Wave Feminism Research Articles

Nurturing Professionals: De Facto Maternal Roles in British New Woman Novels, 1880–1900

Abstract This article situates the modern ideals of female motherhood and professionalism in the fin de siècle creation of the professional New Woman in Britain, and posits that future feminist discourses would find value in identifying similar strands of commonality with underrated historical feminist movements. Presenting snapshots of nineteenth-century British novelistic plots, this article shows how altered settings and character types in early, mid, and late Victorian novels do not diminish the Western investment in marriage and procreation as the future of culture, civilization, and hegemony. The article then analyzes how late Victorian narratives reconceptualize maternity as civic duty. Consequently, the physicality of biological motherhood and the complex Victorian epistemologies about sex and sexuality are relegated to animality with distinctly classist and racist connotations. Unwanted birth, along with its discomfiting relationship with infanticide in Victorian society, is subtly pushed into the sexualized realm of the lower classes or foreign, other races. Finally, this article explores the figure of the maternal professional woman, de facto non-biological mothers to childlike figures in the interest of civic duty that emerged, fairly clearly, from the discursive construction of the proto-professional New Woman in the fin de siècle. In this way, this article argues that the ideal of the New Woman gave rise to the modern notion of female professionalism that is nurturing and maternal, and involved the rearing of both biological and non-biological children.

Othermothering: A Black Feminist History of Communal Early Childhood Education in America

Historically, Black women, as care providers, educators, activists, and othermothers, have taken a stand within their homes, communities, and the nation’s classrooms to ensure the survival and empowerment of the Black community on every front. Through the lens of Black feminist thought and the power of counternarratives, this literature review delineates a historical and socio-political exploration of how Black women educators and childcare providers have positioned themselves as othermothers—nurturing and advancing the children of the Black community while navigating various systems of oppression and social stressors. In discussion, the author calls for a critical shift towards the recognition of marginalized histories, perspectives, and intellectual contributions of Black women early educators.

The Representation of Men and Women in the Black and White Streams of the Second Wave of Feminism: A Corpus Stylistic Analysis

The Representation of Men and Women in the Black and White Streams of the Second Wave of Feminism: A Corpus Stylistic Analysis

Anti-genderism in the Spanish radical right’s propaganda discourses

Abstract Anti-genderism discourses emerge in response to new public policies resulting from the Fourth Feminist Wave. In the case of Spain, the radical right political party Vox not only articulates an anti-genderism discourse but has also proposed the so-called Parental Pin as an alternative to feminist education. In this light, this study aims to analyse the propagandistic messages of the aforementioned party on social networks, focusing on the Parental Pin as the main theme. Furthermore, it examines the favourable feedback received from its followers. The application of Critical Discourse Analysis revealed that polarisation constitutes a fundamental resource for understanding the communicative and political strategy of the party. Results also revealed that the party conveys an image of itself as guardians of parental freedom and national values, while strategically portraying the left and feminists as adversaries.

The limits of liberation history: South Africa’s elections in retrospect: opinion piece

The limits of liberation history: South Africa’s elections in retrospect: opinion piece

Waves of Feminism in Literature and their Literary Reflections

This research paper explores the evolution of feminist thought across four waves. The first wave, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, focused on women's suffrage and legal rights. The second wave, from the 1960s to the 1980s, addressed reproductive rights and systemic patriarchy. The third wave, beginning in the 1990s, emphasized intersectionality, recognizing diverse identities. The fourth wave, marked by digital activism, confronts issues like sexual harassment and body shaming, reflecting the ongoing evolution of feminist movements

Russian liberalism per se. Review on the book: Kitaev V. A. To the history of liberalism in Russia: the second half of the XIX — early XX century. N. Novgorod: Publishing House of the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory, 2023, 320 р

Russian liberalism per se. Review on the book: Kitaev V. A. To the history of liberalism in Russia: the second half of the XIX — early XX century. N. Novgorod: Publishing House of the Nizhny Novgorod Conservatory, 2023, 320 р

Women Writers’ Perspective on War

Abstract This article presents a comparative analysis of a specific corpus that centers around women writers (translators and artists) as heroines, within the so-called ‘female continent’ in the post-Yugoslav fiction (a concept defined by Tijana Matijević in 2020). The analysis is centered around three different generations of women writers’ perspectives on the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, in three contemporary novels published in the 2010s: Svetlana Slapšak’s Ravnoteža (2016, Engl. Equilibrium), Ivančica Đerić’s Nesreća i stvarne potrebe (2012, Engl. Misfortune and Real Needs), and Lana Bastašić’s Uhvati zeca (2018; Engl. translation Catch the Rabbit, 2021). The comparative analysis is done with respect to three ‘circles’ of interpretation: a) the literature on anti-war women’s writing; b) the literature on the theme of exile in post-Yugoslav fiction and c) the literature on the history of anti-war feminist organizing during the nineties.

Choris Andros: St. Paul on Worlds Without Men

ABSTRACT The genre of fiction portraying worlds without men is over a century old – and growing. It reaches back to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1910 Herland, through scores of utopias from second wave feminist writers like Joanna Russ and Suzy McKee Charnas to contemporary examples from Lauren Beukes and Sandra Newman. This article asks: if it were in fact possible to create a world without men, for what reasons should we pursue or forgo such a world? Those who have endured patriarchy’s cruelty have good reasons to want to institute such a world. However, I present a biblical warrant for rejecting that utopian vision derived from 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul writes that there is “no woman without man” (χωρὶς ἀνδρὸς, choris andros), and “no man without woman.” At the crux of a text that emphasizes the interdependence of God’s creatures, Paul reminds us that interdependence obtains across lines of sexual difference.

