Feminist Theory Research Articles

Many Caring Marys: Feminised Care in Mary Seacole’s Wonderful Adventures and Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Marys Seacole

Drawing upon a growing body of research in feminist care theory, this essay argues that Mary Seacole’s representation of care in her 1857 autobiography, Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, uses maternal rhetoric to reinforce a Victorian vision of care grounded in feminine hospitality and domestic comfort. The essay considers Seacole’s narrative as both a sentimentalist story that sanitises care labour through her use of the figurative ‘mother,’ and as a testimony to the centrality of care labour, so often invisibilised, in grand narratives of history. I analyse this vision alongside Jackie Sibblies Drury’s 2019 play Marys Seacole, which reconsiders Seacole’s legacy by arguing instead for an entangled, interdependent model of care relations that explicitly attends to differences in class and race. Drury’s play ambivalently explores what is both inspiring and fraught within Seacole’s original narrative; its final dramatic thrust, which finds its characters clinging to the iconography of ‘Mother Seacole’ while physically clutching onto one another, registers the inadequacy of a care model dependent upon exploited mother figures and suggests the need for lateral, multiracial, and multigenerational networks of mutual support.

Challenging the status quo: A feminist analysis of gender dynamics, motivation, and empowerment in hackathons

This study explores gender differences in motivation, anxiety, and confidence within hackathon environments. It examines whether intrinsic and extrinsic motivations influence the relationship between gender and these psychological states. Data from HackYeah 2023 participants indicate that, while female participants do not report higher anxiety levels, they display marginally lower confidence compared to their male counterparts. Contrary to initial hypotheses, neither intrinsic nor extrinsic motivation significantly influences the gender-anxiety relationship. However, extrinsic motivation does partially mediate the gender-confidence relationship. These results challenge patriarchal structures and highlight the resilience and capabilities of women in competitive technological settings, emphasizing the need for feminist approaches to dismantle systemic biases. The study also discusses its limitations and the implications for future research and hackathon organization, underscoring the critical role of motivational factors in mitigating gender disparities in hackathons. The study underscores the importance of feminist interventions in hackathons to cultivate an environment where all genders can thrive equally.

Why He Killed Her as a Lover : A Feminist Analysis of the “Xiang Gong Murder Case” in the Northern Song Dynasty

在唐宋之交的向拱杀妇案中，各个人物背后的行动逻辑为何，是值得探究的问题。通过文献资料分析法和案例分析法，结合女性主义的理论工具，详细解析了在案件的背景年代唐宋时期，性行为规范的不平等特征。研究发现，从身份差异的角度看，法律对贱民妇女的性行为保护较少，约束较少；对良民妇女的性行为保护较多，约束也较多。从性别差异的角度看，良民男性比良民女性享有更广泛的性自由。总之，良民妇女的情欲在该时期受到极大压制。在此背景下，向拱杀妇的行动虽然被向拱本人、警巡者赋予了较为正面的评价，但事实上，这仅仅是一场男性霸权行动与阴茎中心主义的性别的展演，而非正义之举。总之，向拱杀妇的行动是厌女的表现，潞之妇女的杀夫行动则是一种毁灭式的反抗。这场以暴制暴的惨剧，对今世之人仍具有警示意义。

Artistic Negotiation of Emma and Lucy Annual Drama The Musical Jekyll & Hyde: A Performance Quadrilogue View

The main focus is on the artistic aspects of the two female characters, Emma Carew and Lucy Harris in the production of “The Musical Jekyll & Hyde” by the Annual Drama team of Faculty of Language and Arts, Satya Wacana Christian University Salatiga, in 2023. The study focused on the process and artistic decision making within the context of management, musicology, dramaturgy, and literary studies. The study highlights how Emma and Lucy, are constructed in feminism artistic analysis in contemporary drama. The characters represented female with their domestic and private roles. Observation, interviews, documentation, and library studies were conducted to gather the data. Using performance centered approach, the study thoroughly observed the artistic decision process of the three actors of performance quadrilogue, namely the source, producer, and performer. As a college theater, all the artistic decision was made by the students. The four artistic elements of theater production, comprising the verbal text, song, movement, and scenary, portrayed the story’s setting in the 1800s in England. Emma’s verbal text depicted the English women of the elite with their domestic orientation. On the contrary, Lucy portrayed liberal English women. The four artistic elements in a theater production, referred to Broadway theater of the same title. This study positioned artistic elements as its study object instead of drama as a media of English learning. These two domains are discussed to sharpen on the construction of the female figure in the artistic perspective of feminist analysis. Post-production studies are also conducted to examine how students gain experience of an artistic decision-making process in producing a performance. It was conducted through the management’s delegating mechanism in the chart of the structured organization.

