День: 30.10.2015

THE NORMALIZATION OF CHANGE

Among the more critical aspects of postmodernity is the normalization of change, the unprecedented degree to which change permeates virtually every aspect of our lives and the immediate landscape of our lives and the unprecedented degree to which we have come to live with it, expect it, and even come to desire it as the […]

Sexualities in a transnational frame

In keeping with the collection’s emphasis on the transnational flows of information and imagery which are entangled with local expressions of sexuality, the volume opens with a section discussing sexualities in a transnational frame. Mark Pendleton asks a series of questions about transnational sexual politics. What forms do contemporary identity politics in the region take, […]

Escaping Confusion

Isn’t intimacy a good in itself, a bundle of warm emotions that pro­mote caring attention? Drawing a continuum from impersonal to intimate helps us avoid some common, morally tinged confusions in these regards: intimacy as emotion, intimacy as caring attention, intimacy as authenticity, and intimacy as an intrinsic good. Many analysts are tempted to define […]

My Methods

Feminist social science, especially in places such as Russia where such research is new, requires eclectic methods. In exploring the impact of intervention on gender violence mobilization, awareness, and state responsiveness, my method is grounded in what social scientists refer to as “participant observation.” I follow other scholars of gender violence politics in this approach […]

Synopses of the Articles

The Public and the Private The first four articles of this anthology problematize Habermas’s analysis of the public and the private spheres, whose differentiation and structure he argues, are essential to the character of modernity. This distinction between public and private parallels, but is not identical to, the distinction he draws between system and lifeworld. […]

Female militancy or ‘culture of silence’?

Historical evidence exists regarding African women’s militant action against colo­nial oppression and patriarchal power (cf. Kolawole, this volume) as well as against sexual insults from men. Based on data from Cameroon in the 1950s, Shirley Ardener (1975) has described how women collectively would confront a male offender, singing abusive songs accompanied by obscene gestures. Machera […]

Defining terms

Key words are highlighted throughout the text in bold. The sociology of gender and related knowledge sometimes uses lan­guage that may be unfamiliar or have different meanings to those used in everyday life. Terminology and jargon are the same thing depending on whether you understand them or not. Having specific terms with specific meanings is […]

My Stance

In this book’s discussion of intervention into gender violence politics in Russia, I do not mean to discount the enormous efforts made by local activists. On the contrary, considering Russian resistance to feminism and its underdeveloped eco­nomic and democratic infrastructures, their accomplishments are astounding, even if not the broad-based, “sisterly” movements that Western feminist observ­ers […]