Female Icons Research Articles

In search of a new vanguard

This study explores the historical relevance social movement vanguards within the framework of Marxian scientific socialism, while ascertaining the emergence of women as drivers of connective action in digitally enabled movements (DEMs). While the rhizomic structures of social movements have thrived on the spontaneity of emerging cells of social activist leaders, this study contests the claims of contradictions between spontaneity and vanguardism in DEMs. The study adopts the case study methodology to establish how technology affords more visibility to female icons of social movements by drawing examples from Sudan, Lebanon and Nigeria. Data was sourced from primary literature, digital archives and newspaper reports to tease out the history and current dynamics of women’s roles in social movements. It uses vanguardism as the conceptual framework for teasing out the intersections of gender, age, identity and technology as observed in DEMs. The study thus contends that technology plays important roles in restructuring the power dynamics of social action by showcasing how women such as Alaa Salah (Sudan), Malak Alawiye Herz (Lebanon) and Aisha Yesufu (Nigeria) emerged as icons of DEMs. It concludes that the weaponization of female bodies has become a potent form of resistance against the gendered biopolitics of sexual objectification and the necropolitics of state repression. The study thus advocates an all-inclusive approach to understanding the structures of social movements in recentring the iconic roles of women during connective action and physical protests. This is to enable the balance between vanguardism and spontaneity that is requisite for effective social action in the digital age.

Queen Berenice: A Jewish Female Icon of the First Century CE, by Tal Ilan

Queen Berenice: A Jewish Female Icon of the First Century CE, by Tal Ilan

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

Tennessee Academy of ScienceDistinguished Secondary School Science Teacher Award 2022

Queen Berenice: A Jewish Female Icon of the First Century CEIlanTalQueen Berenice: A Jewish Female Icon of the First Century CEBrillLeiden, 2022, ix, 218, €110.00ISBN 978-9-00451-103-3

Queen Berenice: A Jewish Female Icon of the First Century CEIlanTalQueen Berenice: A Jewish Female Icon of the First Century CEBrillLeiden, 2022, ix, 218, €110.00ISBN 978-9-00451-103-3

Could Nightingale get cancelled? The rise, endurance, and possible fall of Florence Nightingale in British historical culture since 1854

ABSTRACT Since she exploded into the public sphere in 1854 with her mission to the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) has been a revered historical heroine, with a presence in British commemorative culture that exceeds that of any other non-royal woman. This article, for the first time, delineates and analyses the contours and contents of the commemorative culture around Nightingale, examining how these have changed since the 1850s. It is, we argue, the way the Nightingale story spoke to various (changing) contemporaneous contexts in the spheres of femininity, humanitarianism, Christianity, and nursing which account for the way she was rarefied, and endured, as a female national icon. We then move on to describe the ways, since 1918, Nightingale’s reputation has increasingly been subject to criticism. This iconoclasm reached its apotheosis from the 1980s onwards, when Mary Seacole emerged as a rival for the public commemoration of nurses. We raise the possibility that –particularly in the context of Black Lives Matter and increased questioning of the celebration of individuals who operated from places of privilege and power—our current cultural moment may mark, if not the end of public enthusiasm for Nightingale, a fragmentation of her memory along political lines.

Current female icons in tv series created by women: case study of Bridgerton (Shondaland, 2020)

La representación de la mujer en las narrativas de ficción ha evolucionado desde la primera ola del Feminismo. Dado que las ficciones no han roto todavía con los estereotipos de género, el presente trabajo plantea un análisis de los tres personajes femeninos de la serie de Netflix Bridgerton (Shondaland, 2020), a través de una metodología cualitativa que aplica la tabla de análisis de personajes femeninos propuesta por Mar Chicharro (2018, p. 95). Esta herramienta se basa en variables clave en la construcción de personajes desde el punto de vista narrativo, pero además incluye cuestiones descriptivas que ayudan a abordar su evolución, como es el arco de transformación. El objetivo es constatar el cambio del criterio representacional de la mujer en la ficción audiovisual, que pasa de objeto de deseo masculino a sujeto activo orientado a satisfacer la demanda del público femenino al que va dirigida. Finalmente se presentan los resultados, entre los que destacan la evolución del personaje principal, desde la figura de princesa de cuento de hadas a heroína de la acción, así como la multirepresentación de la figura femenina a través de tres generaciones, estrategia empleada con el objetivo de cubrir el conjunto de la audiencia femenina.

