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Women and Parliament in Later Medieval England (The New Middle Ages)
by W. Mark OrmrodThis Palgrave Pivot provides the first ever comprehensive consideration of the part played by women in the workings and business of the English Parliament in the later Middle Ages. Breaking new ground, this book considers all aspects of women’s access to the highest court of medieval England. Women were active supplicants to the Crown in Parliament, and sometimes appeared there in person to prosecute cases or make political demands. It explores the positions of women of varying rank, from queens to peasants, vis-à-vis this male institution, where they very occasionally appeared in person but were more usually represented by written petitions. A full analysis of these petitions and of the official records of parliament reveals that there were a number of issues on which women consistently pressed for changes in the law and its administration, and where the Commons and the Crown either championed or refused to support reform. Such is the concentration of petitions on the subjects of dower and rape that these may justifiably be termed ‘women’s issues’ in the medieval Parliament.
Women and Persona Performance
by Kim BarbourThis book works to unpack and explicate women’s personas. Drawing on global gender studies and feminist research, the author examines how ‘woman’ has been constructed socially, culturally, and politically throughout different historical periods and feminist movements. Case studies look at how women in different personal and professional settings construct, enact, and navigate their personas against a backdrop of shifting discourses on gender relations, continued patriarchal dominance, and western neoliberal capitalism. Chapters also delve into how women’s personas are constructed online through activism and community building. The author examines the diversity, flexibility, and slipperiness of the ways being a woman is experienced and strategically performed.This book will be useful for scholars and students in Gender Studies, Sociology, Psychology, and Media Studies.
Women and Political Activism in France, 1848-1852: First Feminists
by Laura S. SchorThis book is organized around the personal struggles of ten extraordinary French women activists: Eugenie Niboyet, Eugenie Foa, Suzanne Voilquin, Josephine Bachellery, Pauline Roland, Jeanne Deroin, Elisa Lemonnier, Desiree Gay, Adele Esquiros, and Marie Noemie Constant. Ranging in age from 52 to 20 in 1848, coming from different economic backgrounds, these women share a common quest to be included in the economic and political rights won by the revolt against the July Monarchy. Banding together in the face of exclusion from the right to work guaranteed to all men in February 1848, they write petitions to the Provisional Government, and create the first daily feminist newspaper, “La Voix des femmes.” The newspaper is a forum for their demands: midwives who demand to be paid as civil servants, domestic workers who demand support while unemployed, teachers who demand opportunities for higher education and for higher wages. The right to vote and the right to divorce are debated in the newspaper. Seeking to widen their support, Niboyet and her cohort launch a political club, Le Club de femmes, which is ridiculed in the satiric press. The women activists of 1848 do not withdraw from the public sphere. They form workers’ associations. Deroin and Roland are imprisoned for their activism. All continue to work for women’s rights as teachers, writers, and artists. The women of 1848 inspire successive generations of women to continue their struggle.
Women and The Magna Carta: A Treaty for Control or Freedom?
by Jocelynne ScuttOn the eight-hundredth anniversary of the Magna Carta, Women and the Magna Carta investigates what the charter meant for women's rights and freedoms from an historical and legal perspective.
Women and Violence: The Agency of Victims and Perpetrators (Genders and Sexualities in the Social Sciences)
by Heather Widdows Herjeet MarwayChapter 4 of this book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.This edited collection explores the agency of women who do violence and have violence done to them. Topics covered include rape, pornography, prostitution, suicide bombing and domestic violence. The volume contributes to the philosophical and theoretical debate, as well as offering practical, social and political responses to the issues examined.
Women and the Gift: Beyond The Given And All-giving (Sophia Studies In Cross-cultural Philosophy Of Traditions And Cultures Ser. #17)
by Morny JoyRecent inquiries into the concept of the gift have been largely male-dominated and thus have ignored important aspects of the gift from a woman's point of view. In the light of philosophical work by Mauss, Lévi-Strauss, Derrida, and Bataille, Women and the Gift reflects how women respond to the notion of the gift and relationships of giving. This collection evaluates and critiques previous work on the gift and also responds to how women view care, fidelity, generosity, trust, and independence in light of the gift.
