Social Women Research Articles

No boy in lady’s room: How China’s radical digital feminists alienate themselves from mothers, girls, and gays

ABSTRACT This article employs semi-structured interviews with 57 Chinese women rallying behind the Weibo hashtag #NoBoyInLady’sRoom to explore their discursive strategies in defending women-only public spaces and their registration of antagonism toward China’s son-preferential gender norms. Distilling and discussing the three main discursive strategies adopted by these self-identified feminists to make sense of their collective motivation behind the bathroom crusade, this article finds streaks of exclusivity and alienation of Chinese digital feminism that target not only men but also mothers, girls, and queer people in the pursuit of a fundamentalist cause. Relying on the understanding of the contemporary state-platform dynamic in China as well as the historical legacy of China’s socialist women’s movement, this article further critically inquires into the politico-cultural implications of the radicalizing tendency of Chinese digital feminism and proposes a more communicative as well as inclusive approach to the grassroots solidarity of anti-patriarchy forces in authoritarian China.

Disclosure imperatives and women's subjectivities in an emergent culture of sexual trauma testimony

AbstractSince the democratization of the Maldives, a Sunni‐Islamic nation in the Indian Ocean, the Greater Male’ Region (GMR) has been the site of rapid social reform efforts. The state's democratizing efforts and local engagements with global feminist and mental health movements have led to the emergence of a culture of giving and bearing witness to sexual trauma testimony. I propose the term “disclosure imperatives,” and outline the three public discourses that produce this imperative in the Maldivian context. Next, drawing on interviews with Maldivian women who have experienced childhood sexual abuse, I illuminate how disclosure imperatives shape women's subjectivity and sociality. Using a critical phenomenological approach, I show that disclosure imperatives are, counterproductively, experienced as moralizing in interlocutors’ lifeworlds. Beyond focusing on women's “voice” or its absence as “silence,” the concept of disclosure imperatives illuminates the emotional and moral affects that cultures of disclosure engender in everyday lives.

Socialist Women and the Great War, 1914–21: Protest, Revolution and Commemoration, ed. Corinne Painter, Ingrid Sharp and Mathew Stibbe

<i>Socialist Women and the Great War, 1914–21: Protest, Revolution and Commemoration</i>, ed. Corinne Painter, Ingrid Sharp and Mathew Stibbe

From Romanian Communism to Capitalism: the Representation and Ideology of Women’s Bodies

This article analyses the representation of women’s bodies in the narratives of Și se auzeau greierii (And Crickets Could Be Heard) by Corina Sabău, ca și cum nimic nu s-ar fi întâmplat (as if nothing has happened) by Alina Nelega, and Viața e a mea (The Life is Mine) by Emilia Faur. It explores how the portrayal of maternity, sexual abuse, abortion, and gender identity changes from Romanian Communism to the capitalist democracy. If the socialist women were submissive to the pronatalist desiderate, being oppressed because of the insalubrious abortions (Sabău) or because of the fear to affirm their gender identity (Nelega), the capitalist advertisement with its sexist standards of beauty, doubled by the postnatal depression, imposes the fatality of death (Faur). My objective is to connect feminist aesthetics with ideological critique by identifying the abstract model of a feminist Bildungsroman (Rita Felski) in the three novels under consideration. However, on a formal level, I will analyse how in the case of Faur's and Nelega's novels, the free indirect style, a blend of affect translated into impersonal form (Moretti), mediates a socio-political commentary for increased awareness and active engagement in dismantling the adaptable patriarchy inherent in any political system, while the first-person narrative (Sabău) shows how the social fabric is internalised by the narrator, following her inner turmoil.

Muslim Women and Educational Reform in the Early-Twentieth-Century Southern Caucasus: Urbanization and Heterosocialization at the Dawn of Revolution

Abstract: In 1901 the Empress Alexandra Russian Muslim Boarding School for Girls, better known as Taghiyev's Girls' School for the industrialist who founded it, opened in Baku to celebration in the press and to protests in the street. Its opening initiated a period of expanded educational opportunities for Muslim girls in the southern Caucasus and increased the visibility and social and political influence of Muslim women teachers. This article investigates how girls' schools marked a transformation in Muslim women's sociality in the southern Caucasus. Heterosocialization characterized this transformation, enabling women's participation in public life through venues such as the theater, the press, and voluntary associations. These late imperial transformations and the women who led them would play an important role in shaping early Soviet Azerbaijan.