‘Everywhere you get models of what you should be like’: ideals of masculinity and therapeutic culture constraining young men’s mental health and gendered subjectivities

ABSTRACT This paper presents a novel approach to youth mental health by examining the connections between young Finnish men’s mental health, ideals of masculinity, and public discourses of mental health. Drawing from critical sociological and feminist theories on gender, power, and therapeutic culture, we apply a thematic discursive analysis to a questionnaire data (n = 910) about men’s mental health targeted at young men (primarily aged 15-29). The findings illustrate how young Finnish men consider ‘traditional’ ideals of masculinity widespread in Finland, restricting the actions of men, and upheld by narrow representations of gender. In addition, young men display critical reactions to the public discourses of mental health, especially the ones they feel are repeated in the media. These discourses are seen as insufficient and too individualised, echoing therapeutic culture. Based on our results, we argue that the highly individualised and gendered discourses of mental health, deriving from therapeutic culture and rooted in Finnish cultural and institutional practices, are inadequate for supporting young men’s mental health. Instead, these practices can create a vicious cycle where the often-well-intended efforts can limit and guide young men towards restricted gendered possibilities to express themselves, talk about mental health, and seek support if needed.

An Appraisal of the Conduct and Character of Men in the Society: Perspectives of Yorùbá Female Novelists

In Yorùbá literature, the focus has often been on the roles, struggles and societal expectations of women. However, a notable silence exists in the exploration of men’s character. This apparent oversight exposes the prevailing patriarchal system, which has historically cast men into roles defined by fatherhood and as the head of the family. This narrative portrays men as guardians of traditions, providers and the pillars of family structures. Yet, beneath the surface lies the curiosity concerning the authenticity of these portrayals. Two questions become pertinent: one, do these depictions truly reflect the male identity, or are they just shadows cast by a societal construct designed to reinforce established norms? Two, are men truly capable of meeting the standards set for them, or are they merely being shielded from scrutiny by a narrative that perpetuates their idealized roles? Using the Feminist theory and a Sociological Approach, with narratives from fifteen selected novels authored by Yorùbá women, this study scrutinizes the narratives surrounding the portrayal of male conduct and characters in society by questioning the authenticity of the pedestal upon which men are placed and the realities that shape their lives arising from their conducts, and the character displayed. Findings from the Yorùbá female novelists’ perspectives reveal that lots of men act contrary to the assumed pattern of portrayal. Their shortcomings are unknown to society because the women in the men’s lives cover up the inadequacies of such men. These revelations confirm that the portrayal of men as superhuman beings does not truly represent their conduct and character in society.

Lost in translation: Barbie and subtitle discrepancies in China

I examine the subtle yet impactful subtitle translation errors in the Chinese version of Barbie (2023). These translation missteps undermine the film's feminist narratives and representations of gender, which reveals the translations’ capacity to distort the original English screenplay. Employing an interdisciplinary approach that integrates film studies, feminist theory and translation studies, I emphasise the instrumental role of subtitles as not just linguistic tools but narrative constructs that significantly influence the shaping and affirmation of gender identities. The analysis illuminates the pivotal role of subtitles in reflecting and shaping societal norms, offering insights for developing more culturally sensitive and empowered translation methodologies in the realm of international cinema.

