British Women Research Articles

White is For Witching: A Postcolonial Gothic

In White is for Witching (2009), Helen Oyeyemi defamiliarizes traditional narratives, subverts the classical doctrines and inserts recent issues. Although her novels are mostly read within the scope of gothic literature, she introduces ethnic mythology and folklore that provide myriad perspectives. As well as incorporating the traditional gothic features, Oyeyemi draws from the cultural motifs of her Nigerian roots to highlight the recurring patterns of immigration, coexistence, and integration in English history. Using the vocabulary and the pattern of gothic narration, the novel constructs a postcolonial story to question the xenophobic tendencies of the English nation as a legacy of the colonial era that endures today through immigration policies. Therefore, in this article, I read the novel as a postcolonial gothic criticising the xenophobic concerns of pure white Englishness against racial others and immigrants labelled as invaders of English identity through the elements of cultural gothic.

Care and Loyalty in the Closet: A review of scholarship on sexual identity disclosure in queer South Asian women

This paper highlights a gap in scholarship on personal and family relationships of British queer South Asian women and queer women of colour. It enables fields of study within queer theory, family sociology and intimate relationships to move beyond Western normative frames when looking at queer individuals and their relationships. Existing research on queer people of colour is limited and, where present, rarely focuses on diasporic British queer South Asian women. This paper looks at the diasporic context and highlights why the South Asian family unit should not be categorised as homophobic. It looks at how notions of ‘coming out’ and ‘the closet’ are Westernised and Eurocentric. It also looks at the use of ‘the closet’ as a shield emanating from a place of care for the family and self. This paper also presents queer women of colour as individuals who are moving beyond a binary of being queer and ostracised from family or as pretending to be straight to remain in their family, asking if this can also be the case for queer South Asians. Finally, throughout this paper, the discussion touches on the concept of ‘chosen families’ and how it may apply to queer South Asian women.

Drop Dead Gorgeous

This article examines the obsession that British women during the Victorian period had with pure, white skin. Examining the ways in which pale skin became popular, it is possible to see that this preoccupation created a new and increased demand for products and potions that would give the illusion of a milky white complexion, the epitome of beauty, regardless of their toxic composition. The preference for natural products, like soap, became popular as poisonous powders and lotions came under scrutiny. Advertisements assisted with the obsession, with the British views of beauty, morality, purity, youthfulness, and racial superiority becoming intertwined with notions of whiteness. Messages likes these ensured that women would do whatever it took to achieve the ideal beauty, even if it was dangerous to their health.

Mergers and Legal Fictions: Coverture and Intermarried Women in India

AbstractWithin India's system of plural personal laws, the rights of women in matters of marriage, divorce, and inheritance are solely based on their natal communal identity. While we see many examples of women appealing to courts to secure or improve their rights vis-à-vis personal laws, marriage outside the community has often occluded these rights completely. Marital property, inheritance, and even access to sacred space are in a gray zone of differentiated rights between natal and marital community customs. One intermarried woman, Goolrukh Gupta, sued the trust that managed the town's sacred space in the High Court to confirm her rights to enter sacred space. The Court ruled that she was removed from her natal community even though she had married under the Special Marriage Act of 1954, as she had “merged personality with her husband.” While British women's property was held under coverture through the nineteenth century, these laws were never transferred over to the Indian colony. Through the legal appeals of intermarried women, this article explores the shifting and unstable rights of intermarried women in India.

Mirtazapine-induced neutropenic sepsis in an older person: a case report

BackgroundMirtazapine is a frequently prescribed psychotropic drug for depression in older age. It is considered safe and has a side-effect profile uniquely favorable to an older person affected by reduced appetite, difficulty maintaining body weight, or insomnia. However, it is largely unknown that mirtazapine can cause a dangerous decline in neutrophil count.Case presentationWe present a case of mirtazapine-induced severe neutropenia in a 91-year-old white British woman requiring drug withdrawal and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor administration.ConclusionThis case is of significance because mirtazapine is regarded as a safe, and often preferable, antidepressant in older age. However, this case demonstrates a rare, life-threatening side effect of mirtazapine and calls for greater pharmacovigilance when prescribing it. There is no previous report of mirtazapine-induced neutropenia requiring drug withdrawal and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor administration in an older person.

