Masculine Bias Research Articles

Queering the Vietnam Trauma Narrative in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Veteran memoirs, imbued with white, masculinist bias, dominate US perceptions of the Vietnam War. Drawing from an intersectional approach to trauma studies, this article examines Ocean Vuong’s novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019) as a rewriting of the paradigmatic Vietnam trauma narrative. Vuong challenges normative understandings of traumatic events by shedding light on the effects of the war upon female civilians and their descendants, as well as on the traumatogenic aftermath of all-American masculinist violence for its queer, Asian American protagonist. Vuong also calls for an alternative model to working through trauma based on empathy and relationality.

Exploring Russian Literature's Spiritual Labor: A Review of Wonder Confronts Certainty

Review of the book Wonder Confronts Certainty by Gary Saul Morson, eminent literary critic and Slavist. The book is a recent (2023) release, and uses Russian literature from the mid-19th century as a means of reading Russian society and politics. It delves into the profound intersection of Russian literature and philosophy, addressing the 'accursed questions' on life's meaning, morality, and truth. Morson stages a Dialogue of the Dead with eminent Russian thinkers, navigating the great realist novelists and the unique intelligentsia. Divided into three sections, the book explores the intricacies of Russian intellectual life, categorizing the intelligentsia into distinct sub-types. While the final section engages timeless questions, the book's strength lies in Morson's nuanced understanding of opposing perspectives. Interwoven with intertextuality, it skillfully examines Russian history and politics, though at times leaning towards anti-Soviet sentiments and displaying a slight masculine bias. Overall, it offers a lucid primer on Russian literature and politics.

The Interplay of Language and Gender in Dominant Discourses: Examining the Masculine Bias in Language

Numerous studies have critiqued the stereotypical and essentialist assumptions inculcated by cultural artefacts and texts through the lens of feminism, poststructuralism, sociology, and linguistics. Notwithstanding the attempts to establish gender equality and inclusivity in contemporary times, the present study examines how language spreads and supports masculine biases through various dominant and popular discourses of society. The study considers the omnipresence of language in society and observes that language tends to legitimise the behaviour and preferences of men as dominant while objectifying or trivialising those of women. Taking a cue from Robin Lakoff’s deficit and dominant approaches, the paper chooses instances and examples from various discourses to study how language nourishes patriarchal attitudes and naturalises the domination of men over women. Though Lakoff’s perspectives came four decades ago, an overview of the present scenario reveals the contemporaneity of her observations in studying the masculine bias in language.

Neutral is not fair enough: testing the efficiency of different language gender-fair strategies.

In many languages with grammatical gender, the use of masculine forms as a generic reference has been associated with a bias favoring masculine-specific representations. This article examines the efficiency of gender-fair forms, specifically gender-unmarked forms (neutralization strategy, e.g., "l'enfant") and contracted double forms (re-feminization strategy, e.g., "un·e enfant"), in reducing gender biases in language. Extensive empirical research has shown that gender-fair forms have the potential to promote more gender-balanced representations. However, the relative efficiency of these strategies remains a subject of debate in the scientific literature. In order to explore these questions, two experiments were conducted in French. We analyzed the response times and percent correct scores using a sentence evaluation paradigm, where the participants had to decide whether a second sentence starting with a gendered personal pronoun ("il" or "elle") was a sensible continuation of the first sentence written in a gender-fair form. Experiment 1 confirmed that gender-unmarked forms are not fully effective in neutralizing the masculine bias. In Experiment 2, a comparison was made between gender-unmarked forms and contracted double forms, to assess their respective abilities to generate more balanced representations. The findings indicated that contracted double forms are more effective in promoting gender balance compared to gender-unmarked forms. This study contributes to the existing scientific literature by shedding light on the relative efficiency of neutralization and re-feminization strategies in reducing gender biases in language. These results have implications for informing efforts to promote more inclusive and unbiased language practices.

Islamising neo-ibuism

ABSTRACT The demise of the authoritarian regime in 1998 has led to heightened contestation of ideal femininity on various platforms, threatening the state-endorsed dominant ideal femininity, state ibuism. Our study explores how marriage self-help books written by Muslims in post-authoritarian Indonesia portray ideal femininity. Intended to offer guidance to young Muslim readers on what to look for in a future spouse, these books promote an Islamised version of neo-ibuism. Modifying the masculine bias found in interpretations of the Muslim holy scripts, these books on the one hand support women’s increasing public roles and contribution to the family’s income, but on the other hand, sustain women’s subordinate position to men’s in the domestic setting. In doing so, these books aim at both challenging status quo ibuism and preventing young Muslim women from being swayed by emerging alternative ideals, especially those promoted by (Muslim) feminist movements.