Women and the Politics of Resistance in the Iranian Constitutional Revolution
by Maryam DezhamkhooyMost scholarship on the nineteenth and early twentieth century Constitutional Revolution in Iran has focused on the role of two groups, intellectuals and the clergy. The role of women has largely been ignored, despite their widespread participation in the Revolution, and existing research on women has mainly focused on their achievements in the realm of women’s rights, which means that other aspects of women’s activism remain un-investigated. The aim of this book is twofold: first, it presents one of the very first studies of women’s resistance strategies and their resistance to consumerism in Iran; second, and in relation to the first objective, it attempts to demonstrate the biased nature of knowledge production in the studies of women in past societies, particularly the role of women in economics. This book therefore explores the public role of women and their efforts to revive Iran’s economy during and after the Constitutional Revolution.
Women and the Puranic Tradition in India
by Monika SaxenaThis book analyses the diverse ways in which women have been represented in the Purāṇic traditions in ancient India – the virtuous wife, mother, daughter, widow, and prostitute – against the socio-religious milieu around CE 300–1000. Purāṇas (lit. ancient narratives) are brahmanical texts that largely fall under the category of socio-religious literature which were more broad-based and inclusive, unlike the Smṛtis, which were accessible mainly to the upper sections of society. In locating, identifying, and commenting on the multiplicity of the images and depictions of women’s roles in Purāṇic traditions, the author highlights their lives and experiences over time, both within and outside the traditional confines of the domestic sphere. With a focus on five Mahāpurāṇas that deal extensively with the social matrix Viṣṇu, Mārkaṇḍeya Matsya, Agni, and Bhāgavata Purāṇas, the book explores the question of gender and agency in early India and shows how such identities were recast, invented, shaped, constructed, replicated, stereotyped, and sometimes reversed through narratives. Further, it traces social consequences and contemporary relevance of such representations in marriage, adultery, ritual, devotion, worship, fasts, and pilgrimage. This volume will be of interest to researchers and scholars in women and gender studies, ancient Indian history, religion, sociology, literature, and South Asian studies, as also the informed general reader.
Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex, and the Media
by Kelly OliverEver since Eve tempted Adam with her apple, women have been regarded as a corrupting and destructive force. The very idea that women can be used as interrogation tools, as evidenced in the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos, plays on age-old fears of women as sexually threatening weapons, and therefore the literal explosion of women onto the war scene should come as no surprise. From the female soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib to Palestinian women suicide bombers, women and their bodies have become powerful weapons in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In Women as Weapons of War, Kelly Oliver reveals how the media and the administration frequently use metaphors of weaponry to describe women and female sexuality and forge a deliberate link between notions of vulnerability and images of violence. Focusing specifically on the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, Oliver analyzes contemporary discourse surrounding women, sex, and gender and the use of women to justify America's decision to go to war. For example, the administration's call to liberate "women of cover," suggesting a woman's right to bare arms is a sign of freedom and progress. Oliver also considers what forms of cultural meaning, or lack of meaning, could cause both the guiltlessness demonstrated by female soldiers at Abu Ghraib and the profound commitment to death made by suicide bombers. She examines the pleasure taken in violence and the passion for death exhibited by these women and what kind of contexts created them. In conclusion, Oliver diagnoses our cultural fascination with sex, violence, and death and its relationship with live news coverage and embedded reporting, which naturalizes horrific events and stymies critical reflection. This process, she argues, further compromises the borders between fantasy and reality, fueling a kind of paranoid patriotism that results in extreme forms of violence.
Women in Archaeology: Intersectionalities in Practice Worldwide (Women in Engineering and Science)
by Sandra L. López VarelaThis book tells the story of women in archaeology worldwide and their dedication to advancing knowledge and human understanding. In their own voices, they present themselves as archaeologists working in academia or the private and public sector across 33 countries. The chapters in this volume reconstruct the history of archaeology while honoring those female scholars and their pivotal research who are no longer with us.Many scholars in this volume fiercely explore non-traditional research areas in archaeology. The chapters bear witness to their valuable and unique contributions to reconstructing the past through innovative theoretical and methodological approaches. In doing so, they share the inherent difficulties of practicing archaeology, not only because they, too, are mothers, sisters, and wives but also because of the context in which they are writing. This volume may interest researchers in archaeology, history of science, gender studies, and feminist theory. Chapter 11 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Women in Canadian Politics, Volume 6: Toward Equity in Representation
by Kathy Megyery"Women are the most under-represented social group in the elected assemblies of the worl. Women everywhere constitute m ore than one-half of the population and … rarely, are more than a handful of the political elite." The studies in this volume examine women’s involvement in political parties both past and present. Empirical studies identify the roles Canadian women play in parties, the opportunities and barriers they face, and their progress toward greater representation in the political process. The questions addressed in this volume include: What are the major barriers to women’s entry into federal politics? (Janine Brodie). Do large numbers of women remain confined to "pink collar" work at the expensive of executive positions? (Sylvia Bashevkin). What is the impact of the candidate selection process on the election of women to the House of Commons? (Lynda Erickson). How does incumbency affect the numbe rof women elected to federal office? (Lisa Young). What is the influence of media coverage on women in politics? (Gertrude Robinson and Armande Saint-Jean). The authors agree that the under-representation of women in politics undermines the democratic credibility of our governing institutions. Nonetheless, they are cautiously optimistic regarding the prospects for the third generation of women entering politics.
