In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Portraits of Buddhist WomenLucinda PeachPortraits of Buddhist Women. By Ranjini Obeyesekere. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. 231 pp.This book is a translation of part of the Saddharmaratnavaliya (Jewel Garland of the True Doctrine; hereafter SR ), a thirteenth-century Sinhala translation of the Dhammapada (hereafter DA ), a fifth-century Buddhist text. Out of the entire collection of 360 stories contained in the SR, this book includes (...) twenty-six that have women as central characters.The author succeeds in part with her stated purpose to "illuminate the position of women in the early-medieval Buddhist worlds of India and Sri Lanka" as well as to "provide insights into shifting stances over time on issues of sexuality and gender" (p. 1), despite the lack of any necessary correlation between gender images and the actual status of women in a particular social location. As Obeyesekere points out, although the stories themselves are not focused on gender, their contexts in the "everyday world" of their fifth- and thirteenth-century authors do shed light on women's lives and social status. The stories she has selected for the volume portray women in a wide range of roles, including not only the ideal normative ones of wives and mothers, but also those of daughters, courtesans, servants, queens, nuns, and wandering ascetics.Obeyesekere claims that the particularities in these narratives "reflect the status, intelligence, management, and organizational skills of women that were permitted full play in the social worlds to which they belonged" (p. 11). This claim is borne out by several passages in the text, such as the narrative of Kundalakesi, which has a deity state that "it is not men who always have the best stratagems.... [In] certain situations women too know what to do" (p. 120).Furthermore, women's capabilities and talents are sometimes recognized by the men in the narratives. Visakha's grandfather chooses her to escort the Buddha and arrange accommodations for the enormous entourage that accompanied her betrothed. Samavati's adopted father, Ghosaka, unquestioningly accepts her advice on how to organize an alms-hall (to prevent quarreling) and how to deal with the King's (unreasonable) demands. After she has "shed the three evils of belief in self, doubts, and erroneous beliefs and practices," Khujjuttara preaches a sermon "exactly as the Buddha has done" (p. 63) and becomes the teacher of Samavati and her five hundred attendants.However, Obeyesekere also notes the antifeminist elements that are sprinkled throughout the text. The statements in the narrative of Visakha that "women who run are most unattractive" and will meet with criticism and ridicule for having no feminine grace and acting in a manner not befitting for a woman (pp. 84-85) reveals how restrictive gender-role norms were in thirteenth-century Sri Lanka. A woman's body is described as a polluted lump of flesh in the Udeni cycle (a collection [End Page 289] of five related narratives); here the Buddha is said to describe woman's body as a "container with its nine orifices filled with feces and urine" that "I would be disgusted even to wipe my feet on... as I would on a door mat" (p. 12; see also p. 54). Comparisons to women are used to criticize men, as when King Udeni tells King Candapajjota's guards (after the latter king has locked up the former seemingly indefinitely after capturing him) that "Your kind does what even women would not do..." (p. 48). This comparison indicates that women are not honorable and trustworthy, but willing to impose extended and unnecessary suffering on their victims.Other antifeminist elements in the SR include the backhanded compliment to Visakha that "though born a woman (and women are of limited vision), and though forced to associate with people who were of the right caste but held wrong beliefs, yet she herself did not lack vision" (pp. 14, 79). This sentiment about women in general is consistent with the widespread belief in popular Buddhism that men are more highly evolved on the cosmic chain than are women.This view is illustrated in the narrative of Soreyya, who transforms from a male to a female form when he... (shrink)