No genericity in sight: An exploration of the semantics of masculine generics in German

Findings of previous behavioural studies suggest that the semantic nature of what is known as the ‘masculine generic’ in Modern Standard German is indeed not generic but biased towards a masculine reading. Such findings are the cause of debates within and outside linguistic research, as they run counter to the grammarian assumption that the masculine generic form is gender-neutral. The present paper aims to explore the semantics of masculine generics, relating them to  those  of  masculine  and  feminine  explicit  counterparts.  To  achieve  this  aim,  an  approach  novel  to  this  area  of  linguistic  research  is  made  use  of:  discriminative  learning.  Analysing  semantic  vectors  obtained  via  naive  discriminative  learning,  semantic  measures  calculated  via  linear  discriminative  learning,  and  taking  into  account  the  stereotypicality  of  the  words  under investigation, it is found that masculine generics are semantically much more similar to masculine explicits than to feminine explicits. The results presented in this paper thus support the notion of a masculine bias in masculine generics. Further, new insights into the semantic representations of masculine generics are provided and it is shown that stereotypicality does not modulate the masculine bias.

Spinoza’s Ethics

Spinoza’s Ethics

Social media “ghosts”: how Facebook (Meta) Memories complicates healing for survivors of intimate partner violence

ABSTRACT This paper contributes to feminist conversations about algorithms and design justice by examining ways Facebook’s (Meta) Memories affordance, when it draws on previously posted photographs of abusive former partners, is problematic for gender-based violence (GBV) survivors. With analyses drawn from semi-structured interviews with twelve “survivor-users” and a walkthrough of Memories’ settings to better understand what opportunities users have to control this function, this paper finds that Memories triggers survivors, makes their abuser seem inescapable and reduces survivors’ sense of agency, among other challenges to their well-being. By extending abusers’ intimidation back into survivors’ lives, Memories unintentionally supports perpetrators’ aims: to scare, isolate and punish their targets. This paper concludes that a masculinist bias within Memories’ design leads to painful consequences for survivor-users of varying identities. Ultimately, this study proposes possible means of addressing Memories’ challenges for survivor-users, including the option for users to opt in to, rather than out of, the function in the first place; alterations to Memories’ interface to enable the immediate flagging of problematic content; and continued movements towards trauma-informed design practices in the technology sector.

The masculine bias in fully gendered languages and ways to avoid it: A study on gender neutral forms in Québec and Swiss French – CORRIGENDUM

The masculine bias in fully gendered languages and ways to avoid it: A study on gender neutral forms in Québec and Swiss French – CORRIGENDUM

The masculine bias in fully gendered languages and ways to avoid it: A study on gender neutral forms in Québec and Swiss French

ABSTRACTThe extent to which gender neutral and gendered nouns impact differently upon native French speakers’ gender representations was examined through a yes-no forced choice task. Swiss (Experiment 1) and Québec (Experiment 2) French-speaking participants were presented with word pairs composed of a gendered first name (e.g., Thomas) and a role (e.g., doctor), and tasked to indicate whether they believed that [first name] could be one of the [role]. Roles varied according to gender stereotypicality (feminine, masculine, non-stereotyped), and were either in a plural masculine (interpretable as generic) or gender neutral (epicenes and group nouns) form. The results indicated that the use of gender neutral forms of roles avoided a strong male bias found for the masculine forms, and that both gender neutral and masculine forms used equal cognitive resources. Further, stereotype effects associated with both gender-neutral and grammatically masculine forms were quite small (<1%). These results were highly reliable across both Swiss French and Québec speakers. Our study suggests that gender neutral forms are strong alternatives to the use of the masculine form as default value.

Jus Cogens: Redux

In The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Critique (Boundaries),1 amidst observations about masculine bias in treaty law, co-authors Christine Chinkin and Hilary Charlesworth queried the masculine configuration, i.e., the gender of jus cogens or peremptory norms. A peremptory norm is “accepted and recognized by the international community . . . as a norm from which no derogation is permitted and which can be modified only by a subsequent norm of international law having the same character.”2 Interrogating whether jus cogens privileged the experiences of males over that of females, they challenged jus cogens’ presumed universality and its intended utility. Accepted peremptory norms, they averred, exerted a silencing, deleterious impact on core feminine values such as sexual equality or freedom from gender discrimination.3 Decades after the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties’ (VCLT) codification of jus cogens, the International Law Commission (ILC) reified a non-exhaustive list of peremptory norms that explicitly excluded gender-based discrimination.4 This essay proposes a “jus cogens redux” to revive Chinkin and Charlesworth's question by peering at several threads in the thwarted conversations about whether freedom from gender discrimination rises to peremptory norm status. The conversational threads lay tattered by positive law's reliance on enumerated treaty provisions and accepted precepts of customary international law. They are frayed by normative law's philosophical, moralists’ approach. Neither the positivist law nor the normative law's concepts of how to determine jus cogens values grapples with gender or gender minorities. By default, each retains a masculine approach that configures the gender of jus cogens as “non-female.”