Between lookism and bodily capital: Understanding female personal trainers’ appearance in occupational socialization

Witnessing that the appearance of female trainers has been regarded as a potential cause of appearance-based discrimination and a source of bodily capital, this study examined the influence of female trainers’ appearance on the process of occupational socialization. We invited eight research participants for in-depth interviews, including female trainers, Pilates instructors, and male fitness center owners with training experience. We followed the grounded theory analysis method to derive meaningful insights from the collected data. The results indicate that the physical appearance of female trainers had various effects on their perceived value as bodily capital during the preparatory and adaptation periods. However, it became a constraining factor during the conflict period as they experienced bodily changes in their late 20s. Eventually, their physical appearance hindered female trainers from maintaining their careers and decreased the percentage of female trainers who reached maturity period. Ultimately, the culture of lookism had a mixed impact on women's occupational socialization, revealing its discriminatory undertones. Although some women profited from the culture, lookism disadvantaged others. Finally, we suggested that a possible solution would be the enactment of the anti-discrimination law for better protection.

북한 근로단체 간에 나타난 오더링(Ordering)과 네이밍(Naming)의 정치

In order to maintain social tension through competition, North Korea is mixing ‘the politics of ordering’ that clarifies the order between members or (groups) and ‘the politics of naming’ that gives the higher stratified meaningful names. In this paper, this was examined through North Korea’s four major labor organizations: the Youth League, the Women's League, the Vocational Union, and the Agricultural Workers' Union. First of all, the Joseon Labor party's dominance over the four major Labor Organizations was examined in terms of institutional and historical aspects. Among the Labor Organizations, it was clear through the order of holding their conferences that there was a cutting-edge distinction between the “Youth Alliance“ as a power-favored group and “the Other Labor Organizations“ as a power-marginalized group. In addition, even within “the Other Labor Organizations,” the status of each Labor Organization was changing over time depending on the power relationship with the supreme leader or his perception of the organizational situation. Additionally, North Korea's Youth Alliance has twice included the glorious name of their supreme leaders in its organizational name such as the “Kim Il-sung Socialist Youth Alliance” and the “Kim Il-sung-Kim Jong-il Youth Alliance” while other Labor Organizations have never been bestowed until now. And recently, the status and role of the Women's Alliance have also been raised as its name was changed into the “Socialist Women's League“ at the Kim Jong-un period. It is necessary to recognize that North Korea's Ordering and Naming politics play a basic role of system enhancement, but at the same time, also have an inherent property of system dissolution in terms of class conflict.

Toward a Joyful, Generous, and Fluid Left: An Interview with Kristen R. Ghodsee

In this interview with Kristen Ghodsee, (conducted by Rethinking Marxism’s Overdetermined podcast team Maliha Safri, Jared Randall, and Ryan Watts, and edited for brevity and clarity for print publication by Kenan Erçel), her three recent books are discussed: Second World, Second Sex: Socialist Women’s Activism and Global Solidarity during the Cold War; Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism and Other Arguments for Economic Independence; and Red Hangover: Legacies of 20th Century Communism. Taped at the height of the pandemic in 2021, the conversation explores how relations between men and women are shaped by social systems including capitalism in the West, and socialism in the ‘second world.’ Ghodsee describes her own interests in Alexandra Kollontai, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and how they influenced her own writing that encompasses multiple modalities of research including in-depth field work, fiction, and archival research in multiple eastern European countries. Going between the current day and the past, Ghodsee emphasizes how economic systems and psychosocial stress show up in how families arrange unpaid labor, sex, and every other intimate arena of life.

Feminist Utopias in the Early Twentieth Century

ABSTRACT The first two decades of the twentieth century saw an intense period of international feminist organising and campaigning. Organisations such as the International Alliance of Women (1904), the Socialist Women’s International (1907), and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (1915) exemplified the transnational geography of the movement. This was also a time in which women’s writing moved in new ways, imagining speculative utopian worlds to accompany their radical gender politics. This article examines two literary feminist utopias from the early twentieth century: Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood (1902–3) and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s Sultana’s Dream (1905). While US writer Hopkins’s Of One Blood offers an early Afrofuturist or Black internationalist utopia that reflects women’s struggles, Hossain presents a simultaneously feminist and anti-colonial imagining of the world. Both these works, in an internationalist tradition, criticise both patriarchal and racist or colonial world orders, demonstrating the vital role played by literary utopian works in feminism of the early twentieth century.

