILPF tried to use that fear to rally support for a
broad disarmament program. Although these efforts failed to bring a halt to spiraling
armaments or ease world tensions, they did introduce women's social movements as important
actors in national and international politics. The fact that two of WILPF's founders, Jane
Addams and Emily Greene Balch, were later honored with Nobel Peace Prizes highlights the
group's importance in world affairs in the interwar years.
Why Did Congressional Lobbying Efforts Fail to Eliminate Contraception from
Obscenity Laws, 1916-1937?
by Melissa Doak and Kristy Horaz.
Abstract
Mary Ware Dennett formed the Voluntary Parenthood League with two objectives in mind. One
was to remove language from the Comstock Act of 1873 that prohibited dissemination of
contraceptive literature and the other was to educate married couples in family planning.
Unlike Margaret Sanger, Dennett did not pursue support from the medical community and she
decided against arguing her case on the basis of morality. Instead, she sought legislation
that would guarantee women the right to make their own decisions regarding their
reproductive fate. But the opposition of Catholics and of the medical community led to the
defeat in 1925 of Dennett's proposed legislation, the Cummins-Vaile Bill. Ultimately a
1936 court decision legalized birth control, but within a context that ratified
physicians' monopoly in the field.
How Did Black Women in the NAACP Promote the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, 1918-1923?
by Angelica Mungarro, under the supervision of Karen Anderson.
Abstract
During the early 1920s, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) undertook a serious movement to promote anti-lynching legislation at the federal
level. African-American women spearheaded this effort by forming the Anti-Lynching
Crusaders and attempting to organize one million female activists to publicize the horrors
of lynching and donate to the cause. The following documents trace the origins of the
Anti-Lynching Crusaders and the intensive political activism of these women. Though
ultimately unsuccessful in promoting the Dyer Anti-Lynching bill, these women continued a
tradition of anti-lynching campaigning begun in the 1890s by Ida B. Wells-Barnett and
served as a forerunner to Jessie Daniel Ames's Association of Southern Women for the
Prevention of Lynching in the 1930s. (For more on this tradition, see another document
project on this website, "How Did Black and White Southern Women Campaign to End
Lynching, 1890-1942?")
How Did the National Woman's Party Address the Issue of the Enfranchisement of
Black Women, 1919-1924?
by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Jill Dias.
Abstract
This project collects and interprets documents pertaining to the debate about the
enfranchisement of African American women after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to
the U.S. Constitution in 1920. It examines tensions in the interactions between advocates
for Black women and the most militant woman suffrage organization, the National Woman's
Party.
How Did Women Antifeminists Shape and Limit the Social Reform Movements of the
1920s?
by Kim Nielsen
Abstract
In the 1920s feminist and progressive female reformers attempted to use their newly gained
electoral citizenship to advance a series of social welfare and reform measures. In the
same period female antifeminists garnered energy, political power and support to defeat
these measures and question the wisdom of female political involvement. They extended the
antiradicalism of the post-World War I Red Scare to characterize female reformers as
radicals. This project analyzes the methods, ideologies, and impact of antifeminists in
this period.
How Did Women Peace Activists Respond to "Red Scare" Attacks during the
1920s?
by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Helen Baker.
Abstract
This project examines how the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF)
responded to anti-socialist intimidation during the 1920s. This second "red
scare" targeted the women's peace movement during a period of armaments buildup
following World War I. WILPF, although powerless to halt the persistent attacks, contested
them with dignity and restraint.
How Did Women Shape the Discourse and Further Interracial Cooperation in the
Worldwide Mass Movement to “Free the Scottsboro Boys”?
by Sara L. Creed and Hasia Diner.
Abstract
This project explores the influence that women exerted in the mass movement for justice
and civil rights surrounding the 1930s trials of the Scottsboro Boys. Through original
documents, drawn largely from the resources of the Tamiment Library at New York
University, the project reveals how a variety of female voices, images, sympathies and
concerns contributed to and shaped the worldwide campaign that galvanized public opinion
and led to major legal victories for representation and due process for all Americans.