The Influence of Development of Feminism on Creation of Suspense Novels: Analysis from the Perspective of Ecofeminism

This study focuses on the feminist interpretation of female criminal factors in suspense novels by female writers and explores the impact of the evolution of feminist thought on the creation of female writers in different eras. The research background is based on the two major factors of “castration emotion” and “patriarchal resistance” in female criminal psychology, combined with the expressions of female writers on life and death issues, taking into account the impact of the development of feminism on female writers in the era, and reflecting on the internal society Paradox emphasizes that gender equality and nature conservation are closely linked. Through text analysis, document analysis, and comparative analysis, starting from ecofeminism, the feminist thoughts on the female homicide cases in the text are analyzed. The study found that the change in narrative perspective from Agatha to Tokarczuk reflects the improvement of feminist consciousness. The evolution of female roles from male subordinates to independent individuals reflects the development of feminism. Finally, the transformation of female subject consciousness emphasizes the progress of women’s thinking as independent individuals. This study shows that the works created by female writers were influenced by the feminist movement at that time to varying degrees. The highlight of the research is to make up for the scarcity of research on ecofeminism and Tokarczuk in China. Through comparison, the comparative perspective of the texts of the two female writers is supplemented.

Combined with the Fate of Women in Old China: Explore the Awakening of Women and the Influence of Feminism in Midnight

At the beginning of the 20th century, Western feminist thought began to be introduced into China, and under the impetus of the May Fourth Movement, it was widely concerned and accepted by the old Chinese intellectual circle. Mao Dun was the first scholar to translate and spread Western feminist theories during the May Fourth Movement. The potential text of Mao Dun’s novels can be seen in her representative work Midnight. Based on the background of the old Chinese era, this paper takes the typical female characters in Mao Dun’s Midnight as the research object, and uses three methods of text analysis, comparative study and literary criticism to analyze the fate of these classic female characters in Mao Dun’s Midnight and explore the awakening of women and the influence of feminism embodied in them. Then it reflects the awakening of women and the influence of feminism in old China. Moreover, the awakening of women and the influence of feminism had a profound impact on China and the world at that time and even later generations.

THE EVENT: ON SCREEN, REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

This article analyzes the feature film The Happening (Audrey Diwan, 2021) based on the journey and experiences of its protagonist, a young French woman in the 1960s who seeks a safe abortion despite living in a patriarchal context marked by oppression, condemnation of women's bodies, and violence. The aim is to relate the aesthetic, visual, and sound analysis to the current and urgent debate on women's reproductive rights, with an emphasis on abortion. The theoretical framework is anchored in contemporary feminist theory and criticism, especially Federici (2018) and Diniz (2020), and the methodology of film analysis is understood here as a recreation of the original narrative, an exercise that prioritizes passages and frames allied to interlocutions with the theme addressed.

Divided Deterrence: The Philosophical Community’s Response to Nuclear Warfare in 1980s

At the beginning of the 20th century, Western feminist thought began to be introduced into China, and under the impetus of the May Fourth Movement, it was widely concerned and accepted by the old Chinese intellectual circle. Mao Dun was the first scholar to translate and spread Western feminist theories during the May Fourth Movement. The potential text of Mao Dun’s novels can be seen in her representative work Midnight. Based on the background of the old Chinese era, this paper takes the typical female characters in Mao Dun’s Midnight as the research object, and uses three methods of text analysis, comparative study and literary criticism to analyze the fate of these classic female characters in Mao Dun’s Midnight and explore the awakening of women and the influence of feminism embodied in them. Then it reflects the awakening of women and the influence of feminism in old China. Moreover, the awakening of women and the influence of feminism had a profound impact on China and the world at that time and even later generations.

Implementaton of Strength Reimagined

The Strong Black Woman (SBW) stereotype has been consistently linked to poor mental health for African American women and its endorsement leads to anxiety, depression, and stress. African American women unknowingly subscribe to this stereotype through the exertion of strength and independence found necessary to combat oppression and gendered racism. This article explores existing literature on the SBW stereotype and suggests strategies for leveraging this stereotype to enhance mental health interventions for African American women. Utilizing an integrated conceptual framework that draws from the lens of Black Feminist Thought, Intersectionality, and Social Constructivism Theory, Strength Reimagined: A Therapeutic Framework for African American Women is proposed. This treatment framework incorporates five key aspects: therapist awareness, psychoeducation, culturally responsive psychotherapy, trauma-informed complementary interventions, and mutual support to improve mental health outcomes among African American women.

