Women's Literature Research Articles

Navigating gendered spaces: a feminist phenomenological exploration of women entrepreneurs lived experiences within government support agencies

PurposeThis article explores women entrepreneurs' lived experiences in their interactions with government enterprise support agencies. It investigates the relationship between gendering and Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO), as a normative orientation adopted at the institutional level and justified by an economic rationale. It also explores how women entrepreneurs articulate their experiences through embodied metaphors and image schemas, shedding light on how they navigate the institutional entrepreneurial space.Design/methodology/approachThis study is framed within the concept of Phenomenological Orientation as conceptualised in feminist phenomenology. It applies Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, a qualitative methodology focused on interpreting accounts of first-person lived experiences of a phenomenon. It combines IPA with Conceptual Metaphor Theory to understand women's articulation of their embodied relationship within the entrepreneurial space.FindingsFindings reveal that the entrepreneurial orientation functions as a gendering process within entrepreneurial institutions, reinforcing masculine hegemonic ideals and marginalising women entrepreneurs. Women's phenomenological orientations often diverge from the normative entrepreneurial orientation, highlighting the need for a more inclusive framework in institutional entrepreneurial spaces.Research limitations/implicationsThis article contributes to women's entrepreneurship literature by underlining the temporal dimension of entrepreneurship and the tension that underpins their interactions with government support bodies. It calls for inclusive policies and procedures to match the heterogeneity of orientations. While highlighting its limitations, it also suggests future research directions to deepen the understanding of entrepreneurship and inform more suitable support structures for all entrepreneurs.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the nuanced interplay between gendering, entrepreneurial orientation, and women entrepreneurs' lived experiences. It extends previous research by framing “orientation” within a temporality framework, offering a novel perspective on the gendering of entrepreneurial spaces.

(UN)EINIG? GENERATIONEN VON SCHRIFTSTELLERINNEN IM DIALOG ÜBER DIE EMANZIPATION VON FRAUEN: HELMINA VON CHÉZY, AMALIA SCHOPPE UND AMALIE STRUVE*

AbstractIn addition to her literary activities, the writer Helmina von Chézy (1783–1856) was committed to the emancipation of women throughout her life. She took a public stand on women's literary activity, participated in anthology and journal projects and wrote portraits of women in various genres. Among her correspondents was Amalie Struve (1824–62), a writer of the 1848/49 revolution who was two generations younger and who came into contact with the women's rights movement in America during her exile. The article explores the extent to which Chézy's Nachlass in the Varnhagen Collection provides new insights into the emancipation of women before and immediately after the revolution. Chézy's previously unpublished portrait of Amalia Schoppe (1783–1858), who also belonged to her network, is examined more closely. To what extent can conclusions be drawn from these texts about the state of the public debate on women writers in Germany? What is innovative about their contribution? The second part deals with Amalie Struve's letters to Chézy from the time of her move to the USA. To what extent do they shed new light on Chézy as a writer of radical change as well as on Struve's emancipatory commitment? To what extent does a generational transition become clear here?

Stories of our Grandmothers: How Modern Ukrainian Women's Literature Deconstructs the Soviet Myth about the Great Patriotic War

The article analyses how contemporary women’s literature deconstructs the Soviet myth of the Great Patriotic War under the influence of contemporary Russian aggression. This myth defined the narrative of World War II as a heroic sacrifice of the Soviet people. As a result, the diversity of experiences was suppressed and the memory of them was not formed. Since independence, Ukrainian culture has been restoring the gaps in history and memory, which has become especially important in the context of the ongoing war. Women’s literature participates in this process by focusing on women’s experiences, which are usually marginalized in the national-focused narrative. This study aims to identify the contribution of women’s literature to the process of decolonization. The object of the study is such women’s novels as The Museum of Abandoned Secrets by Oksana Zabuzhko (as a precursor to the modern treatment of the topic), Amadoka by Sofia Andruhovych, Because it Hurts by Yevgenia Senik, Eva’s Apples by Khrystyna Kotsira and Faride by Iren Rozdobudko. The study found that women’s literature most often addresses the topics of women combatants, deportations, and the Holocaust. In this way, the authors contribute to the process of returning to national history. At the same time, the study demonstrates the complex interaction of nationality and gender in contemporary women’s literature. As women’s literature also contradicts the traditional nationally oriented discourse, emphasizing female agency and appealing to multinational experience (except Ukrainian, Jewish, and Crimean Tatar). This understanding of the theme of the Second World War by contemporary Ukrainian women’s literature creates a context for the perception of the specifically female experience of the current war and resists attempts at ideological manipulation around women’s roles.

Effects of Stereotype Threat on Women's Leadership Aspirations and Affective Responses: The Role of Stigma Consciousness.