A Seat at the Table

A Seat at the Table

The Bollywoodandrsquor;s Way of Reimagining Female Icons and Their Resulting Influence on Gender Imbalance in India

India as a country has always savoured the sexist commercial Bollywood palette. Everything served in the form of the classic ‘male gaze’ approved and grand musical format has been contributory in setting definite narratives that influence the mass beyond the screening of the film as well. While cinema is an art form that reciprocates to the mass’s demands and desires, the filmmakers in the country have definitely cashed on it on multiple occasions. From the acceptability of secondary position of female to revolutionary outbreak of pitiful acceptability of women in the mainstream men’s world, Bollywood has always set its tone as per the need of the hour, however at the end of the day it has always been a pawn in the game that largely benefits the culturally induced orthodox views about the gender roles and relationship and its resulting gender imbalance in the society. In the recent times, one such raging phenomenon of sorts has been Bollywood’s new found obsession with biopics on iconic women figures like Rani Laxmi Bai to Shakuntala Devi on rather debatable grounds of credibility. The phenomenon is revolutionary as acclaimed by the Industry but it sticks to the basics of stereotypes when it comes to gender role conventions as the tale as old as time. Although, the Bollywood imposed women liberation movement/portrayal have been quite efficient in revoking a certain cultural shift in the current times amidst too much of first world countries imposed globalization and its resulting sexualisation of a gender against the normalization of another, it has also in the same time deferred to a certain plotline that is quite instrumental in creating a unique perspective about women in general .The deteriorating culture that embraces women’s role as a house maker easily camouflages her achievements on grounds of professionalism and beyond . A women’s success has always been made synonymous with the satisfaction of the phallus and the warmth she extends by virtue of her womb and the resulting maternal instinct. The emotional turmoil proceeds over the need for applaud for hardships endured on grounds that are otherwise and beyond the requirement for a happy four walled home. The following research will try to analyse the co relation between Indian commercial cinemas in the arena of biopics made on women icons in Bollywood and its resulting contribution in setting definitive culturally confined gender roles that are biased on arguable stereotypes by taking into account selective cinematic study for the same.

Risk communication in a patient decision aid for radiotherapy in breast cancer: How to deal with uncertainty?

Background and aimPatient decision aids for oncological treatment options, provide information on the effect on recurrence rates and/or survival benefit, and on side-effects and/or burden of different treatment options. However, often uncertainty exists around the probability estimates for recurrence/survival and side-effects which is too relevant to be ignored. Evidence is lacking on the best way to communicate these uncertainties. The aim of this study is to develop a method to incorporate uncertainties in a patient decision aid for breast cancer patients to support their decision on radiotherapy. MethodsFirstly, qualitative interviews were held with patients and health care professionals. Secondly, in the development phase, thinking aloud sessions were organized with four patients and 12 health care professionals, individual and group-wise. ResultsConsensus was reached on a pictograph illustrating the whole range of uncertainty for local recurrence risks, in combination with textual explanation that a more exact personalized risk would be given by their own physician. The pictograph consisted of 100 female icons in a 10 x 10 array. Icons with a stepwise gradient color indicated the uncertainty margin. The prevalence and severity of possible side-effects were explained using verbal labels. ConclusionsWe developed a novel way of visualizing uncertainties in recurrence rates in a patient decision aid. The effect of this way of communicating risk uncertainty is currently being tested in the BRASA study (NCT03375801).