Perspective from Literature and Art on Women's Social Status and Ancestral Role in Pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Era

Since women are an integral and prime part of society, their role has been of key importance in shaping society. Women have been discussed in various roles and positions in the Indo-Pak subcontinent's ancient times and were later depicted in art. Buddha thought that Women were considered equal to men in their contribution to society and could attain Nirvana to become a member of the sangha or bhikkhuni as well. Using descriptive research methods, this research analyses the ancient literary sources on Buddhist society and how it is intertwined with the Buddhist art of Gandhāra to identify women's various roles – pre-wedding and post-wedding familial standing. Based on academia's diverse opinions, this study explores Buddhist attitudes towards women in a historical context with a re-appraisal of discovered sources so that continuity can be traced. It is found that in the Buddhist period, the status of women improved educationally, religiously, and socially.

Superwoman Schema and self-rated health in black women: Is socioeconomic status a moderator?

BackgroundThe Superwoman Schema (SWS) construct elucidates Black women's socialization to be strong, suppress their emotions, resist vulnerability, succeed despite limited resources, and help others at their own expense. Drawing from intersectionality and social psychological research on self-schemas, this study examined the extent to which SWS was associated with Black women's self-rated health. We also investigated whether socioeconomic status (SES) moderated the association between SWS, its five dimensions, and self-rated health. MethodsData were from the Mechanisms Underlying Stress and Emotions (MUSE) in African-American Women's Health Study, a cohort of African American self-identified women. SWS was assessed using Giscombé’s 35-item Superwoman Schema Scale. Socioeconomic status was measured by household income and educational attainment. Ordered logistic regression models were used and statistical interactions were run to test for moderation (N = 408). ResultsFirst, SWS dimension “obligation to help others” was associated with worse self-rated health (p < .05). Second, household income, but not education, moderated the association between SWS and self-rated health (p < .05): SWS overall was associated with worse self-rated health among higher income women but better self-rated health among lower income women. Third, income moderated the association between SWS dimension “obligation to present an image of strength” and self-rated health (p < .05): presenting strength was associated with better self-rated health for lower income women only. Fourth, moderation results revealed that SWS dimension “obligation to help others” was inversely associated with self-rated health particularly among higher income women. ConclusionsFindings speak to the complex interplay between SES and SWS dimensions as they relate to Black women's perceived health.

Prevalence and risk factors of elder abuse in survivors of stroke: A cross-sectional study.

The understanding of the prevalence and risk factors associated with elder abuse in stroke survivors is currently lacking. Therefore, the objective of this study is to ascertain the prevalence and potential risk factors of elder abuse in stroke survivors, while also examining its correlation with insomnia. In this cross-sectional study, a total of 485 stroke survivors aged 65 years and older, who received treatment at the Emergency department of Shunde Hospital, Southern Medical University, were subjected to face-to-face interviews using the questionnaire on elder abuse from the Third Survey on Chinese Women's Social Status. A logistic regression analysis was employed to examine the association between risk factors and elder abuse among stroke survivors. 62.27% of the participants reported experiencing elder abuse, with 14.85% of them indicating suffering from more than two subtypes of abuse. Factors such as residing in nursing homes, lower income, and smoking were found to increase the likelihood of experiencing elder abuse and all four subtypes of abuse. Additionally, advancing age was associated with a higher risk of experiencing all four subtypes of abuse, although it did not affect the occurrence of overall abuse. It is worth noting that the self-reported prevalence of the four types of abuse by the elderly themselves was higher compared to the reports provided by caregivers. Elder abuse is prevalent among stroke survivors, especially those who are residing in nursing homes, with lower income, and smokers. Elder abuse significantly increased the prevalence of insomnia in stroke survivors. Further research is needed to better explore effective measures to reduce the prevalence of elder abuse of stroke survivors.

Gendered Dimensions of Transport and Women's Social Exclusion in Abidjan (Côte d'Ivoire)

This paper explores the gendered dimensions of transport in Abidjan and how transport dynamics influence women's out-of-home activity participation, leading to their social exclusion. By using a gender-sensitive analysis approach, the research revealed that Abidjan City's transportation system is inadvertently gendered and excludes vulnerable people and women. The findings highlighted transport availability, affordability and reliability as key factors impacting women's opportunities and out-of-home activity participation. And revealed that women's mobility, safety, economic and social well-being are significantly affected.&#x0D; &#x0D; The research recommends targeted interventions to bridge the gender gap; and particularly to improve women's mobility through safe, reliable and affordable public transport. Gender-sensitive transport planning and policies can be adopted by urban planners and policymakers to promote women's empowerment, social inclusion and safety in Abidjan and surrounding metropolitan areas. These proposals contribute to equitable access to transport services for all citizens specifically women, which is essential for the city's social and economic development. The research addresses therefore a significant gap in transport-related social exclusion studies on African cities, by offering insights to improve transportation planning and policy in similar urban contexts.