Women Writing Travel

This Virtual Special Issue brings together several essays published in Forum for Modern Language Studies between 2015 and 2017 that in various ways address the topic – and the phenomenon – of ‘Women Writing Travel’, focusing on anglophone writers. Reading them as a group enables us to find in their many intersections a powerful incentive to continue scholarship and teaching in this productive field, not least because it speaks beyond the academy to important cultural and political questions. As a graduate student in Oxford in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I worked on eighteenth-century British women travel writers, many of whom were then largely unknown. Since then, they have received copious critical attention and are firmly on the map (and on many university syllabi).1 Their nineteenth-century counterparts have enjoyed a similar movement towards the centre of the literary canon in recent decades, thanks to scholars such as Sara Mills and Shirley Foster, and the work of Virago Press in republishing many important early works.2 Conference panels on women travel writers became for a while ubiquitous, and have only recently become outnumbered by more thematic examination of different (though related) interests such as gender, sexuality, race, slavery, empire and – above all – intersectionality. The world of ‘women writing travel’ has always been intersectional, of course, in terms of the writers’ gender, sexuality, marital status, race, religion, national identity, class and profession, even before the vast array of themes and preoccupations brought together under the umbrella of ‘travel’ are considered. One thinks, for instance, of the importance of rank in Mary Wortley Montagu’s access to Turkish high society in her 1763 Embassy Letters, and, at the other end of the social spectrum, of Mary Wollstonecraft’s status as a Dissenter and an unmarried mother in her 1796 Scandinavian travelogue. Several early anonymous travel novels – The Female American (1767), The Woman of Colour (1808) and Zelica, the Creole (1820) – feature mixed-race or Black female protagonists. Many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travelogues, especially those by missionaries’ wives, are inflected by their writers’ religious convictions, but sometimes in surprising ways.3 And the celebrated labouring-class women pirates of the eighteenth century are fascinating case studies in the intersecting roles of class, gender and sexuality.4

A Political Sexual Revolution: Sexual Autonomy in the British Women's Liberation Movement in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the 1970s and 1980s, women across Britain-particularly those in the Women's Liberation Movement (WLM)-took part in a distinct sexual revolution fuelled by a very specific question-who gets to determine the ways in which I am sexual? The active engagement by women with this question of sexual selfhood belies a historiography of sexual revolution-real or imagined-in which women were the passive beneficiaries (or victims) of technological, cultural, religious, social and/or, economic shifts. Drawing on the writing of women in the feminist press, mainstream media, books, and pamphlets, this article describes the specific contribution of the WLM to shaping new possibilities for a sexuality defined, and controlled, by women. I argue that the WLM combined a powerful political framework with an influential social network to significantly contribute to a far-reaching process of deconstructing and recasting female sexuality and sexual relations.

Moral Economies of Life and Death: Agricultural Improvement, Imperialism, and Chemical Kinships with Reactive Nitrogen

What does it mean to think of chemicals as kin? Building on the concepts of chemical kinships and pollution as colonialism, I use a feminist storytelling methodology grounded in relational ontology to explore my kinship relationships with reactive nitrogen, and the way it both hurts me and gives me life. Agriculture and organic chemistry are close kin to imperialism, capitalism, and environmental destruction, and, as a white British woman, I argue these are also my own more-than-human family: my close kin. To take the call to kinship seriously, I argue for approaching kinship personally, and accepting clear positionality in relation: exploring my relation to how these kin both abuse and support me, our ancestral entanglement, and my own complicity and responsibility in enabling their abuse.

Exploring Black and South Asian women's experiences of help-seeking and engagement in perinatal mental health services in the UK.

In the United Kingdom (UK), Black and South Asian women are less likely than White British women to access support from perinatal mental health services, despite experiencing similar, or higher, levels of distress. This inequality needs to be understood and remedied. The aim of this study was to answer two questions: how do Black and South Asian women experience (1) access to perinatal mental health services and (2) care received from perinatal mental health services? Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Black and South Asian women (n = 37), including four women who were interviewed with an interpreter. Interviews were recorded and transcribed line-by-line. Data were analyzed using framework analysis, by an ethnically diverse multidisciplinary team of clinicians, researchers and people with lived experience of perinatal mental illness. Participants described a complex interplay of factors that impacted on seeking, and receiving help, and benefiting from services. Four themes emerged that captured the highly varied experiences of individuals: (1) Self-identity, social expectations and different attributions of distress deter help-seeking; (2) Hidden and disorganized services impede getting support; (3) The role of curiosity, kindness and flexibility in making women feel heard, accepted and supported by clinicians; (4) A shared cultural background may support or hinder trust and rapport. Women described a wide range of experiences and a complex interplay of factors impacting access to, and experience of, services. Women described services as giving them strength and also leaving them disappointed and confused about where to get help. The main barriers to access were attributions related to mental distress, stigma, mistrust and lack of visibility of services, and organizational gaps in the referral process. These findings describe that many women feel heard, and supported by services, reporting that services provide a high quality of care that was inclusive of diverse experiences and understandings of mental health problems. Transparency around what PMHS are, and what support is available would improve the accessibility of PMHS.

