Idea Of Women Research Articles

Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women ed. by Mia Bay, Farah J. Griffin, Martha S. Jones, and Barbara D. Savage

Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women. Edited by Mia Bay, Farah J. Griffin, Martha S. Jones, and Barbara D. Savage. John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015. Pp. xii, 308. Paper, $27.95, ISBN 978-1-4696-2091-6.) Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women offers a compelling exploration of black women's diverse intellectual labors and contributions. The volume is organized into four chronological sections that span the period from Phillis Wheatley's writings to the present day; the collection's focus lies within and beyond the United States, and it draws on numerous academic traditions. This border-crossing impetus shapes the collection's content and foci as well as its methods. It is historical in scope and interdisciplinary in approach, stretching the terms of what counts as history, who counts as a knower, and what constitutes an adequate historiographical method or source. Because the volume approaches intellectual history from beyond the usual bounds, it was a bit surprising to find no reference to some foundational interdisciplinary volumes documenting black women's ideas, such as Beverly Guy-Sheftall's edited collection Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought (New York, 1995) and Ann Allen Shockley's Afro-American Women Writers, 1746-1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide (Boston, 1988). Nevertheless, the volume's interdisciplinary reach adds many new insights to the extant literatures focused on tracing and analyzing black women's distinctive intellectual traditions. The authors illustrate that bringing together seemingly disparate sources is necessary to illuminate this rich history, given the partial and often fragmented nature of the historical archive vis-a-vis black women's lives. The contributors explore diverse genres of knowing across time, place, and circumstance, including novels, poetry, prose, spiritual autobiographies, letters, journalism, church registers, cloth, colonial archives, mission reports, church newsletters, trial records, public depositions, diaries, social media, speeches, the blogosphere, and various forms of activism, organizing, and protest. Many contributors also examine sites of reluctance, backlash, withholding, silence, and self-censure, underscoring that the expressive nature of the unsaid, the erased, and the untellable is in and of itself a pivotal means for tracing genealogies of black women's intellectual history, in terms of both epistemic and historical politics. Given my own work on Anna Julia Cooper, an early black feminist scholar, educator, and activist, 1 was drawn to the essays that highlighted black women's strategies for pivoting dominant frames of knowing (though, for full disclosure, I had hoped to find some engagement with Cooper's 1925 Sorbonne dissertation on the Haitian and French revolutions, which anticipated black Atlantic studies and predated W. …

Antecedents of Young Women’s Sexual Risk Taking in Tourist Experiences

The purpose of this phenomenological exploration was to shed light on the constellation of factors anteceding young women’s sexual risk taking during their tourist experiences. A total of 15 in-depth interviews (1.5 to 2.5 hours each) with 13 women were conducted and analyzed through the lens of transcendental phenomenology. An analysis of antecedent factors revealed a confluence of sociopersonal characteristics (e.g., sexual definitions, attitudes, double standards, and age) and touristic attributes (e.g., the sense of temporariness/ephemerality, anonymity, and fun-oriented mentality depending on length, destination, and type of tourist experience) that underlie women’s proclivity for and perceptions of sexual risk taking in certain travel scenarios. These result in myriad effects on physical, sexual health, sociocultural, mental, and emotional aspects of women’s health and well-being. While the sociopersonal antecedents highlight the cross-pollination between sex-related perceptions in everyday life and touristic environments, the touristic antecedents emphasize the uniqueness of tourist experiences as the contexts for sexual risk taking. The findings address an underresearched topic in sex and tourism scholarship and offer implications for health education and intervention programs, pointing to the value of constructing the context-specific and gender-sensitive sexual health messages underpinned by the ideas of women’s empowerment and sexual agency.

Why do women's cooperative societies languish? A study of selected societies in Kottayam, Kerala

Kerala has had a long history of cooperatives starting from the pre-independence era. The idea of women's cooperatives came much later, with the earliest ones coming into being only after 1975. This study draws on both primary and secondary data, focusing on the challenges faced by women's cooperative societies (WCSs) in Kottayam District in Southern Kerala. Most women's cooperatives function by limiting their operations to small scale banking activities and enlisting men's participation in various ways. The paper concludes that the scope of empowerment of women through women's cooperatives is severely constrained by the way property rights and gender relations are structured in the state and the manner in which local male politicians have manipulated the societies for partisan ends.