What Perspectives Did African American Advocates Bring to the Birth Control
Movement and How Did Those Perspectives Shape the History of the Harlem Branch Birth
Control Clinic?
by Carole McCann.
Abstract
On February 1, 1930, Margaret Sanger opened a branch office of her New York City birth
control clinic in the center of Harlem, at 2352 7th Avenue near 138th Street. For the next
five years, until 1935, the Harlem Branch of the Clinical Research Bureau offered African
American and white women clients gynecological examinations by a physician and
contraceptive instruction by a nurse. The Harlem Branch clinic also conducted educational
programs for the community and carried out fundraising activities to support the clinic's
expenses. From its inception, the clinic involved the collaborative efforts of both
African American and white birth control advocates. After the clinic opened, Sanger
assembled an Advisory Council of African American community leaders. Some of Harlem's most
prominent African American health professionals, clergy, and social activists participated
in the clinic's work. The documents in this project offer a window on the views and
actions of African American birth control advocates associated with the Harlem clinic.
Intertwined, and sometimes conflicting, elements of women's rights, economic security, and
racial progress laid the ground for cooperation and conflict between the Advisory Council
and Sanger and the white clinic staff. Both groups shared a concern about the high rates
of maternal and infant mortality, and both supported birth control as a basis for
promoting women's health and the health and well-being of their families. At the same
time, disparaging attitudes about the poor ran through the perspectives of both groups,
although the Advisory Council disputed any suggestion that biologically based racial
traits accounted for the problems the poor of Harlem faced. Where they differed from
Sanger, the Advisory Council members were able to influence her management of the clinic.
The council's influence was apparent as well in the clinic's publications and educational
programs. The Advisory Council's efforts reflected their commitment to racial justice
based in equal opportunity through full integration.
How Did the International Ladies Garment Workers Union and Chinese Garment Workers
Unite to Organize the 1938 National Dollar Stores Strike?
by Thomas Dublin, with research assistance by John Qiu, Julie Joseph, and Michelle
Kleehammer.
Abstract
Although the labor movement in California had demonized Chinese immigrant laborers,
countervailing pressures gave trade union leaders reasons for seeking to organize Chinese
workers. The continued existence of ill-paid Chinese contract shops in various trades
provided employers with alternative sources of supply. The very existence of a low-wage
Chinese sector in San Francisco manufacturing was a cause for concern among labor leaders
in the city and that concern grew in periods of high unemployment such as the Great
Depression. This document project explores a moment when the concerns of a national union,
the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU), and the aspirations of Chinese
women garment workers came together and resulted, first, in a significant organizing
campaign, and, second, in a successful strike against the largest garment manufacturer in
San Francisco's Chinatown. While the strike in the end was successful, it did not prove to
be a turning point for women garment workers in Chinatown. Still, the National Dollar
Stores strike marked an important transition in the labor history of Chinese and
Chinese-American women in the United States, demonstrating that Chinese women garment
workers would organize to improve wages and working conditions and establishing a link
between Chinese women garment workers and the nation's leading union in the women's
garment industry.
How Did Mexican Working Women Assert Their Labor and Constitutional Rights in the
1938 San Antonio Pecan Shellers Strike?
by Thomas Dublin, Taina DelValle, and Rosalyn Perez.
Abstract
In the depths of the Great Depression Mexican and Mexican American women went on strike in
San Antonio in 1938 opposing cuts in piece wages that threatened starvation. The city
government sided with pecan operators, repressing the strike ruthlessly by denying
strikers the right to assemble or picket peacefully. Middle-class support and public
exposure created pressure on the operators and contributed to a compromise settlement.
How Did the March on Washington Movement's Critique of American Democracy in the
1940s Awaken African American Women to the Problem of Jane Crow?
by Cynthia Taylor.
