Construction Of Gender Identity Research Articles

Drawing Fear of Difference: Race, Gender, and National Identity in Ms. Marvel Comics

Feminist scholars have provided important analyses of the gendered and racialised discourses used to justify the Global War on Terror. They show how post-9/11 policies were made possible through particular binary constructions of race, gender, and national identity in official discourse. Turning to popular culture, this article uses a Queer feminist poststructuralist approach to look at the ways that Ms. Marvel comics destabilise and contest those racialised and gendered discourses. Specifically, it explores how Ms. Marvel provides a reading of race, gender, and national identity in post-9/11 USA that challenges gendered-racialised stereotypes. Providing a Queer reading of Ms. Marvel that undermines the coherence of Self/Other binaries, the article concludes that to write, draw, and circulate comics and the politics they depict is a way of intervening in international relations that imbues comics with the power to engage in dialogue with and (re)shape systems of racialised-gendered domination and counter discriminatory legislation. Dibujando miedo a la diferencia: raza, género e identidad nacional en Ms. Marvel Comics

DIVERSIDADE SEXUAL, GÊNERO E SEXUALIDADES: TEMAS IMPORTANTES À EDUCAÇÃO DEMOCRÁTICA

This essay has some observations on the concepts of gender, sexuality, sexual orientation and gender identity, themes that, but never, are necessary to reflect on the school contexts. The reflections that have been made here have been formulated within research projects that deal with the construction of gender identities in the school and part of the formative experiences with teachers of the states of Bahia and Rio Grande do Sul. The teachingdefends a school that, in interrogating the differences, educating the recognition of gender and sexuality dissent, I understand them as inseparable parts of democratic and city society. In addition, the text proposes to offer some epistemological notes to confront the conservative discourses that in the present day renew their fights against the city education, whose main objective is the expansion of human rights, the political participation and the notion of humanity.

Linn da Quebrada: o corpo trans na experiência urbana

Este artigo apresenta uma análise da canção “Mulher”, da artista Linn da Quebrada, veiculada na obra audiovisual blasFêmea, a partir da perspectiva teórico-metodológica da Análise do Discurso de linha francesa. O tema que atravessa a produção é a questão do “ser” mulher a partir da vivência do corpo transexual e periférico, em relação ao espaço urbano, portanto, social, habitado por essa persona. Diante desse emblema contemporâneo, trazemos para o debate a relação entre gênero, sexualidade e espaço urbano, a partir da prática discursiva intersemiótica de Linn da Quebrada, a fim de repensar as formas de construção de identidades de gênero, partindo da desconstrução das cisheteronormatividades, essas dadas como naturais. Faremos a exposição do tema chave, gênero e espaço urbano, aqui, já que nos interessa discutir sobre o papel social que a arquitetura desempenha em nossa cultura, e logo depois faremos uma breve reflexão a respeito dos conceitos utilizados para, então, expormos nossa análise.

Zulu names and their impact on gender identity construction of adults raised in polygynous families in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Zulu names and their impact on gender identity construction of adults raised in polygynous families in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Transgender identity: a relational and contextualized construction (San Luis, Argentina, 2013-2015)

This paper starts from a research about transgender people's gender identity's construction process, carried out during 2013 and 2015 in San Luis province, Argentina. My aim is to prove that others' recognition, and the ways we understand gender, feminity and masculinity in Western Culture, contribute to shape transgender people's gender identity's construction process. I use a qualitative strategy based on data inductive work, similar to Grounded Theory's proposal. I conclude that transgender people's gender identity is built in a permanent negotiation about others’ recognition, framed in prevailing gender cultural patterns.