Shakespeare’s sisters in Istanbul: Grace Ellison and the politics of feminist friendship

This article attempts to reconstruct a story of friendship between an English journalist, Grace Ellison, and two Turkish sisters, Zeyneb and Melek Hanoum. The sisters served as Pierre Loti’s models for the main characters of his novel Les Désenchantées. In 1906, they left Istanbul to escape from the oppressive regime of Abdülhamit II and started living in Europe, where they met Ellison. Ellison encouraged them to write, and edited and co-authored their books in English. She pursued Virginia Woolf’s idea of women’s solidarity, working for women whom Woolf might have termed “Shakespeare’s sisters”. Although her friendship with the sisters raises the question of subaltern agency within the discursive domain of orientalism, it cannot be reduced to the binary relationship between orientalism and its silenced Other. Taking the historical context and class background into account, this article argues that what Ellison sought for was an eternally postponed, future friendship between women across cultures, nations and classes.

A Contemplation on ‘Sultana’s Dream


 
 Sultana’s Dream is a piece written by the most prolific Muslim woman intellectual Begum Rokeya Shekhawat, published in the Ladies Magazine in 1905, from Madras. She spoke against patriarchy in Muslim community. Her Sultana’s Dream depicts a dream sequence but it is not simply a sequence for entert ainment. It rather speaks for a transformation in society to bring women out of the boundaries of four walls of home and to work in the public sphere without interference of men at all. Through a dream, she challenges the dogmas, associated with Muslim women. Her own life is an example of many such practices, like confinement in a j
 enana system, etc. This piece attempts to review as to how beautifully the text is written and how radically forceful it is that encourages the readers to think of the degraded condition of women and how women particularly, never question the same. She brings about certain unbelievable sequences of those days
 through her writing. At that time, women’s education itself was a taboo. However, some consensus were developed by the reformers in both Hindu and Muslim communities—for them education for women was essential so that she become a good companion for her husband and a good mother. An idea that women need education for her individual growth was very rare. In spite of living and growing in such a society, it is contemplative as to how Begum Rokeya Shekhawat could manage to be so radical in her thoughts to challenge the patriarchal culture itself. She had managed to bring women into politics and scientific world, both traditionally male-dominated bastions. She had pronounced certain scientific marvels, which is relevant even today. Her idea of women’s’ participation in politics is simply ahead of her time but relevant in contemporary Indian politics. Here, an attempt has been made to review her pioneering work. Towards the end, there is
 also an effort to see the condition of Muslim women in contemporary India.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Midlife menopause: male partners talking

Psychological research on menopause has focused upon women's ideas and experiences. This qualitative study explored heterosexual male partners’ perspectives of midlife menopause. In-depth interviews were conducted with eight men currently in a long-term relationship with a woman aged between 45 and 55 years and experiencing menstrual changes associated with menopause. The male partners alluded to emotional instability in the women who had been propelled by menopause into a trajectory of loss. Experiences and outcomes were believed to be variable, depending on the strengths of the individual. The female sexuality spoiled by menopause was expressed as a shared loss that had to be actively managed within the relationship. Discussion however was prohibited by a social etiquette that protected both partners from exposure and also contributed to a male “ignorance”. A more positive story of the menopause transition was also alluded to if inconsistently, whereby the challenges of living with menopause could be laudably met and benefits were potentially available to both parties. The interviewees saw knowledge about menopause as a remedy not just for their ignorance but as a way towards a future (better) society that is less constrained by the taboo.

Die konsep <i>vrou</i>: ’n Feministiese historiografie oor die verhouding tussen die vroulike en die manlike geslag

The concept woman : A feminist historiography of the relation between female and male. This article analyses the presuppositions underlying the feminist philosopher Prudence Allen’s important book, The concept of woman , on the history of the idea of woman and women’s relation to the other sex. Following the method of the history of ideas, she investigates the viewpoints of about 60 male and female western thinkers during 750 BC – AD 1250. She distinguishes three basic models in the relation between female and male, viz. gender unity, polarity and complementarity. The writer of his article, however, highlights apart from other queries, two major problems with her historiography. Firstly, she does not indicate clearly enough how different ontic-anthropological philosophical starting points determined the differing viewpoints on the two genders. Secondly, instead of accepting a norm from outside, she looks for a directive on the relation between male and female (in a subjectivist way) in the relation itself. Such an approach is the consequence of her dualistic division between a supposed neutral philosophy and Christian theology. She also does not succeed to apply her nature-grace and philosophy-theology distinction consistently in her review of history. Furthermore, Allen’s preference for the idea of complementarity is questioned. To stimulate further reflection, a few contemporary protestant views on the same issue are pointed out. In conclusion a follow-up contribution is envisaged which will indicate that a consistent problem-historical method of philosophical historiography may provide answers to the two main shortcomings identified in Allen’s otherwise captivating and ground-breaking study.