A Latter-day Saint Apostle's Perception of the Southern Bazaar of Liverpool, October 1864

A Latter-day Saint Apostle's Perception of the Southern Bazaar of Liverpool, October 1864

Forum: The Death of Queen Elizabeth II: Meaning and Media

AbstractThis is the revised transcript of a roundtable on the death of Queen Elizabeth II, presented at the North American Conference on British Studies in Chicago in November 2022. It includes an account of the many meanings of Queen Elizabeth II for her subjects and discussion of why so many at home and in the Commonwealth were devoted to her. The panel also touches on the significance for the monarchy of Elizabeth's passing, the meaning of queenship, and the importance of Elizabeth's gender for British women. An account of the queen and the Commonwealth focuses particularly on imperial optics and the queen's desire to be seen as the ruler of the Commonwealth. The panel concludes with the personalized account of a transnational scholar regarding the degree to which the media manufactured the appearance of grief over the queen's passing.

FROM JUNGLES AND RIVERS: ANIMAL TROPES IN MALAYSIAN INDIGENOUS LITERATURE IN ENGLISH

Recent developments in the local literary arts scene have seen the emergence of publications on folktales and fables of Malaysian indigenous people in English. Central to these publications is the presence of animals, whether as symbols, voices, or characters. Nonetheless, critical reaction to this presence has been sparse at best. As animals are paradoxically recognised as central to indigenous societies and their literatures yet marginalized in relation to human concerns, analysing texts to see how these animals function in literature, what they teach us about animals and what they reveal about humans and our relationships to animals seem critically crucial. Tapping into the field of animal studies, this paper investigates animal tropes in Malaysian indigenous folktales in English. To this end, folktale collections from such as Heidi Munan’s Sarawak Folktales (2017), Lim Boo Liat and Jefri Dylan Ong’s Orang Asli Animal Tales (2016), Clifford Sather’s Apai Alui Becomes A Shaman and Other Iban Comic Tales (2001), Robert Sulis Ridu, Ritikos Jitab and Jonas Noeb’s King Siliman and Other Bidayuh Folk Tales (2001), and Jayl Langub’s Suket: Penan Folk Stories (2001) are examined. Using Mario Ortiz Robles’s framework of animal tropes, this research found that the majority of these animal tropes are anthropomorphized or shown as possessing human capacities, such as conversing, dancing, working, and interacting with others, indicating Malaysian literary animals as literary, cultural endeavours which largely involve a projection of humanity.

Jeremy A. Crang. Sisters in Arms: Women in the British Armed Forces during the Second World War.

Over half a million women joined the three British women’s auxiliary forces during the Second World War, including its most well-known member, an eighteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth. Jeremy A. Crang’s Sisters in Arms: Women in the British Armed Forces during the Second World War offers a well-researched and highly readable new history of these organizations that both contextualizes and challenges the tales of plucky young women selflessly “doing their bit” that filled the pages of the popular press. It follows a chronological and thematic structure, covering the development of the women’s services from the 1930s, and exploring key aspects of the servicewomen’s experiences, including their training, work, discipline, health, social lives and habits, and social status. Unlike some studies that end in 1945, a welcome and original aspect of this study is its focus on the postwar careers of servicewomen, and on the extent to which war service offered them new opportunities within or without the military. The final chapters offer a useful overview of political debates around and attitudes toward demobilization, including some fascinating case studies of the impact of war work on women’s postwar lives.