Böske Simon, Miss Hungaria and Miss Europa (1929): Beauty Pageants and Packaging Gender, Race, and National Identity in Interwar Hungary

In this interdisciplinary article that draws on the intersections of Hungarian and Jewish Studies within a framework of cultural studies and gender studies, Louise O. Vasvári investigates the socio-political role of beauty pageants in 1920s European and—more specifically—in Hungarian social, political and cultural life. The article is structured as a case study of the life of Böske Simon, who was born into a bourgeois Jewish family in 1909 and who won the first Miss Hungaria competition in 1929, soon followed by the title of Miss Europa. Vasvári aims to place Simon’s role as Hungarian beauty queen in a broader focus by examining from a gender perspective the international development of beauty pageants, of the illustrated press, and of commercial beauty culture in the 1920s. She examines the symbolic space allotted to the concept “Modern Girl,” who in the interwar [re]construction of gender and national identities came to represent both the enticements and the dangers of modernity. More specifically, she examines how the problematic gender representation of women in such pageants and their reception by the press and by the public interact in the broader interwar nationalistic cultural sphere in post-Trianon Hungary.

Experiences of sexual and gender minorities in an urban enclave of Haiti: despised, beaten, stoned, stabbed, shot and raped

Studies of sexual and gender minorities in Haiti and globally typically involve HIV research and programming with men who have sex with men. We conducted focus groups with individuals in Haiti’s Cité Soleil slum whose assigned gender at birth matched neither their gender identity nor contextual heteronormative constructions of gender roles, i.e. transwomen and transmen. The Yogyakarta Principles provided the study framework. Focus group participants offered emic perspectives on overall well-being, identities, biopsychosocial strengths and HIV-protective and risk factors. We found that gender expression that conflicts with contextual norms evoked recurring, humiliating and intentionally injurious sexual assaults against participants, heightening their HIV risk; participants endured beatings, shootings, stabbings, stonings and socio-political violence. Lack of confidentiality and stigma hinder participants’ access to scarce HIV resources. Indistinct boundaries between sexuality, gender identity and gender expression merged with traditional gender-based roles to perpetuate sexual violence towards transwomen by cisgender heterosexual men and by transmen towards cisgender heterosexual women. Despite resignation to omnipresent violence, participants showed resilience regarding gender identity. Needed are integrated socio-behavioural and health programmes to challenge existing gender inequities while providing training on human rights and HIV risk reduction for Haitian sexual and gender minorities.

The construction of gendered identities in Moroccan radio phone-in programmes

ABSTRACT The restructuring of the media landscape and access to new radio outlets resulted in the popularity of interactive programmes among Moroccans. Many phone-ins now exist that offer advice on a variety of social problems. Some address issues that pertain specifically to the modern Moroccan woman. The interactive aspects of phone-ins offer an opportunity to study the ways gender is co-constructed by lay callers and the experts providing advice. This article offers an Ethnomethodological account of two calls to Kif Lhal, a popular Moroccan radio phone-in. It describes the ways callers mobilised the categories wife, mother, father and husband to construct specific gender identities. Methodologically, Membership Categorisation Analysis is used to describe how callers deployed gender categories, and how their deployment betrayed patriarchal worldviews. The article argues that an ethnomethodological analysis can offer a glimpse at the emic logic of gender relations in everyday life. It can also trace the ways this logic spills over into the discourse of Kif Lhal as a media text. While their positive impact is undeniable, phone-ins run the risk of inadvertently importing patriarchal modes of discourse to the public sphere of media, where major strides have been made towards gender equality.

Toplumsal Cinsiyet ve Mekânın Karşılıklı İlişkisi: Patriyarkanın Sosyal Mekânı Örgütleyişine Dair Bir Tartışma

Mekân, kültürel yurttaşlık değerlerinin kadını dışlamasını en somut anlamda görebileceğimiz bir öğedir. Bunun nedeni mekânın kültürel inşasının kadınları güç ve etkiden alıkoyan meşruiyeti sembolize eden bir iç doğaya sahip olmasıdır. Bu nedenle de feminist coğrafyanın özellikli amacı, toplumsal cinsiyete ve mekâna göre olan bölünmeleri görünür kılmak, sorunsallaştırmak ve onlar arasındaki karşılıklı yapılanmayı-patriyarkanın sosyal mekânı örgütleyişini- ve bariz doğallığı açık etmektir. 
 Benim bu makalede amacım, kadın ve erkeklerin mekân ve yerleri ne ölçüde farklılaşarak deneyimlediklerini incelemek ve bu farklılıkların toplumsal cinsiyetin sosyal inşasının bir parçası olduğu kadar nasıl da yerlerin bir özelliği olduğunu tartışmaktır. İlkin, özellikle jeopolitik anlayışa odaklanarak akademik coğrafyaya egemen olan erkek merkezli epistemolojiyi ve disiplinin mekânsal düşüncesinin eril yaklaşımdan etkilenişini açığa çıkarmaya çalışacağım. İkinci olarak, feminist coğrafyanın anahtar kavramlarını ele alarak toplumsal cinsiyet ve sosyal mekân arasındaki ilişkileri tartışacağım. Bunu yaparken de toplumsal olarak inşa edilmiş olan ‘kamusal’ ve ‘özel’ kavramları ile cinsiyetlenmiş kimliklerin inşası arasındaki ilişkiyi inceleyeceğim. Ve son olarak, kadınların günümüzdeki sosyo-ekonomik ve kültürel pratiklerine odaklanarak kamusal ve özel mekânlar arasındaki ayrımı eleştireceğim.

