Feminist Framework Research Articles

Toward a Feminist Framework for Virtual Conferencing

Toward a Feminist Framework for Virtual Conferencing

Japanese Domestic Violence Victim Advocate Training: An Evaluation Study

Domestic violence (DV) victim advocates in Japan have historically had limited access to training. In an effort to address this need, a training was developed through a collaboration between social workers in the United States and Japan. This training, the “DV sabaiba to kyodo suru tameno shiensha toreningu” (Training for Advocates who Collaborate with DV Survivors), is rooted in a feminist theoretical framework and utilizes an interactive training design. The current article provides an overview of the training as well as the results pertaining to its effectiveness. Based on pre and posttest data collected from 168 advocates, the study findings indicate that the training significantly: (1) reduced acceptance of DV myths, (2) increased knowledge on DV, and (3) increased advocate self-efficacy. In light of these positive outcomes, the training should continue to be offered to Japanese advocates. Additionally, it is recommended that innovative, interactional training methods be employed, and that supportive work conditions for victim advocates be further promoted. Future research should examine factors that possibly contributed to the positive outcomes of this training.

How Intimate Partner Violence and Intersectional Identities Converge to Influence Women's Sexual Health across Environmental Contexts.

In this qualitative study, authors examine women's sexual risk and protective factors based on their experiences of intimate partner violence (IPV) and positioning within society relative to power. This analysis examines sexual risk and protective factors across intersectional identities-including gender, race, socioeconomic conditions, and age-among women survivors of IPV. The sample (N = 28) included women of diverse ages (range = 22-60 years) and races (57 percent White, 14 percent African American, 11 percent Hispanic, 7 percent Native American, 7 percent multiracial, and 4 percent South Asian). Findings demonstrated that IPV experiences differentially affect women's sexual health according to intersectional identities and across various levels of environmental context by influencing the (in)stability of their lives and their experiences of (dis)empowerment. This analysis offers a nuanced understanding of how social workers can support women in planning for their own sexual health and safety and shows how an intersectional feminist framework enriches our understanding of the grand challenge to "build healthy relationships to end violence."

Features of femininity: sportswomen in the Spanish sporting press, 1893 – 1923

ABSTRACT This study investigates the visual discourses of Spanish sport newspapers during the initial era of modern sport in Spain. Employing a critical feminist framework, the research focuses on the representation of sportswomen and the construction of visual discourses of femininity. The study identifies a broad range of femininities: from characteristics symbolic of the most traditional image of the feminine, to completely transgressive versions of femininity. Femininity also appears associated with certain sports, and, in contrast to the discourses of the era, it is an active femininity, with the majority of images capturing sporting actions. We conclude that the most traditional femininities live alongside transgressive femininities, and that active movement is an accepted feature of femininity in the context of sport during the period under consideration.

Incels online reframing sexual violence

ABSTRACT This small-scale study brings attention to the way the news media cover the enabling role of computer technology and social media in coalescing online communities focused on the hatred of women and the promotion of violence. While that aggression is ultimately and typically carried out against both women and men, it is specifically misogyny which underlies it. The way that the broader public receives information about incels – involuntary celebates with misogynistic and often violent tendencies – and their atrocities is through the news media, both traditional and internet. This study complements related research on misogynistic language used by social media sites like Reddit by examining the news media’s language in coverage of incels’ behavior associated with sexual aggression. The research applies qualitative procedures (textual analysis) and a critical feminist framework to identify the gender relations associated with incels online in news for the years 2018 and 2019.

Gendered Sexual Violence: Betrayal Trauma, Dissociation, and PTSD in Diverse College Students

ABSTRACT Young adults’ transition into college includes risk for onset of mental health problems and sexual violence, particularly for women. Compared to men and boys, women and girls across the lifespan are more likely to be sexually abused, with the perpetrators often being someone close to them. High betrayal trauma is linked to varied mental health outcomes. Despite literature depth, many samples are not ethnically diverse, which results in uncertainty about the generalizability of these findings outside of majority White American populations. The purpose of the current study is to assess gender and high betrayal in sexual violence and mental health outcomes among ethnically diverse college students in the U.S. Participants (N = 368) were ethnically diverse college students attending a public university in the Pacific Northwest, who completed online measures assessing sexual violence and mental health outcomes. When controlling for medium betrayal sexual trauma (perpetrator: unclose other), the associations between high betrayal sexual trauma and dissociation and anxiety, respectively, were moderated by the female gender. The findings point to the utility of relational cultural therapy as a feminist framework that can identify sexism as a contributing factor to young women’s increased risk for sexual violence and associated mental health problems.

