British Women Research Articles

Temperance lives and landscape: Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, Lady Henry Somerset, and late nineteenth-century Ledbury

Abstract This article considers the relationship of two prominent leaders of British women’s temperance, Lady Henry Somerset and Lady Elizabeth Biddulph. They were noteworthy for taking opposing sides when the British Women’s Temperance Association divided on the question of the political reach of its work. Somerset and Biddulph were elite women, daughters of earls and near neighbours around Ledbury, a centre of cider apple and hop cultivation in Herefordshire. Both made their first temperance pledge in the area. We examine their geographical proximity and consider the importance of local agricultural labour and landscapes to their temperance work.

Black British love matters: Asserting the transformative power of love in Bolu Babalola’s Love in Colour: Mythical Tales Around the World Retold

ABSTRACT The genre of romance has until fairly recently predominantly depicted white protagonists and presented readers with limited representations of ethnic and racial diversity. This paper provides an overview of the ever-increasing number of Black British authors who are currently addressing this significant gap in the British publishing industry and analyse Bolu Babalola’s debut Love in Colour: Mythical Tales Around the World Retold (2020) as a case in point. Love in Colour is a collection of short stories which questions the universality of western tales of love and celebrates Black love and heritage. My contention is that Babalola’s collection, for its innovative elements, not only evinces that contemporary Black British women’s writing, characterized by aesthetic and formal innovations, continues to “test simple generic categories”, but, in its celebration of the transformative power of love, also demonstrates that Black love matters.

Perceived and received social support functions among UEFA B licensed women football coaches

ABSTRACT Literature that focuses on women coaches indicates frequent experiences of difficult social environments in the coaching community. Individuals who are more socially integrated and satisfied with their social network are likely to overcome these demanding situations more effectively and have higher levels of well-being. Therefore, this study explored perceived and received social support functions among UEFA B licensed women football coaches. An exploratory, multiple case study approach was used to collect data from three white British women football coaches (Mage = 26.6, SD = 1.2 years, Mexperience = 7.6, SD = 3.7 years). Each coach engaged in two semi-structured interviews that were conducted three or four months apart. We analysed the interview data using abductive thematic analysis. The coaches reported receiving social support that they perceived as unhelpful such as a tutor giving them easier drills to coach on coaching courses. However, they also received positive exchanges of social support resources (e.g., emotional support or providing a lift to coaching), which predominantly came from friends and family. The women coaches generally felt supported by the social networks that they had access to. However, there was an overall perception that the coaches would like support to be more easily accessible (e.g., via formal coaching networks). Given the pertinence of social support functions for performance and psychological well-being, applied implications that aim to better support women coaches are discussed.

Spanish Women in British Literary Annuals (1823-1830)

This paper explores the representations of Spain, and particularly Spanish women, in five British literary annuals of the late Romantic period (1823-1830): Forget Me Not, The Literary Souvenir, Friendship’s Offering, The Keepsake and The Amulet. Literary annuals were illustrated anthologies of poems, short stories and travelogues which started to be published in Britain in the 1820s and were sold annually as presents for Christmas and New Year. Mostly aimed at a female audience, these annuals were imbued with a spirit of cosmopolitanism, featuring texts about countries and regions from all over the world. Spanish themes were constantly present in the selected literary annuals, where with a few notable exceptions, most female Spanish characters are countermodels of femininity that deviate from the traditional feminine values fostered by these publications and defy the idealised depictions of (British) women appearing in their texts and engravings. These representations of Spanish women, which underline the ethnic and cultural differences between Spain and Britain, are in tune with the romantic image of the country promoted by British writers at the time.

Trans feminism and the women's liberation movement in Britain, c. 1970–1980

AbstractThe history of the British women's liberation movement (WLM) is a growing field of study, but it has had little to say about trans participants in the movement. Drawing on feminist and LGBT+ archives and interviews, this article argues that while trans acceptance in ‘women‐only’ groups was not guaranteed during the period between 1970 and 1980, trans and cis feminists worked together to advance feminist positions on bodily autonomy and to develop critiques of medical authority. In doing so, this article demonstrates that it is ahistorical to approach trans rights and women's liberation as distinct from one another.

The Battle of Two Bibles: When and How Did the King James Bible Gain Its Popularity over the Geneva Bible?

