History lessons for gender equality from the Zambian Copperbelt, 1900–1990

This article explores the historical causes and consequences of gender divisions of labour in the Zambian Copperbelt. Male breadwinner and female housewife stereotypes appear to have emerged as a product of imported Christian ideologies, colonial–capitalist concerns and an economic climate that largely enabled men to financially provide for their families. Reliant upon husbands for status and economic support, many urban women had little conjugal bargaining power. Gender divisions of labour also meant that people lacked first-hand evidence of women’s equal competence in employment and politics, who they thus often underrated and overlooked. Such perceptions seem to have perpetuated women’s exclusion from prestigious positions – a pattern sustained by macro-economic circumstances in the early decades of Independence. Compliance with the gender status inequalities promoted in pre-marital traditional initiation thus became necessary to marital and economic security, as well as respectability, which was not previously the case. While there were exceptions to these trends, the historical record illustrates the interplay between patterns of resource access, internalised gender stereotypes and cultural expectations.     

Mundane mobilities,performances and spaces of tourism

The extension of information and communication technologies is purported to provide great opportunities for women, with the potential for empowerment and feminist activism. This paper contributes to the debate about women and cyberspace through a focus on the role of the internet in the lives of a group of technologically proficient, socially advantaged white heterosexual new mothers. The internet played a central role in providing virtual social support and alternative information sources which increased these women's real sense of empowerment in the transition to motherhood. Simultaneously, however, very traditional stereotypes of mothering and gender roles persisted. A paradox is evident whereby the internet was both liberating and constraining: it played an important social role for some women while at the same time it encouraged restrictive and unequal gender stereotypes in this particular community of practice. An examination of new virtual parenting spaces therefore has a contribution to make in understanding changing parenting practices in the new millennium.     

‘For the Elections,We Want Women!’: Closing the Gender Gap in Zambian Politics

This article examines the causes of women's rising political participation in Zambia. It argues that women's historical paucity in politics was largely the result of widely‐shared gender stereotypes. These are now weakening due to growing flexibility in gender divisions of labour, which has been catalysed by worsening economic security. By performing work previously presumed to be beyond their abilities and valorized because of its association with masculinity, such women are increasingly perceived as equally capable of leadership. This gradual erosion of gender beliefs has fostered women's political participation and leadership in Zambia.     

Queerly situated? Exploring negotiations of trans queer subjectivities at work and within community spaces in the UK

While traditional perspectives on transgender from some strands of feminism and within medical/psychoanalytical discourse have argued that transgender people conform to and reproduce gender stereotypes, queer theory has celebrated transgender as a site that highlights the social and cultural construction of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ and, moreover, as a symbol of transgressive gender possibility. Both of these readings ignore the complexities of lived trans experiences and identifications. By evaluating a queer reading of trans through recent empirical research into transgender identities, I suggest that while trans identifications certainly queer binary models of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’, such transgressions are materially, culturally, socially and spatially contingent. The article draws on empirical research to explore the ways in which access to queer subjectivities is constrained by, and negotiated alongside, the locales of the workplace and community spaces.     

Ideal Homes and the Gender Politics of Consumerism in Postcolonial Ghana, 1960–70

This article uses the 1967 Ideal Home Exhibition in Accra as a window onto understanding connections between gender and consumerism in postcolonial Ghana. Drawing upon newspapers, comics and novels, it argues that the home was placed at the centre of national debates about economic recovery and political stability. Major goals of attracting Western investors and building Ghana's private sector simultaneously promoted conservative gender roles and restrictions on consumer behaviour. Cultural stereotypes targeting the consumption habits of women and youth intensified in the postcolonial period, masking larger issues like unstable wages, increasing foreign debts, high costs of living and government corruption.     

Single Working-class Women and the City in Java and Vietnam

Through investigation into the lives of single migrant women who work as department store salesgirls in Surabaya and Ho Chi Minh City, this paper suggests that while commonalities exist with regard to their controlled use of beauty in the workplace, their lack of time and disposable income, and the temporary nature of their right to live in their respective cities as migrants, there are significant differences between them. These differences run contrary to conventional stereotypes of the “outspoken” Javanese woman and the “servile” Vietnamese woman, which in turn are based on stereotypes of the bilateral Southeast Asian kinship tradition and the patrilineal East Asian kinship tradition respectively. Taking into account the forces for and against conservative gender relations in both societies, this paper suggests that it is the Vietnamese working-class woman who exercises more power over how she lives in the city.     