Polygamy, forced marriage, female genital mutilation, punishing women for being raped, differential access for men and women to health care and education, unequal rights of ownership, assembly, and political participation, unequal vulnerability to violence. These practices and conditions are standard in some parts of the world. Do demands for multiculturalism — and certain minority group rights in particular — make them more likely to continue and to spread to liberal democracies? Are there fundamental conflicts between our commitment to gender equity (...) and our increasing desire to respect the customs of minority cultures or religions? In this book, the eminent feminist Susan Moller Okin and fifteen of the world’s leading thinkers about feminism and multiculturalism explore these unsettling questions in a provocative, passionate, and illuminating debate. Okin opens by arguing that some group rights can, in fact, endanger women. She points, for example, to the French government’s giving thousands of male immigrants special permission to bring multiple wives into the country, despite French laws against polygamy and the wives’ own bitter opposition to the practice. Okin argues that if we agree that women should not be disadvantaged because of their sex, we should not accept group rights that permit oppressive practices on the grounds that they are fundamental to minority cultures whose existence may otherwise be threatened. In reply, some respondents reject Okin’s position outright, contending that her views are rooted in a moral universalism that is blind to cultural difference. Others quarrel with Okin’s focus on gender, or argue that we should be careful about which group rights we permit, but not reject the category of group rights altogether. Okin concludes with a rebuttal, clarifying, adjusting, and extending her original position. These incisive and accessible essays — expanded from their original publication in Boston Review and including four new contributions — are indispensable reading for anyone interested in one of the most contentious social and political issues today. The diverse contributors, in addition to Okin, are Azizah al-Hibri, Abdullahi An-Na’im, Homi Bhabha, Sander Gilman, Janet Halley, Bonnie Honig, Will Kymlicka, Martha Nussbaum, Bhikhu Parekh, Katha Pollitt, Robert Post, Joseph Raz, Saskia Sassen, Cass Sunstein, and Yael Tamir. (shrink)

"Golf day 2005 @ federal golf club, red hill." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (196), pp. 7.

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; and (...) reproductive rights. (shrink)

How did the events of the early modern period affect the way gender and the self were represented? This collection of essays attempts to respond to this question by analysing a wide spectrum of cultural concerns - humanism, technology, science, law, anatomy, literacy, domesticity, colonialism, erotic practices, and the theatre - in order to delineate the history of subjectivity and its relationship with the postmodern fragmented subject. The scope of this analysis expands the terrain explored by feminist theory, while its (...) feminist focus reveals that the subject is always gendered - although the terms in which gender is conceived and represented change across history. Feminist Readings of Early Modern Culture not only explores the representation of gendered subjects, but in its commitment to balancing the productive tensions of methodological diversity, also speaks to contemporary challenges facing feminism. (shrink)

The cultural imagery of women is deeply ingrained in our consciousness. So deeply, in fact, that feminists see this as a fundamental threat to female autonomy because it enshrines procreative heterosexuality as well as the relations of domination and subordination between men and women. Diana Meyers' book is about this cultural imagery - and how, once it is internalized, it shapes perception, reflection, judgement, and desire. These intergral images have a deep impact not only on the individual psyche, but also (...) on the social, political, and cultural syntax of society as a whole. Meyer's argues for the necessity of crafting a dissident, empowering, and 'emancipatory counter-imagery' for women. Rigorous, well written, and accessible, the reach of Gender in the mirror is arguably catholic, and addresses the interests or readers across an impressive range of intellectual disciplines. (shrink)

In evolutionary psychology predictions, women’s mate preferences shift between fertile and nonfertile times of the month to reflect ancestral fitness benefits. Our meta-analytic test involving 58 independent reports (13 unpublished, 45 published) was largely nonsupportive. Specifically, fertile women did not especially desire sex in short-term relationships with men purported to be of high genetic quality (i.e., high testosterone, masculinity, dominance, symmetry). The few significant preference shifts appeared to be research artifacts. The effects declined over time in published work, were (...) limited to studies that used broader, less precise definitions of the fertile phase, and were found only in published research. (shrink)

This paper explores how Islam is understood by Muslim women entrepreneurs and considers its influence on their entrepreneurial experiences in the country-specific context of Lebanon. In so doing, we adopt a qualitative interpretative approach, drawing upon 21 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with women entrepreneurs. Accordingly, we present empirical evidence detailing how Muslim women entrepreneurs utilise various aspects and teachings of Islam to make sense of their entrepreneurial decisions. We thus provide insight into how women’s entrepreneurship interlocks with Islamic teachings and (...) the restrictions imposed by patriarchal socio-cultural values in Lebanon. This paper advances entrepreneurship research by demonstrating how Islam unfolds as a source of inspiration and resilience for women entrepreneurs, if and when equipped with an Islamic feminist interpretation. (shrink)