Women in Islam
by Terence LovatThe role of women in Islamic societies, not to mention in the religion itself, is a defining issue. It is also one that remains resistant to universal dogma, with a wide range of responses to women's social roles across the Islamic world. Reflecting this heterogeneity, the editor of this volume has assembled the latest research on the issue, which combines contemporary with historical data. The material comes from around the world as well as from Muslim and non-Muslim researchers. It takes in work from majority Muslim nations such as Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Tunisia and Turkey, as well as countries with troubled interfaith relations such as India and Israel. Nations with minority Muslim populations such as France, the UK, Canada and Australia, are also represented. The work also features varying Islamic sub-groups such as the two main ones, Sunni and Shi'a, as well as less well known populations such as the Ismaili Muslims. In each case, the work is underpinned by the very latest socio-theological insights and empirical data.
Women in Nineteenth-Century Czech Musical Culture: Apostles of a Brighter Future (Slavonic and East European Music Studies)
by Anja Bunzel Christopher Campo-BowenThis volume focuses on the circumstances of women’s music-making in the vibrant and diverse environment of the Czech lands during the nineteenth century. It sheds light on little-known women musicians, while also considering more well-known works and composers from new woman-centric perspectives. It shows how the unique environment of Habsburg Central Europe, especially Bohemia and Lower Austria, intersects with gender to reveal hitherto unexplored networks that challenge the methodological nationalism of music studies as well as the discipline’s continued emphasis on singular canonical figures. The main areas of enquiry address aspects of performance and identity both within the Czech lands and abroad; women’s impact on social life with a view to different private, semiprivate, and public contexts and networks; and compositional aesthetics in musical works by and about women, analysed through the lens of piano works, song, choir music, and opera, always with the reception of these works in mind.
Women in Pragmatism: Past, Present and Future (Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences #14)
by Núria Sara Miras Boronat Michela BellaThis book offers a selection of the papers of the Women in Pragmatism International Conference held at the University of Barcelona in January 2020. The conference gathered women and non-binary scholars from twelve different countries. This was the first pragmatist conference organized entirely by women and non-binary persons. It has initiated a stable network of mentoring and support analogous to other women philosophers’ organizations. The book provides paths to reconstruct the roots of pragmatism, integrating the works of women pragmatists of the past and linking them to the current developments of feminist and pragmatist topics. Scholars of different countries, status, and backgrounds serve as a powerful example of the trend toward interdisciplinary cooperation and versatility we might expect for the future of pragmatism. The book is of interest for scholars interested in both pragmatism and feminism, from various perspectives ranging from psychology to semiotics, logic, and sociology, wishing to expand their horizons and understand their relevant interactions.
Women in Science Now: Stories and Strategies for Achieving Equity
by Lisa M. MunozWomen working in the sciences face obstacles at virtually every step along their career paths. From subtle slights to blatant biases, deep systemic problems block women from advancing or push them out of science and technology entirely.Women in Science Now examines solutions to this persistent gender gap, offering new perspectives on how to make science more equitable and inclusive for all. This book shares stories and insights of women from a range of backgrounds working in various disciplines, illustrating the journeys that brought them to the sciences, the challenges they faced along the way, and the important contributions they have made to their fields. Lisa M. P. Munoz combines these narratives with a wealth of data to illuminate the size and scope of the challenges women scientists face, while highlighting research-based solutions to help overcome these obstacles. She presents groundbreaking studies in social psychology and organizational behavior that are informing novel approaches for combating historic and ongoing inequities.Through a combined focus on personal experiences and social-science research, this timely book provides both a path toward greater gender equity and an inspiring vision of science and scientists.
