Symbol Of Womanhood Research Articles

Cover Art Concept

Graduation Day is part of my soft powers series of velvet fiber etchings. The notion of soft power is understood as the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than coerce. Reframing this concept to describe a kind of “code-switching,” this series considers the covert skills that many of us begin to develop as children as we adapt to various environments. For children of immigrants, particularly those of families who have migrated from the global South to the global North, these skills are uniquely nuanced. Continuously traversing private to public spheres, from households of collectivist ideals to institutional and social spaces that encourage individual expression, children quickly learn to code-switch and navigate the disparate realities around them. These strategies are especially nuanced in young girls, who often receive heightened scrutiny as they are coming of age.Each piece in soft powers depicts intimate moments of leisure among familiar company, moments when these girls and young women—among themselves and in their own spaces—can let their guards down and be themselves. Their privacy is the setting for another type of soft power, a reclaiming of agency.The etching process involves the application of an acidic paste that reacts to cellulose fibers (in this case rayon), allowing areas to be etched away, leaving the silk-based mesh intact. The resulting “burned out” fabric, also known as devoré, was popular in the 1990s, an era that I often reflect on in my work. Burnout fabrics have frequently been used in a Yemeni style of dress known as a dirʿ. Dirʿu (plural), usually made with sheer fabrics, are worn casually at home or on special occasions. Understood as a symbol of womanhood, they are typically worn by married or engaged women.

The Hair in the Garland: Hair Loss and Social Stress Among Women in South India.

Generations of scholars have debated hair's significance as a symbol of womanhood, fertility, and spiritual morality in South India. For contemporary Indian women, hair is a site of concern, often expressed as an everyday preoccupation with hair loss or "hair fall," as it is known in the subcontinent. This exploratory study investigated hair fall among Kannada-speaking Hindu women in the South Indian city of Mysuru, Karnataka. It used a series of focus group discussions to explore how women talk about the causes and consequences of hair fall, and how women cope with hair-related distress. Participants articulated clear, shared ideas about why hair falls and how it can be managed. They connected hair fall to broader stressors in their lives both directly and symbolically. Hair fall, therefore, appears to function idiomatically in this context, both as an idiom of distress in its own right, and as a symptom of other idioms and forms of distress. Additional research is needed to establish the importance of hair fall relative to other distress constructs, and to more directly assess its potential value in research and intervention.

The Significance of Optimism in the Mastectomy Experience

Cancer like any other stress strikes without warning and poses a serious threat to current and future wellbeing. Cancer is such a traumatic life event that potentially shatters one's perception of themselves, others and their belief in a just, meaningful and benign world (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). The very news that one has been diagnosed with cancer can be devastating. Even though medical advances can prolong life and in many patients may lead to remission or cure; nonetheless, most people perceive this diagnosis as tantamount to a death sentence. They often report feelings like 'being in a state of shock', 'feeling out of control' or being angry, fearful or helpless. Grief and loss are often key issues, and there may be powerful feelings of distress and fear that cancer could be fatal. However, diagnosis of breast cancer for a woman can be far more distressing. A woman's breast is part of her self that signifies her womanhood and sexuality and thus mastectomy has a devastating impact on a woman's feminity and sexuality. Having undergone mastectomy, women experience a range of emotional, psychological, physical and practical challenges like physical changes in body appearance and functioning; psychological difficulties ranging from concerns about body image and sexuality, changes in self-concept, to severe disorders such as anxiety and or depression and changes in social relationships with their spouse and other family members. Schover (1991) has reported that mastectomies have resulted in divorce and break-up of relationships. Machacek (1996) reported about attitude of patients towards disease and themselves. Fear and anxiety play was found to play an important role in seeing doctor too late. Image of an incurable disease, an idea of subsequent loss of an organ, symbols of woman-hood and sex appeal, physical and psychological degradation, subsequent fear of losing a partner, loss of social prestige and position at work were common themes reported. Irwig (1997) observed that women who had satisfactory sex life before surgery had developed serious sexual problems in year after mastectomy surgery. Kumar (2008) in a study on mastectomy patients reported that some of patients generally expressed their distressing feelings as: crave acceptance, but I feel worthless, incompetent, - a failure! I fear rejection! Inside me there's a terrible emptiness! Owing to adverse psychological impact of breast cancer on patient it is very common to see pessimism creeping in patient's attitude towards oneself, future, and illness. Most patients lose hope and will to live ahead and view their illness as end of world. However, it has been seen that patients who remain positive during cancer experience and post mastectomy report positive outcomes in spite of severe distress that is related to breast cancer and its treatment (mastectomy).Differences in individuals outlook towards illness and life in general, their expectancy about future events is seen to have important implications on degree to which individuals benefit from such adversities, their levels of experienced positive affect and negative affect and spiritual experiences of individuals. It is these individual differences among mastectomy patients in terms of optimism and pessimism and their effect on benefit-finding, positive affect, negative affect and spirituality that present study focuses on.OptimismScheier and Carver (1985) defined optimism as the generalized expectation of positive outcomes in important domains of life while pessimism refers to tendency to expect negative outcomes in future. According to this perspective it can be said that optimists are people who expect good things to happen to them while pessimists are people who expect bad things to happen to them. This difference among people is important in many aspects of living, especially in manner with which people deal with adversity. …

Maneuvering Gendered Nationalisms

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the varying and sometimes contradictory deployments of symbols of womanhood in the articulation of nationalist identity in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. I argue that the historical shift of Tamil nationalist identity as predominantly a caste critique to an identity of “common culture” partly hinged on a reconfiguration of the nationalists' gender rhetoric. I examine contemporary Tamil politics to demonstrate ways that Jayalalitha Jayaram was able to manipulate nationalist symbols of womanhood and, at the same time, was constrained by them In so doing, I point to both the possibility and the difficulty of maneuvering within and against the subject positions made available to women by nationalist discourses.

The Myth of Matriarchy: Symbols of Womanhood in Galician Regional Identity

Galicia, the northwesternmost region of Spain, is often popularly characterized within that nation as matriarchal. This concept of female power has also been elaborated and drawn upon by Galician regionalists in their construction of a distinctive regional identity. The A. examines the ways in which a myth of matriarchy and symbols of womanhood have been used in Galician ethnogenesis. He explores both the aptness of feminine symbols for expressing the paradoxical nature of the relationship of region to nation and the ironies evoked by the use of the hegemonically devalued symbol of woman to stand for the region.