An Analysis of the Errors in the Auto-Generated Captions of University Commencement Speeches on YouTube

Auto-generated captions on YouTube have proven useful in helping viewers better understand the words being spoken. However, at times they fail to contain accurate captions. In these cases, they lead to confusion. The aim of this paper is to identify and analyze errors in the auto-generated captions of 20 commencement speeches on YouTube. These speeches were presented over a period of 12 years by speakers from different walks of life. The researchers selected ten male and ten female icons. Only the first 10 minutes of the speeches were utilized for this investigation. All the captioned errors were collected and analyzed. Upon completion of the analysis, it was discovered that the frequency of errors in each speech ranged between 10 and 46 cases, with an average of one error occurring about every 26 seconds. Among the different error categories, nouns record the highest number with 144 cases (31.3%). The second is verbs with 93 cases (20.2%), then prepositions with 37 cases (8.1%). Among the four subcategories, namely omission, addition, substitution, and word order, substitution recorded the highest amount of errors with 357 cases (77.6%). Furthermore, the errors were classified into two major groups. The first, involving function words, appeared in 169 cases (36.7%). The second, involving content words, appeared in 291 cases (63.3%). The results of this research suggest that a continuous development of the voice recognition software that automatically generates captions is necessary for more efficient and accurate data that will help viewers and listeners better comprehend the video contents.

Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages. Tanya Pollard. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. vii+331.

<i>Greek Tragic Women on Shakespearean Stages</i>. Tanya Pollard. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. vii+331.

Anne CarsonNorma Jeane Baker of Troy

tried to implement reforms that would force the powerful United Fruit Company to pay taxes and guarantee decent wages for its workers. However, due to a carefully orchestrated campaign led by publicist Edward Bernays in the United States, the Eisenhower administration soon labeled Arbenz’s presidency as a Communist threat in Central America. Vargas Llosa puts together a fast-paced narrative, nurtured by solid historical evidence , explanatory reflections on this time period, suspense, and a rich imagination to create memorable characters. Along with his depictions of Arbenz and Castillo Armas (the CIA’s choice to replace Arbenz) and their personal struggles to rule Guatemala , he brings back Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo and Johnny Abbes García, two memorable characters from La fiesta del Chivo (2000). Trujillo will play a key role in assisting the CIA to organize the coup against Arbenz, sending the sinister Abbes García to handle the details. All these characters will share center stage with the novel’s most memorable character, Marta Borrero Parra. Known to locals as “Miss Guatemala” because of her striking beauty, Marta is abandoned by her father after she becomes pregnant as a teenager. Later, when Arbenz is removed from office, Marta will become President Castillo Armas’s mistress, and, upon his assassination, she will be seduced by Abbes García himself, with whom she escapes Guatemala for the Dominican Republic. At the end, in another twist, we find Marta, now eighty years old, living alone in Florida. There, in a clever juxtaposition between fact and fiction, she is visited by Vargas Llosa, who tries to interview her about all the events that took place in Guatemala for the novel he is writing. In one of the novel’s best passages, Vargas Llosa is surprised by Marta’s stunning beauty, still possessing a “mirada verdegrís que parecía trepanar a sus interlocutores, y los dejaba desconcertados y turbados” (a green and gray gaze that seemed to entrap her interlocutors and leave them disconcerted and bewildered). However, he will also discover her intriguing personality when he dares to ask her who really killed Castillo Armas and her dealings with the CIA. Suddenly, the woman’s beautiful eyes will show their mischievous side, angrily dismissing Vargas Llosa’s inquiries: “[como] si quisiera crucificarme contra la silla” (as if she wished to crucify me in my chair). Shortly thereafter, as he exits Marta’s home, she warns him that she will not read his book, but that her lawyers will be ready to do so. Tiempos recios not only depicts important historical events between Latin America and the United States during the Cold War; the work is also a narrative about historical truth and the many hardships that individuals will endure under extenuating circumstances as a result of political power, corruption, and deceit. It is yet another example of Vargas Llosa’s great talent as a storyteller. César Ferreira University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Anne Carson Norma Jeane Baker of Troy New York. New Directions. 2020. 64 pages. ANNE CARSON’S LATEST published work is brilliantly conceived but untidily written. The idea of a feminist reinterpretation of Euripides’ play Helen that conflates the figures of Helen of Troy and Marilyn Monroe/Norma Jeane Baker in order to take a fresh look at them through modern eyes is in itself intriguing, for both women were well-known beauties who found themselves stranded in the wilderness of a patriarchal culture’s obsessive and at times violent pursuit of women. Both women were also female icons who were the targets of misogynistic censure, Monroe for her giddy eroticism and Helen for her supposedly willing infidelity. This is a work that assumes knowledge of both Greek mythology and Hollywood lore on a rather massive scale. To appreciate it, you need to know that in Euripides’ play there are two versions of the Helen story, one in which she was exiled in Egypt and another in which she was a phantasm secluded in Troy, which helps to explain Carson’s continual references to Helen as a “cloud.” You also need to know that Marilyn Monroe made movies directed by Fritz Lang, that her circle included the singer Pearl Bailey...