This article addresses two questions: “When did the King James Bible gain a foothold of popularity among the English people?” and “How did the Geneva Bible lose its popularity to the King James Bible?” By reviewing the post-1611 printing of these two versions of the Bible and examining the texts of the Paul’s Cross sermons and the parliamentary sermons between 1612 and 1643, I find that the King James Bible was already more popular than the Geneva Bible by 1620, and that the rising trend of the popularity of the King James Bible had become irreversible by 1630. By 1640, the battle of the two Bibles was long over. I also refute the assumption that the political authorities’ suppression of the Geneva Bible caused its defeat. Rather, I argue that the decrease in consumer demand for exegetical notes led to the demise of the Geneva Bible.

Contractualismo en el fandom ARMY: una legión preparada y movilizada al servicio de BTS

Although the phenomenon of fandom had its origins in the 19th century, in recent years, it has undergone significant evolution, becoming a fundamental component of the expansion and proliferation of transmedia universes. Currently, one of the largest and most globalised fan communities is ARMY, the fandom of the K-pop group BTS. The purpose of this manuscript is to reflect on the distinctive elements that characterise the ARMY community, understand its unique relationship with BTS in relation to contractualist theories, and analyse the peculiarities of its content production. Through a questionnaire-type survey directed at BTS followers, with the participation of 275 people in English and 128 in Spanish, quantitative information was collected. The goal was to extrapolate, through structured procedures, certain aspects of the behaviour of BTS fans. The results obtained allow for establishing the points of connection between the band and its fandom, understanding the importance of narrative as a driver of fan loyalty, evaluating the predominant influence of YouTube compared to other content consumption channels, and finally extrapolating these characteristics as a model that stimulates fan communities through fundamental elements of contractualism.

The Representation of Women in English and Kurdish Magazine Cover Pages: A Critical Multimodal Perspective

The Representation of Women in English and Kurdish Magazine Cover Pages: A Critical Multimodal Perspective

Ipshita Nath. Memsahibs: British Women in Colonial India. London: Hurst Publishers, 2022. Pp. 496. £30.00 (cloth).

Ipshita Nath. Memsahibs: British Women in Colonial India. London: Hurst Publishers, 2022. Pp. 496. £30.00 (cloth).

BRITISH WOMEN’S SUPERIORITY TOWARDS SOCIAL CLASS STRATIFICATION IN POST INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ERA IN JANE AUSTEN’S EMMA

Industrial revolution in Britain has fragmented people into a certain social class stratification namely; upper, middle, and lower class as reflected in Jane Austen’s novel Emma. This paper is aimed at analyzing relationship between characters especially women in novel Emma and people’s manner, attitude, way of thinking, view of life, social perception tendency in postindustrial revolution era in which the novel is written. Emma, Miss Taylor, and Miss Hawkins are representation of the British middle-class women who steadily keeps social limitation to show their existence in community by placing their social status as reference in socializing and interacting with other people. The higher social status people tend to adore and defy their position excessively by despising the lower class. As a result of this, they turn to be superior, more self-important people if they meet the lower-class ones in a social interaction.

Self-Discovery in Small Remedies: A Reading of Shashi Deshpande’s

Women writers in Indian writing in English portray women as daughter, wife, mother and other stereotyped roles in their literary works of art. The cultural changes in India are contrasted through the lives of individuals, communities and the nation. The novelist interweaves many aspects of the personal life with the public matters. Shashi Deshpande’s Small Remedies (2006) is about the protagonist’s quest for self. It delineates the journey of women towards self-discovery in relation to society, and the relationships that are central to women. The women in her novels face upheavals in their marriage. The upheavals are generally inevitable when a woman refuses to conform to her ascribed traditional role. The article examines the self-discovery of the women characters in the novel Small Remedies.

The Stepford Wives, Trajectories of Dystopia into Gender, Genre, Class and Race – From Novel to Film

The Stepford Wives, a novel by Ira Levin published in 1972, describes a micro-dystopian society, whichimposes a strict ‘traditional’ order, by transforming women into compliant wives programmed to serve their husbands. The book has been adapted to screen several times. The present paper will focus on a comparisonbetween the original literary work and thefirst adaptation of 1975 by British director Bryan Forbes, seen through the notions of genre, gender, class and race.