The thin/thick body ideal: Zulu women's body as a site of cultural and postcolonial feminist struggle

abstractThis Perspective explores how cultural identity impacts on the gendered construction by Zulu-speaking women of ideal body size and the various means through which women choose to exercise agency around their bodies. We report on a research study conducted among 45 female and five male participants drawn mainly from the Durban-based University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College campus, conducted between 2010 and 2011. The study considers how patriarchal discourses contribute to women's body size ideal, and women's response to traditional and global symbolism of their bodies.The analysis employs two theoretical frameworks, critical medical anthropology (CMA) and postcolonial feminist theory. CMA allowed us to critically question the notion of body size ideal of Zulu-speaking women and unmask the origin of larger structures of construction in what Singer (1995: 90) terms “systems-challenging praxis”. Through CMA, we understand that the female body is the “terrain where social truths are forged and social contradictions played out, as well as the locus of personal resistance, activity, and struggle” (Scheper-Hughes and Lock, 1987: 16), while the lens of postcolonial feminism reveals the body politics that contribute to women's agency and ideas around the ideal body. Through various discourses the participants decipher the meanings inscribed on their bodies. The Perspective exposes how gender and race contribute to perceptions of black women's body ideal.

Cleaning Products, Environmental Awareness and Risk Perception in Mérida, Mexico

Cleaning products are associated with many health and environmental problems. Contamination of water resources by cleaning products is more likely to occur with septic tanks as sewage treatment systems especially in karstic terrains. We explored women’s ideas about water sources and the risk cleaning products pose to health and sewage in Mérida, a city in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico. Women were unaware of the city’s water management system. We found a positive and statistically significant association between risk perception and environmental awareness, education level and employment status. We suggest developing education and risk communication strategies to inform residents about the hydro-geological features in the Yucatán, the vulnerability of its karstic aquifer and the health and environmental risks associated with cleaning agents.

From altruism to monetisation: Australian women's ideas about money, ethics and research eggs

We report the results of a qualitative study carried out in metropolitan Australia between 2009 and 2011 that canvassed the issue of payment for research oöcyte donation with participants drawn from three potential donor groups; fertility patients, reproductive donors and young, non-patient women. Research oöcytes are controversial tissues because women around the world have proved largely unwilling to donate them altruistically. In the ensuing international debate about procurement, the issue of money and its appropriate and inappropriate uses in tissue donation has taken centre stage. While there is now an abundance of expert commentary on this matter, there are almost no studies that probe this issue with potential donor populations. Our study asked the three groups of women about their understandings of altruistic, reimbursed, subsidised, compensated and paid donation for both reproductive and research eggs. We identify a resistance to the introduction of money into the sphere of reproductive donation, which the majority of respondents felt should remain an area of personalised gift relations. In the area of research donation we find a strong relationship between degrees of liquidity (the extent to which money is constrained or unconstrained) and a sense of ethical appropriateness. We also describe a culturally specific sense of fairness and equity among participants, associated with the relatively high public subsidisation of fertility treatment in Australia, which they used to benchmark their sense of appropriate and inappropriate uses of money. While the participant responses reflect the regulatory environment in Australia, particularly the absence of a US style market in reproductive oöcytes, they also make an important contribution to the global debate.

Active Bodies: A History of Women’s Physical Education in Twentieth-Century America by Martha H. Verbrugge (review)

