Biographies Of Women Research Articles

Representations of women’s biographies through monodrama. Agnieszka Przepiórska’s Theatre

Agnieszka Przepiórska's monodramas are a series of performances inspired by women's biographies. They are an example of herstory – history that reflects the specificity of women's experiences through an affective and identity-building approach. Monologues establish a strong biographical relationship between the actress and the heroines by combining the features of testimony and confession.

Knowledges From the South: Reflections on Writing Academically

In this paper we dialogue on the process of knowledge construction working through and disrupting academic regulations. We build on the reflections born of our own research doing indigenous research of biographies of schooling of Mapuche women, as feminist, indigenous and non-indigenous scholars latinx scholars. We focus on three tensions working on knowledge in and beyond academic spaces. First, the ways in which the knowledges (in plural) that comes from our own biographies usually is left out of academic conversations and moved into what we call invisible zones. Second, the work of translation and translanguaging as we move across language barriers and geographic places in our work, and what these processes afford across geographic and conceptual zones of “north” and “south.” Thirdly, the naturalized understanding of knowledge as a product in academic spaces and the ways in which we can reimagine and display complex and complicated ways of doing the research work otherwise.

Asian American Female Composers and Digital Memory

Asian American Female Composers and Digital Memory

The afterlife goes on: The biographical consequences of women's engagement in the 2011 Egyptian uprising

The afterlife goes on: The biographical consequences of women's engagement in the 2011 Egyptian uprising

Orange bras, petit capitalism and e-entrepreneurs. On the backroads of globalisation between China and Taiwan

ABSTRACT Through a multi-sited physical and virtual ethnography of Chinese migrant women's entrepreneurship in Taiwan, this paper illuminates the role of digital migrant entrepreneurship in the making of globalisation. In the digital age of gendered migrant entrepreneurship, it challenges the long-lasting dichotomy between ‘bottom-up' and ‘top-down' globalisation and contributes to the theoretical debate about migrant transnational entrepreneurship, elucidating how capitalism and globalisation can take multiple forms. Drawing on Chinese women's migratory biographies and the commercial geographies of the objects they trade between China and Taiwan, it shows how our global economic system is simultaneously forged by supply-chain capitalism and migrants’ digitalised petit capitalistic practices. Chinese migrant workers firstly manufacture goods whilst working for multinational companies in China, then, after marriage-migration, they commercialise the products in Taiwan via WeChat. Findings illustrate the link between ICTs, migrant entrepreneurship, gendered social networks, and border transgressions in shaping a mutable globalisation.

Breakers of glass ceilings: the professional careers of women in Finland and the graduates of three girls’ upper secondary schools (1890s–1910s)

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the occupational emancipation of women in Finland and examines the professional careers of women who graduated with a matriculation examination from three upper secondary girls’ schools during the period of the 1890s to the 1910s. One of the schools was for Finnish-speaking girls, and two of the schools were for Swedish-speaking girls. This article asks what kinds of educational paths and professional careers these upper secondary girls’ school graduates had during their lives after graduation. Attention is paid to both the typical professional careers and to those careers that could be characterised as exceptional and atypical. The source material consists of student registers that offered an opportunity to create a prosopography (i.e. set biography). In this article, the prosopography and individual biographies of women with exceptional careers shed light on the horizon of possibilities for Finnish women at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, specifically, their horizon of possibilities to gain education and degrees, as well as posts in the labour market.

How are the homicidal women in Spain? A case series

IntroductionHomicides committed by women are of special scientific and social interest. In forensic literature, common characteristics differentiating women’s homicide of those committed by men have been observed. These characteristics concert the act of homicide itself, and also the victims and aggressors characteristics. Our objective is to find if in Spain, homicides committed by women present such characteristics or substantial differences exist. Material and methodWe analysed a case series (n=18) of homicides committed by women. We evaluated their biography, homicide characteristics, previous mental illness history and drug use, and data of interest concerning the legal procedure. ResultsIn our sample, as highlighted differences between our study and others, we found less traumatic events in the biography of women who have a homicide conviction. We also found less history of previous aggresions and threats to the women by their victims. Final ConsiderationsMore studies are necessary to confirm these findings.

