Feminist Critique Research Articles

Consent Culture: Rethinking Boyhood, Sexual Consent and Sexual Violence

ABSTRACT This article considers Katherine Angel and Amia Srinivasan’s feminist critiques of consent culture in relation to one of Australia’s most successful instances of consent advocacy – Chanel Contos’s ‘Teach Us Consent’ campaign. I begin by detailing and endorsing how Angel and Srinivasan criticise consent culture for obscuring the fact that women are exposed to (and shaped by) patriarchal norms. I then argue that they fail to wholly extend this nuance to men. By implying that men’s actions in sexual encounters are somewhat expressive of ‘authentic’ desires, Angel and Srinivasan risk imputing to men the very conception of agency they criticise consent culture for imputing to women. This makes it harder to see boys as anything other than potentially violent future-men. In the final section, I argue that though Contos offers a more holistic response to sexual violence than consent culture, she views boys as not-yet-men with a default loyalty to patriarchy. The resonance between these feminists is understandable given the severe and gendered problem of sexual violence. Yet it also indicates, I conclude, that there is a pattern in contemporary Western feminist discourses of sexual consent to enclose boys (and men) as potential perpetrators, furthering the association between masculinity and violence.

What Women Intercollegiate Coaches Say

To address misconceptions about the lack of women in sport coaching, factors influencing intercollegiate women coaches' career decisions, including their choices to leave positions, apply for new ones, and accept or deny job offers were explored. Utilizing a multi-level analysis underpinned by critical feminist theory, a comprehensive understanding of the systemic and structural barriers women coaches faced, as well as the strategies they employed to navigate their careers were illuminated. Key findings revealed that unequal pay, lack of administrative support, insufficient resources, and pervasive gender biases significantly impacted women's career choices. The importance of supportive workplace environments, flexible working conditions, professional development opportunities, and organizational commitments to diversity and inclusion emerged as crucial for attracting and retaining women coaches. By gathering women coach’s perspectives (n = 118, NCAA Division I, II, and III), data refuted common ‘blame the women’ narratives and emphasized the need for systemic change within intercollegiate sports. This research contributed to the ongoing dialogue on gender equity and practical strategies for athletic departments to create more inclusive and supportive environments, thereby enhancing the recruitment and retention of women coaches are offered.

An archive of modern medical culture: the critique of turn-of-the-century medical discourses in Gertrude Stein’s Three Lives

ABSTRACT Through a close reading of Gertrude Stein’s depiction of illness in Three Lives (1909), this article argues that the text addresses the emerging problems posed by the advancement of modern medicine and critiques some of the dominant medical discourses at the turn of the century. This article discusses the text’s challenge to the dominant medical discourses of the time from three perspectives: its problematisation of modern medicine’s tendency to ignore the context in which the patient is situated; its exposure of the hierarchical relationship between the physician and the patient; and its questioning of medical ideals such as objectivity, certainty, and cure. The article also demonstrates Stein’s fusion of feminist and medical critiques and her integration of racial, ethnic, and national dynamics into her reflection on turn-of-the-century medical culture. It thus proposes Three Lives as an archive of turn-of-the-century medical culture, particularly modern medicine’s entanglement with gender, racial, ethnic, and national tensions.

Re-enchanted Bodies of Water: Towards a Decolonial Tidalectics in Recent African Fiction and Performance

This article explores the complex entanglements of (bodies of) water and coloniality, indigenous epistemologies and alternative ways of being in recent African poetry, short fiction and performance. Idza Luhumyo’s short story “Five Years Next Sunday” gauges the Black female power to create and contain water against the White male thirst for domination, while Koleka Putuma’s poem “Water” offers a haunting insight into an acknowledgement of the sea as archive. The research-based multi-media project Lalela uLwandle by the Empatheatre Collective meditates on our communal relationship with the ocean in the face of exploitation and resource extraction on the coasts of South Africa. These texts redefine the meaning of bodies of water, broaden the significance of wet matters and offer ways of being otherwise through the aquatic and maritime imagination. This article merges Black African feminist critique, decolonial thought and environmental activism in a tidalectic reading of three artistic interventions in our relationship with water. In thinking with and in water, this article embraces a more fluid understanding of the category of the human and argues for a re-enchanted existence with and within the more-than-human world as well as challenges eco-social injustices through an exploration of hydrocolonialism in contemporary African literature and performance.