Svetlana Slapšak’s Feminist Essay: A Polygraph of Contemporary Culture

The article discusses the problem of the theory and practice of contemporary Serbian feminist essay. The text indicates how – at the turn of the 21st century – the essay participated in the reading of the nationalist culture of fear during the breakup of Yugoslavia, how it became the tool for creating an analytical and methodological platform and a means of quick anthropological and cultural diagnoses, as well as a form of transfer of social or philosophical notions. This new strategy of the essay was illustrated through the examples of books by Svetlana Slapšak, a leading figure of the (sub)genre in the Serbian culture, a professor of cultural anthropology, classical philologist, and feminist critic: Mala crna haljina. Eseji o antropologiji i feminizmu (1993/2007, Little Black Dress. Essays on Anthropology and Feminism), Ženske ikone XX veka (2001, Female Icons of the 20th Century), Ženske ikone antičkog sveta (2006, Female Icons of the Antiquity), Antička miturgija: žene (2013, Antique Mythurgy: Women). It becomes clear that one of the trends of the contemporary essay in the Serbian and post-Yugoslav cultures is the application of the genre in the spirit of modern engaged humanities and textual intervention.

REVIEW] Diva Nation: Female Icons from Japanese Cultural History

REVIEW] Diva Nation: Female Icons from Japanese Cultural History

Female Struggle and Triumph: The Cases of Antigone, Desdemona, and Erminia

The history of misogyny and varied abuse of females throughout humankind’s history is well known, as this essay’s discussion of the iconic figures of Antigone and Desdemona attempts to selectively chronicle. The exceptional abuse they are subjected to by their supposed benefactors is counterpoised by the debuting of Behn’s Erminia as a reformist, benevolent, and angelic tour-de-force at the commencement of the Restoration. The historic example of Erminia, the representative of a new generation of young, liberated women is in remarkable contrast to her immediate historical analog, Desdemona, who is demeaned and treated as a beast as she “turn[s]” and grovels before her proprietor. Erminia’s horrifically abused precedent helps to put into perspective the Restoration’s perceptible progress in women’s rights inasmuch as it highlights the egregious miscarriage of justice prior to the age through history. The uniqueness of the trio is clearly observed as Erminia boldly takes to the stage to reform, enchant, and restrain the savage, beastly instinct of man, and successfully rehabilitates Alcippus, while the rhetorical supremacy and ethical purpose of Antigone and Desdemona overshadow their catalyst companions, Ismene, the chorus, and Emilia. Through juxtaposing these female icons who belong to widely diverse epochs, this essay aims at analyzing their interactive dialectic in addition to scrutinizing the shifting dynamics of their socio-political and cultural milieu in order to arrive at a better understanding of the historic transition the female quest for recognition has undergone.