¿Cómo son las mujeres homicidas en España? Una serie de casos

IntroductionHomicides committed by women are of special scientific and social interest. In forensic literature, common characteristics differentiating women's homicide of those committed by men have been observed. These characteristics concern the act of homicide itself, and also the victims and aggressors characteristics. Our objective is to find if in Spain, homicides committed by women present such characteristics or substantial differences exist. Material and methodWe analysed a case series (n = 18) of homicides committed by women. We evaluated their biography, homicide characteristics, previous mental illness history and drug use, and data of interest concerning the legal procedure. ResultsIn our sample, as highlighted differences between our study and others, we found less traumatic events in the biography of women who have a homicide conviction. We also found less history of previous aggresions and threats to the women by their victims. Final considerationsMore studies are necessary to confirm these findings.

Review: Collective Biographies of Women

Review: Collective Biographies of Women

RETICENCE AS A STRATEGY OF THE WOMEN’S AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL TEXT OF SOVIET TIMES

The subject of the study is the system of reticence techniques in the women’s autobiography of O.Ivanenko, the Ukrainian writer of the 20th century. Western theorists of women’s autobiography (M.Mason, E.Jelinek) considered relativity, fragmentation, nonlinearity as qualities that define it. However, the concept of L. Gilmore, who considers autobiography as a writing strategy that constructs its object, allows us to raise the question of the potential functions of constructive techniques in this text. These and many other studies analyze the autobiographies of women in the Western world, leaving aside the writings of Eastern Europeans, however, the works of those who had to live in Soviet conditions are of particular interest for various reasons. The aim of the proposed study is to show the peculiarities of the creation and functioning of the women’s autobiographics in ideological societies on the example of Oksana Ivanenko’s memoirs Always in Life. The research methodology is based on women’s studies and discursive analysis. As a result of the study, it was found that in Ivanenko’s memoirs the theme of creative self-realization and literature as a whole pushes aside the narrative that Western theorists consider to be the main one for women's biography: comprehending their own female experience (first of all, love, marriage, motherhood). The relativity, embodied in the genre of the essay, allowed the author to talk about oneself, when she wanted it, and at the right moment to return to the pseudo-object. The non-linearity of the narrative helps to emphasize advantageous moments and to avoid forced chronology. But fragmentation and heterogeneity allow the woman writer not to build a holistic narrative about oneself, but to offer «flickering» content to readers. Thus, feeling ideological pressure, the author escaped memories not only of the difficult period in Ukrainian history, but also of important events in her life, ignoring her true experience. This means that an autobiographical work may be called upon not to record a true experience but to create a socially acceptable version of the writer.

РЕПРЕЗЕНТАЦИЯ «ЖЕНСКОГО ВОПРОСА» В ОФИЦИАЛЬНЫХ СИБИРСКИХ ПЕРИОДИЧЕСКИХ ИЗДАНИЯХ ВТОРОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ XIX – НАЧАЛА XX в.