Intersectionality Awakening Model of Womanista: A Transnational Treatment Approach for Latinx Women

A transnational feminism framework, which aims to reshape the politics surrounding ideologies of feminism by decentering White Women as the model of womanhood, is used to explicitly center the role of gendered-racism in the lives of Latinas and how they have survived their subjugation throughout history. A transnational treatment approach titled, Intersectionality Awakening Model of Womanista (I AM Womanista) is presented to assist psychotherapists working with Latinas to deliver interventions rooted in a gendered-racial-culturally responsive praxis. Overall, the I AM Womanista framework aims to disrupt the dominant feminist ethos by honoring the collective narratives of Indigenous and Black Latina women who actively resisted and survived attacks on their humanity from the pre-colonial period to the present. Practical clinical guidance is offered.

Why place and space matter for intimate partner violence survivors’ mental wellbeing and communities in Northeastern Uganda

ABSTRACT The context of place matters for mental health. Employing a feminist framework, this study used key informant interviews and focus group discussions in May 2012 with 77 conflict-affected adults, children, and adolescents in Northeastern Uganda to understand the relation of place and the symbolic space of family to IPV survivors’ mental wellbeing to shape intervention possibilities. Using Grounded Theory methods, narratives identified numerous negative mental health experiences, such as having a disturbed mind, associated with inhabiting a violent domestic space. Place-associated qualities interacted with the symbolic space of the family to impede women’s ability to enhance the safety of their domestic space, discourage separation, and encourage reunification in the case of separation, all of which related to negative mental health experiences. Interventions should not assume that IPV survivors’ exposure to violence has terminated and look beyond mental health as an individual outcome.

Creating Response-Able Futures? Discussing the Conservative Laestadian Desire to Mother within Reproductive Justice

This article discusses the Conservative Laestadian women’s desire to mother and the procreational ethos of the Conservative Laestadian religious movement in the framework of reproductive justice and ecological crisis. The data draws from my doctoral study in which I examined the aspirations of women who belonged in the Conservative Laestadian religious revival movement in Finland. In my attempt to understand the Laestadian women’s desire to mother within the procreational ethos of this conservative religion, and to form an alternative approach to the issue in feminist ethico-ecological framework, I employ Donna J. Haraway’s concept of response-ability together with Bracha L. Ettinger’s theory of matrixial feminine transconnectivity. With this article, I propose that in their multivocality, diversity, and intertwined nature, the Laestadian women’s accounts of motherhood assist in understanding the many aspirations, intentions, agencies, and affects that operate within the desire to mother in this conservative religious movement. The Laestadian women’s diverging accounts enable us to consider motherhood as a manifold issue for a pious woman: a natural duty and an obligation, but also a position through which to claim the status of a subject. This invites us to think of the Laestadian women’s desire to mother more broadly as an entangled ethics of relationality, care, and kin-making beyond human reproduction. To promote a response-able approach to the issue of the desire to mother on the edge of the ecological disaster, we must address the unquestioned transgenerational and procreational models of motherhood and how these complicate the discussion on the reproductive rights of religious female subjects in the Western world. However, as the desire to mother extends toward shared response-ability and more inclusive futures, it requires questioning the human desire to reproduce.

Livestreaming: The mainstreaming of the commodified body and sexual labor in Thailand

ABSTRACT In recent years, livestreaming applications have grown in popularity, with a concentration of users in Asia. This paper examines two popular livestreaming applications in Thailand, using a qualitative digital ethnographic approach, coupled with close visual analysis. Also, this research deals with livestreaming through a gendered lens, applying a feminist theoretical framework to explore factors influencing livestream broadcaster popularity. Research seeks to ascertain how the construction of livestreaming platforms relate to earlier and ongoing live video-based platforms, both theoretically and formally. It is argued that while livestreaming is presented as an iteration of social media, there is an erotic emphasis placed on female aesthetic presentation, economic structure, platform construction, and the nature of digital labor. This closely parallels the construction and emphasis seen in sex-camming platforms, which predate the emergence of livestreaming. In the Thai context, this has major ramifications for reinforcing stereotypes and harmful conceptions regarding Thai female sexual availability and objecthood.