This paper aims to investigate the role of stereotype threat and the moderating role of gender stigma consciousness on women's leadership aspiration, leadership career goal, social self-esteem, and negative affect across two experimental studies in Türkiye. We expected the detrimental effects of streotype threat to be experienced by those with high gender stigma consciousness. The first study, involving 130 female undergraduates (Mage = 20.7, SD = 4.4), presented implicit stereotype threat and showed that the threat increased the interest of team membership and women low in stigma consciousness reported higher leadership career goals than those high in stigma consciousness. The second study, conducted with 90 female undergraduates (Mage = 20.6, SD = 1.6), presented explicit stereotype threat and showed that the explicit threat had negative effect on leadership aspiration, and women high in stigma consciousness felt more negative affect and less social self-esteem due to threat than those who were low. The present research contributes to the women's leadership literature by identifying for the first time the role of stigma consciousness in the motivational and affective consequences of stereotype threat.

Abjection of Coloured Women and their Tragic Journey of Trifold Oppression in Toni Morrison's Beloved and The Bluest Eye

The world is gifted with various distinguished creatures irrespective of colour, creed, energy, work and so on. "Black" as a race is socially constructed by human being and this stereotype crosses the line when the so called white people imposed tortures quoting the skin colour and treating them as untouchables. The word "black" representing people itself is a falsified racist classification based on their skin colour for their dark complexion. Based on the trifold oppression they face, her writings states how people are denied from equality and subjugated as slaves in their own place. Morrison has won many prizes and awards and she is also a renowned speaker at major literary gatherings. She has a great concern on coloured people in general and so she reflects the trifold oppression and effortlessly she bring out the richness of black culture and it's ethnicity by reconstructing black images through her writing. Toni Morrison writes the novel having coloured people as the central characters especially women. Only with Morrison, there was a turning point in the history of Black women's literature. This paper attempts to investigate the brutal state of coloured women who have experienced trauma in various forms. This study also broods over the trifold oppression in the form of race, gender and class which leads them to slavery throughout their lifetime.

“A saint, a heroine, and a town”: The incarnation of “rose” and poetics of resistance in Edwidge Danticat's Claire of the Sea Light

AbstractEdwidge Danticat in her novel Claire of the Sea Light (2013) delineates a group of determined women who actively challenge the patriarchal norms prevalent in Haiti. This article conducts a thorough textual analysis focusing on the imagery of the “rose” and its intricate connections with women in the narrative. Through the elaborate naming of Ville Rose, the incarnation of rose as female figures in the novel, as well as the resistance and resilience that rose represents in the female genealogy, Danticat places women at the center of the stage, reclaiming the often neglected, silenced, and marginalized roles of women in Haitian history. This article argues that by foregrounding the unique perspective and experience of Haitian women, Danticat questions the patriarchal hegemonic discourse, reformulates the female discursive system, and reshapes the male‐dominated Haitian literary tradition. This exploration of her poetics of resistance not only contributes to the understanding of Haitian (women's) literature and Caribbean diasporic studies but also provides a new perspective for plant studies within the realm of literature.

Lyricism in the World of George Sand

Lyric poetry’s metier is figurative language – metaphor, simile and imagery – used to represent happenings at human/world intersections, and within the world and the individual, covering, as Jane Hirschfield writes, “both senses and psyche” (2015).1 These affordances render it particularly suited to the writing of character in poetic biography. The creative artefact from my creative writing PhD is a poetic biography of 19th century French social radical and prolific author, George Sand. As a work of ‘restitution poetics’ it proposes to contribute to repair of a creative, literary women’s lineage damaged by the exclusion or misrepresentation of women. Sand’s multiple milieux lend themselves to lyric representation both in the variety of roles and settings she chose for herself, and in her own rich lyric representation of those worlds in her various writings. She straddled political worlds – lunch with the first minister, urgent correspondence with Napoléon’s nephew – as well as more personal settings – conversing with famous artists, writers, and musicians, love trysts, as well as the world of her country property. “The language of the poem”, Mary Oliver avers, “is the language of particulars”2 and particulars feature in the lyric and narrative modes I employ to hone in on Sand’s world, seeking to capture camembert-and-rough-red, chicken-ammonia, heart-piercing nightingales, rough Berrichon, and lined-foolscap-blue ink worlds. These are conveyed as strategies both to honour her, and to communicate her life in compelling visceral, sensory, and I hope, impactful ways.

‘Back from the silence with something to say’: Ursula Le Guin’s Lavinia and silence as classical reception

Abstract This article explores the power of silence in the feminist recovery of classical texts to open up engaged spaces for women’s creative reworkings, taking as a case study Lavinia and her reception in Ursula Le Guin’s (2008) novel of the same name. By re-evaluating silence in dialogue with feminist and classical reception scholarship, I argue that Le Guin is able to bring a different angle to the reception of classical literary women, focusing on the gaps and spaces in Lavinia’s character that provide a medium for engagement with the incomplete text of the Aeneid. Silence thus becomes a locus in which Le Guin can transform Vergil’s silencing of Lavinia into a generative vision of the open space of interpretation available in classical literature and its reception.