Reconsidering Fromm and feminisms, part II: a case for psychosocial compatibilities

This article continues an earlier one about how the work of Erich Fromm and feminist theories are compatible despite the connection usually remaining overlooked. Drawing on Fromm’s critique of Freud’s analysis of Dora, but also going further, I argue that associating Fromm and contemporary feminist thought is particularly important in the context of growing authoritarianism on the right and sometimes as reflected also on the left. The article elaborates upon five points of ‘psychosocial compatibility’ between Fromm’s humanistic vision and the ideas of several well-known feminist theorists including Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Chodorow, Jessica Benjamin and others. The five points of psychosocial compatibility addressed between From and contemporary feminisms as addressed here are: connecting the personal and the political while stressing the prefigurative; kindred issues concerning objectification and self-love; emphases on relatedness and the pre-oedipal stage of human development; concerns about multi-dimensionality and intersectionality; and shared political beliefs aimed at overcoming gender and other oppressive inequalities

U.S. Labor and renewable energy: green growth versus the Green New Deal

ABSTRACT In this article, I examine findings from an NSF-funded project on U.S. labor unions’ stance on renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar power, which is neither simple nor well understood. The discourse on energy issues of 11 national-level U.S. unions posted to union websites from 2012 to 2020 was examined and coded using NVivo. While almost all unions in this study were enthusiastic supporters of renewable energy, the reasons for their support were very different, with different implications for the goal of low-carbon energy transition. Unions disagree on issues of ‘just transition,’ and exhibit lines of conflict on four issues: who should lead the energy transition; whether jobs in renewable energy are or could be as good as fossil fuel jobs; whether fossil fuels should be phased out; and whether a just transition necessarily includes transformation of unjust social relations. Union strategies regarding renewable and fossil fuel energy were characterized as ‘Green Growth,’ versus Green New Deal. Examining these contrasting strategies through the lens of theoretical perspectives including ecological modernization, feminist theory, Treadmill of Production theory, and the theoretical perspectives of Gramsci and Polanyi allows labor’s role in energy transition to be better understood while refining sociological theory.

Feminism in the borderscape: Juarense women against injustice.

This article critically examines the feminist movement in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, highlighting the struggles and activism of Juarense women against social injustices, particularly those exacerbated by machismo, the Narco War, and the manufacturing industry. The analysis explores the roots of machismo in Mexican culture, the impact of the maquiladora industry on women's lives, and the rise of feminist activism in response to these challenges. Emphasizing the intersection of gender violence and legal frameworks, the article incorporates feminist legal theory to argue for substantial legal reforms to combat the normalization of machismo and feminicide. It further discusses the resilience and determination of Juarense women, portraying their efforts as part of the broader global feminist movement.

Multiplying Meanings of Pregnancy Through Personal Accounts of Gestational Trophoblastic Disease

In cultures where reproduction is highly medicalised, pregnancy is often understood in terms of foetal development and an anticipated baby. This is connected to a wider privileging of the ‘foetal subject’ in these settings, which has had implications for reproductive autonomy. In this article, I disrupt dominant understandings of pregnancy by engaging with qualitative accounts of gestational trophoblastic disease. This rare condition can entail experiences of pregnancy without foetal development, allowing for scholarly attention to the wider biological, affective and relational constituents of this corporeal event. In this article, I pay particular attention to the ‘pregnancy hormone’ human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which in the context of gestational trophoblastic disease becomes a biomarker for disease. My research extends feminist science studies perspectives destabilising understandings of maternal and foetal bodies as bounded and distinct entities. The article de-centres foetal development as the most significant consequence of conception and enriches feminist discussions of reproductive politics.

