Feminist Model Research Articles

Women and power in sociology: SWS as an arena of change

This article explores the ways that the feminist organization Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) has become an arena of change in the discipline of sociology, academic institutions, and larger society. We begin with an examination of feminist models of power and change, followed by a brief history of SWS and an exploration of the use of power in sociology, academia, and beyond. We find that SWS has influenced both the organizational governance structures of sociology (such as the American Sociological Association) and the production of sociological scholarship. As a result, the presence of women is more apparent than ever before, and sociological paradigms are more inclusive and attentive to the voices of “outsiders.” Academic institutions have been challenged and changed by an SWS presence and the monitoring of women's experiences in the academy. Beyond the discipline and academia, SWS strives to participate in the making of public policy that affects women's lives and to be a presence both domestically and internationally in issues affecting the status and well‐being of women. We conclude with the recommendation that sociologists use their experiences and knowledge to create change in the institutions where women practice and the world in which they live.

College Women's Definitions of and Experiences with Social Power

Responses of 24 female college students to questionnaires on their definitions of and experiences with social power indicated that they define power in society consistent with a traditional definition of power, whereas they define and use power as individuals consistent with a feminist model.

A Black Feminist Model of Rape Myth Acceptance

A Black feminist model was used to investigate rape myth acceptance between African American antirape activists and a comparison group of nonactivists using Cross's (1991) racial identity model and Downing and Roush's (1985) feminist identity model. As predicted, activists rejected rape myths more than nonactivists; the earlier stages of both models were associated with rape myth acceptance; the later stages were associated with rape myth rejection; and activists evidenced more sociopolitical maturity (race and gender consciousness) than nonactivists. The findings suggest that researchers may need to investigate to what degree rape myth acceptance serves an overarching system of social domination where racism and sexism overlap.

Mary Ashton Rice Livermore's Relational Feminist Discourse: A Rhetorically Successful Feminist Model

Mary Ashton Rice Livermore is one of the few women's rights activists whose ideas were received enthusiastically by the general public. Her success lies in her relational feminist stance and her careful construction of six major strategies. Livermore's relational feminist model is a framework for feminist rhetoric that challenges current discourse trends. Further, her success in negotiating tension between tradition and change demands that she be recognized as a great orator of her time.

Unsettled subjects: restoring feminist politics to poststructuralist critique

During the 1980s much of the work of feminist theory aimed to fully account for issues of class, race, and sexuality that previously had been overlooked. Susan Lurie argues that this work tended to privilege questions of race and class at the expense of gender, and frequently, if inadvertently, left patriarchal power unquestioned. Developing a feminist model that keeps multiple political forces in view, Lurie returns to three literary feminists from earlier parts of the century: Ellen Glasgow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Elizabeth Bishop. As Lurie argues, each of these women shows that both resistance to male domination and alliances between different oppositional politics rely on recognizing how power regulates a subject's multiple beliefs.In her analysis, Lurie traces each author's strategies for revealing and challenging the ways that patriarchal gender ideology profits from what is always plural and contested female subjectivity. Only such an inquiry, Lurie demonstrates, can explain the impasses that have steered poststructuralist feminism away from gender as a category of analysis and can point toward the models necessary for a more complete feminist critique of patriarchal power.