Perspectives of adult undergraduate women working towards a degree

Adult learners have identified financial challenges in their pursuit of a college education. While it is understood that tuition and other educational expenses are among these challenges, perspectives on daily financial challenges and their impact on college-going are not as heavily represented in the literature. The purpose of this study was to investigate the financial experiences adult women in the United States encounter in pursuit of a college degree in order to better support adult learners more broadly. Using feminist narrative framework, the study introduces eight women who were in the final stages of bachelor’s degree completion at a private women’s college and overcame various financial obstacles to do so. The findings indicate that women’s lives are a complex web of challenges that create educational barriers.

Feminism and gendered impact of COVID‐19: Perspective of a counselling psychologist

When women, girls and gender‐diverse people — who have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID‐19 pandemic outbreak since the public health crisis has also become a crisis for feminism — will identify and acknowledge their organismic phenomenological self, wholeness and growth will be fully functioning. Psychological aspects for the public health emergency operated through counselling psychologists to manage mental health, emotional, psychological, cognitive, behavioural, relational and social impacts are fundamental. And the role of counselling psychologists in maintaining personal mental health and their clients is a crucial indicator of collective wellbeing. This perspective is embedded in the gendered approach and feminist framework which attempts to explore and offer the embodied intersectional and divergent impact on living during the COVID‐19 pandemic lockdown.

Merging Tenets of Relational Cultural Theory, Feminism, and Wonder Woman for Counseling Practice

ABSTRACT The most recent release of the film “Wonder Woman” signified a pivotal moment to highlight societal forces of oppression along with distinct launching points to advocate for women. Relational-cultural theory (RCT) is a feminist framework used in counseling and supervision that acknowledges the resilience and empowerment found in authenticity, mutuality, and growth-fostering relationships. Researchers have documented the widespread integration and proliferation of RCT due to its intuitive coherence with professional counseling and advocacy. The film “Wonder Woman” serves as a modern and entertaining platform that illustrates how early connection, societal representations, and growth-fostering relationships can serve as a source of empowerment and advocacy for women, despite superhero powers. Combined with an elaboration of relational-cultural theory (RCT) as the underlying framework, this article addresses three overarching areas: (a) synopsis of “Wonder Woman” and its implications for feminism, women, and advocacy; (b) core tenets of RCT; and (c) practical aspects of using “Wonder Woman” in counselor education, supervision, and counseling practice.

BRAVE AND HARDWORKING: A FEMINIST ANALYSIS ON CHILDREN FAIRYTALE “THE LAZY GIRL”

This study analyzed the feminist analysis of children fairytale "The Lazy Girl". In this case, the researchers selected the children fairytale from the perspective of modern feminism framework analysis and identified the moral values of this story. This study focused on the main character of the story drawn as brave and hardworking character. The method used in this study is qualitative descriptive analysis. The researchers analyzed the text of the story from a YouTube channel based on the feminist approach. The finding showed that the second and the third wave of feminist characteristic were used in this story. The main character of this this story showed the brave and hardworking of young girl which related to the feminist framework. In addition, this story has good moral values for children and provides a positive impact for the children.

South African women’s constructions of sexual consent

ABSTRACT Current understandings of sexual consent do not always acknowledge the effect of overarching social norms and ideals on how sexual consent is constructed. This research explored how women construct sexual consent using a feminist framework that focused on the use of discourses to analyse how power shapes these understandings. We aimed to gain insight into how women talk about sexual consent and the forces they identified as influencing their understandings. Five focus group discussions were conducted with female students from a university in Cape Town, South Africa. The analysis yielded three primary discourses in women’s talk of sexual consent: Consent as a Woman’s Call, Consent Without Desire, and Consent as Willingness. This work contributes to the existing literature on sexual consent by highlighting the context-specific nature of sexual consent and the ways in which power shapes women’s constructions of sexual consent in the context of heterosexual relationships.