Pelatihan Cognitive Behavioral Coping Skill Pada Penerima Manfaat Panti Pelayanan Sosial Wanita Wanodyatama Surakarta

The service activity aims to determine the effect of cognitive behavioral coping skills on improving coping strategy skills in beneficiaries at the "Wanodyatama" Women's Social Service Center Surakarta. Subjects are 22 beneficiaries from representatives of each room. The intervention is cognitive behavioral coping skills with material on skills for stress and how to deal with it adaptively. The activities are carried out offline through assignments, group posters, and poster presentations by group representatives. Coping strategies were measured using the strategic coping scale and the data analysis used Wilcoxon signed-rank paired sample t-test. The results showed a significant increase in the understanding of coping strategies in beneficiaries after the intervention, with the results in the pre-test and post-test of W=21,000, sig=0.008 (p&lt;.001). Therefore, cognitive behavioral coping skills can improve the understanding of coping strategies in beneficiaries.

Clara Zetkin and the Socialist Women’s International

This article focuses on the political activities of women within German Social Democracy and the Socialist Women's International. The leader of both organisations, Clara Zetkin, wrote texts that provided the theoretical foundations for the Marxist perspective on the ‘woman question’ and paved the way for the incorporation of working women into the proletarian struggle for socialism. Based on the proceedings and reports of the socialist women’s conferences, we reconstruct the main discussions and resolutions of these organisations until their dissolution in 1915, such as the relationship with bourgeois feminists, protective legislation for female workers, women's suffrage, and International Women’s Day.

Kristen Ghodsee, Second World, Second Sex: socialist women’s activism and global solidarity during the Cold War

Kristen Ghodsee, Second World, Second Sex: socialist women’s activism and global solidarity during the Cold War

IVAN FRANKO BEHIND THE SCENES OF “THE FIRST WREATH”, OR TEN CONTROVERSIES OF THE PUBLISHING HISTORY OF THE ALMANAC

The article investigates the publishing history of the literary almanac “The First Wreath”, which was published in Lviv in 1887. This almanac was the first book of this type in which 17 woman writers from two parts of then politically divided Ukraine, Galicia and Naddniprianschyna, were able to unite under one cover. The main idea of the almanac was declared as “in the name of our national unity”. Despite the fact that the title of the publication contained only the names of both editors and patrons, Olena Pchilka and Natalia Kobrynska, the entire publishing process was managed by Ivan Franko. He drew up the plan and contents, selected materials, corresponded with writers, edited and proofread the texts, and was engaged in the distribution and popularization of the almanac after its publication.&#x0D; Frankо’s participation in the history of “The First Wreath” is one of the unexplored pages of his professional profile as a publisher and editor, and this paper aims to comprehend Franko’s role in this enterprise. On the other hand, attention is paid to the complex and lengthy publishing process of the collection, which had its own interesting backstage, hidden conflicts, and individual stories, which can be conditionally summarized as ten controversies of “The First Wreath”. The paper describes in detail each of these stories, which reveal interesting facts of the writers’ communication, the genesis of many works, and biographical facts of the collection’s participants. Among the main controversies of “The First Wreath” are the history with its title, editorial interventions of Franko in the texts of Kobrynska and Olena Pchilka, ‘tragicomic story’ of the abridgment of Olena Pchilka’s short story “Comrades” (“Tovaryshky”), secret pseudonyms of socialist women authors, non-admission of Olha Kobylianska’s work to publication, a conflict between Olena Pchilka and Hanna Barvinok, and violation of editorial policy by some authors.&#x0D; Despite the complicated publishing controversies of “The First Wreath”, each of which to some extent involved Franko, this collection entered the history of the literary process, the Ukrainian press, and the women’s movement as an important manifestation of the unification progress and intellectual result of the consolidation efforts of Ukrainian woman. At the same time, the almanac influenced the fates and literary biographies of all its authors.