Gender Identity Construction Through Traditional and Modern Lenses: Rwandan Narratives and MDGs Perspectives

While there is an on-going debate about what constitutes current policies and practices on gender equality between men and women in Rwanda, there is general agreement that Rwandan traditional beliefs and cultural norms have produced a patriarchy ideology and unequal power relations between women and men. Such traditional beliefs are not only observed in Rwanda, but in different parts of the world as well; and it is still problematic to assess a framework in which current gender policies are redesigned to allocate equitable power between women and men. This study focuses on the analysis and comparison of issues of gender identity and power relations as embedded in the Rwandan short narratives and in the Millennium Development Goals on gender equality. More specifically, this study investigates the design and redesign of the issues related to power relations and their effect on gender identity conception and assumption. Analysed from Marxist theories of power and Thompson’s modes perspectives, the findings suggest that Rwandan traditional narratives view men as more powerful than women and the society expects more from men in terms of responsibilities. As for the Millennium Development Goals, they focus on women empowerment only and thereby create a new imbalance between men and women. The paper recommends equality in terms of a maleness and femaleness ideology from policy to legislation and other domains.

Травелоги югославских писательниц первой половины ХХ века: в поисках идентичности

The paper considers travelogues of Yugoslav female writers Alma Karlin, Jelena Dimitrijević, Isidora Sekulić, Marica Gregorič Stepančič, Marica Strnad, Luiza Pesjak. These texts created in the first half of the 20th century in Serbian, Slovenian and German are on the periphery of the literary field and, with rare exceptions, do not belong to the canon. The most famous of these authors are Sekulić from Serbia and the German-speaking writer Karlin from Slovenia. Recently, the work of Dimitrijević has also become an object of attention of researchers. Other travelogues writers are almost forgotten. Identity problems, especially national ones, are a constant component of the travelogue genre. During a journey, the author directs his attention to “other / alien” peoples and cultures that can be called foreign to the perceiving consciousness. However, when one perceives the “other”, one inevitably turns to one's “own”, one's own identity. The concept of “own - other / alien”, on which the dialogical philosophy is based (M. Buber, G. Marcel, M. Bakhtin, E. Levinas), implies an understanding of the cultural “own” against the background of the “alien” and at the same time culturally “alien” on the background of “own”. Women's travel has a special status in culture. Even in the first half of the 20th century the woman was given space at home. Going on a journey, especially unaccompanied, was at least unusual for a woman. According to Simone de Beauvoir, a woman in society is “different / other”. Therefore, women's travelogues can be defined as the look of the “other” on the “other / alien”. In this paper, particular attention is paid to the interrelationship of gender, national identities and their conditioning with a cultural and historical context. At the beginning of the 20th century in the Balkans, national identity continues actively to develop and the process of women's emancipation is intensifying. Therefore, the combination of gender and national issues for Yugoslavian female travelogues of this period is especially relevant. Dimitrijević's travelogue Seven Seas and Three Oceans demonstrates this relationship most vividly: “We Serbian women are no less patriotic than Egyptian women... Haven't Serbian women most of the merit that the big Yugoslavia originated from small Serbia?” As a result of this study, the specificity of the national and gender identity constructs in the first half of the 20th century in the analyzed texts is revealed. For this period one can note, on the one hand, the preservation of national and gender boundaries, often supported by stereotypes, on the other hand, there are obvious tendencies towards the erosion of the established gender and national constructs, the mobility of models of gender and national identification as well, largely due to the sociohistorical processes of the time.