À Santiago deux femmes s’affrontent. La procédure du délit d’injures nécessite, dans cette société orale de la première moitié du xviiie siècle, l’exposé de questions sensibles qui concernent, dans ce cas particulier, les identités féminines. Croisées par de multiples variables, dont l’ethnie est l’une des plus importantes, ces identités de femmes s’expriment dans des lieux sociaux plus ou moins contestés : la fragilité de ces identités s’observe dans l’expression de la violence privée et dans les discours juridiques. Réfléchir sur la (...) manière d’appréhender et de vivre les possibilités d’être femme dans une des villes de l’Amérique hispanique est un des objectifs de cette analyse. L’autre, montre comment les discours sur le métissage et les valeurs qu’ils portent s’incarnent dans les sujets au niveau des conflits mineurs, quotidiens, jusqu’à faire basculer, à travers la parole et l’opinion sur autrui, des parcours individuels. (shrink)

When is hair "just hair" and when is it not "just hair"? Documenting the politics of African American women's hair, this multi-sited linguistic ethnography explores everyday interaction in beauty parlors, Internet discussions, comedy clubs, and other contexts to illuminate how and why hair matters in African American women's day-to-day experiences.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Stiva's Idiotic GrinStewart JustmanIRecall if you will the stunning opening chapter of Anna Karenina. After laying down the principle that "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,"1 the narrative introduces us to one of the latter. The Oblonsky household is in turmoil. Having found out that her spouse is philandering with a former governess, Dolly has kept to her room for three (...) days. For the first time since the discovery Stiva, the husband, now sleeps at home—on a leather sofa in the study. Turning "as though he would sink into a long sleep again," he suddenly awakens, sits up, and tries to recover the delights of wine, women, and song that were his in a tantalizing dream. "Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables sang Il mio tesoro—not Il mio tesoro, though, but something better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and they were women, too." A man who has been playing Don Juan plays in a dream with an aria from Don Giovanni.Incongruously for one whose household is in open revolt and whose wife flees the sight of him, as he recollects his dream Stiva's eyes "twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile." Awakening itself seems to be an act of escapism for Stiva. "Cheerfully" he feels about for the slippers embroidered for him by his wife. (It was when his attention was arrested by some beautiful embroidery on his robe and he fell to thinking "about how people get the idea in their heads to invent all these patterns and [End Page 427] ornaments of embroidery" that Tolstoy got the idea for Anna Karenina.)2 Only when he reaches for his dressing gown in the usual place and doesn't find it does Stiva return to reality, and as he does so, the smile disappears from his face. "'Ah, ah, ah! Oo!...' he groaned, recalling everything that had happened. And as he recalled every detail of his quarrel with his wife, he realized the hopelessness of his situation, and, most tormenting thought of all, that it was his own fault." But as if contriving an escape from a situation that permits none, he maintains that even though the crisis in his marriage and his household is undoubtedly his own doing, still he is not to blame. "And the most awful thing about it [he tells himself] is that it's all my fault—all my fault, though I'm not to blame." Like a lawyer producing an argument, Stiva invents a saving distinction between being at fault and being really at fault—in effect claiming that although he does engage in adultery, he can't be condemned for it as his wife has lost her charms and he was just following his nature. As Stiva clings to fantasy and reverie in this scene, so his belief that he isn't really to blame for his own deeds implies a defect in his sense of reality. (In Part Three of the novel we are told that despite Stiva's "efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his mind that he had a wife and children," p. 297.)At this point in his musings Stiva thinks back to the terrible moment when he returned "from the theater" to find his wife brandishing an incriminating letter (whether from him to the governess or the governess to him), and demanding an explanation.And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevich, as is so often the case, was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in which he had reacted to his wife's words.There happened to him at that instant what happens to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in assuming an expression suitable to the position in which he was placed by his wife's discovery of his guilt. Instead of acting hurt, denying, defending himself, begging forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent... his face utterly involuntarily (reflex action of the brain, reflected Stepan Arkadyevich, who was... (shrink)

This paper explores conceptual and practical linkages between women and food, and argues that food security cannot be realized until women are centrally included in policy discussions about food. Women's special relationship with food is culturally constructed and not a natural division of labor. Women's identity and sense of self is often based on their ability to feed their families and others; food insecurity denies them this right. Thus the interpretation of food as a human right requires that food issues (...) be analyzed from a gender perspective. For example, the paper asks how the rights to food intersect with the rights of women and other human rights; what the policy implications of these intersecting rights are; and how their integration will contribute to the effort to view all human rights as mutually reinforcing, universal, and indivisible. The second half of the paper speculates on the significance of distinctions between the right to be fed, the right to food, and the right to feed for understanding the relation between gender and food. (shrink)