A "Dangerous Game of Change": Images of Desire in the Love Poems of May Swenson

What do we make of a self-identified lesbian's poetry that is often drenched by tropes of heterosexual desire? A poetry that swims in a myriad of possible pleasures while consistently marking the narrow terms of normative sexuality? The difficulty of reconciling these characteristics of May Swenson's poetry is reflected in the relative scarcity of critical work that explores her use of erotic imagery while giving voice to her lesbianism; in a poststructuralist climate currently rife with interrogations of sexuality and subjectivity, this absence is a noticeable one.(1) While the beautifully... Sapphic nature of Swenson's poetry has been admired (Schulman 10), an overwhelming number of Swenson's poems employ blatantly heterosexual or stereotypically gendered tropes, a strategy that is, I will argue, central to the relationship between sexuality and subjectivity that shapes Swenson's larger poetic. A lover of riddles, Swenson allows no easy answers: her careful constructions of oppositional desires seem incongruous with the polymorphous sensuality for which her work is known, and imparting her lesbianism into the picture seems only to complicate the puzzle. Conflations of author and text, or representation and reality, are confounded by Swenson, for if language is representative of an ontological or authorial reality, then a critical reconciliation, or mere recognition, of Swenson's use of ostensibly heterosexual imagery and her own sexual orientation as a lesbian is rendered problematic. From such a perspective her poetic eroticism can only be read at best as bashfully coded, and at worst as pathologized - fraudulent, confused, or masochistic. But these interpretations are easily challenged by even a cursory reading of her celebratory, spirited writing. As the brief biography in The Love Poems of May Swenson succinctly asserts, Swenson's poems are love letters to the world, for she loved life and rejoiced in celebrating it. Focusing for the most part on poems in which sexual imagery is especially abundant, I would like to suggest an alternative reading: that Swenson's poetry radically refuses normative sexuality through a performative appropriation of gendered tropes, a process that redrafts the terms of desire and broadens our scope of subjectivity. It is not the purpose of this essay to read Swenson's lesbian identification in the terms of her poetry. Such a project would, I believe, contradict the lessons her work has to offer. But I hope that my reading will open up a space for critical discussions of her work in which her lesbianism is not silenced. Likewise, I hope it will incite opportunities to discuss her lesbian identification in which the stunning range of her eroticism is not necessarily foreclosed.(2) Like her friend and contemporary Elizabeth Bishop, Swenson has proved a somewhat difficult poet for feminist critics. Coming to professional maturation during the late 1950s and 60s, when confessional poetry increasingly came to stand for the American feminist lyric, both Bishop and Swenson resisted forging reputations along gendered lines. Neither woman wrote poetry that fit the new feminist model, and neither sought woman-identified audiences in her work. Consequently, Bishop and Swenson were often overlooked by feminist critics while they were still alive.(3) But unlike Bishop, Swenson has not enjoyed a recent revival within feminist (or nonfeminist) scholarship, though she, too, garnered many prestigious awards during her prolific career and was, ironically, more openly gay than her friend.(4) The discrepancy between Bishop's contemporary popularity and Swenson's relative invisibility may be explained in part by Marianne Moore's recent recuperation by feminist critics and her role as committed mentor to Bishop.(5) But this explanation leaves untouched the nature of Swenson's poetry itself - an uncontained effulgence and up-front sensuality at play with an inherent of riddled indirection - that both sets Swenson apart from Bishop and Moore and makes her particularly relevant within the currently shifting parameters of feminist criticism in this country. …

COLLEGE WOMEN'S DEFINITIONS OF AND EXPERIENCES WITH SOCIAL POWER

Responses of 24 female college students to questionnaires on their definitions of and experiences with social power indicated that they define power in society consistent with a traditional definition of power, whereas they define and use power as individuals consistent with a feminist model.

A feminist model for women's health care.

A feminist model of practice is grounded in feminist theories that are applicable to the health and health care of women. The goal of this model is to change how health care is delivered to individual women, but also to seek social transformation. Four major themes recur in this model: symmetry in provider-patient relationships, access to information, shared decision-making, and social change. This article describes ways in which clinicians can integrate these themes into practice. Suggestions for maintaining symmetry in the traditional power relationship include decreasing physical, social and personal barriers and attentive listening to patients' stories. Access to information involves creating an atmosphere that is conducive to teaching and learning, but also helping patients access other sources of information. Shared decision-making is central to feminist practice and is attainable when patients have been empowered and are knowledgeable about their healthcare needs. Social change entails the ever vigilant clinician who is familiar with the latest literature, both professional and lay, in order to critically analyse research studies, our colleagues' interpretations of those studies and how recommendations for practice are reached. Collectively, clinicians work with the public to strive for change within the healthcare system and society as a whole.