Women’s Labour in Movement. From Servants and Housewives to Racialised Domestic and Care Workers

This paper examines migrant women’s labour and the location of poor and racialised working women in the context of the contemporary care crisis. In the first part, I briefly reconstruct, the feminist critiques of the Marxist capitalist social (re)production theory and, the Decolonial and Postcolonial feminist criticisms of the Marxist universal model of the capitalist mode of (re)production and its conceptualisation of marginalised and excluded subjects. This analysis sets the ground for understanding the debts and innovations of Marx’s political economy operated by the contemporary theory of care. In the second part, I focus on the embodied and affective experiences of poor, black, brown, and indigenous women to identify concrete mechanisms and relations of exploitation, oppression, and violence produced in the migration process to maintain global care chains. I base my analysis on a review of case studies of Mexican, Indian, and Filipina migrant women. Finally, I highlight the inherent ambivalences of global care chains as a process of both neo-colonial feminisation of migration and reproduction of neoliberal capitalism and as a shared context of struggle and resistance grounded in embodied and affective experiences. Keywords: feminisation of migration, reproductive labour, global care chains, racialized working women

Situational Analysis of Power in Participatory Action Research: Mapping Systemic Frameworks, Discourses, and Principles for Critical Feminist Qualitative Inquiry

In this current context, critical epistemologies, methodologies, and frameworks like Participatory Action Research (PAR), decolonial theory, and situational analysis can provide relevant tools for critical feminist social work research and praxis to expose and reenvision harmful, extractive, and privatized knowledge generation and dissemination. In this article, I describe the possibilities for using critical situational analysis to promote critical feminist social work scholarship through the interrogation of colonial forms of knowledge production, recognition of enactments of refusal and resistance, and illustrations of situational mapping from a study focused on exploring power differentials within PAR collaborations among social work faculty and community stakeholders. I then discuss possibilities to incorporate these analytic qualitative methodologies and frameworks to promote critical feminist principles for critical qualitative inquiry.

How nature-based learning impacts teachers: Discoveries for well-being in and with the project EXPLORE community

Project EXPLORE (PEX) is a nature-based learning (NBL) program designed by the North Carolina Arboretum to help North Carolina K-12 teachers implement citizen science-based curricula to reconnect youth with the natural environment. Initiatives supporting teacher confidence are critical to mainstream implementation of NBL. As there is scant literature on programs’ impact on teachers’ well-being, the purpose of this study is to explore how participating in PEX impacts teachers’ “well-being.” Informed by critical feminist theory, we used an amended two-part collective memory work design. Three former PEX participants created video narratives about a memory of the program’s impact on their well-being. They participated as co-researchers in a focus group to analyze the video diary entries for meanings around teaching well-being and PEX. The group discussed ways PEX supported self-actualization, relationships, and, most importantly, how PEX was a powerful tool for well-being within a neoliberal school context.

Gender, Class, and Political Power in Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits: A Feminist Reading of the Post-Colonial Landscape in Chile

In The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende explores the intersection of gender, class, and political power through the lives of the Trueba family, with a focus on the experiences of the female characters. This paper examines how women in the novel engage with political movements, challenge dictatorial oppression, and navigate patriarchal structures. Central to this exploration are Clara, Blanca, and Alba, whose individual journeys highlight the complexities of female agency in times of political and social unrest. Through their activism, spiritual resistance, and personal struggles, these women subvert traditional gender roles and demonstrate how women carve out spaces for resistance within male-dominated spheres. The feminist critique within Allende’s work exposes the limitations imposed on women’s agency in revolutionary movements, while also showcasing their significant contributions to the fight for social justice and gender equality. This analysis reflects the broader feminist discourse on the intersectionality of gender, class, and political struggle in the context of Latin American history.

Drawing in circles: Feminized labour in autobiographical comics and cartoons on Instagram

Instagram, a social media platform initially designed for sharing mobile photography, is increasingly populated by cartoonists and comics artists who use it as their primary publication platform for diary comics and reflections of their everyday (work)lives. As drawing their lives becomes paid work, whether through direct patronage models or derived print publications, the practices and themes of work life become entangled in the Instagram posts and surrounding communities. In doing so, these artists are reshaping comics and cartoons to fit the affordances of Instagram, as well as of the rhythms and experiences of precarious, feminized labour. This article examines the ways that the single-panel cartoon and the traditional comic strip are reconfigured on Instagram and how this play with form emerges alongside gendered experiences of work, creativity, care and precarity. Through the lens of feminist critique, the article departs from the example of US cartoonist Lucy Knisley, tracing how changes in her working conditions and care responsibilities have material and formal effects on her cartooning. Expanding the argument from this initial example, the article analyses work by a variety of comics artists on Instagram to explore the aesthetics and affects of drawing feminized, precarized work lives.