Matters of Sex and Gender in F. J. Gall’s Organology: A Primary Approach

The originator of phrenology, F. J. Gall (1758–1828), saw himself as a natural scientist and physiologist. His approach consisted of brain anatomy but also of palpating skulls and inferring mental faculties. Unlike some of the philosophical principles underlying Gall’s work, his conception of sex/gender has not yet been examined in detail. In this article, I will focus on Gall’s treatment of men and women, his idea of sex differences, and how far an assumed existence of dichotomous sexes influenced his work. In examining his primary writings, I will argue that Gall held some contradictory views concerning the origin and manifestation of sex/gender characteristics, which were caused by the collision of his naturalistic ideas and internalized gender stereotypes. I will conclude that Gall did not aim at deducing or legitimizing sex/gender relations scientifically, but that he tried to express metaphysical reasons for a given social order in terms of functional brain mechanisms.     

践行性别或消解性别？——酒店女性职业人的性别建构和空间互动

本研究以性别理论与女性主义地理学研究为基础,深度访谈37位酒店女性职业人,试图解析女性职业人的性别建构和空间互动问题。研究发现：第一,酒店基层女性员工认为在工作场域中恰当地践行性别是其职业初期不断摸索和协商的重要事项;第二,消解性别并不是普遍存在的,中高层员工面临突破性别定势的困境;第三,到达酒店高层岗位的女性职业人通过家庭场域的消解性别,或弱化家庭和工作场域的性别矛盾而选择回归践行性别。女性职业人对与性别关联的规范和属性进行挑战和改变,诠释了不同空间和职业发展阶段中的性别规训与操演。     

American Girls and French Jeunes Filles: Negotiating National Identities in Interwar France

This essay is a transnational and comparative study of how gendered national stereotypes structured the experience of American women who studied in France in the 1920s and 1930s and how this cross‐cultural exchange contributed to cultural internationalism. In both the French and American popular imaginations, American girls and French jeunes filles connoted opposite modern and traditional notions of femininity. In the process of negotiating these two competing identities in popular consciousness and in daily life, some American women students came to appreciate the limitations of the stereotypes, as well as more complex underlying cultural differences, notably in their encounters with French youth's heterosocial practices and with French women students. I argue that the outcome of this process included women's construction of alternative identities for themselves and a new tolerance and appreciation for cultural difference that represents a distinctive development toward cultural internationalism. This study challenges the cultural asymmetry of United States and European relations between the wars and locates gender and women at their centre.     

Print and the Female Voice: Representations of Women's Crime in London, 1690–1735

Between 1690 and 1735, London experienced a female crime wave. This article examines how this female criminality was represented in the burgeoning world of popular crime literature. Traditional genres of print remained wedded to conventional gender stereotypes, but the new quasi-official genres of the  Old Bailey Proceedings  and the  Ordinary's Accounts  represented female thieves in first-person narratives which allowed the complex motivations for their crimes to be examined. These provided the background for Daniel Defoe's  Moll Flanders , and led to at least one accused criminal telling her story in her own publication. In the longer term, however, such representations of female theft did not proliferate.     

Childhood in the rural areas of Chile,intergenerational and gendered perspectives

ABSTRACT

This article triangulates intergenerational (childhood, adulthood, and old age) visions on the social representation of childhood in rural areas of Chile. These visions were considered within the framework of identity constructs (perceptions, social behaviours, preferences, and ambitions) and were compared against emerging transformations in the spheres of family, and gender relations. A qualitative methodology was used to analyse 68 individual interviews (41 children; 21 women old age; and 6 adult women). It was concluded that, in a context of globalization, rural boys and girls use modern, urban symbols and conform to traditional gender stereotypes. In a familial environment, rural children have acquired discursive protagonism in alliance with older women, a reality that conflicts with the conservative vision of middle-aged adults who have poor awareness regarding the participation of children. Contrasting visions exist between adult women and seniors concerning the responsibilities assigned to children in general and, particularly, to girls.     