Abstract
This document project demonstrates the critical role women played in the 1940s March on
Washington Movement (MOWM) during its formative period. African American women activists
of the 1940s enthusiastically joined the MOWM because it promoted broad race-based
employment goals. Although women found a welcoming place within the MOWM to fight Jim
Crow, there was little room at this time for women to articulate their concerns about Jane
Crow within the movement or society at large. Various factors kept female march activists
from more fully developing an articulate feminist ideology in the 1940s: the effective and
charismatic leadership of A. Philip Randolph, the powerful economic message of the
Brotherhood that required the united support of the whole African American community, the
patriotic wartime environment, and the undiminished power of a Jim Crow system in American
society. Although the MOWM relied on women activists, it never developed a place for
women's activism. The documents in this project provide evidence for this thesis by
centering on the MOWM's Chicago Division, which attracted a significant number of
independent-minded African American women at the height of the movement's popularity in
1942 and 1943.
Twenty years later, as the African American community embraced another march on Washington
for economic and civil rights, former MOWM women activists such as Anna Arnold Hedgeman
and Pauli Murray, recognizing the tremendous contribution women activists had made in the
past, understood the 1963 march as the continuation of their efforts that had begun in the
1940s. In this new wave of civil rights activism, it was former MOWM women activists who
made sure that this time Jane Crow concerns would not take a back seat to efforts to
dismantle Jim Crow. The experience and knowledge they had gained over twenty years of
civil rights activism prepared African American women, especially Pauli Murray, to play a
prominent role in guaranteeing that women's rights would be included in the civil rights
agenda of the mid-1960s, most notably in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the federal
bureaucracy that was built to accommodate the new legislation.
How Did Suburban Development and Domesticity Shape Women's Activism in Queens, New
York, 1945-1968?
by Sylvie Murray.
Abstract
The experience of the immediate postwar generation of suburban, middle-class women has
long been characterized as monotonous, meaningless, and essentially private and
apolitical. The period was profoundly shaped by the resurgence of a family-centered
ideology, the migration of large number of young families to newly-developed suburbs, and
the traumatic international and national events related to the Cold War and to McCarthyist
repression at home. But while the anxieties generated by these events should not be
minimized, the peacefulness and quietude of the domestic environment can and have been
overstated. Drawing from a variety of sources--including Betty Friedan's unpublished
essays written in her early days as a free-lance magazine writer and Queens resident,
correspondence between Queens community activists and New York policy makers, and daily
and weekly newspaper accounts of local political battles--this project explores the rich
and complex experience of public and political involvement of a group of housewives in a
set of semi-suburban neighborhoods in Queens, New York City. Women were active at the
local level and took key leadership roles in community organizations. Their activism was
mostly (although not exclusively) related to issues close to home, such as children's and
neighborhoods' needs. But although battles to obtain sufficient school seats and
appropriate traffic regulation were central to the political lives of suburbanites--and
for good reason, since the neighborhoods in which a large number of families with young
children lived had been recently developed--issues of national and international
importance also mobilized local activists. With the children and neighborhood needs as an
excuse, to paraphrase Friedan, women of the 1950s generation shaped an important episode
in the history of women's activism.
How Did Ideologies of Gender and Professionalism Intersect in the History of
Nursing in Oregon?
By Patricia A. Schechter.
Abstract
Throughout the history of nursing in the United States, nurses have been stratified by
educational level, licensure status, and specialty, hierarchies that have both drawn on
and reinforced status lines drawn by race, class, ethnicity, and citizenship. Yet at the
same time, women from many different walks of life have found in nursing and nurse
professionalism a powerful way to disrupt social hierarchy and achieve economic mobility,
personal satisfaction, and a fulfilling career. The struggles around these styles of
professionalism within nursing are visible in three distinct phases in Oregon. In the
first phase, elitist nurse leaders strove to reinforce hierarchy and exclusion in nursing
using class, status, and educational attainment in order to raise the social standing and
political effectiveness of nurses. In the second phase, between 1960 and 1980, the ONA
systematically integrated unionization into the mix of its mission. This effort strained
the simmering class and ideological tensions among Oregon nurses to the breaking point,
epitomized by the rejection of AFL-CIO affiliation at a stormy meeting of the ONA's House
of Delegates meeting in 1981. From the 1980s to the present, the rearticulation of nurse
solidarities along new lines of identification that include professional specialization,
race or ethnicity, and the bargaining unit has created a new mosaic whose pieces touch
each other at some level through the ONA but do not quite fit together in one vision yet.