Understanding the concept of the English people in Bede’s work “Ecclesiastical history of the English people”

Understanding the concept of the English people in Bede’s work “Ecclesiastical history of the English people”

Research on Address Terms in Downton Abbey from the Perspective of Leech’s Politeness Principle

Downton Abbey as the representative of British classic historic TV drama has been widely acclaimed since its first episode, which arouses a frenzy of interest in British culture in Edwardian. One of the important reasons for its popularity is that the linguistic style of the script is consistent with the rigid English social hierarchy. It precisely describes the elegant manner and strict etiquette of British society as well as their modest and humorous behaviors. Address in the script as an linguistic symbol can reflect the national customs, history, traditions and politics well. The address forms are rich and accurate in this drama, which is suitable for this study. Therefore, this thesis chooses the addresses from all six seasons as a corpus and divides them into two categories: social address and kinship address. Besides, Leech’s Politeness Principle is also used to analyze the social meaning and affective meaning that the addresses express in Downton Abbey, which is helpful in learning the use of address forms and promoting successful exchanges with different classes of English people. This thesis adopts exemplification and qualitative analysis method to make a detailed analysis of address terms. At the same time, through the combining method of static description and dynamic description, this thesis explores social culture and emotional expressions behind the linguistic characters. This study aims to enrich the address corpus and provide some references for intercultural communication to help English teaching and learning.

PROD-ALERT 2: replicating and extending psychiatric restraint open data analysis using logarithmic estimates of reporting trends.

Care, management, and statute each mandate restraint-reporting in psychiatric settings in England. PROD-ALERT in this journal ("PA1") correlated log incidence of restraint, log institutional size, and log detention. The period was September 2020 to August 2021. It showed a clear trend among reporters. Restraint correlated with institutional size and use of legal detention. Some large detaining providers reported no restraints per month despite that trend. Inference from size suggested that non-complete reporters restrained 1,774 people per month. This paper "PA2" develops analysis repeating it for September 2021 to August 2022. PA2 shows how to count L-information, i.e., questionable information, added by null reports, by applying an L-test to data sets. PA2 uses illustrative vignettes about human height to ground L-information scores from English restraint reporting. In PA2, reported restraint again correlates with size and detention as in PA1. PA2 shows evolving data. Providers still follow a trend in restraint by size and detention. Providers which newly report restraint are on trend. Inference suggests that non-complete reporters restrained 1,305 people per month (536-3233), 95% CI, a large but reduced number since PA1. English restraint data have an L-test L-information score of increase in information by a factor of L = 145. This is as surprising as claiming that an average English man of 1.72m is 2.64m tall. Persons restrained per month is a robust measure continuing to log-correlate with size and legal compulsion. Providers over a certain size who report null restraint probably have some. Restraint remains underreported in England. Imputation of incomplete reporters shows a large shrinking cohort of patients detained by incomplete reporters. Knowledge of this may promote reporting. Improved reporting, and the infrastructure and integrity it demands, may help providers measure and reduce restraint. PA1 remains unrefuted. L-test can measure L-information in intuitively representable ways. The informational effect of nulls on the reliable data set is similar to a claim that an average-heighted man is as tall as people with clinical gigantism.

„Obcy” kraj, „inne” społeczeństwo. XVII-wieczna Anglia w relacjach podróżniczych mieszkańców Rzeczypospolitej – wyobrażenia a rzeczywistość.

Travel in the modern period played an important role in shaping the geographical horizon and creating perceptions of ‘foreign’ countries and ‘other’ peoples. ‘Curiosity’ was the basic impulse to embark on a journey to ‘foreign’ countries. It stimulated the development of knowledge, inspired, and encouraged meticulous observation of the surrounding reality. The aim of the article is to reconstruct sympathies and prejudices towards English society and the image of England existing in the consciousness of Old Polish voyagers. The source base of the article consists of printed and manuscript accounts of journeys and ambassadorial missions, as well as instructions written down by parents or guardians. The accounts contain rich and intriguing descriptions, which are a testimony to the confrontation of imagination with reality. The source material presents a diverse image of the English people. Accounts by Old Polish travelers are dominated by remarks related to the religious aspect. Descriptions of the prevailing religion were emotionally charged and constituted a manifestation of the feelings and religious beliefs of Catholics as well as dissenters. The image of the heretic Englishman is a stereotype firmly rooted in the Old Polish mentality. The resulting image of England has its roots in reality, but also in subjective opinions, impressions, sympathies as well as in myths and stereotypes functioning in the Sarmatian consciousness.