Women in Western Political Thought
by Susan Moller OkinIn this pathbreaking study of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Mill, Susan Moller Okin turns to the tradition of political philosophy that pervades Western culture and its institutions to understand why the gap between formal and real gender equality persists. Our philosophical heritage, Okin argues, largely rests on the assumption of the natural inequality of the sexes. Women cannot be included as equals within political theory unless its deep-rooted assumptions about the traditional family, its sex roles, and its relation to the wider world of political society are challenged. So long as this attitude pervades our institutions and behavior, the formal equality women have won has no chance of becoming substantive.
Women in the Hindu Tradition: Rules, Roles and Exceptions (Routledge Hindu Studies Series)
by Mandakranta BoseThis book accounts for the origin and evolution of the nature and roles of women within the Hindu belief system. It explains how the idea of the goddess has been derived from Hindu philosophical ideas and texts of codes of conduct and how particular models of conduct for mortal women have been created. Hindu religious culture correlates philosophical speculation and social imperatives to situate femininity on a continuum from divine to mortal existence. This creates in the Hindu consciousness multiple - often contradictory - images of women, both as wielders and subjects of authority. The conception and evolution of the major Hindu goddesses, placed against the judgments passed by texts of Hindu sacred law on women’s nature and duties, illuminate the Hindu discourse on gender, the complexity of which is compounded by the distinctive spirituality of female ascetic poets. Drawing on a wide range of Sanskrit texts, the author explains how the idea of the goddess has been derived from Hindu philosophical ideas and also from the social roles of women as reflected in, and prescribed by, texts of codes of conduct. She examines the idea of female divinity which gave rise to models of conduct for mortal women. Instead of a one-way order of ideological derivation, the author argues that there is constant traffic between both ways the notional and the actual feminine. This book brings together for the first time a wide range of material and offers fresh stimulating interpretations of women in the Hindu Tradition.
Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy: Selected Papers of the Tilburg – Groningen Conference, 2019 (Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences #15)
by Jeanne Peijnenburg Sander VerhaeghThis book contains a selection of papers from the workshop Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy held in October 2019 in Tilburg, the Netherlands. It is the first volume devoted to the role of women in early analytic philosophy. It discusses the ideas of ten female philosophers and covers a period of over a hundred years, beginning with the contribution to the Significs Movement by Victoria, Lady Welby in the second half of the nineteenth century, and ending with Ruth Barcan Marcus’s celebrated version of quantified modal logic after the Second World War. The book makes clear that women contributed substantially to the development of analytic philosophy in all areas of philosophy, from logic, epistemology, and philosophy of science, to ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. It illustrates that although women's voices were no different from men's as regards their scope and versatility, they had a much harder time being heard. The book is aimed at historians of philosophy and scholars in gender studies
Women's Contemporary Readings of Medieval (Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning #28)
by Saloua ChattiThis book explores a large variety of topics involved in Arabic philosophy. It examines concepts and issues relating to logic and mathematics, as well as metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics. These topics are all studied by different Arabic philosophers and scientists from different periods ranging from the 9th century to the 20th century, and are representative of the Arabic tradition. This is the first book dealing with the Arabic thought and philosophy and written only by women. The book brings together the work and contributions of an international group of female scholars and researchers specialized in the history of Arabic logic, philosophy and mathematics. Although all authors are women, the book does not enter into any kind of feminist trend. It simply highlights the contributions of female scholars in order to make them available to the large community of researchers interested in Arabic philosophy and to bring to the fore the presence and representativeness of female scholars in the field.
Women's Economic Empowerment: Feminism, Neoliberalism, and the State
by Inna MichaeliChallenging the simplistic story by which feminism has become complicit in neoliberalism, this book traces the course of globalization of women’s economic empowerment from the Global South to the Global North and critically examines the practice of empowering low-income women, primarily migrant, indigenous and racialised women. The author argues that women’s economic empowerment organizations become embedded in the neoliberal re-organization of relations between civil society, state and market, and in the reconfiguration of relations between the personal and the political. Also examined are the contractual nature of institutional arrangements in neoliberalism, the ontological divide between economy and society, and the marginalisation of feminist economics that persists in the field of women’s economic empowerment. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of social sciences, gender studies, sociology, and economics. This book is based on the author’s doctoral dissertation at the Humboldt University of Berlin, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Women's International Thought: A New History
by Patricia Owens Katharina RietzlerWomen's International Thought: A New History is the first cross-disciplinary history of women's international thought. Bringing together some of the foremost historians and scholars of international relations working today, this book recovers and analyses the path-breaking work of eighteen leading thinkers of international politics from the early to mid-twentieth century. Recovering and analyzing this important work, the essays offer revisionist accounts of IR's intellectual and disciplinary history and expand the locations, genres, and practices of international thinking. Systematically structured, and focusing in particular on Black diasporic, Anglo-American, and European historical women, it does more than 'add women' to the existing intellectual and disciplinary histories from which they were erased. Instead, it raises fundamental questions about which kinds of subjects and what kind of thinking constitutes international thought, opening new vistas to scholars and students of international history and theory, intellectual history and women's and gender studies.