The Nanjing Courtesan Ma Shouzhen (1548–1604): Gender,Space and Painting in the Late Ming Pleasure Quarter

The city of Nanjing in the late Ming period (1550–1644) was a bustling commercial and cultural centre. In its pleasure quarter along the Qinhuai River, literati and officials mingled with elite courtesans who, educated in painting, poetry and music, used their cultural capital in order enhance their visibility and sociability, and obtain the literati's patronage. The extraordinary gender relations of the entertainment district were specific to its socio‐historical environment, where courtesans, although still highly dependent on men, partook in the public scene and exceeded some gender stereotypes and Confucian values, as they owned material goods and enjoyed higher physical mobility than their female counterparts in the gentry. The geographical space shared by courtesans and literati was principally a social and intellectual space, where they generated cultural productions and established social practices. In order to explore the concepts of gender and space in urban settings, this article analyses the case of the as redundant elite courtesan Ma Shouzhen (1548–1604), who was a renowned painter and poetess. A close look at her case contributes to further understanding the construction of social space and expressions of gendered subjectivity in the southern metropolitan courtesan environment.     

‘She is but a Woman’: Kitty Byron and the English Edwardian Criminal Justice System

In 1902, Kitty Byron stabbed her cohabitee, Reginald Baker, on a public street. Though her murder was premeditated, and she was of a lower class than her married lover, Byron gained the sympathy of the press and public, primarily due to the gender failings of her partner. Based on the legal records of the Home Office and newspaper reports, this case study illustrates the limitations of the criminal justice system in dealing with women's violence, especially in an age of increasingly sensational press coverage. The courts showed surprising sympathy to a ‘fallen’ woman, but at the cost of simplifying her story, confirming misogynist stereotypes and underestimating the danger she posed.     

Nationalism and Sexuality,What are the Issues?

Abstract. This article attempts to clarify in a systematic fashion the relationship between nationalism and sexuality. Whilst a relationship is now generally recognised between the two phenomena, it has been neglected relative to other issues. There are genuine reasons for this, the relationship being fraught with conceptual and empirical problems. Such problems are evident in the writings to date directly on nationalism and sexuality. This discussion attempts to initially disentangle racism and gender from nationalism and sexuality, respectively, before outlining what I consider to be the three major intersections: national sexual stereotypes, sexuality in national conflict and sexuality in nation-building. Each of the intersections are indicated by an assessment of their conceptual relationship, and illustrated by various historical instances.     

Negotiating Femininity: Women and representation in emergency employment in Peru

This article analyses the contradictory nature of the 'new space' created by women working in emergency employment programmes in Peru. It focuses on the different forms of opposition towards this new space and illustrates the mechanisms women have used in order to negotiate their place within it. The article briefly outlines the role played by the Peruvian state in legitimating this new space for women and argues that with the representations women make of themselves, of other workers, and of their workplace, these employees take strategic steps in forging new femininities. Empirical evidence is used to show how women simultaneously identify difference and commonality with their fellow female workers. In theoretical terms, the implications of these processes are examined in the context of the reproduction and subversion of stereotypes and the contestation of dominant gendered ideologies in Peru. The article examines how the reproduction and subversion of stereotypes involves the manipulation of binary categories of 'good' and 'bad' women. It argues that strategic representations, in everyday contexts, are vital to the renegotiation of femininities. It introduces the notions of 'strategic representations' and 'contradictory spaces' to examine some of the debates concerning the role of 'survival strategies' in gender and development analysis.     

‘Generous Amazons Came to the Breach’: Besieged Women,Agency and Subjectivity during the French Wars of Religion

Gender studies of violence have forced scholars to rethink the association of femininity with ‘vulnerability’ and the objectivisation of women as mute victims of organised violence and oppression, incapable of agency. Recent debates about the role women and homosexuals should play in military systems in the United States and other countries have sparked a renewed interest in exploring historical contexts of the relationships between gender and organised violence. If we consider violence as a performative act, whole new dimensions of gendered aspects of the history of violence and warfare emerge. In this article, I intend to draw on my research on gender, honour, and violence during the French Wars of Religion to explore the roles played by Protestant and Catholic women in southern France during siege operations. These besieged women acted to support their coreligionists by participating in the conflicts as healers, suppliers and even combatants. Besieged women were considered ‘vulnerable’ in sieges, yet their involvement in siege operations challenged contemporary gender stereotypes, threatened social norms and opened new potential cultural possibilities for these women. I hope to show how the discourses on violence, bodies, revolt and religion shaped the tough choices that confronted these women as they participated actively in civil violence. The besieged women in southern France, I believe, are key to understanding the dynamics of gender and warfare and the ways in which women have actively participated in violence – especially in cases of civil violence where the status of the body politic was thrown into question.     