Youth provoking peace: an intersectional approach to territorial peacebuilding in Colombia

ABSTRACTThis article examines how youth (re)construct a sense of self and belonging in the aftermath of displacement and armed conflict in Colombia. I draw on ethnographic research with the Youth Peace Provokers of the Alta Montaña (Jóvenes Provocadores de Paz de la Alta Montaña) movement in rural Colombia to analyze the construction and performance of gendered identities among youth peacebuilders. Part one examines how youth navigate the gendered landscape of memory to (re)construct self and place in a context where militarised masculinities circulate and inscribe social power. Part two illustrates the ways in which gendered experiences of violence shape how and who participates in peacebuilding in the aftermath of war. Part three explores how youth construct their identities in response to multiple forms of violence that operate across the axes of gender, generation, race, class and territory, which extend into the emerging ‘postconflict’ landscape. I argue that participation in an intergenerational peace movement facilitates youth identity construction over and against the interlocking violence(s) of patriarchy, militarism and racism.

Estereotipos de género transmitidos a los niños y niñas en la familia postpatriarcal

Articulo publicado en: Journal de Ciencias Sociales, Ano 12, nro. 7, Abril 2019. Disponible en

New Women identity constructed in language learning narratives in early-twentieth-century China

Previous studies of Chinese learners' language learning and identity construction have overlooked the gender factor. This study investigates the language learning narratives of two Chinese 'New Women', the aim being to reveal the connection between their language learning and gender identity construction, where national identity is the prominent variable. The theoretical framework applied is Darvin and Norton's 'model of investment', and the narrative analysisrevealed there are intra-dimensional differences under the general label of New Women. The English learner displayed better strategic use of language in resisting disadvantaged positions and in constructing her 'ideal woman' identity. The analysis also revealed that language plays its role in generating differences through the soft and invisible power of ideology and shifting capital, both of which are embedded in the daily use of language.

Exploring the Construction of Adulthood and Gender Identity Among Single Childfree People in Mexico and Japan

This article presents the analysis of personal narratives of Mexican and Japanese single and childfree cisgender heterosexual individuals to explore how people who do not comply with heteronormativ...

La formación feminista como arma para combatir la publicidad sexista

The media is one of the main socializing agents in our society. Within these, one of the forms of communication that acquires more importance in the media, economic and social landscape is advertising. Its persuasive power determines, in some way, the social imaginary, contributing to the legitimization and assumption of certain social values. For this reason, is quite important the role of advertising in the construction of gender identities and the image of women. In fact, advertising speeches reproduce traditional and conservative stereotypes in relation to the roles of men and women and contribute to the normalization of sexist representations, with a high dose of symbolic violence, which threaten the dignity of women, which makes advertising an instrument of perpetuation and maintenance of gender inequality. In order to modify this situation, the solutions include strengthening the democratic awareness of gender and specifically, introducing feminist education in the degrees of communication and advertising, whose students will shape the advertising future.

The role of humor discourse in the construction of gender identity

This research was supported by the Valencian Regional Department of Education, Research, Culture and Sport by means of the grant PROMETEO /2016/052 “Gender-based humor: Observatory of identity women and men through humor”.

Playing with America’s Doll: A Cultural Analysis of the American Girl Collection by Emilie Zaslow