FEMINISM AND BIBLE TRANSLATION

The article considers the development of translation ideas as viewed from a gender-studies perspective. The author elucidates three lines of feminist approach towards the Bible, namely: its rejection as the book refl ecting the masculine bias; the application of gender critique in order to make manifest and subsequently deconstruct its patriarchal nature; the use of “depatriarchalizing principle” which lies in the close reading of the Bible in order to reveal its true meaning of equality. The last approach entails signifi cant implications and possibilities for translators who can make the Bible “inclusive” and its women visible. Key words: feminism, gender studies, Bible translation, inclusive language, depatriarchalizing principle, gender-neutral translation.

Opportunity for Gendering the Responsibility to Protect Agenda at the United Nations?

Abstract Despite its rapid diplomatic rise in the UN setting and global recognition as an established norm, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has yet to substantially incorporate gender and directly engage with the complementary Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. The article discusses this R2P limitation and ways to rectify it through capitalizing on a landmark UN annual report on R2P and cross-cutting areas of engagement with the WPS agenda. To do so, the article proceeds in three sections that mirror the three-pronged classification of overlapping knowledge projects identified for early feminist scholarship. First, the article exposes the extent and effect of masculinist bias in early R2P formulations and R2P's failure to engage explicitly with gender perspectives until the pathbreaking twelfth annual report on R2P. Second, the complementarities between the WPS, gender equality, and R2P are examined in order to highlight the commonalities seen when “adding women” to these agendas. Third, the article examines what gendering the R2P agenda at the United Nations would entail through a reconstruction of R2P that recognizes gender as an analytical and structural category. It is argued that while the progressive 2020 Annual Report on R2P will likely become the reference point for weighing what a gendered R2P agenda should look like, and will hopefully trigger a much-needed reorientation of existing R2P policies as gender-responsive, limitations remain due to three factors: the lack of gender-sensitive analysis at the United Nations, lingering analytical tensions between the WPS and R2P communities, and the current politically resistant climate, which limits a gender audit.

Ecofeminism and Natural Resource Management: Justice Delayed, Justice Denied

Women have a right to excel in all spheres of activity. However, their roles are mainly confined in the resource extraction industry due to masculinity bias. African women are considered exemplary cases where women have low access to finance and economic opportunities to progress in the natural resource industry. This study examines the role of women’s autonomy in mineral resource extraction by controlling ecological footprints, financial development, environmental degradation, economic growth, and changes in the general price level in the Democratic Republic of the Congo data from 1975–2019. The autoregressive distributed lag estimates show that in the short-run, women’s autonomy decreases mineral resource rents; however, this result disappears in the long-run and the positive role of women’s autonomy in increasing resource capital is confirmed. Ecological footprints are in jeopardy from saving mineral resources both in the short- and long-term. Financial development negatively impacts mineral resource rents, while women’s access to finance supports the mineral resource agenda. The positive role of women in environmental protection has led to increased mineral resource rents in the short- and long-term. Women’s social and economic autonomy increases mineral resource rents in the short-term, while it has evaporated in the long-term. The Granger causality has confirmed the unidirectional linkages running from women’s green ecological footprints, access to finance, and women participating in environmental protection to mineral resource rents in a country. The variance decomposition analysis has shown that women’s economic autonomy and access to finance will exert more significant variance shocks to mineral resource rents over the next ten years’ period. The results conclude the positive role of women’s freedom in the mineral resource sustainability agenda. Thus, there is a high need to authorize women through access to finance and economic decisions to restore natural resource capital nationwide.