Proud to be not beautiful: navigating affects in the rebellious body project of Chinese TuoMeiYi feminism

ABSTRACT In recent years, TuoMeiYi (escaping beauty duty) has emerged in the Chinese digital space as a distinct feminist proposition. Advocating for women to break free from the constraints of beauty, TuoMeiYi feminists strive to redefine what a woman should look like, and actively practice their anti-beauty stance by shaving their hair into buzz cuts. This everyday feminist politics attempts to reclaim women’s autonomy over their bodies by transforming their feminist body into a rebellious project. Diverging from the prevalent media discursive approach in Chinese digital feminism studies, this article examines TuoMeiYi feminists’ explorative body project through the lens of affect grounded in corporeal and phenomenological feminist theories. Using digital ethnography to explore an online TuoMeiYi forum, this article recognizes that pride and shame have been discursively mobilized as pivotal tools to sustain the anti-beauty feminist ideal. Yet, the construction of the proud feminist subject also involves a highly self-autonomous logic that tries to eliminate feminist embodied feelings. In the end, this article argues that it is not ‘feeling good’ but the ‘strange feelings’ that demonstrate the feminist body is neither a docile nor consciously autonomous entity, but a rebellious affective being capable of feeling in unplanned alternative ways.

How to tame your hormones: menopause rage in media discourse

ABSTRACT While feminist scholarship has challenged earlier misogynist discourses around menopause, menopause continues to be associated with women’s rage. Focusing on UK news and advice websites (2018–2024), we ask if and how this association is figured in contemporary cultural representations and what cultural and political work it performs. We situate our examination within three converging contexts: 1) the unleashing of public displays of women’s rage in Anglophone media in the wake of the #MeToo movement; 2) the changing cultural terrain of ageing women and their growing influence in public life; and 3) the rising visibility of menopause in the UK. We identify four distinct patterns: 1) construction of rage as a natural and biological symptom of the hormonally imbalanced ageing female body; 2) bundling of rage with other symptoms associated with menopause; 3) repudiation of menopausal women’s rage; and 4) positioning of menopausal women as responsible for managing their rage. These patterns render menopausal women’s rage visible while simultaneously disavowing and obscuring its legitimacy as an apt response to gender injustice. The analysis shows how menopausal women’s apt rage over gender and racial injustice is being depoliticized and reduced to hormone-induced behaviour that ageing women are exhorted to self-manage.

The Uses of Phenomenology for Latinx Feminisms: Developing a Phenomenological Approach Informed by Rupture

Given the various shortcomings of classical phenomenological methods identified by critical and liberatory theorists, this paper considers what phenomenology has to offer theorists of multiply marginalized experience. The paper begins with an account of the major reasons for which Latinx feminists such as Linda Martín Alcoff, Jacqueline Martinez, and Mariana Ortega have found a phenomenological approach useful in their projects. This account reveals that though Latinx feminist phenomenologists have found useful resources for theorizing multiply marginalized theory and identity in the classical texts of phenomenology, experiences unique to those subjected to marginalization remain significantly underdeveloped or absent from classical accounts. Taking seriously the primacy of lived experiences of ‘rupture’, this paper argues, is therefore necessary in the development of a phenomenological approach that does justice to life in the borderlands and the lived experience of being-between-worlds. Informed by the work of Latinx feminist theorists such as Gloria Anzaldúa and María Lugones, this paper closes with a proposed critical feminist phenomenological approach that centers the moment of ‘rupture’ described in such work. Ultimately, this paper argues that the communication and documentation of these ruptures in the form of phenomenological description allows for the examination and interrogation of sedimented logics of oppression on the way to liberatory ends.

The Bounded Limitlessness of Digital Gender-Sexual Violations: The Implications for Women and Gender-Sexual Relations.

Developments in digital technologies might provide limitless ways to reshape humanity's very existence, but also open up what we term "bounded limitless" opportunities for digital gender-sexual violations (DGSV). That is, "limitless" opportunities for men to sexually violate women within the inherent "boundedness" of digital technological infrastructures and architectures. Building on the existing interdisciplinary feminist scholarship, we explore the gendered disbenefits, specifically some of the ways in which digital technologies provide men with "bounded limitless" opportunities to perpetrate DGSV in physical and virtual times and spaces, and the implications for women, their bodies, and gender-sexual relations more broadly.