The Young Women’s Group in Manchester is a ‘young women’s peer health project, run by and for young lesbian and bisexual women’, which runs an allotment as one of its activities. At a time when interest in allotments and gardening appears to be on the increase, the existence of yet another community allotment may seem unremarkable. Yet we suggest that this queer allotment poses challenges for conventional theorisations of allotments, as well as for understandings of public and private. (...) In this article we explore how the allotment project might be understood to be intensely engaged in ‘growing intimate publics’, or what we term ‘privatepublics’. These are paradoxical intimacies, privatepublic spaces which are not necessarily made possible in the usual private sphere of domestic homes. Here we focus on the work involved in materialising the allotment, which we understand as a queer privatepublic ‘natureculture’ (Haraway, 2008) which appears as an ‘everyday utopia’ (Cooper, 2014). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Stiva's Idiotic GrinStewart JustmanIRecall if you will the stunning opening chapter of Anna Karenina. After laying down the principle that "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,"1 the narrative introduces us to one of the latter. The Oblonsky household is in turmoil. Having found out that her spouse is philandering with a former governess, Dolly has kept to her room for three (...) days. For the first time since the discovery Stiva, the husband, now sleeps at home—on a leather sofa in the study. Turning "as though he would sink into a long sleep again," he suddenly awakens, sits up, and tries to recover the delights of wine, women, and song that were his in a tantalizing dream. "Yes, Alabin was giving a dinner on glass tables, and the tables sang Il mio tesoro—not Il mio tesoro, though, but something better, and there were some sort of little decanters on the table, and they were women, too." A man who has been playing Don Juan plays in a dream with an aria from Don Giovanni.Incongruously for one whose household is in open revolt and whose wife flees the sight of him, as he recollects his dream Stiva's eyes "twinkled gaily, and he pondered with a smile." Awakening itself seems to be an act of escapism for Stiva. "Cheerfully" he feels about for the slippers embroidered for him by his wife. (It was when his attention was arrested by some beautiful embroidery on his robe and he fell to thinking "about how people get the idea in their heads to invent all these patterns and [End Page 427] ornaments of embroidery" that Tolstoy got the idea for Anna Karenina.)2 Only when he reaches for his dressing gown in the usual place and doesn't find it does Stiva return to reality, and as he does so, the smile disappears from his face. "'Ah, ah, ah! Oo!...' he groaned, recalling everything that had happened. And as he recalled every detail of his quarrel with his wife, he realized the hopelessness of his situation, and, most tormenting thought of all, that it was his own fault." But as if contriving an escape from a situation that permits none, he maintains that even though the crisis in his marriage and his household is undoubtedly his own doing, still he is not to blame. "And the most awful thing about it [he tells himself] is that it's all my fault—all my fault, though I'm not to blame." Like a lawyer producing an argument, Stiva invents a saving distinction between being at fault and being really at fault—in effect claiming that although he does engage in adultery, he can't be condemned for it as his wife has lost her charms and he was just following his nature. As Stiva clings to fantasy and reverie in this scene, so his belief that he isn't really to blame for his own deeds implies a defect in his sense of reality. (In Part Three of the novel we are told that despite Stiva's "efforts to be an attentive father and husband, he never could keep in his mind that he had a wife and children," p. 297.)At this point in his musings Stiva thinks back to the terrible moment when he returned "from the theater" to find his wife brandishing an incriminating letter (whether from him to the governess or the governess to him), and demanding an explanation.And at this recollection, Stepan Arkadyevich, as is so often the case, was not so much annoyed at the fact itself as at the way in which he had reacted to his wife's words.There happened to him at that instant what happens to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in assuming an expression suitable to the position in which he was placed by his wife's discovery of his guilt. Instead of acting hurt, denying, defending himself, begging forgiveness, instead of remaining indifferent... his face utterly involuntarily (reflex action of the brain, reflected Stepan Arkadyevich, who was... (shrink)

(2008). B Is For Burqa, C Is For Censorship: The Miseducative Effects of Censoring Muslim Girls and Women's Sartorial Discourse. Educational Studies: Vol. 43, No. 1, pp. 17-28.