Récit de vie, récit de soi: Cendrars, Djian, Houellebecq, Rachid O., Abdellah Taïa et alii éd. par Christophe Ippolito

Reviewed by: Récit de vie, récit de soi: Cendrars, Djian, Houellebecq, Rachid O., Abdellah Taïa et alii éd. par Christophe Ippolito Karlis Racevskis Ippolito, Christophe, éd. Récit de vie, récit de soi: Cendrars, Djian, Houellebecq, Rachid O., Abdellah Taïa et alii. Passage(s), 2018. ISBN 979-10-94898-42-0. Pp. 309 To what extent, under what circumstances, and in what different ways does writing about one's life also involve a reflection on the self of the writer? The essays in this collection are attempts at an answer to such questions. Implicit in these attempts is the recognition that notions of life-writing and life narrative encompass an ever-growing domain of activity that goes beyond the literary: "[L]'écriture de vie et en son sein le récit de vie sont aussi des notions extralittéraires et interdisciplinaires" (10). Similarly, to speak of a "récit de soi" will inevitably bring out "le rôle essentiel des dimensions réflexive et analytique de cette notion" (11). That is, attempts to narrate the self have to be critical—specifically in the sense provided by Max Horkheimer's critical theory. For Horkheimer, the self or the subject is to be seen as necessarily historical, as inextricably immersed in his or her society and not as the self-sufficient rational agent of the Cartesian Cogito. This places the subject in a necessary relationship with others, which results in a "lien entre récit de soi et mémoire collective" (13). This inescapable connection between the self and otherness, between self and others, provides the organizing principle for this collection of fifteen insightful essays, divided in three sections and seven modules. Part one, "Fonctions du récit de soi," deals with critiques and representations of the self. In her survey of autobiographies by women in France, Adeline Caute finds that traditional autobiography, as defined by Philippe Lejeune, for example, is marked by an implicit masculine bias denying the validity of women's voices. Examining the writings of Rachid O. and Abdellah Taïa, Christa C. Jones notes their singular ability to narrate "leur expérience de vie, notamment l'évolution du vécu de leur homosexualité entre le Maroc […] et la France" (72). Part two deals with "Le récit de vie face à l'urgence de la mort" and brings out the importance of trauma as a motivating factor in narratives of the history and experience of the Holocaust in particular. In her analysis of the work of Jorge Semprún, Julie Racine notes that "l'expérience de la littérature au seuil même du camp devient une réaffirmation de l'identité préalablement broyée" (112). The third part takes us "Au-delà du récit de soi" by asking "Comment raconter la vie?" The poetry of Blaise Cendrars illustrates, for Ivan Radeljkovič, a "conception de vie comme écriture" (181). As a result, "les limites entre narration et expérience sont ainsi abolies" (184). Christophe Ippolito [End Page 235] notes in his introduction that the essays frequently demonstrate how "le présent de l'écriture échappe à la tyrannie du rétrospectif, ou lui résiste" (17), thus recognizing the ever-present reconstitution of the self in the act of transcribing a life. The book concludes with a reflection by Adina Balint and Patrick Imbert on the role of literature and its potential for making us perceive "la subtilité de nos singularités et de nouveaux rapports aux expériences de l'altérité et du monde" (264). Karlis Racevskis Ohio State University, emeritus Copyright © 2021 American Association of Teachers of French

Artificially Intelligent Sexbots and Sexual Solipsism—A Posthumanist Ethical Approach

ABSTRACT This article aims to question—from the perspective of posthumanist theories—the normativity of human sexuality, located at the borderline between the technological imminence of AI sexbots and the humanistic legacy of Western socio-cultural constructions, governed by masculine bias. The purpose is to emphasize that as long as this normativity remains encapsulated within the boundaries of the culture of Western metaphysics—characterized by the anthropocentrist, dualist, and speciesist paradigm—the sexual domain will permanently constitute an antagonistic ground of discrimination and binary hierarchical relations, an aspect that will permanently attract the possibility of manifesting sexual solipsism. The general objective follows the paradigm shifts that this hypothesis of sex with weak/strong AI sexbots can bring about on an ethical level, along with the risks/benefits that may appear on the social level. The theoretical objective consists of a posthumanist analysis of the phenomenon of weak/strong AI sexbots, which calls into question both the ontology of the person and Rae Langton’s sexual solipsism theory—specific to the humancentric paradigm. The methodology used is that of the critics/arguments brought from the perspective of posthumanist philosophy (Rosi Braidotti, Francesca Ferrando), supplemented by the deconstructivist philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, in the direction of arguing for a postdualistic rhizomatic sexuality, which upholds an ethic of diversity and of continuous becoming within the limits of an emergent ontology of differences.