A Comparative Study of Ahmad Ali’s Twilight in Delhi and Edgar Morgan Forster’s A Passage to India: A Feminist Perspective

The study was designed to do a comparative study of Ahmad Ali's novel Twilight in Delhi and E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. The study is a comparative textual analysis in the light of Feminism. The focus was on finding similarities and differences between Ali and Forster. In both novels, women's exploitation is the main issue. Women are shown as voiceless and inhuman creatures.They are used as an object having no feeling or emotion. They are presented as the tool of sex for the men of society. They are portrayed as having no role in the social and political affairs of the family.The investigation has shown that both Ali and Forster have presented women as inferior to men but Ali is harsher as compared to Forster. Ali pictured only Muslim women while Forster portrayed Muslims, Hindus as well as British women. Which was the main focus of the study. The Comparative Feminist analysis was taken to give a new dimension to the study and carried out women's issues in society.

Linguoculturological Character of Somatic Phraseological Units with the “Head” Component (based on Turkic (Kazakh, Tatar, Bashkir) and English)

The aim of the work is to be guided by the anthropological position of «the human factor in language» in the anthropocentric paradigm of modern scientific research, the study of the concept of «language is a constitutional property of a person» through language, the formation of a holistic theory and theoretical and methodological form of unity of «language and man, language and the world». In this regard, the main focus and significance of the article is to consider the language from the point of view of the «language code» through the triad «human studies – language – World Studies». The authors pay special attention to the vision and cognition of the world, understanding and perception of the world by the Kazakh, Tatar, Bashkir and English peoples, as well as to ensure that the world of images and standards, stereotypes and symbols in the context of cultural traditions is reflected in the language and fixed in the meaningful subtext of language units in the form of background knowledge. The article analyzes the somatic phraseology of the «head» component in the linguistic and cultural aspect. Through them, the similarities and identities of the representatives in the systems of figurative thinking, attempts to know the world, life experience, customs and consciousness are revealed and were used as the material of the article. The analysis of the content of phraseological units related to the triad «Humanity – Language – World Science» has been carried out. The article uses the method of comparing somatic phraseological units at the inter-lingual level. The results of the study – in the semantic and substantive structure of somatic phraseology, presented in different languages, an archaic knowledge base is accumulated, which is caused by a person's self-awareness and the desire to thoroughly know other objects in the world through himself. The practical value of the work is the study of national and cultural features that contribute to the implementation of intercultural, interethnic communication between related and non-related languages. In the conclusion of the work, the somatism «head» is divided into several categories. The phrases used in Turkic and English languages reveal a lot of similarities in the ways and semantic features of the word «head». In particular, if the similarities between the Turkic languages say that their tendency to exist is due to a common culture, the phraseology used in unrelated Turkic and English languages shows evidence that the function of the «head» in any people is to the same extent.

Gender‐ethnicity intersectional variation in work–family dynamics: Family interference with work, guilt, and job satisfaction

AbstractAlthough guilt is often considered the most prevalent emotional outcome of work–family conflict (WFC), most work–family research focuses on family‐related guilt stemming from work interference with family, rather than job‐related guilt stemming from family interference with work (FIW). In addition, there is little understanding of how different employee social groups experience the implications of FIW in their daily lives. To address these research gaps, this study explores the relationship between daily FIW and job‐related guilt, and its subsequent impact on job satisfaction. It also investigates variation in these relationships by (1) gender and (2) the intersection of gender and ethnicity. Bayesian multilevel structural equation modeling using data from 5‐day diary surveys from 210 solicitors in Britain shows daily FIW is associated with higher job‐related guilt and subsequently lower job satisfaction. The relationship is stronger for women than men in general, but is also stronger for South Asian women than white British women (and men), and for South Asian men than white British men. This suggests that studies focusing on single social group characteristics (e.g., gender) are likely to obscure intersectional effects that might produce significant within‐group variation. The findings also highlight the importance of integrating workplace inequality arguments into theorization of WFC.

‘Problems of the women’s movement’: Lind-af-Hageby’s assessment of the state of the British women’s movement in 1914 and the scale of the issues facing feminists

ABSTRACT At the turn of the twentieth century, Lizzy Lind-af-Hageby (1878–1963), of Jönköping, left Stockholm to pursue a career as a writer, public speaker, and organiser together with her partner and colleague Leisa Schartau. In the UK, and the USA, Lizzy Lind-af-Hageby became renowned as an outspoken opponent of vivisection, supporter of pacifism, vegetarianism, and humanitarian social politics, and for having written the first biography of August Strindberg in English. In February 1914 after a highly publicised legal case in the UK – in which Lind-af-Hageby acted in her own defence – she spoke at the Queen’s Hall in London on four occasions on the overarching theme of problems of the women’s movement. The speech series placed Lizzy Lind-af-Hageby at the centre of the women’s rights and suffrage debate, highlighting the impact of her public-speaking persona, and showing her to be a modern critic of the prevailing gender-biased society.