The question here is how the thrust of professionalism--that is, the claiming and uses of
social power--could divide as much unite nurses. The records of the Oregon Nurses
Association and interviews with nurses who were active in the last fifty-plus years across
the state suggest new and exciting paths for tracing the politics of nurse professionalism
well beyond the nurse-doctor dyad.
How and Why Was Feminist Legal Strategy Transformed, 1960-1973?
by Serena Mayeri.
Abstract
This document project explores how, during the 1960s, legal feminists overcame decades of
division to unite around a dual strategy for constitutional change that simultaneously
pursued judicial reinterpretation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment to the U.S. constitution and the passage of a federal Equal Rights Amendment.
Although feminists developed an effective plan for changing women's constitutional status
through litigation and advocacy, there were some downsides to achieving and implementing
this consensus, including a more narrow definition of legal equality within the feminist
community and the need to balance advocacy of the ERA with litigation that drew on the
equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
How Did State Commissions on the Status of Women Overcome Historic Antagonisms
between Equal Rights and Labor Feminists to Create a New Feminist Mainstream, 1963-1973?
by Kathleen A. Laughlin.
Abstract
The Equal Rights Amendment divided organized feminism from the 1920s until the modern
women's movement in the 1960s. This project explores how the deliberations of state
commissions on the status of women in the 1960s provided a mechanism to overcome historic
antagonisms between equal rights and labor feminists. The following documents show that
even though the equal rights feminist National Federation of Business and Professional
Women's Clubs was largely responsible for the formation of status of women commissions,
these broad-based deliberative bodies composed of members selected, in most cases by
governors, also included male and female labor feminists. Consequently, women and men from
both sides of the ERA controversy participated on commissions charged to investigate the
status of women and to formulate policies to improve their social, civil, and economic
status. The deliberations of ongoing state commissions were eventually influenced by the
strategies and goals of the modern women's movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
How Did Catholic Women Participate in the Rebirth of American Feminism?
by Mary Henold.
Abstract
In the second half of the twentieth century, thousands of American Catholic women
participated in the movement for women's rights and women's liberation. By the 1970s, many
of these feminist women of faith chose to direct their activism through specifically
Catholic feminist organizations which together formed a distinctive Catholic feminist
movement in the United States. This project examines historical documents from this
movement. In addition to illustrating the unique contributions of Catholic feminists to
"second-wave" feminism, these documents reveal women's efforts to reconcile dual
commitments to feminist ideals and Catholic faith tradition.
How Did Diverse Activists in the Second Wave of the Women's Movement Shape
Emerging Public Policy on Sexual Harassment?
by Carrie N. Baker.
Abstract
A close look at the history of the emergence of sexual harassment activism reveals a
diverse group of people involved in conceptualizing and theorizing sexual harassment, and
creating legal prohibitions against it. African-American women, blue-collar women, as well
as middle-class white women participated in different ways to create a powerful movement
that changed the social landscape of U.S. workplaces and schools. Activists against sexual
harassment approached the problem on three fronts. First, individual women around the
country began filing lawsuits in the early 1970s. Second, the organized women's movement
began to raise awareness about sexual harassment through speak-outs, surveys, and media
work. Third, individuals, representatives of feminist organizations, union activists, and
government officials lobbied Congress for changes in public policy. At the intersection of
these three strands of activism emerged increased awareness of sexual harassment,
government policies to discourage it, and legal prohibitions against it. This project
presents documentary evidence of how this racially and economically diverse array of
activists first articulated the issue of sexual harassment in the 1970s.
How Did Working-Class Feminists Meet the Challenges of Working across Differences?
The National Congress of Neighborhood Women, 1974-2006
by Tamar Carroll.