EDC's as Industrial Chemicals and Settler Colonial Structures

Oil refineries and settler colonialism are not typically how feminist and environmental frameworks scope the problem of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). Instead, it is much more common to find EDCs described as a problem of packaging, plastics, and consumer goods, and to characterize their effects as a problem of bodily damage, and particularly as injuries or alterations to the reproductive and sexual development of individuals. This paper seeks to disrupt these individualized, molecularized, damage-centered and body-centered frames, and to strengthen decolonial feminist frameworks for understanding EDCs. We contend that our understanding of EDCs must expand to the structures of settler colonialism and racial capitalism that accompany oil extraction and refining, as well as to the distribution of emissions to airs, waters and lands. Building on the argument that pollution is colonialism, we hold that EDCs are materially a form of colonial environmental violence, disrupting land/body relations, and at the same time, are made possible by a permission-to-pollute regulatory regime.

Free to Die: A Lutheran-Relational Approach to Medical Assistance in Dying

In 2016, Canada legalized Bill C-14, which removed from the Criminal Code medical assistance in dying (MAID) under certain circumstances. In essence, the Bill legalized what is commonly described as euthanasia, under the provisions that the patient has a terminal medical diagnosis, anticipates extreme suffering, is at least 18 years old and still maintains their own medical power of attorney, has received the same diagnosis from two separate doctors, and requests such a procedure without duress. The bill exempts doctors and nurses from culpability in murder, along with those aiding the medical staff. The bill replaces sections of the Criminal Code that criminalize death by suicide. In this article, I first review the theological and historical interpretation of suicide within the Christian church. I then offer a specifically Lutheran feminist framework of our baptism into death, Luther’s explanation of the First Commandment, and Christian freedom to affirm Christians’ faithful decisions in seeking medical assistance in dying.

Rationale for Feminist Bibliography

This essay posits a framework of shared identity and practice for feminist bibliographers, book historians, and textual scholars. Feminist bibliographyis positioned as the use of bibliographic methodologies to revise how book history and related fields categorize and analyze women’s texts and labor. The opening section of the essay quantitatively analyzes book history companions, readers, and introductions to establish a baseline for how the field functions as a practice and discourse. The second section then analyzes the version of bibliography that has been canonized in book history, identifies how book history has explicitly favored a version of bibliography that is antagonistic to feminist work, and proposes a feminist narrative of bibliography that can and should be incorporated as the foundation for studies of the material book. The last section puts a feminist framework into practice and searches for women’s contributions to bibliographic labor in the Anglo-American world. It offers a new set of founders in bibliography and challenges contemporary bibliographers and book historians to re-evaluate on whom we place importance, how we define interpretive scholarship, and how we construct our discourse.

“Fake” or “Real” Marriage? Gender, Age, “Race” and Class in the Construction of Un/desirability of Marriage Migrants in South Korea

This paper examines the link between the regulation of marriage migration and national boundary-making processes in South Korea through the analysis of “fraudulent marriage” discourses. Corresponding to the goals of the Korean government based on the gendered and racialized construction of the Korean nation, populations of marriage migrants are hierarchized according to various intersecting axes of gender, age, class, and “race.” Based on a critical race and intersectional feminist framework and critical security studies, I examine multiple intersections of the social relations, which hierarchize marriage migrants. While certain marriage migrants are constructed as desirable because they embody particular sets of characteristics (namely childbearing female marriage migrants from developing countries), other marriage migrants outside these parameters are actively constructed as undesirable and suspected of fraudulent marriage. The discriminatory distinctions drawn among differentially racialized and gendered marriage migrants raise significant social justice concerns. The article concludes with a brief discussion of strategies pursued by marriage migrants and their Korean spouses to undermine discourses of fraudulent marriages.

The Intersectionality of Race and Trajectories of African Women into the Nursing Career in the United States.

This paper uses narratives of Malawian-born registered nurses working in the United States to capture pathways through which African women are entering the nursing profession. The paper highlights how race, immigrant status and language acts as potential sources of discrimination within the nursing profession. The paper utilizes intersectionality as a feminist framework that places black women’s experiences at the center of analysis to capture the multidimensionality of their experiences. The qualitative study highlights the multiple pathways through which African immigrant women enter the nursing profession and how being African, immigrant female nurses predisposes them to discrimination in their interactions with employment institutions and patients. Focusing on African women’s experiences as recent immigrants enriches the global migration narrative and helps contextualize the intersectionality of race, gender and discrimination within particular contexts.