Reviewed by: Active Bodies: A History of Women’s Physical Education in Twentieth-Century America by Martha H. Verbrugge Heather Munro Prescott Martha H. Verbrugge. Active Bodies: A History of Women’s Physical Education in Twentieth-Century America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. xi + 391 pp. Ill. $55.00 (978-0-19-516879-2). The release of this book could not be more timely: in 2012, the United States celebrated the fortieth anniversary of Title IX, which mandated equal opportunity for women’s athletics; and the International Olympic Committee proudly reported that the Summer Olympics in London was the first to have female athletes from all countries participating in the games. At the same time, the representation of female athletes in the media is still tinged with lingering racism and sexism, as media spend as much time on clothing and hairstyles as they do on athletic accomplishments. Verbrugge traces the historical trends that have led to this mixed legacy. [End Page 292] Verbrugge focuses her study on the careers and ideas of women, white and black, who taught physical education from the late nineteenth century to the present. She thereby makes a major contribution to our understanding of the history of female professionals in this period. She departs from other histories of physical education by placing the evolution of the field within America’s unique social and cultural milieu. Those familiar with the history of women in medicine will find many similarities between the experiences of female physicians and those of Verbrugge’s subjects: in fact, a significant number of the physical education pioneers were trained in medicine. Like medicine, the field of physical education in the late nineteenth century was still establishing itself as a respectable, scientific profession, and requirements for entry into the discipline were nebulous. Women and African Americans took advantage of physical education’s protean status to make a place for themselves in this emerging discipline. Like female physicians, women in physical education challenged gender norms by pursuing careers and being physically active. Thus, physical education became a viable career for athletic girls. Verbrugge departs from other histories of physical education by drawing on the work of Cynthia Eagle Russett, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Londa Schiebinger, and others on the relationship between health professions and the science of sex and race differences. Physical education attempted to enhance its professional status by drawing on the emerging sciences of the human body. These sciences called into question the “fitness” of female and nonwhite minds and bodies for college-level study. By physically embodying educated, active, healthy womanhood, women physical educators helped to undercut some Victorian notions about the female body. Yet, in order to make a place for themselves in the profession, women also had to emphasize the innate differences between men and women. This led female physical educators to create gender constraints of their own. White female physical educators upheld a professional ideal called “Phy Ed-iquette,” which was used to a bolster white, middle-class, heterosexual model of gender in teacher candidates. Black women physical educators imposed similar professional expectations on their students, epitomized by the concept of “Beauty Health” promoted by Maryrose Reeves Allen at Howard University. Like Phy Ed-iquette, Beauty Health equated femininity with middle-class, heterosexual norms. However, Beauty Health “also articulated a keen racial consciousness” (p. 88) and mission of racial uplift by finding beauty in black women’s physical features. Verbrugge concludes by explaining why we are still far from achieving full equality for female athletes and physical education professionals. She demonstrates that Title IX was a mixed blessing for women’s athletics: while this landmark reform in education law greatly expanded opportunities for female athletes, it also made teaching and coaching girls and women’s sports more attractive to men. Male coaches benefitted from professional networks and hiring practices that favored men. Title IX also led to the merger of men’s and women’s athletic departments, thereby marginalizing female athletic leaders even further. Thus, while the number of coaching positions for women’s teams expanded greatly, women’s share of those positions plummeted. The situation was especially bad for African American women: their representation in top positions hovers...

Women’s national leagues: does CEDAW go far enough?

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, CEDAW on the Elimination of All Forms ofDiscrimination Against Women (CEDAW), 1249 U.N.T.S. 13, 1979) states the goals of equality between men and women in sports. However, today there are only a limited number of women’s national leagues in the world, but hundreds of men’s national leagues, which seems to go against CEDAW’s edict of equality. This paper will consider the issues relative to the goals of CEDAW with regard to equality as specifically applied to the idea of women’s national professional sports leagues and whether or not CEDAW goes far enough in supporting this goal.

Prove It On Me: New Negroes, Sex, and Popular Culture in the 1920s

Erin D. Chapman's Prove It on Me illuminates the complexities of the New Negro era by refusing to simplify the forces shaping black life in the United States. There is no easy conclusion about how liberating or confining modern discourses were, so Chapman resists one-dimensional arguments. She uses a distinctly black feminist approach, but while concerned with how rarely black women's ideas and experiences have been fully understood, she does not examine them in isolation. The result is a nuanced account of how strategies for asserting African American citizenship often empowered black men at the expense of black women and of how mainstream media limited recognition of black women's humanity. In the process, readers come to appreciate that different strategies might have yielded broader freedom for both men and women. Indeed, though many understand the black power movement to have diverged from the tactics of the New Negro era, Chapman's analysis illuminates a masculinist orientation in 1920s ideology that was largely unaltered in later decades.