Fairs and Females: A Socio-cultural Perspective of 19th and 20th Century Bengal

Abstract: Fair or Mela has been an integral part of Bengali culture since time immemorial. A fair is generally a conglomeration of people in a festive arrangement for buying and selling goods centering on religious or other special occasions at a specific time and a place. Fair was an integral part of colonial Bengal’s socio-cultural and economic spheres as well. Numerous fairs used to be held in 19th and 20th century Bengal for various reasons which concerned seasonal harvesting, religious festivals, marketing, occasional cultural events, promoting entertainment including traditional games and sports, arts. In a broader aspect, fairs have played role in shaping colonial Bengal’s society and in several ways helped to develop our rich culture over the decades. Another major yet less valued aspect of these fairs is the involvement of women in these which speak in volumes about the socio-economic participation of different classes of women in colonial Bengal. Women of lower social classes participated in these fairs mostly as sellers or entertainers whereas women of higher social classes were found as occasional visitors. Though, due to ‘purdah’ restrictions the numbers of native elite women visitors were often low, women of British or Anglo-Indian families often visited such fairs in their proximity. A number of British women have written about their splendid experiences at Bengali fairs in their memoirs. This vivid participation of women of all strata in different categories in Bengali fairs has not gained much focus in earlier studies. Not merely in the lens of feminism, the role of the womenfolk in those Bengali fairs to contribute in accelerating their families’ economic standard, deserves historical recognition. This paper attempts to study the roles of such women, played in the fairs in both parts of Bengal in 19th and 20th centuries and its grave significance in revisiting gender roles in colonial Bengal’s society.

Transcultural Film Adaptations as Cross-Cultural Dialogue

This article explores a transcultural film adaptation, offerinf new avenues for discussing cross-cultural dialog. The article analyzes the transcultural adaptation of Doctor Zhivago, written by Boris Pasternak. The book was adapted in 1965 by British director David Lean, who cooperated with one of the largest American film studios, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This work considers the changing meaning of the text, which enters a new national culture, and explores how Pasternak’s novel was changed to fit the new audience. Lean’s adaptation of Doctor Zhivago is analyzed as a dialogue of different cultures, which involve the “Hollywoodization” of Russian literature. The author emphasizes the intertextual and cultural dialogism of Boris Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago and David Lean’s 1965 film adaptation. The film adaptation inserts the novel into much broader dialogic relations, for example, with movies of a specific era, their cinematic technics, and ideologies.

At the Edge of the World. Geographical Location, Englishness and Monstrosity

Monstrosity is a constant presence in Old English literature. In particular, Wonders of the East depicts everything that was perceived as strange, significantly located in the East, displaying a Mediterranean-centric perspective where Europe works as the ideal centre of the cosmos. Early English Medieval people adopted this notion, which, however, seems to consign the island to the margins of civilization. This paper investigates how the position of Britain at the border of the map impacted the perceived degree of civilization of the Early Medieval English people and how their geographical location might have imbued the idea of Englishness with monstrosity.

HOW ARE OLDER PEOPLE FARING POST-PANDEMIC? EVIDENCE FROM THE ENGLISH LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF AGING

Abstract This session provides insights into the experiences of older people in England post-COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests that stay-at-home and lockdown measures during the pandemic impacted several aspects of people’s lives with detrimental consequences for their wellbeing and mental health, particularly among older people. Little is known, however, on whether and to what extent there has been a return to ‘normal life’ since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. Using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) this symposium aims to provide new evidence on the experiences of older English people since the successful and rapid COVID-19 vaccination rollout and the easing of restrictions in England through the second half of 2021. ELSA is an ongoing longitudinal biennial survey representative of individuals aged 50 and over in private households that has collected data before the pandemic (with the most recent pre-COVID-19 data collected in 2018/19), during the pandemic (on two separate occasions in June/July and November/December 2020), and post-COVID-19 pandemic (with interviews taking place between October 2021 and March 2023). Exploiting the richness of this dataset, this symposium will present the most up-to-date picture of how older people are faring post-pandemic. Results will focus on mental health and wellbeing, social isolation and loneliness, employment and financial status, as well as social participation (including volunteering, caring, and grandparental childcare).