Reality of Women in Indonesian Society: A Feminism Approach

Issues regarding gender in Indonesia are still ongoing, which cannot be denied that the patriarchal system is still very strong. Feminist law is based on feminist sociology, feminist philosophy and feminist history expansion of women's attention later in life. At the end of the 20th century, there were many feminist movements seen as a splinter of the Critical Legal Studies movement, of which there are many in essence provides criticism of the legal logic that has been used, its manipulative nature and legal dependence on politics, economics, the role of law in forming patterns social relations, and the formation of hierarchies by legal provisions is not fundamental. Feminist theories often ignore women's contemporary position, focusing on women historical past or utopian future. Focus on praxis often about creating revolutions, egalitarian reforms, or cultural utopias. Much of sociology is based on what are known as individual relationships with the world as it is and as it is maintained.

Spiritualist Art in Early Twentieth-Century Aotearoa New Zealand: Minnie Chapman, Sophia Garland Allan and Berta Sinclair Burns

Spirit drawing, as a means of channelling and expressing communications with spirit entities, has been marginalised in definitions of art as well as in art history. This essay contributes to ongoing and historical conversations in which new religious movements are considered in conjunction with histories of feminism and art, exploring the work of three medium artists: Minnie Chapman (1856–1949), Sophia Garland Allan (1867–1959) and Berta Sinclair Burns (1893–1972). This essay shows how the three artists share spiritualist sensibilities and practices and a visual language of abstraction, decorative expression and particular “universal” biomorphic forms, inviting speculation at the intersection of material culture and esoteric thought.

A Fit Resting Place for One Who Loved Liberty, Justice, and Equality”: Liberalism, Antislavery, and the American Expatriate Community in Florence, Italy, 1820–1865

Abstract: This article examines the American expatriate community in Florence, Italy, between 1840 and 1865. Florence, with its history of liberalism, attracted reformers from all over the Atlantic world, including many Americans and Britons committed to antislavery. During the two decades before the Civil War, Florence attracted American and British cultural elites who valued its history, culture, cosmopolitanism, and suitability for untrammeled discussion and debate about a variety of liberal causes, including antislavery. For American reformers and intellectuals like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, and Sarah Parker Redmond, the city represented both a physical location and an imagined community dedicated to antislavery and liberal reform. American abolitionists’ interaction in Florence with English abolitionists such as Robert and Elizabeth Browning and Fanny Trollope suggests that the city looms larger in the geography of nineteenth-century abolitionism than previously appreciated.

‘The Doctor in Search of Herself’: women doctors’ autobiographies, second wave feminism, and the feminist women’s health movement, 1976-1987

Second wave feminist legal and educational reform contributed to the fourfold rise in the number of women doctors in the United States between 1970 and 1990, challenging the hierarchical medical...

To make a long story short: Andrée Levésque

The following is the transcription of an interview to the Canadian feminist historian Andrée Lévesque, made by Argentinian historian Adriana Valobra in 2023, at the Archives Passe-Mémoire in Quebec, founded by Levésque in 2010. Descentrada offers a Spanish translation of the text, following the original version in English.

Feminist History Seeks Evil Twins and Troubling Monsters for Post-Casual Encounters: Reflecting on the Work of Susan Stryker

Feminist History Seeks Evil Twins and Troubling Monsters for Post-Casual Encounters: Reflecting on the Work of Susan Stryker

Untangling a complex revolutionary moment in South African Liberation History

Untangling a complex revolutionary moment in South African Liberation History

‘Delighting in fighting “a womanless past”: remembering Dale Spender (1943–2023)’

ABSTRACT In November 2023, Australian-born literary scholar and feminist historian Dale Spender (1943–2023) passed away. Anyone researching early Australian women writers knows of Spender. Perhaps others do not. Yet, her memory is vital for those invested in uncovering the immense and invaluable contribution of women to the making of nineteenth- and twentieth century history (in the ‘West’). In this dedication to her memory, I focus on Spender’s commitment to exposing the rich veins of modern feminist history that have been overshadowed, if not completely buried, by dominant patriarchal narratives. I explain how her work resonates powerfully with the feminist historian-activist keen to assuage the fears of younger generations who worry that they have to begin the overwhelming project of feminism anew.

Working Out a New Relationship to Objectivity, Experience, and Engaged Scholarship

As historians, our work becomes both easier and more difficult when we select topics in which we are personally involved, or causes about which we care passionately. A primer for activist scholars, this essay offers eight insights for those who seek to contemplate, and question, scholarly convention rather than uncritically uphold it, drawing on the author’s experience as a health activist and her writing on the history of fitness. This essay is part of a PHR forum on the theme of “Personal Reflections on Feminist Historical Methods,” with additional essays by Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Y. Yvon Wang, and Natalie Marine-Street. The forum is part of a larger PHR special issue, Feminist Histories.

Intersectional Feminist Biography as Method

The genre of biography, typically associate with elite individuals, may seem like an unlikely approach for writing feminist history. And yet, in writing about exceptional women, many of them women of color, I have found that their lives reveal how structures of power functioned and how the marginalized responded. This essay is part of a PHR forum on the theme of “Personal Reflections on Feminist Historical Methods,” with additional essays by Y. Yvon Wang, Natalie Marine-Street, and Natalia Mehlman Petrzela. The forum is part of a larger PHR special issue, Feminist Histories.

Between Inevitability and Surprise

Using personal trans narrative toward framing a transgender historical method, this essay describes the large-scale historical trends that have led to the present moment in the history of trans people, the way that the Internet provides a place for everyone to act as their own historians, and the potential insights that transgender auto-historiography offers to feminist and gender scholars. This essay is part of a PHR forum on the theme of “Personal Reflections on Feminist Historical Methods,” with additional essays by Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Natalie Marine-Street, and Natalia Mehlman Petrzela. The forum is part of a larger PHR special issue, Feminist Histories.