Female Struggle and Triumph: The Cases of Antigone, Desdemona, and Erminia

The history of misogyny and varied abuse of females throughout humankind’s history is well known, as this essay’s discussion of the iconic figures of Antigone and Desdemona attempts to selectively chronicle. The exceptional abuse they are subjected to by their supposed benefactors is counterpoised by the debuting of Behn’s Erminia as a reformist, benevolent, and angelic tour-de-force at the commencement of the Restoration. The historic example of Erminia, the representative of a new generation of young, liberated women is in remarkable contrast to her immediate historical analog, Desdemona, who is demeaned and treated as a beast as she “turn[s]” and grovels before her proprietor. Erminia’s horrifically abused precedent helps to put into perspective the Restoration’s perceptible progress in women’s rights inasmuch as it highlights the egregious miscarriage of justice prior to the age through history. The uniqueness of the trio is clearly observed as Erminia boldly takes to the stage to reform, enchant, and restrain the savage, beastly instinct of man, and successfully rehabilitates Alcippus, while the rhetorical supremacy and ethical purpose of Antigone and Desdemona overshadow their catalyst companions, Ismene, the chorus, and Emilia. Through juxtaposing these female icons who belong to widely diverse epochs, this essay aims at analyzing their interactive dialectic in addition to scrutinizing the shifting dynamics of their socio-political and cultural milieu in order to arrive at a better understanding of the historic transition the female quest for recognition has undergone.

Troubled Memories: Iconic Mexican Women and the Traps of Representation by Oswaldo Estrada

Reviewed by: Troubled Memories: Iconic Mexican Women and the Traps of Representation by Oswaldo Estrada Rosario de Swanson Estrada, Oswaldo. Troubled Memories: Iconic Mexican Women and the Traps of Representation. SUNY P, 2018. Pp. 244. ISBN 978-1-43847-189-1. Taking the turn of the twentieth century as a chronological point of departure, Oswaldo Estrada’s Troubled Memories: Iconic Mexican Women and the Traps of Representations is a powerful study of literary representations of Mexican historical women—Malinche, Sor Juana, Leona Vicario, las soldaderas of the Mexican Revolution, Frida Kahlo. The main thrust of Estrada’s argument is that the normalization of gender inequality makes it necessary to examine the ways in which recent works centered on the lives of these historical figures reproduce, perpetuate, or problematize “current patterns of domination and subordination, sexual discrimination, determinism, limited acts of empowerment, and prevalent inequality” (9). While Estrada’s text is unique because it centers on works written in the early twentieth-first century and covers a sizable group of Mexican writers, his study engages with and builds upon the work of writers who have made similar studies in the past, such as Seymour Menton, Noé Jitrik, Karl Kohut, Juan José Barrientos, and Fernando Aínsa among others. The author’s penetrating analysis reveals how, given the rise of neoliberalism, the symbolic power these iconic women possess has transformed them into cultural commodities for global consumption and exchange, a fact made more poignant by their felicitous appearance in Mexican currency. Their enormous symbolic power rests on the fact that they embody social tensions, cultural desires, historical traumas or pieces of the past that have not yet been overcome, or are still being processed. However, as neoliberal tendencies allow for their representation to circulate in high and low culture circles, these female icons undergo a secondary cultural appropriation of sorts as writers portray aspects of their intimacy and sexuality often absent from the historical record. In this way, the life of these women is imagined and remembered in innovative and troublesome ways. In chapter 1, “Forget Me Not: Malinche’s Struggles in Twenty-First-Century Mexico,” the author lays out a careful analysis of Malinche’s representation in the works of Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda, Marisol Martín del Campo, Laura Esquivel, and Fanny del Río. Here, Estrada underscores the fact that, despite their best intentions, some writers end up reproducing the binary power dynamics as well as the silencing effect historical representation has had on Malinche’s story. Chapter 2, “Impossible Nun: Sor Juana and the Traps of Representation,” centers on four novels that seek to recreate or imagine Sor Juana’s life: Mónica Zagal’s La venganza de Sor Juana (2007), José Luis Gómez’s El beso de la virreina (2008), Mónica Lavín’s Yo la peor (2009), and Kyra Galván’s Los indecibles pecados de Sor Juana (2010). The comparative approach allows for a winnowing of each novel’s individual contributions to the nun’s complex character and intimacy that Estrada characterizes as a voyeuristic act that reveals more about issues of our own age than of Sor Juana’s life as a woman and nun in the Baroque period. In chapter 3, “Leona Vicario: The Sweet Mother of the Nation,” the author surveys three novels published in 2010 in celebration of the two hundred anniversary of Mexico’s Independence from Spain: Celia del Palacio’s Leona, Carlos Pascual’s La insurgenta, and Eugenio Aguirre’s Leona Vicario: La Insurgente. This is one of the most thought-provoking chapters as the woman who is at the heart of these novels is the least known outside of Mexico, and the least celebrated within its borders. In this chapter, using historical data, Estrada reminds readers of the political significance of Leona Vicario’s insurgent activities that led to her recognition as the mother of the nation, a role occupied almost exclusively by men. Although much of Leona Vicario’s political [End Page 619] thought, found in her public and private letters, informs the literary recovery effected by these novels, in some instances Estrada finds that Vicario is remembered not by her political thought...