Reviewed by: Playing with America’s Doll: A Cultural Analysis of the American Girl Collection by Emilie Zaslow Dawn Sardella-Ayres (bio) Emilie Zaslow. Playing with America’s Doll: A Cultural Analysis of the American Girl Collection. Palgrave, 2017. In her 2017 monograph, Playing with America’s Doll: A Cultural Analysis of the American Girl Doll Collection, Emilie Zaslow undertakes a comprehensive study of the American Girl dolls, books, and merchandising in order to analyze their reception and historical importance. This is a vast undertaking, requiring both depth and breadth, but Zaslow manages it capably, utilizing her background in American Studies, Women’s Studies, and Media, Culture and Communication to provide effective critical lenses to examine all things American Girl. Zaslow combines scholarly critique of the American Girl books with feminist media analysis of the dolls and other companion merchandise. Additionally, she employs empirical analysis, conducting interviews not only with mother-and-daughter consumers but also with the producers, authors, advisory board members, manufacturers, and marketing teams involved over the years with the American Girl dolls and accessories. Zaslow begins to unpack a generation of “definitions of American and girlhood created by this brand” (6), and in this way, her study brings together several insightful angles that all inform each other in order to scrutinize the products in relation to media and the construction of gender identity. The American Girl company from the beginning has sought to present historically accurate, diverse, and empowering stories for girls and ways for different girls to see themselves, and their cultures and histories, reflected in the characters. However, the fact that the American Girl company is a corporate entity (now owned by Mattel) involved with marketing, sales, and profit of a luxury product is almost intrinsically at odds with the company’s feminist and educational objectives. Is American girlhood history, or a commodity? Indeed, it is an uneasy yet fascinating combination. Zaslow approaches the pop culture phenomenon with a “dual lens” of both fan and scholar. Her primary critical questions interrogate who is writing and producing what stories for whom, and under what conditions, and how it affects the readers/recipients of the texts—indeed, the entire “mediascape of dolls, accessories, and retail experiences” (5). Simplistic binaries defining “black” and “white” or “inclusive” and “alienating” regarding American Girl are ineffective, both in exploring the products as well as the human American Girls involved. Instead, as Zaslow interrogates the constant conflicts in American Girl products, she confronts the inevitable “either/or” “and/but” [End Page 302] tensions in intersectional identities and addresses the outright hypocrisies involved with the dolls and products and how they’ve functioned for girls (and their mothers). Examining any element of the American Girl products requires constant, nuanced investigation of multifaceted issues regarding race and culture, not just in how doll-characters are portrayed and stories told, but how they are received and incorporated by diverse children and their parents. Zaslow combines textual analysis of books themselves, analysis of dolls as cultural artifacts (relying on Robin Bernstein’s intersectional approach of dolls as “scriptive things” providing racial ideology [44]), as well as quantitative analysis with girls who own and engage with American Girl dolls and other products. While Zaslow recognizes her own study’s biases, including her small sample size, incorporating such a focus group reflects the very conflicts of the American Girl brand, the locus of power and narrative, and the whos and hows of defining American Girlhood itself. Gender and sexuality related to American Girls is a labyrinthine topic in itself, but the company’s objectives and implications become almost impossibly convoluted when considering racial and ethnic experiences. Zaslow’s text interrogates race and culture regarding how American Girl doll-characters are portrayed and their stories told, as well as how they are received by diverse girls (and their mothers). A large part of the text involves scrutinizing racial, cultural, and ethnic identity as “American Girls” in both the dolls/characters, and the readers/consumers themselves. For example, Zaslow’s fifth chapter specifically explores Pleasant Company’s desire to present “authentic” representation of multiple points of view, to represent a spectrum of black and nonwhite experiences. Their efforts to...

A Most Reliable Witness: Essays in Honor of Ross Shepard Kraemer ed. by Susan Ashbrook et al.

