Vulnerable relational knowing that matters

This paper explores vulnerable relational knowing, and in it we open up our own embodied habits and experiences as feminist academics. We discuss how displaying our academic bodies as naked, both symbolically and physically, enhances and appreciates—instead of hiding—vulnerability. We also discuss how our academic bodies entangle with a range of more-than-human creatures and material surroundings to highlight the multispecies and material nature of vulnerable relational knowing. Two detailed stories, “Intimate sharing of academic knowledge: A recumbent study circle” and “Keropirtti: A place and space to work differently” provide unique examples of the enactment of alternative ways of working in academia, and their analysis demonstrates the potential of vulnerability for embodied relational knowing in academia, which has, to date, been commonly analyzed in the context of writing.     

Uneasy passages between neoliberalism and feminism: Social inclusion and financialization in Israel's empowerment microfinance

This article focuses on feminist non‐governmental organizations advocating for economic empowerment of women (EEW) through microfinance, using Israel as a case study. Through fieldwork, interviews and documents, we investigate the institutional practices, cultural discourses and struggles that EEWs develop in order to expose the particular ways in which feminist organizations interact with the world of finance and state institutions. Our analysis points to the complex power dynamics of mediation, suggesting that there are ‘uneasy passages' between neoliberalism and feminism, ones that help re‐signify the meaning of financial discourses while re‐politicizing women's social and economic exclusions. Simultaneously, however, this relation induces a series of compromises, whereby EEWs adopt neoliberal modes of governance. Rejecting the notion that contemporary feminism has simply been co‐opted by neoliberalism or the perception of EEW microfinance as a mere expansion of neoliberal rationalities, we reveal new sites and ways in which feminism both colludes and collides with neoliberalism.     

Writing resistance together

This piece of writing is a joint initiative by the participants in the Gender, Work and Organization writing workshop organized in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2019. This is a particular form of writing differently. We engage in collective writing and embody what it means to write resistance to established academic practices and conventions together. This is a form of emancipatory initiative where we care for each other as writers and as human beings. There are many author voices and we aim to keep the text open and dialogical. As such, this piece of writing is about suppressed thoughts and feelings that our collective picket line allows us to express. In order to maintain the open‐ended nature of the text, and perhaps also to retain some ‘dirtiness’ that is essential to writing, the article has not been language checked throughout by a native speaker of English.     

Feminism and science in Masters of Sex

This article examines the fictional characterization of the real-life sex researchers and scientists William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson in the Showtime television program Masters of Sex (2013–2016). The historical Johnson had a complicated relationship with second-wave feminism: she disdained the movement and was interested primarily in improving heterosexual marriages and the sex lives of married couples. The Johnson character speaks in a language of postfeminism with minimal interest in collective action and broader social change. However, second-wave feminists later used her and Masters’ research in order to support their own beliefs about sexual autonomy and freedom, within and beyond marriage and heterosexuality. The television program demonstrates Johnson’s importance to both phases of her and Masters’ research—in the first phase, when they are based in a hospital and university environment, and in the second, when they establish their own research institute and raise funds directly from the clients that they serve. Johnson exemplifies postfeminist depictions of ambitious women in prestige television, her aim to have a successful career and marriage conflict, and while she is willing to compromise scientific values to serve her own goals, her male colleagues temper that ambition in service of “objective” science.     

The risks and incentives of disciplinary neoliberal feminism: the case of microfinance

This article develops an analysis of the concept of disciplinary neo-liberal feminism through a focus on gendered poverty alleviation strategies and illustrates the value of this through a discussion of microfinance. By locating this study within an analysis of the expansion of global capital accumulation, the article argues that the liberal frameworks of female empowerment and entrepreneurialism that are central to these programs and to feminism in this form, mask their underlying political, social and economic objectives. In contrast, a Marxist Feminist approach more adequately explains the interplay of class and gender that underpins poverty alleviation strategies. This article argues that in the context of financial crisis and reduced social provision, women living in poverty in the Global South were identified as targets for the expansion of global finance. Their integration into global financial networks via microfinance and other pro-poor strategies has facilitated the expansion of markets for credit while at the same time disciplining market participation through the twin forces of risk and incentive. Disciplinary neo-liberal feminism has underpinned this incorporation of women into global capital accumulation creating profound effects for households and families, with microfinance programs representing important sites of contestation for the politics of class and gender.     