Women, Hospitality and The Intimate Politics of International Socialism, 1955–1965

Abstract In the 1950s, a commitment to democratic socialism connected networks of intellectuals, activists and political operators in both Europe and Asia. Many of these were women, who built informal and intimate networks of solidarity that underpinned the movement. The rich set of correspondence between European and Asian socialist women speaks to their role as connectors of global and local civil society within international socialist circuits. It also indicates the importance of friendship, mobility and hospitality as a crucial factor in sustaining such networks, as well as building the trust that facilitated the exchange of subversive information. While Asia was seen as the great hope of international socialism in the 1950s, by the middle of the 1960s, many of its socialist parties had imploded, pointing to the limits of international socialism for Asian women amidst global anti-communism and the rise of authoritarian states. Transnational socialist networks nonetheless helped further both European and Asian women’s campaigns for gender equality, development and democratic socialism in decolonizing Asia, adding vital new dimensions to the history of internationalism.

Revisiting feminist historiography on women's activism in Turkey: beyond the grand narrative of waves

ABSTRACT Recent contributions in feminist historiography challenge the reading of women's movements through the waves metaphor and destabilise rigid periodisations. These contributions have triggered debates about the way feminism and women's activism are analysed in the West, but their implications for feminist historiography in non-Western contexts have yet to be discussed. New studies, including our own, on Kemalist and socialist women's activisms suggest that the agendas affiliated with the post-1980 ‘second wave’ of feminism in Turkey had been raised prior to the 1980s. These findings call for critical engagement with the long-established idea that there have been two waves of women's movement in Turkey with a period of ‘barren years’ in between. In this article we explore the formation and scholarly implications of the waves analysis as a grand narrative in feminist historiography on women's activism in Turkey. We argue that the literature on feminism and women's activism must be rewritten, by not only incorporating the previously omitted histories of women's activism but also challenging the salient assumption that women's organising must be independent and position itself in opposition to the state to qualify as feminist.

Women of courage and the seedbed of autonomy in modernity: On the transnational influence of cultures on social structure in the work of Rose Laub Coser

This paper examines the contribution of Rose Laub Coser to sociological theory in the structural tradition. Laub Coser was one of the most successful women sociologists of her generation. She was born in Berlin in 1916 but left with her family in 1924 for Antwerp in Belgium, and went into exile in 1939 in New York. Thus, Laub Coser was familiar with many cultural worlds and languages. Although she primarily lived in the United States, the transnational influence of the metropolis of Berlin is manifest in her sociological work in several ways. Conceptually, this is relevant for Laub Coser’s reception of Georg Simmel’s Soziologie. In particular, her theory of the complexity of social roles as a seedbed of individual autonomy is founded on Simmel’s theory of the importance of conflict and ambivalence for individualization. Her multiple experiences of emigration and exile influenced Laub Coser’s work, including Women of Courage, an analysis of the social lives of Eastern European and Italian migrants in the metropolis of New York, and her internationally comparative studies on the family and women’s rise in the labor market. Laub Coser investigated the social consequences of having multiple group affiliations and the conditions for such individuals in the cultural and social structure of modernity. In her transnationally comparative work of migrant cultures, she demonstrated the scope of her theory of role complexity. Contrary to images of migration bare of gender and culture, Laub Coser interprets the individuals she studied in Women of Courage as active agents of migration and provides insights on the influence that cultural definitions of situations have had toward creating the social structure of modern society. Starting from Robert K. Merton’s role-set theory and integrating Simmel’s analysis of forms of social differentiation, Laub Coser analyzed the conditions and consequences of multiple group affiliations, their observability, and the ambivalences in “cross-cutting social circles” (Simmel), which create conditions for developing individuality and individualism. The cultural mandate for women to be socialized toward the “greedy institution” of the family offers only restricted role-sets and opportunities for articulating social roles, constraining their social competencies as autonomous individuals. Despite the alienating and anomic consequences of role complexity, Laub Coser valued its liberating potential. Possibly this theoretical orientation was also influenced by her own experience as an immigrant, sociologist, and political activist in the socialist women’s movement. The posthumously published study Women of Courage is based on a research project that began in the 1980s, comprising hundreds of qualitative interviews with women who had migrated to New York in the early 1920s, and who were at least 13 years old when they immigrated. The histories of these women demonstrate their role in enabling the social mobility of their families in the receiving society. They provided insights into how cultures change and how women migrants understood their lives in the New World.