The aim of the article is to identify and characterize the public opinion on the “women’s question” in Siberian official periodicals of the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The term “women’s question” represents a complex of issues, such as education, labor and professional life, individual freedom, family relations and political rights. The primary sources are the publications of Siberian state-run and eparchy periodicals that reflected the state’s and the Russian Orthodox Church’s official position on this question and at the same time formed the public opinion. In 1857, Gubernskie Vedomosti began to be issued almost simultaneously in four principal centers of Siberian provinces: Tobolsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Irkutsk. The official section included regulations, orders, directives of the central and local authorities as well as official announcements. The non-official section included articles on regional topics such as the economy and statistics of the region, ethnographic information, accounts and reports of scientific expeditions. Among other materials, some articles considering “women’s question” aspects were published. A similar structure was used in Eparkhial’nye Vedomosti, the Russian Orthodox Church’s official periodical issued since 1860. Eparkhial’nye Vedomosti started to be issued in Siberia at different times: in 1863 in Irkutsk (Irkutskie), in 1871 in Omsk (till 1898 they were called Akmolinskie), in 1880 in Tomsk (Tomskie), in 1882 in Tobolsk (Tobolskie), and finally in 1884 Eniseyskie. Not only the official periodicals presented the state’s and society’s position on female education (the key aspect of the “women’s question”), but also the Russian Orthodox Church, no less important an institution in the public opinion. The article deals with collective judgments on the “women’s question” communicated through newspaper texts. The main topics of the “question” are identified and characterized: 1) the state of the female education system, 2) the statement of the need for female education, and 3) episodes of the biographies of women who have already changed their social role. Having considered the depiction of the “women’s question” in Siberian official periodicals, the author draws a conclusion that, from the point of view of both the state-run press and the Russian Orthodox Church’s periodicals, the main aspect of that issue was the female education problem, which was the basis for women’s integration into social life. The press formed the opinion on female education development as an important sociocultural phenomenon in the province and a significant fact of Siberian social life. The official state-run and eparchial press predetermined the changes in gender stereotypes in social consciousness.

Msipa, Cephas G, In Pursuit of Freedom and Justice: A Memoir. Harare: Weaver Press 2015, xiv & 185 pp.

In Pursuit of Freedom and Justice: A Memoir by veteran nationalist Cephas Msipa joins the list of memoirs and biographies of women and men who fought for majority rule in Zimbabwe. Born on 7 July 1931 in the Shabani District in the Midlands province (p 1), "a teacher by profession and a politician by circumstances" (p ix), Msipa was a key member of the nationalist movement and a prominent politician in the post-colonial era. Born of poor peasants, Msipa's childhood was typical of many of his generation until he became politicised at a young age, especially during encounters with Benjamin Burombo, a proto-nationalist and a friend of his father, whom he describes as his political mentor (p 4).

Ризаэддин Фахреддин и его биографический труд «Мәшһүр хатыннар» («Знаменитые женщины»)

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze a prominent 19th century Tatar scholar Rizaeddin Fakhreddin’s two voluminous biographic works – the printed book “Mashkhur Khatynnar” (“Famous Women”), published in 1904 in Orenburg, as well as a manuscript version of the same book written in 1934. The second book is more extensive in its content than the first version; it has extended due to Tatar women’s added biographies, mainly contemporaries of the author. The study examines the printed book structure and reveals the features and remarkable aspects of one or another of its sections. “Mashkhur Khatynnar” (“Famous Women”) is a serious and multifaceted biographic composition of encyclopedic format. In compiling it, the author used materials from Ibn al-Jawzi, at-Tabari, Aristotle, A. Schopenhauer, and other famous luminaries of world science of a diverse thematic spectrum, including history, geography, natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, etc. In the book, especially in the preface part, the female question is sharply discussed. The author focuses on the issue of providing women with full education and upbringing in the best Muslim traditions. This work is unique because neither before Fakhreddin nor after him, similar works on biographies of women known in the Islamic world has not written in the Tatar world.

