Weeks et al. (2001: 107) argue, on the basis of research with a very different group of lesbian, gay and bisexually identified women and men in the 1990s, that same-sex relationships contained the potential for creativity and choice. This argument was founded upon the core idea that same-sex relationships had no institutional framework and thus […]
День: 13.10.2015
Diluting the Mother-Child Family
Joy McFadden, whose story opens the book, had reorganized her life to better accommodate the growing number of baseball, basketball, and soccer games that occupied a substantial portion of her children’s time. One of the few women to have two children when first interviewed, she preferred to be in the cheering section at those games […]
Can sexual harassment legislation hurt women who want real equality?
Sexual harassment legislation increases the price of hiring women and therefore gives employers a legitimate reason to discriminate against women. A friend of mine who ran one of the largest research firms in California let go a woman who was unable to get along with most of the employees. A few weeks later, she sued […]
The exceptions
It would be very easy to assume that all male sociologists were as oblivious as the silverbacks whose autobiographies I have just discussed. This is certainly not the case. The impact of feminism has been noticeable on some men since the early 1970s. As examples, Ronnie Frankenberg, David H. J. Morgan, Robert W. Connell and […]
Rape and the Rape Threat8
I now take a quick detour from Hindi films to representations of rape within a broader cultural milieu, particularly before the transformative moment of the second wave of the Indian women’s movement. Lynn Higgins and Brenda Silver (1991, 2-3) note that representations of rape in myths and literary texts are at once a structuring device […]
The ‘woman question’ and education in the May Fourth period
In September 1919, at the height of intellectual debate and student protest that has come to be known as the May Fourth Movement (or in its wider cultural ramifications, the New Culture Movement), a female student by the name of Xie Wanying contributed an article to the Beijing newspaper, Chenbao (Morning Post), that provided a […]
Silverbacks across cultures
126 ——————————————————————————————- American male sociologists were chosen for this exercise only because they had made their published autobiographical narratives available. American silverbacks are no different from their peers in other cultures. There are parallel findings from other advanced societies. The autobiographical essays by two major male figures in British sociology, Halsey (1985) and Willmott (1985) […]
“You Cain’t Trus’ It”
Expert Witnessing in the Case of Rap Houston A. Baker, Jr. I WANT TO say a few things about an essay I read in the Boston Review (December 1991) entitled "Beyond Racism and Misogyny: Black Feminism and 2 Live Crew" by Kimberle Crenshaw. I came upon the essay with an open mind and read it, […]
Reverence for Victims
Shakti Samanta’s Aradhana, faithful to the tradition of the maternal melodrama, is a narrative of excess: a woman’s acute suffering, her sacrifices, and— a favourite theme in Hindi cinema—her intense love for her son. The film begins with passionate arguments in court, where the female protagonist, Vandana (Sharmila Tagore), is on trial. As the credits […]
COMPLETING FAMILIES,. COMPLETING LIVES
During the winter of 2005 I called all the women I had interviewed at least four years previously.1 As many had only been in the beginning stages of family building at the time of the first interview, I asked them how their lives had changed in the intervening years. When we had first talked, most […]