Negotiating Identity and Resistance: Cultural Identity and Feminist Discourse in Afghan Women's Literature

Negotiating Identity and Resistance: Cultural Identity and Feminist Discourse in Afghan Women's Literature

Women's Literature in South Korea After "Feminism Reboot"

Women's Literature in South Korea After "Feminism Reboot"

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Women’s Employment: A Bibliometric Approach

This paper aims to analyze how contributions have been made to the literature on women's employment with a quantitative bibliometric approach. Main articles, authors, institutes, countries, journals, and most cited authors' genders of women's employment literature were determined, and how they differed in the context of developed and developing countries was discussed. As far as we know, this kind of quantitative literature review on women's employment has not been done before, and the literature differences between developed and developing countries have not been examined in this way. While the number of publications written for developed and developing countries is constantly increasing, the publications of developed countries are always more than those of developing countries. While the journals in which articles about developed countries are published are mostly sociology journals, the journals of the articles about developing countries are journals with the theme of economy and development. The USA is the country where the most publications are produced for both, while developing countries such as South Africa, in particular, stand out in the developing countries list. In terms of institutes, while there are institutes of developing countries in developing countries’ institute list, universal institutions such as the World Bank also publish very effectively. 75% of the most cited authors are women in developed countries, while this rate is 50% in developing countries.

Artistic specificity of the image of a woman in the novel K. Tuchkova «Vyhnání Gerty Schnirch»

In the article examines the artistic features of «women's literature» in modern Czech literature. In recent decades, in the literature of various countries, we have observed an increase in the activities of female writers. Feminism and gender studies, which arose earlier, contributed to the formation of the image of a new woman in an artistic work, to the interpretation of events from the point of view of gender. Bozhena Nemtsova and Karolina Svetla, representatives of the last wave of the Czech national movement, started the tradition of «women's literature» in Czech literature. In modern Czech literature, the work of K. Tuchkova occupies an important place. The object of our research is the novel by the modern Czech writer K. Tuchkova «Vyhnání Gerty Schnirch», which is considered from the standpoint of feminist criticism The literary activity of K. Tuchkova is the subject of a complex analysis by Czech literary critics, however, her works have not yet received proper research in Ukraine, and our article is thought of as one of the first steps in this direction. In her novel «Vyhnání Gerty Schnirch» attention is focused on the depiction of acute social cataclysms from a woman's point of view. The novel has a clearly structured composition: it consists of a prologue and five chronologically consecutive chapters. «Vyhnání Gerty Schnirch» is considered in the context of the pan-European artistic trend, taking into account modern feminist studies. K. Tuchkova's prose continues the literary tradition of women's writing that has developed in Czech literature. The central role of female characters, close attention to the role of a woman as a mother, depiction of large-scale historical events from a female perspective, socio-didactic orientation — all this testifies to the high skill of the writer and assigns her a proper place in the modern literary process.

The city as memory in contemporary Polish women's literature

The research is based on the hypothesis that geographical spaces reflect the imprint of social, political, historical and cultural life. Spatial representations of settlements are the projections of social crisis and historical periods. The city has its own vocabulary and language, reflected in its buildings and spaces. These 'speaking' cities are open in space and time, and become theatres of self-writing, as the spaces of the city try to find forms of expression to see unspoken traumas, that is, theories of the city are also theories of the subject.
 The main question of the investigation is: what are the specific possibilities and challenges for Polish contemporary women's literature to mobilise social memory and to create possibilities for confronting the traumatic past? Using examples from Olga Tokarczuk's novels Dom dzienny, dom nocny (Day House, Night House) and Joanna Bator's Piaskowa Góra (Sand Hill), I will present the relationship between memory and coming to terms with the past in the historical context of East-Central Europe in Poland. In particular, I will focus on the ways of reflecting on historical events of the Second World War and the regime change of 1989.
 A further aim of the research is to explore how Polish women's literature after 1989 attempts to come to terms with the great social traumas of the twentieth century. In the following, I intend to examine the fictional representation of the culture of memory of the 1989/90 regime change in the body of contemporary Hungarian and Polish women's literature in order to find a common intersection of Central and Eastern European literatures.