Özenli Vatandaşlık: Feminist Özen Etiğini Yeniden Politikleştirmek

Makale, özen etiği yaklaşımının politik öznelik ve aktif vatandaşlık anlayışlarına katkısını feminist siyaset felsefesi çerçevesinde incelemektedir. Bunu yaparken feminist siyaset kuramcılarının modern evrensel ahlaki akıl yürütme teorilerine getirdiği eleştiriyi ciddiye alarak, kısmi bakış açısı ve özen ilişkilerinin esas alındığı vatandaşlık ilişki ve pratiklerinin altını çizmekte ancak kadınların farklı ahlaki bir bakış açısı olduğu ya da annelin yüceltildiği bir takım özcü yaklaşımlardan ve özenin apolitikleştirildiği bireyci yaklaşımlardan ayrılmaktadır. Makale, özen etiğinin toplumsal cinsiyet ekseninde barış ve çevre tartışmaları ve hareketleri bağlamındaki yansımalarını irdelemekte, özen ve bakıma değer verirken ataerkil toplumsal cinsiyet rollerini yeniden üretmeyen bir eşitlikçi, demokratik ve özenli vatandaşlık anlayışının deneyime dayalı bir demokrasi ve vatandaşlık eğitimini yolu ile geliştirilebileceğini öne sürmektedir.

Gender, tourism & entrepreneurship: A critical review

Dominant accounts of tourism entrepreneurship position successful entrepreneurial performance as masculine and economically informed; undervaluing gendered difference in approaches to entrepreneurship. When varying approaches are held in focus, women are positioned as ‘less than’, and in need of training and support. In reviewing the gender, tourism and entrepreneurship literature this paper draws attention to the marginal, yet decisive contributions of feminist postcolonial, political economy and poststructuralist approaches. Such approaches assist in questioning the implicit economic and masculine bias in the literature. Dominant definitions and evaluations of entrepreneurship need to be questioned, so as to challenge Global North conceptualizations of empowerment and success. Scholars ought to diversify the locations of research on entrepreneurship and gender, and engage more with policy critiques.

Directions for the Study of Masculinity: Beyond Toxicity, Experience, and Alienation

Abstract The relationship between the law and masculinity has not been as thoroughly examined as the relationship between the law and feminism or, more generally, between the law and gender. Yet, the reach of masculinity stretches deep into the very fiber of the law. Masculinity has for too long served as an invisible bedrock on which the law founded both its substance and method. The struggle for formal equality during the last half century sought the elimination of the masculinist bias, but has only exposed the extent of the entrenchment. The popular idea is that the law exists in a removed and exalted position where it sits in judgement of a pre-existing and fully formed masculinity. Indeed, much of the internal coherence of the law is premised on the integrity of the subject and the propagation of sexual difference. Thus, the law is precluded from acknowledging or engaging with its own productive power and vacuously characterizes itself as a neutral arbiter. Today, while significant changes occur in sex and sexuality, the study of masculinity appears theoretically stagnant. Part I of this paper distinguishes between masculinity studies and the men's movement and explains the relationship of each to feminist theory. Part II looks at how the power of the law works and how masculinity studies is an effective tool to help understand how that power manifests and is employed. Part III examines the relationship between feminist legal theory and masculinity studies with a particular focus on two areas where I view masculinity studies as having successfully employed insights from feminist theory. Finally, Part IV considers four areas where I suggest masculinity studies could better incorporate certain insights from feminist theory, which would result in a more rigorous understanding of the relationship among power, masculinity, and law, and point masculinity studies in a more nuanced direction. To advance this critique, the paper analyzes underlying arguments that support the power of law based in classic liberal political theory. It employs recurrent critiques of the law, and of liberalism more generally, found in Feminist Legal Theory, Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, and Critical Legal Studies to reveal the law as always already intertwined with masculinity.

Faster and More Accurate Identification of Male Faces in Female Care Home Residents

We investigated whether healthy older adults who live in female-dominated old age care homes can identify the gender of male and female faces of people from different ethnicities in the same way as young adults. We hypothesized that this mainly female environment would lead by exposure to a female-gender bias. A sample of 40 participants aged 20-30 and 70-80 years identified the sex-of-face of 120 images of young and old adults, male and female faces, black and white faces, presented in a randomized sequence in a self-paced computer task. The young group was significantly more accurate and faster than the older group in sex-of-face identification. Men’s faces were identified as male faster than female faces as female by both young and old adults. Men’s faces were also more accurately identified by younger adults, but in care home residents, this was only the case for faces of young white and older black men. Faces of white older women were identified more accurately than those of black older women by the care home residents, especially in the women-only sample when men were excluded from statistical analysis. Because the known masculinity bias in women prevailed beyond the menopause, it is discussed whether rather than fertility hormones, women’s testosterone would be a likely candidate explaining the male advantage in sex-of-face identification throughout the life-span.