‘A Wigwam to Westminster’: Performing Mohawk Identity in Imperial Britain, 1890s–1990s

This article examines the travels and appearances of Canadian Mohawk writers, lecturers, and performers E. Pauline Johnson and John Brant‐Sero, who appeared in Britain as self‐identified Mohawks, Canadians, and members of the British Empire during the late‐Victorian and Edwardian years of heightened imperial sentiment. The article draws upon feminist scholarship on performance, imperialism, and culture and consumption for the late‐Victorian and Edwardian period. It argues that, while Johnson and Brant‐Sero challenged stereotypes of Mohawk gender relations, they also were part of imperialist modernity; their gendered ‘performances’– on and off‐stage – must be analysed within the context of the gendered cultures of consumption and performance of late‐Victorian and Edwardian British society.     

Narrating intersections of gender and dwarfism in everyday spaces

Dwarfs, midgets, even freaks, are among the terms that have been used to label little people. Feminist theorists have argued that discursive identities of women prevent any meaningful essentialised analysis of their experiences. Similarly, disability researchers have argued against generalising the experiences of disabled individuals. This paper explores the intersection of gender and dwarfism through the narratives of four women who are little people. Findings suggest that the ways women, who are little people, negotiate public spaces are affected by discourses of gender, disability and common conceptions of what is physically normal. Furthermore, these discourses have material implications in the everyday lives of these women. A brief historical overview of dwarfism is followed by narratives that describe experiences in public spaces, perceptions of height related to age and capability, gendered spaces and sexual stereotypes, uncomfortable spaces, violations of personal space and transportation. This paper provides a partial perspective on how discourses of dwarfism are manifest in social spaces and the built environment. Despite these significant commonalities that little people shared with other disabled people, there are socio‐spatial experiences that appear to be unique to people with dwarfism .     

Pray the gay away: identity conflict between Christianity and sexuality in Hong Kong sexual minorities

Recognition and respect for sexual minorities in Hong Kong is still a contested area. Public sexual identity politics in Hong Kong has been framed by traditional Chinese gender ideology and imported Christian beliefs which are profoundly negative. Focusing on the interpersonal relationships in three spheres of life, the research adopted the sociological perspective of personal life and the feminist geographers’ idea of spatialization of identity management to analyze how the sexual self of sexual minorities has been marginalized and excluded in intimate social spaces of family, church communities and schools in Hong Kong with specific spatial practices and different forms of power/knowledge. By examining overlooked intimate injustice in personal life, this study illustrates that identity conflicts between Christianity and non-heterosexuality in everyday life is constructed through misrepresentation, misrecognition, harassment and exclusion in intimate relationships. Different types of knowledge are being used to reiterate pre-existing norms and institutionalized patterns of cultural value that constitute the sexual minorities as comparatively unworthy of respect. These micro-political processes involve both conformity and resistance to gender and sexual stereotypes. Participants managed to develop spatial coping strategies such as concealment, compartmentalization, confrontation and alternative sources of support to manage their lives with dignity and self-esteem.     

Indian Messiah: The Attraction of Meher Baba to British Audiences in the 1930s

This article considers the British reception of Meher Baba, an Indian religious figure, who first travelled to Britain in 1931. Following a tradition of Indian religious figures who toured Britain and America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Baba was removed from organised religion and placed emphasis on self‐realisation, and attracted large British followings notably dominated by women. This article argues that the 1930s witnessed a continuing interest in Indian religious figures and adherence to Orientalist stereotypes about Indian religiosity despite changing political dynamics. Exploring a range of public and private responses to Baba, following comparison with his contemporary Jiddu Krishnamurti, and discussing the role of British mediators Paul Brunton and Francis Younghusband, this article explores British impressions of Indian religious figures in the 1930s and how they were informed by notions of race, religiosity, and gender.