Wonder Woman 1987–1990: the Goddess, the Iron Maiden and the sacralisation of consumerism

ABSTRACTIn 1987, Wonder Woman was revised as part of an overhaul of the DC Universe, in the Crisis on Infinite Earths story arc. This paper analyses the representation of Diana in George Pérez, Greg Potter and Len Wein’s revision of the character, February 1987–December 1991. The writers discarded her Diana Prince secret identity and Steve Trevor as love interest. Influenced by spiritual and feminist discourses of the mid-1970s onwards, he made her into a Goddess-like fantasy figure split into two identities. She is Diana, Princess of Themyscira, a private, spiritual neo-pagan, but she is branded in consumer culture as Wonder Woman, goddess. The discourses constructing Wonder Woman as goddess, however, clashed with feminist and societal discourses circulating in popular culture and politics of late 1980s’ America. These discourses aimed at disempowering female autonomy. The clash between these discourses highlighted paradoxes in Wonder Woman as a female icon of empowerment.

Tra Mnemosyne e Pop Art. Intervista a Roberto Baldazzini

The interview aims to analyse the multifaceted career of Roberto Baldazzini. Self-taught, collector of women’s magazines, essayist, he is recognized as a master of erotic comics especially in the French context. His style is inspired by Roy Lichtenstein, the famous member of Pop Art group, especially for his clear synthesis of lines and backgrounds. The artist studies the surrounding reality through photography: natural elements, spectacular and unusual camera angles. Cinema and photo story books and his great passion for female icons make Roberto Baldazzini’s talent an emblem of how the ‘social memory’, theorised by Aby Warburg in ancient and modern art, is conveyed through the media in contemporary age.Since Stella Noris, than in his paintings dedicated to Sophia Loren and Betty Page, star of Who Killed Betty? comic strip, passing through his recent exhibitions Creatures and Hollywoodland − work in progress of his latest graphic novel for Bonelli Publishing Company −, feminine concept is analysed in all its shades: delicate, sensual, fetish and star-like.Baldazzini also demonstrates his skillful style in advertising: really significant are his campaigns for TIM, Alessi, Zanotti and Axe. Two further important thematic points in this dialogue are Baldazzini’s relationship with art and social networks. The artist also dedicated a comic story to his place of birth: The Winter of Diego, a historical comic book set in Modenese Apennines during the Resistance.

Antigone ‘Resurrected’: The Appropriation of Sophocles's Heroine in Interwar France

This article argues the potency and ambivalence of Sophocles's heroine Antigone, as ‘resurrected’ in public and private debates in France immediately after the First World War. It shows that her myth was most significantly evoked in a polemic concerning not only the burial of the war dead, but also the responsibilities and individualism of those left behind to mourn. Existing analyses of women's wartime roles in France have tended to emphasize ‘new’ models of heroism or exemplary conduct created by ideological agendas in the exceptional circumstances of modern war. However, this article explores a less popularly analysed concept, that being the ways in which a traditionally and previous re-interpreted heroic female icon, Antigone, was appropriated after the war as a ‘mouthpiece’ for grieving women's lived experience. It sheds light on a significant gap in the scholarship of classical receptions in wartime France, providing a fuller and more contextualized discussion of interwar evocations of Antigone. It also considers the complexities associated with the study of an ancient subject ‘transplanted’ into modern contexts.