Devotas e instruídas: a educação de meninas e mulheres no Brasil – fragmentos do passado histórico (1846/1930)

O artigo tem por objetivo analisar, por meio de pesquisa bibliografica, alguns fragmentos do ideario da educacao das mulheres inserido no projeto republicano de educacao popular, de 1846 a 1930. Apresenta reflexoes sobre a educacao feminina no Brasil, as relacoes entre o poder politico e a Igreja Catolica e, por meio dela, a internalizacao do papel de mae e esposa, num universo de submissao necessaria e benefica. Fundamenta-se, teoricamente, em Aranha, Hilsdorf e Vidigal, nas questoes gerais da Historia da Educacao do inicio da Republica, e em Duarte, Nunes e Paiva, no que toca ao universo da instrucao das mulheres. A analise realizada mostrou que o projeto nao contemplava a educacao feminina e destinava as mocas a frequencia das escolas normais como uma das unicas formas de instrucao, entendendo as mulheres como as mais adequadas ao magisterio de criancas; aponta para a modificacao dessa mentalidade a partir da disseminacao dos conceitos liberais, a reorganizacao da familia e a divisao mais equitativa das responsabilidades dos pais, a partir do que o papel da mulher e ampliado; destaca a existencia e os objetivos dos colegios religiosos na educacao das meninas e, ja no seculo XX, a carreira do magisterio como a passagem para as primeiras oportunidades de bem-estar economico, manifestacao da palavra nao apenas figurativa, e trânsito do espaco domestico para a visibilidade social. O estudo conclui que o ideal renovador alinhado ao projeto do Estado de educar a populacao nao foi suficiente para resolver as desigualdades de genero, so amenizadas a partir da decada de 1930, com a conquista do voto feminino. Palavras-chave: educacao republicana, educacao de mulheres, escolas religiosas.

Admission policy of Swedish teacher education favouring men: Discussion in Parliament in 1962

In 1962 the Swedish Parliament decided on a school reform. Meritocracy and equal opportunity were important goals. However, these ideals were not applied to elementary school teacher education, where a sex quota policy favoured male applicants. In the parliamentary debate, a woman member of the Right Wing Party raised objections to the policy. A man representing the Social Democrat government’s education politics had to explain why the admission policy that favoured men was not abolished. By evoking historical ideas of women teachers as inferior, and warnings of the feminisation of schools as a great threat, the admission rules were defended. Further, analysis of the debate shows that women were supposed to hold back their individual rights and a woman arguing in favour of a gender-neutral admission policy risked being labelled ‘unwomanly’.

Engendering a Class Revolution: the Chinese YWCA industrial reform work in Shanghai, 1927–1939

Starting in 1927 Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) industrial secretaries made creating a literate working-class leadership for a female labor movement their primary goal. When the Association's conservative middle-class National Committee refused to approve that goal, they pursued it by establishing night schools for factory women. They taught factory women to read and write while also introducing them to socialist ideas of workers' organization and feminist ideas of women's empowerment. Industrial secretaries carried out a ‘class revolution’ within the Association, breaking down the Association's class barriers by insisting the Chinese YWCA include women of all socio-economic classes. The result was a modicum of success in training leaders for a women's labor movement and, at least in policy, the inclusion o f working women as full-fledged YWCA members.

Closeted Authority in The Tragedy of Mariam

This article argues that in The Tragedy of Mariam , Elizabeth Cary reveals to readers that the closet drama form and its relationship to conduct literature provided a socially protected space for women's public authorship and acting. According to didactic writers, closet writing was a silent and admissible performance for women because it occurred in ostensibly isolated locations. Yet publication and household acting increased the exposure of women's ideas and authorial agency, allowing women writers such as Cary to influence audiences beyond their own homes. Whether operating as authors by generating literary texts or as actors through the communal reading of closet dramas, women licensed their public expression by seeming safely enclosed. Cary not only enacts such disruptive compliance through the creation of her own text; but also uses her character Graphina to metadramatically comment on such activity.