"Fitting in whilst standing out": Identity flexing strategies of professional British women of African, Asian, and Caribbean ethnicities.

Professional British women of African, Asian, and Caribbean (AAC) ethnicities contend with unique challenges and experiences in the workplace. These challenges are often due to experiences that occur at the intersection of gender and ethnic identity, thus many professional white British women (of Anglo-Saxon decent), do not face the same challenges. AAC women are more often discriminated against, excluded from informal networks, and their contributions credited to someone else. We take an intersectional theoretical approach to better understand both the disadvantaged experiences and the possible advantaged experiences that British AAC women face, based on their experiences as AAC individuals, as women and as AAC women. The study seeks to 'give voice' to the experiences of AAC professional women, due to the limited amount of scholarship that adequately considers their workplace experiences. We consider the ways that their identity produces qualitatively different experiences determined by the context, by the nature of interpersonal encounters or by both the context and interpersonal encounters. We conduct real-time online written interviews and utilize thematic template analysis to understand whether AAC women strategically flex identity at work. We present four major themes. These are (1) the benefits of identity flexing, (2) the role of specific stereotypes, (3) context specific opportunities, and (4) the costs of identity flexing. We draw on literature that suggests that AAC women's identity experiences are not exclusively oppressive. We find that unique experiences, occurring at the intersection of facets of identity may also yield forms of relative advantage, wherein individuals are able to adaptively leverage opportunities. Our results demonstrate that where the facets of one's identity are more varied, there might be more chance that the particular identity will be valued in a given social context. As a result, the individual may try to assimilate with certain identity groups (through flexing), as the context directs. Nevertheless, engaging in identity flexing strategies has costs for women's well-being, such as needing to perform increased amounts of emotional labor and heightened feelings of frustration. Overall, these costs (as well as benefits), evidence the complex nature of identity flexing and the likely negative well-being implications that could ensue for the individual.

‘Consider yourself kissed’: Intimacy, Engagement, and Material Culture in Nineteenth-Century 
Middle-Class English Love Letters

Abstract The passage of the Postal Duties Bill in 1840 and the implementation of the penny post expanded the epistolary lives of English men and women, particularly the middle classes, overnight. The affordability of postage, the commercial boom in letter-writing appurtenances, and the increased social pressure for regular correspondence augmented and altered how individuals built all sorts of relationships, especially romantic ones. This paper relies on 45 case studies of middle-class couples’ love letters to examine the role of romantic correspondence, particularly during the life-period of engagement, throughout the nineteenth century. Correspondence collections are used to examine how couples negotiated and built intimate relationships as they progressed (or not) towards their nuptials. Not only valued for their written contents, love letters took on talismanic, fetishistic, and embodied properties representing their senders and the relationships they facilitated. Their comings and goings marked time, their length signified depth of feeling, and their presentation reflected intimacy. As romantic culture adapted to progressions in epistolary technology and assigned meaning to its various aspects, correspondence became a venue for individuals and couples to create and explore their emotional, sensual, and sentimental selves.

Bradford’s Morton: The Lord of Misrule in Early New England

Thomas Morton, controversial figure in early New England, attempted to establish a colony in what is today Quincy, Massachusetts. Dubbed the “Lord of Misrule” by William Bradford, Morton was accused of enticing indentured servants to escape their bondage, and staging festivities to a mixed gathering of English and Algonquian-speaking peoples, amongst other crimes. This article will examine two texts: those excerpts of William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation that mention Morton, and Thomas Morton’s New English Canaan. These divergent accounts may be read as a restaging of some predominant preoccupations of early modern England, namely the hostile reception of popular festive practices and the theater, inextricably linked to the articulation of social class, and the fear of “masterless men.” I argue that reading the conflicting accounts of Bradford and Morton offer a key to interpreting the practices of colonization at the hands of Puritans and Pilgrims in early New England.