Women's International Thought: Towards a New Canon
by Patricia Owens Kimberly Hutchings Katharina Rietzler Sarah C. DunstanThis first anthology of women's international thought explores how women transformed the practice of international relations, from the early to mid-twentieth century. Revealing a major distortion in current understandings of the history and theory of international relations, this anthology offers an alternative 'archive' of international thought. By including women as international thinkers it demonstrates their centrality to early international relations discourses in and on the Anglo-American world order and how they were excluded from its history and conceptualization. Encompassing one hundred and four selections by ninety-two different thinkers, including Anna Julia Cooper, Margaret Sanger, Rosa Luxemburg, Judith Shklar, Hannah Arendt, Merze Tate, Susan Strange, Lucy P. Mair and Claudia Jones, it covers the widest possible range of subject matter, genres, ideological and political positions, and professional contexts. Organised into thirteen thematic sections, each with a substantial introductory essay, the anthology provides intellectual, political, biographical context, and original arguments, showing women's significance in international thought.
Women's Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning #24)
by Zoe McConaughey Isabelle Chouinard Aline Medeiros Ramos Roxane NoëlThis book promotes the research of present-day women working in ancient and medieval philosophy, with more than 60 women having contributed in some way to the volume in a fruitful collaboration. It contains 22 papers organized into ten distinct parts spanning the sixth century BCE to the fifteenth century CE.Each part has the same structure: it features, first, a paper which sets up the discussion, and then, one or two responses that open new perspectives and engage in further reflections. Our authors’ contributions address pivotal moments and players in the history of philosophy: women philosophers in antiquity, Cleobulina of Rhodes, Plato, Lucretius, Bardaisan of Edessa, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus, Porphyry, Peter Abelard, Robert Kilwardby, William Ockham, John Buridan, and Isotta Nogarola. The result is a thought-provoking collection of papers that will be of interest to historians of philosophy from all horizons. Far from being an isolated effort, this book is a contribution to the ever-growing number of initiatives which endeavour to showcase the work of women in philosophy.
Women's Representation in African Politics: Beyond Numbers (African Histories and Modernities)
by Zainab Monisola OlaitanDoes the election of more and more women into political offices mean that women’s interests will be better protected? This question forms the background upon which this book is written as it forms a timely intervention concerning the clamour for increased women’s representation in African politics. The book examines the relationship between gender quotas and gender-focused legislative/policy outcomes in the national Parliaments of South Africa and Botswana. By investigating the utility of gender quotas to ensure the substantive representation of women in African politics, the book engages the assumption that increased women’s political participation will automatically improve the qualitative well-being of African women. The book is intended for both academic and non-academic audiences with differing purposes. It contributes to scholarly debates on the transcending relevance of quotas beyond numbers. For non-academics, it provides opportunities to engage gender quotas as a policy tool to ensure the qualitative well-being of African women.
Women's Utopias in British and American Fiction (Routledge Library Editions: Utopias)
by Nan Bowman AlbinskiUtopian writing offers a fascinating panorama of social visions; and the related forms of dystopia and anti-utopian satire extend this into the range of social nightmares. Originally published in 1988, this comparative study of utopian fiction by British and American women writers demonstrates the continuity of a well-established, but little-known, tradition, emphasising its range and diversity, and providing ample evidence of women’s aspirations and documenting the restrictions and exclusions in private and public life that their novels challenge. Historically, the growth of each national tradition is traced in relation to social and political movements, particularly the suffrage movement and contemporary feminism. Comparatively, the quite different responses of British and American women to what are in many instances the same social problems are examine in the light of changing expectations. Definitions of human nature and gender relationships are assessed on a nature/culture continuum as a means of understanding this change. Women’s attitudes to their social and political roles, their working lives, to sexuality, marriage and the family are reflected in their visions of fruitful change; and so also is the impact of two world wars, socialism and fascism, the debate on peaceful uses of nuclear energy and fears of a nuclear holocaust.