The Women Who Organized Harvard: A Feminist Model of Labor Organization?

Balloons transformed Harvard Yard on May 17, 1988, the day the servants of the university, as workers were originally called, voted on whether to join the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW), an affiliate of AFSCME. Ballooning lightened the tension, but Kristine Rondeau, lead union organizer, had a grim warning for her staff: You did a wonderful job. But we don't have it…It's very likely we didn't win. In fact, by a slim margin, they did have it. One of the most influential universities in the world had been outsmarted by some of its unknown employees, mostly women.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Social Causes of Impairment, Disability, and Abuse

Impairments are often acquired as a result of social practices (e.g., war, interpersonal violence). There is a strong likelihood in a “disabling society” that disability will follow impairment. This article provides evidence suggesting that many of the social practices that cause impairments (and that therefore often lead to disabilities) are part of a large-scale social pattern that feminists often refer to as “patriarchy.” This social pattern is characterized by (a) male dominance; (b) hierarchy (e.g., a social class system); (c) male-on-male struggles for power (e.g., war); (d) control, exploitation, and devaluation of “the other” (e.g., racial minorities, people with disabilities); and (e) internalized oppression. Although disability scholars taking a sociopolitical approach to disability have usually focused on the social construction of disability through disabling attitudes, behaviors, and environments, this article advocates focusing also on the social construction of disability through the social creation of impairment provided a minority, not medical, model is used. The role of patriarchy in causing impairment (and disability) and the abuse of people with disabilities is discussed. A preliminary feminist model of patriarchal oppression, disability, and abuse is proposed.

Mary Ashton Rice Livermore's Relational Feminist Discourse: A Rhetorically Successful Feminist Model

Mary Ashton Rice Livermore is one of few rights activists whose ideas were received enthusiastically by general public. Her success lies relational feminist stance and careful construction of six major strategies. Livermore's relational feminist model is framework for feminist rhetoric that challenges current discourse trends. Further, success negotiating tension between tradition and change demands that she be recognized as great orator of time. Until death 1905, Mary Ashton Rice Livermore arguably was America's best known and most famous speaker. Considered Queen of Platform (Blackwell, 1971, p. 236; Hanson, 1882, p. 131; Riegel, 1971, p. 412) and foremost America (Mary A Livermore Collection, Melrose Library; Riegel, 1963, p. 92), Livermore gave first speech 1861, traveled over 25,000 miles to deliver more than 150 speeches annually between 1870 and 1895 (Livermore, 1892), and was admired for moral logic, memory, humor, pathos, and charisma (Hanaford, 1883, p. 306). Although she spoke an era when brilliant platform speakers were common, there was no abler advocate of legal equality for and than Livermore herself (McCormick, 1913, p. 53). Her talent and eloquence were considered bulwark to reformers of generation and appearance in any town or city United States called out a concourse of delighted listeners (Thayer, 1896, p. 203). Her speeches were described as teeming with wit and brilliancy and logical to core (Mary A. Livermore Collection, Melrose Library). William Lloyd Garrison argued that Livermore's lectures swayed orators and audiences so that no matter what they became afterwards, they were converted to cause at moment (Garrison Family Papers, n.d.). Her critics and reviewers said she possessed peculiar magnetism... which singularly stole upon attention of audiences (Henshaw, 1868, p. 209). Even though audience's attitude was often polite indifference before lectures, ability to marshal fact after fact of scientific data from unquestionable authority revived audience interest into eagerness and responsiveness (Whiting, 1905, p. 1). The remarkable success of Livermore stands direct contrast to reception attending most other rights advocates. Unlike Livermore, outspoken feminist thinkers found it difficult to make their ideas persuasive to public (Conrad, 1976, p. 184). Margaret Fuller, for example, was described as a domineering, ugly with nasal voice, so repellent that most individuals did not wish to stay same room with her (Urbanski, 1980, p. 6); and Dr. Mary Walker, Civil War physician and dress reformer, was attacked by women who set bulldogs on streets (Seldes, 1928, p. 287). Even Elizabeth Cady Stanton was not immune to criticism; she was considered inexcusably self-important and holier than Thou (Hersh, 1978, p. 161), and was characterized by press as coarse, unrefined woman whose ideas were too indelicate to communicate (Noun, 1969, p. 183). Livermore is one of few rights activists whose ideas and presentations were received enthusiastically by general public. Consequently, she stands as model for effective feminist discourse--controversial discourse that nevertheless resonated with rather than alienated audiences. Over 25 years of speaking career, Livermore advocated relational feminism, form of feminism widely advocated by rights activists late 19th century (Boxer, 1982; Cott, 1986; Often, 1988).(1) According to Often (1988), relational feminism is grounded the seemingly paradoxical doctrine of `equality difference' and was dominant line of argument dispute over rights prior to 20th century (p. 139). Arguments in relational feminist tradition proposed gender-based but egalitarian vision of social organization, featured a companionate, non-hierarchical, male-female couple as basic unit of society, and emphasized women's rights as women (defined principally by their child bearing and/or nurturing capabilities) relation to men (Often, 1988, pp. …