Abstract
Founded in 1974, the National Congress of Neighborhood Women (NCNW) promised to unite
"neighborhood women" in order to help them improve their lives and communities.
Based in Brooklyn, New York, the NCNW succeeded in bringing together poor and
working-class women from many different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Because of its
diverse membership and its coalition-based organizing strategy, the NCNW offers an
excellent study of the ways in which feminists grappled with differences. Since the
mid-1970s, the NCNW has worked with professional women allies to create varied programs,
while fighting to maintain its working-class values of connectedness to community and its
commitment to practicing participatory democracy.
Taken together, the documents in this collection provide a powerful example of how
working-class women were able to form cross-racial partnerships to work for women's
empowerment and the betterment of their communities. The striking success of the group's
leadership support process in helping women to recognize the sources of oppression in
their lives and to feel connected to others with similar struggles suggests that
consciousness-raising is a necessary strategy for social change. The achievements of the
NCNW college program and Project Open Doors reveal that social programs conceived of and
run by participants themselves are better able to meet the needs of poor and working-class
women and to foster enduring positive change on both an individual and collective level.
The NCNW's strategy of partnering with grassroots groups nationally and internationally is
key to contesting the increasingly widespread privatization of social policy under the
global movement of neoliberalism. The endurance of this coalition for social change is a
testament to working-class feminists' dedication to achieving social justice and their
ability to find creative solutions to the obstacles blocking the realization of their
goals.
How Did the National Women's Conference in Houston in 1977 Shape a Feminist Agenda
for the Future?
by Kathryn Kish Sklar with research assistance by Sandra Henderson.
Abstract
The National Women's Conference at Houston in November 1977 marked a high point in the
influence of second-wave feminist ideas on policy formulation. Congresswomen elected
during the wave of 1970s feminism, especially Bella Abzug, obtained the passage of federal
legislation that funded the Conference. Grassroots women's organizations met at the state
level and adopted a National Plan of Action to improve the lives of women. The Houston
Conference subsequently approved the plan. Yet at the same moment these women were able to
mobilize and use government to achieve feminist goals, opponents united to fight against
feminist causes. Phyllis Schlafly and others attacked the Houston conference and its
agenda and created the basis for a new anti-feminist constituency in American public life.
This project presents conference documents, including all the individual planks considered
at Houston, speeches and debate at the conference, and follow-up evaluations of progress
on those planks in 1988 and 1997.
How Did Chinese Women Garment Workers in New York City Forge a Successful
Class-Based Coalition during the 1982 Contract Dispute?
by Xiaolan Bao.
Abstract
In the summer of 1982, more than twenty thousand Chinese garment workers, most of whom
were women, turned out to join two union rallies. With a unified effort they successfully
pressured their employers to sign a union contract. Never before had so many people,
especially so many women, turned out over a labor dispute in New York's Chinatown. The
conflict between Chinese employers and workers revealed the limits of ethnic solidarity
and forcefully demonstrated workers' collective strength by bringing to the forefront
class issues in the community. The strike also had a lasting impact on the thousands of
women workers who participated in it. With the experience they gained from the strike,
women workers continued to press for change by working in the union or joining
community-based labor organizations that served as pressure groups to defend their
interests. Rather than acting individually, as most of them did before the strike, women
in the Chinese garment industry learned to work together. The 1982 strike thus marks the
beginning of a new chapter in the history of the labor movement in the Chinese community
and in the garment industry of New York City.
How Have Recent Social Movements Shaped Civil Rights Legislation for Women? The
1994 Violence Against Women Act
by Kathryn Kish Sklar and Suzanne Lustig.
Abstract
In 1994, Congress enacted the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which responded to the
inadequacies of state justice systems in dealing with violent crimes against women. This
project focuses on a key aspect of the act--Title III--the civil rights provision that
gave women victims of violence access to federal courts. Title III was created to
establish a remedy for female victims of violence analogous to civil rights suits for
injury motivated by race.