Reflections on Chinese studies of Russian women's prose

The active development of women's prose is an important phenomenon in world literature. After the 1980s, a large number of works by Russian writers were translated in China, which attracted more attention of Chinese Russian scholars. The subject of the research is the historical and cultural prerequisites for the study of Russian women's prose in China and the current state of research on this prose. The relevance of the article can be determined by the fact that with the rapid changes in the socio-cultural environment, the study of women's prose in China gradually demonstrates a systematic and interdisciplinary growing trend, thanks to which it is possible to take a fresh look at the study of Russian women's prose in China. Russian writers' main translated works and the main studies of Chinese scientists on Russian women's prose, published since 1942 to the present, are the material of the study. The research method is the analysis of review materials and generalization of philology researches opinions. The author's special contribution to the research of the topic is the answers received to questions about the context, development, current state and directions of studying Russian women's prose in China. Conclusions are drawn that 1992 is an important moment, before that Chinese scientists mainly paid attention to the translation of foreign women's literature, including Russian, after 1992, through a practical analysis of Western feminist theories in literary studies, Chinese researchers proposed the concept of "soft feminism", which influenced the development of women's prose in China, which led to attention to the inner world of a woman, her role not only in the family, but also in culture and history.

Afro-Caribbean Women's Literature and Early American Literature

Afro-Caribbean Women's Literature and Early American Literature

동아시아 고대 여성작가 한시 속 태도에 대한 소견

This study aims to analyze the relevance of the broad East Asian context by exploring the attitudes revealed in the works of ancient female Chinese poets from Korea, China, and Japan. It also aims to reveal the significance and value of these attitudes from a feminist perspective on East Asian women's literature. The ancient Korean, Chinese, and Japanese countries shared the same cultural and linguistic landscape of Confucianism and Chinese characters. The Chinese poetry of female writers in each country exhibited several tendencies: spontaneity and generosity, honesty and sincerity. These attitudes reveal the subjectivity of female writers in spontaneity and sincerity. Generosity represents the value of understanding and acceptance towards others and the world, while honesty allows for a broad readership appeal by surpassing cultural boundaries through the expression of genuine emotions.

BU DÜNYA ERKEKLERİN Mİ? KADIN GİRİŞİMCİLİĞİ LİTERATÜRÜNÜN TOPLUMSAL CİNSİYET AÇISINDAN BİBLİYOMETRİK ANALİZİ

Although men still spring to mind when entrepreneurship is mentioned, given that women have been highly successful as entrepreneurs, breaking through glass ceilings and having a solid presence in entrepreneurship, it is crucial to uncover how studies of entrepreneurship have evolved from a gender perspective. Therefore, this study aims to determine the extent of academic interest in women's entrepreneurship and what subtopics are included in related studies. To this end, bibliometric analysis methods were used to evaluate articles published in the field of business and management over the past decade. Included in the analysis were 305 articles published in English in the Social Science Citation Indexed Journals on the Web of Science database and originating from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, the four countries that contribute most to women's entrepreneurship. While most authors contributing to women's entrepreneurship literature are from institutions in the United States, Australian authors are the most collaborative scholars internationally. Moreover, while the literature on women's entrepreneurship was viewed directly from a gender perspective at the beginning of the last decade, it is apparent that subtopics such as risk, entrepreneurial identity, discrimination, and entrepreneurial intention have come into focus over time.

Women’s career advancement: review of literature and future research agenda

Purpose Despite the significance of a gender-diverse workforce, there is a lack of comprehensive review of gender diversity and women's career advancement literature. Moreover, past literature focuses on women-on-board and other subsets based on outcomes like firm financial and non-financial performance, corporate social performance and board interlocks. The purpose of this study is to examine the research on gender diversity and women's career advancement through an analysis of 143 articles published during past decade. Theoretical frameworks, contexts and constructs-based contribution to scholarship were reviewed. The authors attempt to highlight key theories, constructs and contexts and provide direction for future research. Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive systematic literature review of 143 articles spanning January 2008–March 2023 about gender diversity and women’s career advancement was conducted. Findings Majority of the past studies have focused on women on board and top management team, and most of them have been conducted in the context of the USA and China. There is no specific industry which has been covered extensively. Resource dependency, resource-based views and agency theories are the primary theoretical frameworks used in the past studies. Furthermore, these findings suggest the scope to further focus on women’s retention and career growth initiatives, especially at levels other than top levels, for a stronger leadership pipeline. Originality/value This study has been conducted with a focused analysis of the context, constructs and theoretical frameworks, enabling future researchers to decide how and where to focus, to now strengthen retention of women.

The "Women, Life, Freedom" Movement in Iran: The Anatomy of a Slogan

This article analyzes Iranians' struggle for democracy and women's quest for gender equality in connection with the 2022 uprising called the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement. It will explain why and how the central slogan "Women, Life, Freedom" epitomizes the many aspects and elements of this unprecedented movement, including its emphasis on women, nation, and unity against the ruling regime as an occupying force. In doing so, the article distinguishes Iranian quests for modernity, women's struggle for equality particularly expressed in their literary output, and Iranian youths' access to information as the roots and backgrounds of this new movement. Given women's literary discourse over the past decades and the profound changes in Iranian popular culture, the notion of such an uprising and the resulting paradigm shift should not have been unimaginable.