Dès ses débuts, l’histoire des femmes a privilégié la comparaison comme moyen de comprendre les spécificités de la subordination féminine dans des contextes nationaux différents. L’introduction historiographique de ce court recueil coordonné par Anne Cova témoigne de l’importance, depuis les années 1970, des travaux comparatifs portant sur des questions aussi diverses que la montée de l’État providence, le féminisme, le rapport entre féminisme et maternité, entre femmes et fascismes, genre et...

The history of the Wonder Woman comic book character is full of events and personalities as dramatic as the tales detailed in the text. The origins and development of this iconic female superhero demonstrate how competing ideas of what womanhood meant were reflected in popular culture. In this essay, the focus is on a particular issue of the Wonder Woman comic book, with a story by writer and literary critic Samuel R. Delany in 1972. In this issue Wonder Woman takes (...) on the role of a women’s liberation activist in New York City. This chapter in Wonder Woman’s history is either unknown or dismissed as misguided by many fans past and present, but it provides an interesting insight into how American comic books responded to second-wave feminism and Gloria Steinem’s appropriation of the Wonder Woman image. (shrink)

Mourning, especially melancholic mourning, has recently emerged as a significant site of expressing and addressing loss in feminism. While feminism’s hard-won successes in achieving institutional power globally have brought exuberance over achievement, they have also come with an acute sense of despondency and loss; one that is not easily mourned or relinquished. The institutionalization of feminism in governmental, non-governmental and academic sites has precipitated this sense of loss in India, wherein the discussion of this article is located. In exploring the (...) politics of loss in contemporary feminist discourse in India, feminist melancholia is seen to condition a fetishized attachment to the past, and to past modes of knowledge, action and consciousness in ways that demand the generational reproduction of feminism rather than its renewal in times of perceived crisis. Present-day anxieties over the ‘co-option’ and resultant depoliticization of the Indian women’s movement constitute a narrative of loss in which a politically more ‘authentic’ past functions as a normative standard for feminist politics in the present, and as a prescriptive model of feminism’s future. Advancements in Women’s Studies and activist (now ‘NGOized’) practice that are seen to be deviating from the redemption of such an idealized past are thus deemed apolitical. In interrogating contemporary anxieties about feminism’s present and impending future (that resonate beyond the bounds of India), the article demonstrates how melancholic loss can inform a potentially conservative politics that seeks to contain feminism in a once loved but now lost ‘home’. (shrink)

This book is the first major study of the theme of misanthropy, its history, arguments both for and against it, and its significance for us today. Misanthropy is not strictly a philosophy. It is an inconsistent thought, and so has often been mocked. But from Timon of Athens to Motörhead it has had a very long life, vast historical purchase and is seemingly indomitable and unignorable. Human beings have always nursed a profound distrust of who and what they are. This (...) book does not seek to rationalize that distrust, but asks how far misanthropy might have a reason on its side, if a confused reason. There are obvious arguments against misanthropy. It is often born of a hatred of physical being. It can be historically explained. It particularly appears in undemocratic cultures. But what of the misanthropy of terminally defeated and disempowered peoples? Or born of progressivisms? Or the misanthropy that quarrels with specious or easy positivities (from Pelagius to Leibniz to the corporate cheer of contemporary `total capital`)? From the Greek Cynics to Roman satire, St Augustine to Jacobean drama, the misanthropy of the French Ancien Regime to Swift, Smollett and Johnson, Hobbes, Schopenhauer and Rousseau, from the Irish and American misanthropic traditions to modern women`s misanthropy, the book explores such questions. It ends with a debate about contemporary culture that ranges from the `dark radicalisms`, queer misanthropy, posthumanism and eco-misanthropy to Houellebecq, punk rock and gangsta rap. (shrink)