CHANGES IN WOMEN'S EMPLOYMENT UNDER CONDITIONS OF
RAPID URBANIZATION
NGO THI KIM DUNG
Research Fellow, Center of Sociology and Development, Institute of Social Sciences in
Hochiminh City.
It is no accident that sociologists in Vietnam have during the past decade devoted
considerable attention to gender issues, in particular in the role of women in urban and
rural areas due to the impact of changes in macro policies (1).
Although the rate of urbanization in Vietnam is not yet high (only 20%) a new round of
urbanization is starting. The social consequences of this process are creating promising
opportunities for the development of women. At the same time, they are posing stern
challenges that are unlikely to be overcome rapidly.
In this article we wish to deal with opportunities and challenges to women in the suburbs
of Hochiminh city, a densely populated city "overspilling" beyond its narrow
limits. Social problems pertinent to the change of female occupation in the city's rapidly
urbanizing rural suburban areas will be the main theme of this article. -
http://vsed.onestop.net/7nkdung.htm
EXOTIC DANCERS: GENDER DIFFERENCES IN
SOCIETAL REACTION, SUBCULTURAL TIES, AND CONVENTIONAL SUPPORT - Old Dominion
University - Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice - ABSTRACT - We explore the
world of female and male exotic dancers. Utilizing Hirschi’s Bonding theory, we look
at gender differences in societal reaction, subcultural ties, and conventional support
among dancers in a large metropolitan area. - Full-Text -
albany.edu/scj/jcjpc/vol10is1/bernard.html
Author
Gul Ozyegin - Untidy Gender - Domestic Service in Turkey
- Interviews with Turkish maids yield surprising facts about class and gender roles
- Excerpt available at www.temple.edu/tempress
Female Athletes: Being both Athletic and Feminine
W. Stephen Royce, Janet L. Gebelt, & Robert W. Duff , University of Portland
Abstract: Because athletics traditionally has been seen as incompatible with traditional
roles for women, female athletes have been expected to experience gender role conflict as
they attempt to identify with incompatible roles. However, while negative stereotypes of
female athletes persist, research has found little such conflict. In this study,
questionnaire and interview data from male and female college athletes and nonathletes
suggest some explanations for this. The data showed: (a) Female athletes were accorded
greater respect than were male athletes; (b) all groups' ratings of the femininity of
female athletes were above the neutral point, though the ratings of men and nonathletes
were significantly lower than those of women and athletes; and (c) consistent with the
multiplicity perspective, female athletes reported experiencing their feminine and
athletic identities as distinctively different aspects of self. -
athleticinsight.com/Vol5Iss1/FeminineAthletes.htm
Social Structural Model of Women’s
Reproductive Rights:
A Cross-National Study of Developing Countries
Vijayan K. Pillai and Guang-zhen Wang
Abstract: Using data from 101 developing countries, this study tests a theoretical model
of women’s reproductive rights in developing countries. The effects of modernization
processes and family planning programs on women’s reproductive rights are examined.
It is found that family planning programs have no statistically significant effect on
women’s reproductive rights, although they contribute to the decline in population
growth. The effect of women’s education on reproductive rights is found to be
negative. Gender equality is the most important factor that affects the achievement of
women’s reproductive rights in developing nations. Social and economic development
does not directly influence women’s reproductive rights, but functions through the
attainment of women’s education and gender equality. Policy implications are
discussed.- arts.ualberta.ca/cjscopy/articles/abstracts24-2.html
Trail, G. T., Anderson, D. F., & Fink, J. S. (2002). Examination
of gender differences in importance and satisfaction with venue factors at intercollegiate
basketball games: Effects on future spectator attendance. International Sports
Journal, 6, 51-64.