Menopause in Different Cultures

The nature—culture divide of the Western biomedical and feminist models of the menopausal woman is challenged by the presentation of the results of various anthropological studies of the menopausal transition. Perspectives on women's ageing bodies may differ across cultures. In individual narratives culturally dominant perspectives on women's ageing bodies may be either reproduced or challenged. Variation in the social position of women is but one of the factors to explain inter- and intracultural differences in the symptomatology and experience of the menopause, and the meaning given to this life-cycle transition. Other factors to be considered in the study of the menopause cross-culturally are psychological factors, genetics, the entire reproductive history including pregnancy and lactation, patterns of menstrual fluctuation throughout a life-cycle, level of physical activity, diet and physical environment. Based on the knowledge currently available no clear conclusions can be drawn with respect to the causal connections between the different factors relating to intra- and intercultural variations or similarities in response to the menopause, and to the possible linkages between the menopause and illnesses of ageing like osteoporosis and heart disease. It is stressed that in future studies serious attention must be paid to the various methodological problems at stake in the cross-cultural study of the experience and symptomatology of the menopause as a biocultural and political process.

A feminist model for clinical ethics consultation: increasing attention to context and narrative.

A feminist model for clinical ethics consultation: increasing attention to context and narrative.

Applying a Feminist Analysis Model to Selected Nursing Studies of Women with HIV

women's mental health has been linked to oppression and to oppressive practices in health care. Feminist approaches to health care delivery and research have been suggested as a remedy for the subtle and overt oppression faced by women, and many nurses have used feminist principles to conduct and report their research and to critique existing studies. Though nursing authors have identified useful feminist guides for conducting and reporting research, few examples of the practice of feminist critiques of research are available in the nursing literature. This analysis synthesizes and adapts feminist principles from nursing literature and presents a feminist model to review selected nursing research reports of women with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). A convenience sample of eight articles from nursing journals was examined for statements or implications that the author(s) (a) perceived the purposes of the study as benefiting women, (b) demonstrated an awareness of the structures and policies that oppress women, (c) were sensitive to issues of diversity, (d) were committed to social change, and (e) recognized the female participants' strengths. The selected articles were found to meet many of the feminist criteria, although these principles were not always explicitly addressed in the articles.

Boundaries of Youth

To date, the sociological study of Canadian youth culture has lacked analytical attention. In this article, attention is directed toward exploring and understanding normative, everyday gendered youth culture among a sample of 2,074 high school seniors in 3 Canadian cities. The recognition in this study of women's and men's varied youth culture activities provides an opportunity to show how both traditional male and liberal feminist models of youth culture have structured not just the popular view of youth culture but also the compartmentalization of social life into separable structures with separate functions.

