A mother's gift? Astrology and the pyxis of al-Mughīra

ABSTRACT

This article re-examines the most celebrated, and most controversial, of the Cordoban ivories, the al-Mughīra pyxis, from a perspective of gender and kinship relations within the court hierarchy. It proposes an alternative patron for this object, namely al-Mughīra's mother al-Mushtaq, a consort of the Cordoban Umayyad caliph ?Abd al-Rahmān III (r. 929–61) in the latter years of his life, and a patron of architecture. The article suggests astronomical and astrological possibilities for interpreting the pyxis’ unusual iconography, which arise from considering al-Mushtaq as a potential patron of the al-Mughīra pyxis. Key to the argument is the notion that women in the Cordoban court were ‘makers’ of art and architecture, in that they could and did exercise authority through artistic patronage.     

‘Unlike Vancouver … here there’s nothing’: imagined geographies of idealized health care for LGBTQ women

This article explores imagined geographies of health care among Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) women in Halifax and Vancouver. In expressing the possibilities and limitations of accessing care, participants frame their own experiences through spatialized narratives of how LGBTQ people are thought to be treated elsewhere. Participants’ explicit connections and distinctions between Halifax and Vancouver gave insight into how their perceived difficulties in one health care context are sometimes framed by imagining more ease in accessing care in the other. We explore here the implications of these imagined, idealized spaces, which may set up false expectations that things are always better elsewhere. We reveal imagined geographies and senses of place as highly relevant features in LGBTQ women’s accounts of experiences with and access to health care and expand conventional arguments about physical access to care.     

Who we are at work: millennial women,everyday inequalities and insecure work

Based on research with millennial women in Canada, this article examines the process of workplace identity, or (un)conscious strategies of identity management that young women employ at work. First, despite increasing labour market participation from women, young women’s experience of the workplace can be one of precarity and insecurity. Many millennial women have responded with a ‘positive front’ – saying yes to all work tasks while highlighting their likability and acceptance of the status quo. This is not seen as a permanent strategy, but rather one that gets you into the workplace and ‘liked’ until your work speaks for itself. Second, and operating at the same time, young women also use tactics to confront intersections of ageism/sexism in the workplace. While some employ conscious strategies to be ‘taken seriously’ through dress, small talk, even taking on stereotypical traits of masculinity to be recognized as competent, others explicitly confront inequality through ‘girlie feminism’ with a pro-femininity work identity that challenges the masculine-coded norms of how a successful workplace operates and what it looks like. In jobs of all types, who we are at work is a constantly shifting negotiation between how we are treated and seen by others, the workplace as a social space, our past experiences and our own expectations. Considering young women’s work identities reveals how power and privilege operate in the workplace, and the possibilities of young women’s agential challenges to inequitable workplace norms and a precarious labour market.     

The Swedish journal Morgonbris on political violence in Finland 1917–1918

Women participated actively in the Finnish Civil War in January 1918–April 1918. The radicalization of the Finnish Social Democratic Party and the embracing of a revolutionary discourse sent tremors also to Sweden. In this article, I investigate how the Swedish Social Democratic women’s journal Morgonbris addresses women’s political violence in the period surrounding the Russian Revolution in March 1917, the October 1917 Bolshevik takeover and the following Civil War in Finland early 1918.

Morgonbris did not shun from reporting or debating women’s political violence, however, as this article shows there is a great discrepancy between how different acts of violence are understood in the greater discourse. Some violence, and especially some acts of violence committed by women, is clearly framed as more legitimate than others.     

UNION DISCUSSIONS OF GENDER EQUALITY IN THE SWEDISH TRADE UNION NEWSPAPER JOURNALISTEN, 1961–1989

Sweden is arguably one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, and the historical development of that equality has been studied in detail. However, less is known about how the idea of gender equality was adopted in different professional spheres. In this article, I focus on this topic by using one profession, journalism, to analyse how gender equality was placed on the trade union agenda and negotiated in Sweden between 1961 and 1989. Drawing on a framing analysis of the discussion of gender equality in the trade union newspaper Journalisten, I argue that the Swedish Union of Journalists and its members took a somewhat moderate position in the struggle for gender equality, which, during the decades in question, was mostly framed as a women’s question. For the most active advocates of gender equality, it was nevertheless a deeply felt issue, and their work can be defined as trade union feminism.     

Giving women a voice on decision-making about water: barriers and opportunities in Laikipia,Kenya

In more than 75% of households around the world in which water needs are fulfilled by retrieving water, women are typically tasked with this critical responsibility. This is true in Kenya, and the challenges women in rural areas of the country face are compounded by a lack of reasonable access to safe water by 56.5% of rural households. More than 25% of the population must travel at least 30?minutes to collect water, and 70% of all diseases in the country are water-borne (Kameri-Mbote and Kariuki 2015). Given their role as the primary household decision-maker about water, women have an astute understanding of water availability, access, quality and household use, and women’s perspectives would enhance decision-making in groups that address water resource management. However, women have historically been marginalized from participation in such processes for numerous reasons related to lack of empowerment, leadership, and voice, and the practicalities of the demands on her time that prevent her from having discretionary time to devote to civic processes. In this study, we interviewed 153 women living in three different watersheds in the Laikipia region of central Kenya about their views on water resource management, and interest in participation in water resource user associations (WRUAs) as members and leaders. Our results are consistent with prior research in that marginalization of women from WRUA participation is steeped in entrenched normative beliefs and behaviors about women’s roles and her domestic responsibilities, a lack of money to participate, and a lack of time given her other responsibilities.     

Kaleidoscopes of violence against indigenous women (VAIW) in Colombia: the experiences of Pan-Amazonian women

This article presents the life stories of six indigenous women from the Amazonian region, who coordinate local women processes through indigenous organizations and networks. Since the political and legal visibility of violence against indigenous women in Colombia is weak and limited, we aim to analyze their experiences from an intersectional perspective. For this purpose, we employed multiple methodologies, including body mapping and social cartography. Thus, by reconstructing their experiences and attempts to make visible violence against them, we could perceive some of its multiple modalities, which are quickly captured by the great category.     

Gender relations in Bedouin communities in Israel: local government as a site of ambivalent modernity

In this article, we examine the perceptions towards women and gender relations maintained by male, local authority officials within two Bedouin towns in Israel. As such, the current research lies at the intersection of local politics, gender, space and culture. We argue that analysis of these perspectives provides insights into the ambivalent nature of modernity: into the tension between the desire to preserve the traditional role of women in maintaining the family, and the recognition of the powerful potential of women to act as agents of change. Based on an analysis of personal interviews, the study traces the ways in which both power and vulnerability impact the attitudes and perspectives of these men officials. By applying narrative analysis, gendered power structures are examined within Bedouin society in the context of the local authority – zooming in on the narratives provided by the male authority officials. The findings reveal that the officials maintain a series of ambivalent and conflictual attitudes towards the role of women. Bearing in mind their potential impact on the quality of women's daily lives in local public spaces, it seems vitally important to account for the entire matrix of tensions and vulnerabilities that impact the municipal policy instruments at their disposal. The findings are relevant beyond the Bedouin communities in Israel and may serve as a platform for a wider discussion of the dilemmas of minority women in rapidly changing cultural environments, and ambivalent modernity.     

Turning International: Foundations of Modern International Thought and New Paradigms for Intellectual History

Summary

This essay provides an overview of the disciplinary and analytical significance of David Armitage's Foundations of Modern International Thought in the context of the new international history, and the so-called ‘international turn’. It then goes on to discuss the significance of the absence of women in this new sub-field of intellectual history.