Reviewed by: A Most Reliable Witness: Essays in Honor of Ross Shepard Kraemer ed. by Susan Ashbrook et al. Holly Hearon susan ashbrook harvey, nathaniel desrosiers, shira l. lander, jacqueline z. pastos, and daniel ulluci (eds.), A Most Reliable Witness: Essays in Honor of Ross Shepard Kraemer (BJS 358; Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2015). Pp. xix + 304. $59.95. This volume features essays authored by students, colleagues, and friends of Ross Shepard Kraemer from across the forty-plus years of her academic career. The essays reflect the remarkable range of K.'s scholarship and demonstrate how her deep engagement with primary texts has shaped and continues to shape generations of scholars. Many of the essays take up questions or observations raised by K. in her work, promoting the kind of dialogue that K. has valued and encouraged as a teacher and colleague. The volume is divided into two sections. Part 1, "Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World," consists of twelve essays: Theodore A. Bergren, "Jesus' Baptism by John in the Context of First-Century Judaism"; Cebra J. Bucher, "Converts, Resisters, and Evangelists: Jews in the Acts of Philip V–VII"; Robert Doran, "Thecla and the Governor: Who Clothes Whom?"; Paula Fredriksen, "If It Looks like a Duck, and It Quacks like a Duck . . . On Not Giving Up on the Godfearers"; John G. Gager, "Who Did What to Whom? Physical Violence between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity"; Maxine L. Grossman, "How Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Help Us to Think about Gender in Ancient Judaism?"; Kim Haines-Eitzen, "The Sound of Angels' Wings in Paradise: Religious Identity and the Aural Imagination in the Testament of Adam"; Jordan D. Rosenblum, "The Night Rabbi Aqiba Slept with Two Women"; Stanley K. Stowers, "The Social Formations of Paul and His Romans: Synagogues, Churches, and Ockham's Razor"; Arthur P. Urbano, "Fashioning Witnesses: 'Hebrews' and 'Jews' in Early Christian Art"; Heidi Wendt, "Entrusted with the Oracles of God": The Fate of the Judean Writings in Flavian Rome"; Benjamin G. Wright, "Cultural Creativity in Egyptian Judaism." Part 2, "Women in Judaism and Christianity," consists of sixteen essays: Lynn H. Cohick, "Mothers, Martyrs, and Manly Courage: The Female Martyr in 2 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and The Acts of Paul and Thecla"; Mary R. D'Angelo, "Susanna's Choice"; Nathaniel P. DesRosiers, "What Is Her Word Worth? Oath Taking and Women in the Mediterranean World"; Jennifer Eyl, "Optatus's Account of Lucilla in Against the Donatists, or, Women Are Good to Undermine With"; Jordan Kraemer and Shira L. Lander "Gender and Apocalypticism in Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games Trilogy"; Robert A. Kraft, "To the Most Honorable Lady, Theophile (Luke 1.3; Acts 1.1)"; Amy-Jill Levine, "This Poor Widow . . ." (Mark 12:43): From Donation to Diatribe"; Susan Marks "Bayit versus Beit Midrash: Jewish Mother as Teacher"; E. Ann Matter, "In Her Own Words: Religious Autobiography and Agency in Lucia Brocadelli, a Woman Writer of Early Modern Italy"; Renée Levine Melammed, "Witnesses from Medieval Mediterranean Society: The Reliability of Jewish Women's Narratives from the Cairo Genizah"; Susan Niditch, "Miriam's Well: Rabbinic Variations on a Folk Motif, Gender Views, and Contemporary Reception"; Elaine Pagels, "The Shape-Shifting Bride: Reflecting on Race and Ethnicity in Origen's Exegesis of the Song of Songs"; Adele Reinhartz, "E.T. Phone Home: Exile and Gender in Postexilic Storytelling"; Sarah L. Schwarz, "Her Share of the Cursings: Grid and Group, Gender and Demons"; Karen B. Stern, "Working Women? Professions of Jewish Women in Late Ancient Levant"; Daniel Ullucci, "Ungendering Andrea." [End Page 579] Many of the essays demonstrate K.'s argument that primary sources, whether inscriptions or documentary evidence, represent constructions of gender and religious identity designed to support cultural norms and values. Others press the importance of understanding primary texts in relation to ancient cultural values and practices in order to avoid making historical assertions based on ideological fictions. A few break out in new directions (for example, Haines-Eitzen's essay on aural imagination and Urbano's essay on the rhetorical impact of visual imagery); Fredricksen offers an alternative perspective to Kraemer on the language of "god-fearers"; and there is a nod to...

Gender and Sexual Diversities (GSD) and Socio-Cultural Identities – Identifying the Challenges Associated with the Construction and Contestation of Gender Identities and the Social Integration of LGBTIQ Muslim Youth in Pakistan and Germany

Gender and Sexual Diversities (GSD) and Socio-Cultural Identities – Identifying the Challenges Associated with the Construction and Contestation of Gender Identities and the Social Integration of LGBTIQ Muslim Youth in Pakistan and Germany