Women's Studies on Trial

I hese two books have very different stories to tell about the state of feminism in the American academy. The story told in Professing Feminism is already notorious beyond the academy; Gender and Academe will almost certainly never circulate so widely. Together, though, these books imply more than either does alone about how centrally academic feminism figures in current struggles over the nature of academic work and the policing of the academy's borders. Professing Feminism, according to its authors, is an inquiry... concentrated on feminism as it is practiced in Women's Studies at colleges and universities (xvii). Daphne Patai, a literary scholar, and Noretta Koertge, a historian of science, insist that their inquiry is an inside critique, aimed at calling academic feminism back from what they diagnose as its current ills to its liberal origins. We are feminists and.. . friends of feminism, they write in their Postscript, feminists arguing from within feminism about the means for achieving the basic goal of the liberation of women from all that impedes their ability to lead full and productive lives (218). Their methods of inquiry draw on the feminist models of ethnography and

Gossip, Stories and Friendship: Confidentiality in Midwifery Practice

Women often seek midwifery care as an alternative to the maternity services that are readily available within the insured health care system in Alberta. Some aspects of community-based, primary care midwifery in Alberta that characterize this alternative are the use of story-telling as a form of knowledge, the development of social connections among women seeking midwifery care, and nonauthoritarian relationships between midwives and women. In this paper, the concept of confidentiality, as it relates to these aspects of midwifery practice, is explored, using traditional, caring and feminist models of ethics.

Studying Partner Abuse in Lesbian Relationships:

Research on sensitive topics with a stigmatized and largely closeted population such as lesbians can be a daunting enterprise. Nevertheless, such research is valuable for revealing the serious social problems that lesbians experience, for documentating the extent of these problematic experiences, for uncovering the causes of the problems, and for suggesting solutions. In this article, the author argues that the methodological difficulties inherent in undertaking such research can often be best addressed by utilizing a feminist participatory research model. The benefits of this model, examined in the context of one researcher's experience in studying partner abuse in lesbian relationships, include allowing members of invisible and oppressed groups to shape research about themselves and to give voice to their experiences; allowing researchers to share their professional skills, but also become learners during the research process; improving the quality and accuracy of the data; and facilitating personal and...

Post-natal depression: the relevance of sociological approaches.

Post-natal depression is much discussed yet definitions and approaches are not homogenous, neither in terms of the cause of post-partum mental ill health, its treatment or how further research in the area should proceed. This paper seeks to examine post-natal 'upsets' and to consider the different explanations that have been and could be made of post-partum mental ill health. The paper reviews the dominant biomedical and psychological approaches, evaluating their ability to explain post-natal mental illness. The writer believes biological and psychological approaches are in the ascendance but seeks to demonstrate that they do not present a full picture. Sociological approaches drawing upon stress, labelling and feminist models are examined, exploring new ways of looking at post-natal illness. The paper concludes that biological and psychological approaches do not provide complete explanations and a multidisciplinary approach is needed. Most significantly the woman's own perception of post-natal ill health is largely absent from the literature. The need for an approach using ethnographic methods is highlighted.

Gender, Power, and Intimacy

Feminist family therapy has been notably silent on the issue of intimacy between women and men, focusing instead on issues of equity and justice. But an imbalance of power between marital partners is not only unjust, it also inhibits intimacy. Using the Family FIRO model as an analytic tool, we explain the connection between power and intimacy, and describe how specific gendered patterns in marriage may create a context which cannot sustain the intimacy desired by many married couples. Conceptually, this paper suggests a way to talk about intimacy within a feminist model by connecting it organically to issues of equity and justice. Clinically, this paper suggests that therapists can embrace and work with the yearning of many women and men for more emotional intimacy in their marriages by helping them see the inextricable links between their equality and their intimacy.