A writer′s look at literature, fiction and mental health

Byline: Shashi. Deshpande (Shashi Deshpande is a well known name in the field of Indian literature. She was born in Dharwad in Karnataka as the daughter of the renowned Kannada dramatist as well as a great Sanskrit scholar Sriranga. She pursued her education in Economics in Bombay and graduated in Law from Bangalore. She later received an MA in English Literature. Shashi Deshpande, was awarded the Padmashri in 2009 & is well known for her novels, short stories and children's fiction stories. Her book titled Writing from the margin and other essays, was published in 2003 stop other notable works of Shashi Deshpande: Binding Vine; Matter of Time; That Long Silence; Dark Holds No Terrors). A strange paradox about literature (as also about culture, of which literature is a part) is that in the abstract it is considered to be of great importance. (Note how the words culture and literature are often spelt with a capital C and a capital L.) But in real life, literature is a low priority, (which is made clear by the fact that literature and culture are many times regarded as a woman's domain) to be given a place in our lives only in times of ease and plenty. For, the point is, of what use is literature? When we speak of fiction, there are even more decided views. have often heard people say, with a self-congratulatory air, I don't read fiction. After all, fiction is only a story; it is good as a time pass, some hours of entertainment and amusement. People would rather read, or be seen reading, books like Amartya Sen's, for example, which are enlightening, giving you both information and knowledge. So, once again the question is: Of what use is fiction? But will rephrase the question and ask instead: What does a novel do to us? And then quote an opinion which comes in the introduction to Prof. M. N. Srinivas's famous book The Remembered Village. Sol Tax, who has written the introduction, says, It is the poet or novelist who brilliantly catches the truth of a nation, a civilization or an era. how true this is when think of how Dickens' novels gave me a living picture of London, of the England of his times. How to read Mrs. Gaskell is to understand what the Industrial Revolution did to individuals, to workers and their lives. And to read Jane Austen is to get an idea of women's lives at the time. If her novels spell out the importance of marriage to women, it is because women at the time could neither inherit nor own property; without marriage they became dependent upon male relatives. Therefore, the conflict between marrying without love and remaining unmarried was not merely a romantic question for women, but one that hid a harsh economic reality. If the novelist does catch the truth, it is because he/she does not give the reader a mirror image of society. novelist creates a picture that goes behind the facade, beneath the surface. A questioning picture, exploring not only what is, but the silences, the gaps, the ambiguities and the contradictions. In the process, perhaps, unearthing hidden truths that mere facts can never get at. This is the larger picture. will move on to the smaller one, to the question of what the novel does to people, specifically to the author and the reader. Before that, one needs to why the novelist writes stories of make-believe people living in a pretend world. To escape from reality? To give readers some hours of escape? Why do you write? 0 This is a question that writers are almost always unable to answer. Answers, when attempted, range from I don't know to I can't not write to novelist Margaret Atwood's splendid statement, There is the blank page and there is your resistance to it. truth is that the novelist is impelled into writing by something deep within her, something she can't explain, because she does not understand it herself. Often, reading what she has herself written, the writer is puzzled. …

AN EVALUATION OF PRIMARY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS AND TEACHERS’ OPINIONS ABOUT IN EDUCATIONAL UNIONS TO ACCORDING VARIOUS VARIABLES: CASE OF MALATYA CITY

AN EVALUATION OF PRIMARY SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS AND TEACHERS’ OPINIONS ABOUT IN EDUCATIONAL UNIONS TO ACCORDING VARIOUS VARIABLES: CASE OF MALATYA CITY

Concepts of Healthy Diet Among Urban, Low-Income, African Americans

We sought to explore concepts of healthy diet and to elicit recommendations to support healthier eating among urban, low-income, African Americans. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 33 self-identified African American adults (18-81 years of age, 15 male participants) from a low-income neighborhood in west Philadelphia, PA, during summer and fall 2008. Our qualitative approach was continuous, iterative and thematic considering gender, age category, and participants' "mentions" of fast-food and fruit-and-vegetable intake from the preceding day. We found that participants shared concepts about broad nutritional principles consistent with national dietary recommendations, but disagreed about the healthfulness of specific foods-e.g. meat. On average-with little variation-participants reported eating >2 "mentions" more of fast foods the preceding day than fruits and vegetables (P < 0.001). Suggested strategies to help promote eating more produce included increasing exposure, advertising, affordability, and local availability (vice versa to limit fast-food consumption), and more education on the health effects of diet and how to find and prepare healthy foods. Women's ideas reflected their roles in food shopping and food preparation; otherwise, participants' ideas did not differ appreciably by gender or age. Overall, participants generally expressed sufficient understanding of nutritional principles to eat healthfully, but disagreed about the healthfulness of specific foods and described largely unhealthy dietary consumption from the preceding day. If poor dietary intake results from barriers to recognizing, purchasing, and preparing healthy foods, then participants' suggestions to increase education and modify the environment may lead to improved diets and better health in the community.