Past research finds that after menopause some women experience negative changes such as vaginal dryness, decreased libido, and decreased orgasm quality; very little research inquires about positive changes. In contrast, this study shifts the research focus from whether women experience menopausal changes to how women view any changes in sex life. Based on 30 in-depth interviews with heterosexual and lesbian women, the author finds that most women emphasize cultural and social issues, such as relationship status and quality, health, and sexual (...) history, rather than menopausal changes when they describe sex after menopause. However, she finds a difference by sexual orientation in how women handle problems in sex. The author concludes by discussing the implication of this research for future menopause and sex research; most important, she emphasizes studying sex in the context of women's lives rather than as a result of the biological changes of menopause. (shrink)

Control over economic surplus is the biggest contributor towards women's substantive equality in society. Furthermore, surplusgenerating women prioritize spending on family nutrition, health and education, which yields long-term social benefits at macrolevel. Globalization's marginalization of poor men in the Global South, from both the formal and informal economies, diminishes men's strategic indispensability in the community and household, and results in resistance to women's increased independence. Men's perceived sense of loss of control acts as trigger for an increase in domestic and (...) social violence towards women, with debilitating impact on the de facto status of women in society, and with that, the beneficial impact that equality of women could have on future generations. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the struggle for women’s suffrage in Kuwait to determine how and why it was successful. The research highlights two paradoxical findings: first, democratic progress occurred despite the pacifying and hindering effects of modernization; second, it was supported more strongly and effectively by Kuwait's autocratic executive than the democratically elected Kuwaiti parliament. We delineate two psychological factors that were connected to the climax of the struggle as they were experienced and acted upon by a relatively small number of (...) Kuwaiti middle- and upper-class women: transformative events and the tying of struggle goals to self-esteem. We examine these factors in the context of interaction between chaotic political circumstances and the new strategy and tactics that suffragists employed in the last phase of their struggle. The analytic approach involves process tracing, field research, interviews, and longitudinal analysis of primary and secondary sources. (shrink)

Over the past few years we have witnessed a sharp resurgence in feminist activism as young women have become increasingly interested in feminist ideas as a means of making sense of their lives. This resurgence in feminist practice is evidenced by the formation of myriad groups and networks across Britain and the initiation of various feminist projects and campaigns, reported regularly and widely in local and national media. This article examines the renaissance of this new feminism through the example of (...) one of the most active and publicly visible organisations, UK Feminista. It draws on ethnographic research into young women’s feminist activism, exploring the emergence of UK Feminista as part of this new wave of feminist activism in Britain. We argue that the wave metaphor has multifarious meanings and that to understand how the political practice of a small feminist organisation contributes to the amplification of this wave of feminist activism it is helpful to draw on concepts developed within social movement theory such as cycles of protest, repertoires of action and collective identities. We show how UK Feminista mobilises young women and provides resources to existing and new feminist organisations and activist groups, commenting particularly on its use of the Internet and social media as a mobilising device. We explore the role of the Internet in young women’s engagement with feminism, the forms of activism in which they take part and the importance of feminist cultural memory to the construction of a collective feminist identity. Our analysis reveals the significant part played by a small mobilising structure, UK Feminista, in the resurgence of feminist activism in the UK. (shrink)

SummaryThe Fair Intellectual Club was the earliest female intellectual sociability on record in Britain in the eighteenth century. A study of the club provides insights into the motivations for founding such a society. The reading list of the club contains some twenty pamphlets on a variety of subjects including the education of both sexes, friendship and moral issues. The particular question in mind while assessing these materials will be, as far as this club is concerned, what kind of philosophical understanding (...) of sociability inspired these ladies. The Fair Intellectual Club also provides a platform for discussion of questions about the identity, the responsibility, and the gender of learned persons, in addition to their role as active agents in the production of knowledge in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

France is the home of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, yet women did not vote until 1945, many years later than their peers in other countries. In a country where civil rights had long been a rallying cry, women were not second-class citizens--they were not citizens at all. In this fascinating and ground-breaking study, Paul Smith assesses why Frenchwomen were repeatedly refused the rights of citizenship and examines the political relationships established by French feminists in order to achieve (...) their goal: one woman, one vote. (shrink)