La historiografía feminista y los estudios de las ciencias Nuevos marcos metodológicos

: La incorporación masiva de las mujeres a la universidad y el avance del movimiento feminista fueron determinantes en la introducción de los estudios de las mujeres y la crítica feministas en la Academia en la segunda mitad del XX. Su influencia en la función de desvelar el androcentrismo como ideología subyacente en la producción del saber se hizo sentir en todas las disciplinas académicas, aunque con distintos tiempos y ritmos. En el caso de las ciencias de la naturaleza el retraso fue mayor debido fundamentalmente a lo intocable de los atributos de la ciencia: su objetividad y su neutralidad. Entre los proyectos innovadores que surgen en ese marco, se señalan ejemplos contemporáneos que interpelan a la historia de la ciencia tradicional y hacen significativas las biografías de mujeres. Esto es, la historiografía feminista en su intersección con los estudios de las ciencias ha permitido incorporar nuevos marcos metodológicos, que facilitan la recuperación de la agencia de las mujeres y su historia, ocultas en la historia tradicional, así como investigar las causas de esa ocultación y sus consecuencias en la conceptualización del saber y en la creación y organización de sus instituciones. Son proyectos que muestran que el conocimiento del mundo natural es una actividad humana, resultado del trabajo de mujeres y hombres, al tiempo que amplían el horizonte de la producción científica. Asimismo, ayudan a comprender que no es cierto que las mujeres tengan en la actualidad las mismas oportunidades ni gocen de la misma libertad ni que se les reconozca la misma autoridad científica que a los hombres, como lo muestra el caso de la científica Barbara McClintock, aquí brevemente reseñado.

How women, designated as poor, reconstruct identities and ways of life? — the PRSI or the processes of re-qualifying social-identity

The sociological qualitative analysis of social identities and of the meanings of social action, the grounded theory and the ‘writing as analytical praxis qualitative-method’ have permitted me the co-creation of women biographies of un-qualifying/re-qualifying — oral discourses about their migration at the Pays Basque. I argue that the “poverty studies traditions” reproduce and contains seven (7) epistemological obstacles and formulations on negative terms, and I underline theoretical contributors to the Identities Sociology, discussing the oppositions “personal/social” (Social-Psi), and “determined-objectives identities/assumed-subjective identities” (Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons and Pierre Bourdieu). So, I define “social identities” as the way the social-actor becomes a social-sujet (on the tradition of Touraine), considering three components (to explain). Defining oral discourses as the condition to co-construct the social experience, I identify and explain, at the re-qualifying processes: 1) several reaction phases – on positive terms – and social-identities territory’s implicated, as multiple meanings of the social action and identity-strategies (Risc, Strategic-Sacrifice); 2) four identity resources-capitals negotiated, affected, connected or stimulated.

How Biographies of Women in Science, Technology, and Medicine Influence Fifth Graders’ Attitudes Toward Gender Roles

This research focuses on elementary pupils’ attitudes toward gender roles and the learning results from using two types of teaching materials, multimedia animation and a role-play transcript, based on the biographies of women in science, technology, and medicine. We selected two fifth-grade classes for the experiment, which was conducted during the students’ science period. The findings revealed that using the two teaching materials positively benefited elementary pupils’ attitudes toward gender roles, particularly in terms of games and toys.

Protestantismus und politische Partizipation. Evangelische Parlamentarierinnen im Nachkriegsbayern zwischen Politik und Kirche

Abstract The article reflects on the interdependence of the political and ecclesial sphere and the influence of Protestant women in the first two decades after 1945. Two different biographies of women from Bavaria with active influence in politics and church and both members of the CSU, Elisabeth Nägelsbach (member of the Landtag) and Ingeborg Geisendörfer (member of the Bundestag), are taken into account concerning their self-understanding, their agenda setting and their rhetoric self-presentation. We argue, that the spheres of politics and church are interdependent and gender construction plays an important role. Furthermore, the developments in the ecclesial sphere took much longer and emancipation of women was implemented more hesitantly than in the political system. Also, theological arguments were crucial for this delay. The article suggests to consider a differentiated and context-sensible approach to understand the relationship between religious denomination and emancipation as well as the role of political conservative female politicians with an association to the church in the development of gender equalization.