Erratum. Trans* Athletes in Sport: Not Ceding to the Sex/Gender Binary of Gender Critical Feminism

Erratum. Trans* Athletes in Sport: Not Ceding to the Sex/Gender Binary of Gender Critical Feminism

Representing the Woman: The Modern Subject in Quest of Mastery in The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad

Conrad’s last novel The Arrow of Gold (1919) not only dramatizes the intricate relationship between the protagonist, Monsieur George, and Doña Rita, but it also brings into focus the modern subject’s endeavour to exert control through the representation and objectification of women, ultimately perpetuating the oppressive discourse of patriarchy. George, a young seaman involved in gun-running for the followers of Don Carlos, the pretender to the Spanish throne, develops desire for Rita. His attitude towards Rita defines him as the subject who seeks to appropriate her by objectifying and transforming her into visual representation. The feminist critique of the modern subjectivity, heir to the Cartesian cogito rooted in the the mind/body dichotomy, points to its significant role in providing the conceptual framework which justifies women’s subservient position. According to Elizabeth Grosz, the mind/body dichotomy, which the narrator relies on to construct Rita’s representation, accounts for the emergence of somatophobia involving the disavowal of the female body as the locus of irrational impulses and, therefore, the source of women’s inferiority. Thus, George’s representation of Rita is marked by the tendency to subordinate the female body to discipline and constraints as well as to desubstantialize her by reducing her to a spectral vision. Although Conrad never declared the intention to speak up for the cause of feminism, yet in The Arrow of Gold he exposes the dichotomous conceptual framework that limits Rita’s autonomy and legitimizes the male subject’s will to mastery.

(Un)Veiling the Female Gaze: Darlings Subverts the Madonna-Whore Complex

The portrayal of women in Indian cinema has long been constrained by the Madonna-Whore complex, which limits female representation to restrictive archetypes of virtue or seduction. This paper investigates how the 2022 Bollywood film Darlings challenges and subverts this dichotomy. The objective of this study is to employ a critical feminist approach to analyze the film’s subversion of patriarchal expectations through the narratives of Badru and Shamshu. Darlings, with its female directorial and production perspectives, highlights the importance of the female gaze in Indian cinema to authentically represent women’s agency, desire, and resilience. The research methodology involves a critical examination of the film’s narrative, character dynamics, and cinematic techniques. The film underscores the importance of female authorship in shaping authentic narratives that amplify female agency while resisting objectification and marginalization. The findings demonstrate several cinematic techniques, such as framing, scene sequence, and character arcs, used to establish an empowered female gaze. Ultimately, the film emerges as a part of the paradigm-shifting film genre with the potential to catalyze much-needed critical discourses in how women can control their narratives, reject cultural rationalizations of violence against them, and redefine the sexual norms in Bollywood.

False news claims as media criticism: Situating 1930s-1940s U.S. progressive critiques of “falsehood in the daily press”

Widespread claims charging news media with intentionally presenting false information to advance a political agenda are commonly understood as a recent phenomenon driven by the rise of right-wing populism. This article unpacks the prominence of charges of false news in the 1930s and 1940s United States among progressives who identified the commercial press as a powerful conservative force working on behalf of economic elites and against progressive movements. It argues that liberal and left critics deployed claims of falsehood in news as they sought to convince audiences that dominant news institutions were unworthy of their trust, underscore the importance of alternative media, and promote reform of newspaper industry labor practices. Bringing a case study from an illustrative past moment into conversation with recent work on post-truth politics and journalistic authority, this article contributes to the literature on “fake news” as media criticism.

Chinese women artists’ Marxist feminist critique of post-socialist work

Amidst the growing interest in Chinese women artists’ feminist interventions, this article delves into a less-explored theme in their artistic practices: labour. Through a close examination of two artists’ critical engagement with women’s labour in China, I highlight their Marxist feminist concerns. The first artist, Hu Yinping, creates a work utopia that ensures work autonomy for her mother who had taken on precarious part-time jobs after being laid off. The second artist, Feng Lin, appropriates ready-mades derived from a housewife’s life for her critical enquiry into whether domestic labour or home truly shields women from capitalist relations. It is argued that the two artists make women’s problems with work visible in a post-socialist China, where women’s labour becomes increasingly devalued, less conspicuous, and more precarious. Furthermore, both artists experiment with alternatives to capitalist commodified labour. However, it becomes apparent that Hu Yinping cannot sustain her utopian vision without selling her labour as an artist, and Feng Lin demonstrates that a housewife cannot fully escape the capitalist imposition of work. Ultimately, the interventions of these artists serve as a dual critique of capitalist labour and a revelation of its totality.

Exploring the Intersections Between Mass Incarceration and Reproductive Injustice: Implications for Critical Feminist Social Work

The 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, rising threats to women's reproductive rights, and increasing populations of incarcerated women inspired this secondary analysis of qualitative data exploring the intersections between reproductive justice and mass incarceration. The original phenomenological study focused on women's perspectives on their interactions with law enforcement and the criminal legal system at the time of their arrests. Participants were recruited from a women's drop-in center for a three-round interview process. This secondary study revisited 13 participants’ transcripts to explore how the legal system intersected with and contributed to reproductive injustice. De-identified transcripts were analyzed using open coding and focused coding to identify themes and sub-themes. Four primary themes emerged, revealing a range of systemic inadequacies and the need for systemic reforms in the legal system: parental rights, healthcare access, economic challenges and homelessness, and systemic bias and discrimination. These findings amplify the often-overlooked voices of those with direct lived experiences, with participants clearly emphasizing the urgent need for adequate and equitable support and treatment. From a critical feminist perspective, the analysis links mass incarceration with reproductive injustice, highlighting intersecting systems of oppression.