Recent research indicates that among young women, Blacks have lower employment rates than whites. Evidence is provided about whether young Black women's lower employment rates stem from structural features of the labor market, discrimination, or changing family or individual characteristics. Data show that Black women exit full-time employment at higher rates because they are more likely to be laid off, to leave because they work in temporary/seasonal jobs, and to leave for other reasons. Structural features of the labor market are (...) key in explaining Black women's higher rates of lay-offs, exits from temporary/seasonal work, and exits for other reasons. Individual characteristics and discrimination play a role in Black women's higher rates of lay-offs and exits for other reasons while family characteristics are important in explaining Black women's higher rates of leaving temporary/seasonal work and leaving for other reasons. Evidence suggests that Black women's higher exit rates are indicative of disadvantage in the labor market. (shrink)

The Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights has recently handed down its judgement in the case of three women contesting the abortion law in the Republic of Ireland, which has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world. Although the Court ruled that Ireland had to clarify the current law following the success of one of the three claims, the failure of the other two claims allows Ireland to continue to enforce its law, which has (...) an adverse effect on women's health. This paper, therefore, proposes an amendment to abortion legislation in the Republic of Ireland that would be compatible with safeguarding women's health, highlighting several circumstances in which the continuation of a pregnancy may have a detrimental impact on a woman's physical and/or mental health. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Conscience and Calling: Ethical Reflections on Catholic Women's Church Vocations by Anne E. PatrickMary M. Doyle RocheConscience and Calling: Ethical Reflections on Catholic Women's Church Vocations Anne E. Patrick NEW YORK AND LONDON: BLOOMSBURY T&T CLARK, 2013. 197 PP. $24.95In Conscience and Calling, Anne Patrick weaves together insights into women's moral agency, vocational discernment, and historical narratives of religious women's engagement with clerical authority. Taking up James Gustafson's (...) question, "What is God enabling and requiring us to be and to do?" she offers a nuanced view of virtuous discernment and action in the context of the "ecclesial oppression" of women. Patrick asks, "What is correct 'church practice' for female moral agents in view of the institutionalized injustice toward women in Catholicism?" (59).Chapter 1 begins with cases of conflict between women's religious congregations and clerical leadership. In the first case, Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary protested intolerable living conditions at a parish in Brooklyn, New [End Page 201] York, in 1939. When repeated requests for heat fell on the pastor's deaf ears, the sisters requested to leave the parish and were told that they would then also have to leave another thriving ministry in the diocese. The sisters acquiesced to this decision in a spirit of obedience and did not publicize the real reason for their departure. Fifty years later in Miami, Florida, when another conflict arose, the sisters involved discerned a very different response to injustice, one marked by concern for "justice, honesty, and personal responsibility." The model of a "good sister" had shifted from an emphasis on obedience and institutional loyalty toward shared responsibility for ministry and leadership.Chapter 2 surveys the landscape of women's engagement with the Church and its structures of leadership and adapts H. Richard Niebuhr's Christ and Culture to sketch five "types": women against the Church; women content with the Church; women above the Church; women and Church in paradox; and women transforming Church. Patrick proposes the transformationist model as the approach that most adequately meets the challenges that women face in the Church today; she calls on those who adopt this approach to live in creative tension with the Church and with those who follow the other models, to espouse justice and mutuality in organizational structures, and to be self-critical. Chapter 3 recounts the history of the National Assembly of Religious Women through this transformational lens.Chapter 4 proposes a "framework for love" that builds on Margaret Farley's ethic of commitment to envision an ethic of vocation that elicits "active receptivity," values the contributions of institutions, practices egalitarianism, and keeps justice and love in dialectical relationship. The "myth" of vocation (the notion that vocation is a "thing" to be discovered and pursued, like one's destiny or soul mate) is balanced by the "mystery" of vocation that engages ongoing, lifelong discernment. Controversial cases involving women religious illustrate this kind of discernment and women's striving to live justly and faithfully. The final chapter, "Vocation in a Transformed Social Context," recounts the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's visitation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a case that has changed the landscape for women's discernment once again. Patrick calls the Church to live out its rhetorical commitment to the dignity of women by opening all church ministries so that women might serve and lead.Conscience and Calling tells an important story about how women religious have discerned the signs of the times and imagined new vocations in the Church and the world. Though the focus here is on women in the American Catholic Church, Patrick's contribution should pave the way for sharing religious women's stories in the global context to further enrich a Christian vision of virtue and vocation for those navigating ecclesial politics and practicing ministry in particular. [End Page 202]Mary M. Doyle RocheCollege of the Holy CrossCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)