History Of White Women Research Articles

Cross-dressing as whitewashing: the Kimono Wednesdays protests and the erasure of Asian/American bodies

ABSTRACTDuring the summer of 2015, a series of events at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston called Kimono Wednesdays encouraged visitors to try on a replica of the kimono Claude Monet's wife wore in her husband's 1876 painting La Japonaise and then pose for photos in front of the painting. This seemingly benign act of appreciation sparked protests from those who considered the events as perpetuating an exoticizing imperialist gaze and orientalizing stereotypes. This paper contextualizes this controversy by examining the history of white women cross-dressing as Japanese, how it constitutes a form of naturalized whitewashing linked to the pleasure of consumption through its connections to Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (1885), and how the same act for Asian American women at the turn into the twentieth century is fraught with the anxiety of racial identity suppression.

"To have a gradual weaning & be ready & wiling to resign all": Maternity, Piety, and Pain among Quaker Women of the Early Mid-Atlantic

Interactions among the spiritual, emotional, and corporeal were significant factors in the history of white women, childbirth, and child death in the early American republic. Though the social, cultural, and medical meanings of parturiency and motherhood have been studied by historians of early America, the spiritual aspects of reproduction have largely been ignored. Female Friends infused childbearing with religious meaning to contain its accompanying pain and fear as well as to express its joy and pleasure. This form of childbirth incorporated the mind and body into a spirituality built on obedience, modesty, perseverance, and discipline. The succession of pregnancy, delivery, nursing, child rearing, and sickness (both related and unrelated to reproduction) in a Quaker woman's life induced not only physical frailty but also spiritual reflection. Pregnancy and childbirth raised the possibility of an early death at the same time they afforded women the means to interact with God and to ask for his mercy and support. Piety channeled the existential and emotional dilemmas posed by pregnancy, childbirth, and child loss. By surveying the religious significance of bodies, pain, and emotion among early American Friends, this essay contends that the experiential aspects of Quaker motherhood were thoroughly steeped in spirituality.

Feminism on the frontier: the history of abortion law reform in 1973 in the Northern Territory, Australia

ABSTRACTIn 1973, the Northern Territory (NT) criminal law relating to abortion was reformed. The NT was one of only two Australian jurisdictions where the 1970s liberalisation of abortion was enabled by legislative reform. Unlike the 1969 South Australian reform, the NT bill was sponsored by a female, and feminist, parliamentarian, Dawn Lawrie, assisted by a small group of supporters. This article recovers the narrative of this pioneering reform achieved in a place dominated by white men. It argues that this achievement was enabled by the NT’s individualistic culture, its history of white women’s activism and the mood for progressive change in 1970s Australia. It contextualises the reform by keeping the position of Indigenous women, including the public opposition of some to abortion reform, clearly in view, thus keeping race at the centre of the analysis of liberal feminist reforms and of white feminism in the NT in the early 1970s.

Women's Roles in Ancient Civilizations: A Reference Guide (review)

Many histories of women in ancient societies have appeared over the past thirty years, reflecting revisionary forces in historical studies and the growing refusal to see women as merely peripheral to "event based" history. Editions featuring titles such as Women in Ancient Societies and Women in Antiquity have appeared, but these have, for the main, concentrated on women in ancient Europe, occasionally venturing as far as Egypt and Jerusalem. It has been left to specialized works on particular cultures to cover areas such as the Americas and Africa. Even the 1992 History of Women of Duby and Perrot commences with the disclaimer, "[w]hat we have written is a history of white women" (Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot, "Writing the History of Women," in A History of Women, vol. 1, ed. Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot [Cambridge 1992], p. xviii.). Bella Vivante's collection of women's histories is therefore particularly welcome.