Beauvoir and Belle: A Black Feminist Critique of “The Second Sex”, by Kathryn Sophia Belle

Beauvoir and Belle: A Black Feminist Critique of “The Second Sex”, by Kathryn Sophia Belle

Feminism beyond welfare: care, socialisation and the politics of the state

Feminism has long been concerned with the role of the state in facilitating the oppression of women on the one hand and mitigating this oppression on the other. Though much has been written on the function, effects and possibilities of the liberal welfare state, the same volume of study has not been devoted to more positive proposals about the role of the state as such. Discussion of positive proposals for state politics has not been entirely absent, but the discourse in feminist theory has been disproportionately focused on the critique of the liberal welfare state as an instrument of gender and family enforcement (i.e. social control) or, alternatively, on a defence of the welfare state, even with its potentially repressive dynamics, against right-wing austerity measures. In this article, these two views of the welfare state are examined through, first, socialist feminist critiques and, second, the criticism of and proposals for welfare by feminist care ethicists. I juxtapose these positions to show how debates about the welfare state are shaped by unspoken and potentially self-undermining assumptions about state power, planned economies and state provision. As an alternative, I counterpose the understudied thought of Marxist feminist Alexandra Kollontai, and, specifically, her model of universal state provision and the socialisation of care. I argue that Kollontai's account of the socialisation of care resolves not only the criticisms directed at capitalist welfare states but also those which have deterred feminist consideration of state planning as a means of gender liberation.

‘Be confident’: the discourse of ‘resilience’ and ‘confidence’ in Greece

ABSTRACT The spread of #MeToo in Greece can be read as a feminist intervention that gives ‘voice’ to subjectivities that have experienced sexual violence or abuse, while also opening up the public debate so that (sexual) trauma becomes part of feminist critique in the country. What many Greek commentators and critics have failed to notice to this day, however, is the way in which #MeToo in Greece has been deeply connected to the broader culture of ‘resilience’ and ‘confidence’, as well as of ‘character’. Apart from decentring Anglo-Saxon thought and including research ‘outside of it’,, this article highlights how the ‘celebratory’ tone that embraced the ‘voice’ of #MeToo in Greece, has unintentionally silenced the different social positions from which certain femininities originate. As a result, some women (usually middle-class, Greek) are being ‘heard’ more than others (e.g. those from lower social strata, the LGBTQ community, refugee women, women of African descent, or mixed race). Through a critical analysis of popular culture in the country between 2017 and 2022, I demonstrate how a neoliberal postfeminist logic is not merely a ‘Western’ discussion but has become a global rhetoric.

Prioritizing safety in family law: A stage-gating approach to domestic violence and parent-child contact problems

This paper examines the complex interplay of domestic violence (DV) within Parent-Child Contact Problems (PCCPs), advocating for a stage-gating approach for evaluation. It challenges the current multi-factorial models by highlighting the necessity of prioritizing DV as a foundational concern before addressing other contributing factors. Applying critical feminist theory (CFT) and an intersectionality lens on multifactorial hypotheses, gendered dynamics, and a focus on safety, the paper underscores the importance of specialized DV training among professionals to ensure accurate and informed decision-making. By operationalizing the prioritization of DV, our paper strives for more reliable and just outcomes in PCCPs, safeguarding the well-being of children and survivors of DV.

Women Harmonizing Sustainability Practices for a Circular Bioeconomy: Can They Transform from Within Organizations?

AbstractThis paper is situated within the framework of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and addresses how women in organizational spaces with strongly values-driven practices can contribute to a more sustainable development in the implementation of a Circular Bioeconomy. Companies aligned with this model have a special responsibility to orient their practices towards comprehensive and fair sustainability if they want to align themselves with the policy frameworks of ecological transition. The article asks whether there is a harmonization of the environmental and social dimensions of practices in companies aligned with the circular bioeconomy and how the participation of women in management positions (in this case, white women, college-educated and non-disabled women) can promote transformative organizational change. Based on the theories of CSR practices, critical feminist perspectives, and social practices theory, a comparative ethnographic approach is used, applying a multi-method (participant observation, interviews, and documents) and multi-site analysis with four companies. The study extends the empirical evidence aimed at favoring the adoption of integrated sustainable practices in organizations. Future research could investigate broader intersectional dynamics to provide more detail on the heterogeneity of the experiences and practices of women or feminist actors and their influence on organizations.