(Un)Veiling “Tradition”: Fashioning Multifaceted Orhni and Hijab Assemblages in Trinidad

Examining sartorial life histories—interviews detailing the entangled biographies of women and their garments—this article attends to the material microscopics of Indo-Trinidadian women’s orhni and hijab veiling practices, dress conventions that circulate as visual markers of idealized femininities vested in mobilizations of Indian, Hindu, and/or Islamic tradition. Complicating facile projections of bounded and timeless essences, women’s narratives highlight the dynamic, hybrid ways in which they have historically “assembled” their outfits, weaving together the diverse material, aesthetic, and ideological threads available to them in a multi-ethnic, multi-faith, and globalized Trinidad. While representations of veiling have facilitated the cordoning-off of ethnic and religious divides, attending to the multifaceted materialities and aesthetics of orhni and hijab assemblages can rip away at the seams that reinforce fictive notions of bounded “culture” and static “tradition” in the Caribbean.

Punishment and Penitential Practices in Medieval German Writing ed. by Sarah Bowden, and Annette Volfing

Reviewed by: Punishment and Penitential Practices in Medieval German Writing ed. by Sarah Bowden, and Annette Volfing Simon Kemp Bowden, Sarah, and Annette Volfing, eds, Punishment and Penitential Practices in Medieval German Writing (King's College London Medieval Studies, 26), London, King's College London Medieval Studies, 2018; hardback; pp. 208; R.R.P. £60.00; ISBN 9781897747346. The book contains nine essays and a brief introduction, organized as ten chapters. The essays relate to the themes of punishment and penance, and each is based on late medieval German writings. Otherwise, they cover very different aspects. Four essays are written in German, and there are two- to three-page English abstracts of these near the end of the book. Of the nine essays, five (Chapters 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7) deal essentially with secular aspects of punishment, and four with religious aspects. Three chapters (2, 3, and 10) take an early legend, for example that of Parsifal in Chapter 3, and show how the legend was treated by a medieval German writer or writers. Two of them (Chapters 2 and 3) consider the relationship between punishment and revenge in an era where justice was often a more private matter than it is today. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss different works of the poet Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376–1445). Chapters 8 and 9 focus on biographies of women whose piety drove them to extremes of asceticism and bodily mortification, and Chapter 10 deals with martyrdom. In Chapter 6 it emerges that issues of defamation and reputation loomed large in Zurich court cases. My favourite essay (Chapter 7) recounts instances from sixteenth century Schwankbücher of black humour in the legal process. No two essays are very similar. For example, while at first sight the two biographies of near-contemporary ascetic women, Christina of Hane (Chapter 8) and Elsbeth of Oye (Chapter 9), appear similar in their dedication to gruesome self-torture, the women were differently motivated. Christina apparently wanted to subjugate her desires, Elsbeth to seek unity with Christ by mirroring His suffering. The introduction does not attempt to integrate all the different aspects. Nor does the book cover every medieval approach to penance and punishment. For example, no essay deals with indulgences, which often served as a form of medieval social reparation with the added aim of encouraging better behaviour in the future. However, the essays in this volume cover a wide range and are often thought-provoking. Simon Kemp University of Canterbury Copyright © 2019 Parergon

Women in (neuro)science: report of a meeting held at the University of Valencia, Spain, in February 2018.

February 11th is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. To mark this day, research centers and universities were invited by the Spanish Neuroscience Association to organize a symposium. Twenty-five centers in Spain participated in the event, with the intent of giving visibility to the existing problem of the scarcity of women compared with men in (neuro)science in positions of responsibility and command. Fourteen neuroscientists, all staff members of the University of Valencia, arranged the meeting. The morning included lectures by women neuroscientists in different phases of their career: a PhD student, a junior and a senior postdoctoral investigator, and a well-established investigator. In the evening, a roundtable composed of expert women philosophists, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) scientists, and social experts discussed why the gap exists. At the end of the meeting, the exhibition entitled, "Women in Science" commenced: pictures and a brief biography of women who made significant contributions to science were presented. More than 200 people attended the meeting, including the general public, scientists, and secondary school and university students.