Abstract: The results of this study indicated that respondents differed on satisfaction
with, and importance of, venue characteristics (overall venue cleanliness, concessions,
parking, usher behavior, restrooms, audio experience) at intercollegiate basketball games
based on team gender and spectator gender. - http://exercise.educ.iastate.edu/
research/research_abstract.asp?pubid=132
UNIFEM - Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality:
Implementation and Accountability Presentation by Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director,
UNIFEM - http://www.unifem.org/
Experts Say Bias and Violence Increase Women's Vulnerability to HIV/AIDS -
http://www.unfpa.org/news/news.cfm?ID=373&Language=1
UNIFEM LAUNCHES WEB PORTAL ON WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY
Portal Launched to Commemorate Third Anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1325 on
Women, Peace and Security -
http://www.unifem.org
Partnerships for Women's Empowerment: Key to Sustainable Development
Presentation by Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director, UNIFEM -
http://www.unifem.org
New Report Reveals Paradox of Ongoing Violence Against Women Despite Considerable Progress
Over Last Decade in Efforts to Eliminate It -
http://www.unifem.org/
One in Three Women Worldwide Could Suffer Violence
Directed at Her Simply Because She is Female -
http://www.unifem.org/
Women Pioneers in Canadian Sociology: The Effects
of a Politics of Gender And a Politics of Knowledge
Margrit Eichler
Abstract: This article examines the life histories of ten anglophone Canadian pioneer
women sociologists: Helen Abell, Grace Anderson, Jean Burnet, Eleanor Cebotarev, Kathleen
Herman, Helen McGill Hughes, Thelma McCormack, Helen Ralston, Aileen Ross and Dorothy
Smith. All were born before 1930, encountered significant sexism, and found jobs very
easily. This pattern is placed into the context of a politics of gender and a politics of
knowledge. Politics of gender in the institutional context and in family roles resulted in
disadvantages, while the effect of the women’s movement led to solidarity among women
sociologists and eventual improvements in their situation. The simultaneous emergence of
the women’s movement and the Canadianization movement led to a politics of knowledge
which proved advantageous for both. Nevertheless, the sociological canon so far has not
included women pioneers — the author needed to conduct interviews since almost no
published information existed about most of these important sociologists prior to this
paper.
Author Gul Ozyegin
- Untidy Gender - Domestic Service in Turkey
- Interviews with Turkish maids yield surprising facts about class and gender roles
- Excerpt available at www.temple.edu/tempress
"A sophisticated and sensitive text on domestic service in Turkey that singles itself
out by a powerful account of the micro-sociology of power. It engages the reader in much
broader debates about the mutual relations of class and gender, the role of patriarchal
controls in shaping informal female labor markets and the management of status
differentials by women in their daily lives. An important scholarly contribution written
in a lucid and accessible style."
—Deniz Kandiyoti, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Untidy Gender takes readers into the interconnected worlds of Turkish maids and the women
who employ them, tracing the incorporation of rural migrant women into the interiors of
the domestic spheres of the urban middle-classes. Firmly grounded in data collected
through a representative survey of 160 domestic workers, in-depth interviews, and
participant observation in the kinship-based communities of domestic workers, this book
forges a new understanding of the complex interaction between gender and class
subordination.
Ozyegin traces the lives of two kinds of workers; those from the squatter settlements who
work in a number of locations, and those who live with husbands employed as
"doorkeepers" or building superintendents in the basements of middle-class
apartment buildings. In a literal "upstairs, downstairs" arrangement, the latter
women sometimes take on apartment cleaning for clients in the building.
At the center of the book are a number of ironies about patriarchy. On the surface,
husbands have absolute control over whether or not their wives work, but some women work
in secret, and those "doorkeeper" husbands who allow their wives to work often
provide child care themselves. Ironically, the very constraints on the spatial and social
mobility of the women creates a labor market in which domestic workers' labor is expensive
and not readily forthcoming, which, in turn, gives them a degree of power in negotiating
their relationship with their middle-class employers.
Untidy Gender offers insights not only into the gender and class dynamics of Turkish
society, but contributes to the refinement of central terms of feminist scholarship and
research on work in the informal sector, cross-class relations between women, gender and
class inequality, and women's experiences of modernity and urbanization. The author ends
with a personal account of her own difficulties with the class tensions of the
maid-employer relationship.
| |
Books,
E-Books Great Discounts
|