Feminist power and its implications on Uganda’s malaria communication campaign

This paper examines power and its manifestation in Uganda’s “Stop Malaria Campaign.” It specifically questions the apparent radical feminism, which is conceptualized as a quest for power, and how such excesses drive implementation of the campaign. The paper explains data collected through focus group discussions and key informant interviews using feminist communication theory as informed by the critical ideas of feminism and power. These three ideas help to put into perspective: domination of the campaign by one gender, interpretation of the campaign’s objectives to suit that one gender, and communication methods used in the campaign. Analysis of the above three processes shows that men are the weaker gender in the malaria prevention drive, an idea that has clashed with the existing male chauvinism on which several families still thrive in Africa. A view that radical feminism should be seen as an organized form of power that needs to be checked if Uganda’s malaria communication campaign is to be implemented successfully is herein proposed, along with some solutions to the challenges.     

Innocent victims,creepy boys: discursive framings of sexuality in online news coverage of the celebrity nude photo hack

Following the hack, theft, and digital dissemination of hundreds of nude celebrity photographs—colloquially referred to as “The Fappening”—in August 2014, online news sites filled with speculation about and commentary upon the actions of both the hackers and the celebrities. Through a critical discourse analysis of coverage of the female celebrities and hackers in six online news outlets this project presents “The Fappening” as a case study for better understanding the ways in which the media produces discourses about sexuality, particularly sexual deviancy and victimhood. The discourse surrounding this incident was inflected with feminist ideals. The celebrities were constructed as victims not only of the hack but of broader structural issues around women’s bodies, while the hackers and posters of the photos were derided as perverted, lonely thieves. Overall, the feminist leanings of the discourse around “The Fappening” indicate that the actions of the celebrities—that is, taking and privately sharing nude photographs—can be integrated into dominant understandings of sexuality, while the online communities that stole and shared their photos must be rejected. However, the coverage indicates that celebrities who use their sexual allure for publicity deserve their victimization, undermining the apparently progressive focus of the discourse.     

She persisted: the pursuit,persistence, & power of African American women in social work graduate programs at Historically Black Institutions (HBI)

Social work graduate programs have long grappled with ways to attract and retain students at the intersection of race and gender. The central structure of this analysis is a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study on the pursuit and persistence of African-American women in graduate Social Work programs at a Historically Black Institution (HBI). The data in this article were derived from the responses of 13 participants written in their own words. The themes that emerged around the pursuit of a social work degree were (a) service to Black communities, (b) resistance to misrecognition, and (c) a seat at the table. After sharing the salient characteristics of the findings, the article opens a discussion around the significance of HBIs in educating social workers to work in urban communities and the implications for policy and practice.     

Toward a gender politics of aging

The article proposes a Gender Politics of Aging approach to the study of aging societies. The approach recognizes the feminization of old age, ageism’s roots in sexist discourse, and the need to recognize the role of politics in driving demographic debates. Drawing together arguments from feminist gerontology and political demography, the article argues that the intersection of politics and gender must be considered if appropriate responses to an older, feminized demography are to be produced. I conclude that the work of aging feminists provides a rich vein of research and praxis from which a gender politics of aging approach can draw.     

论盖斯凯尔女性哥特小说中的幽灵、暴君和母亲

英国维多利亚时代女作家伊丽莎白·盖斯凯尔以当时流行的哥特文体，创作了短篇小说《老保姆的故事》《克拉雷会苦行修女》和《灰发女郎》等作品，塑造了痛苦的幽灵、专制的暴君和焦虑的母亲几种不同的人物形象，表达了她对女性命运的关注与思考。从女性哥特研究视角解读这些人物形象，可以清楚地看到：这几部一直未引起评论家重视的小说在人物塑造上很大程度反映了盖斯凯尔对男权社会的批判和对女性主义的坚持。