Feminist Sociology

Feminism In Theology By Andrew Tripp

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

At the outset, I need to name and own my identities as a large white male. I have privilege and voice that makes me... more At the outset, I need to name and own my identities as a large white male. I have privilege and voice that makes me hesitant to even write to the audience of this blog. While I consider myself a feminist, I have met some who have told me that as a man I cannot be a feminist. Such folks have told me that I lack the existential knowledge of the systemic pressure put on women, and at best I can be an ally.  With that said, if it was not for feminism in theology, I do not know if I could be a theologian.

Feminism In Theology By Andrew Tripp

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

At the outset, I need to name and own my identities as a large white male. I have privilege and voice that makes me... more At the outset, I need to name and own my identities as a large white male. I have privilege and voice that makes me hesitant to even write to the audience of this blog. While I consider myself a feminist, I have met some who have told me that as a man I cannot be a feminist. Such folks have told me that I lack the existential knowledge of the systemic pressure put on women, and at best I can be an ally.  With that said, if it was not for feminism in theology, I do not know if I could be a theologian.

Waking up Muslim on 9/11 by Jameelah Medina

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

I have often stated that I went to sleep as an African American woman on September 10, 2011 and woke up Muslim on... more I have often stated that I went to sleep as an African American woman on September 10, 2011 and woke up Muslim on 9/11. It may seem odd to say this since I am a third-generation Muslim; however, my reason for doing so is that my life as an American Muslim now has two main eras: 1) pre-9/11 and 2) post-9/11.

In the pre-9/11 era of my life, I felt more black than Muslim because my color was a point of conflict and controversy throughout my life. I grew up in two areas as a child—an urban area with majority Latinos/as and then in a very rural area with majority whites. In both areas, being black was not so popular. I was called “mayate,”which is a bug but also the Mexican term for “nigger.” I was also called, “tar baby,” “nigger,” “African booty scratcher,” and a host of other hurtful names as a young black child.

WOMEN ARE NOT SLUTS, RUSH, DOUCHE-BAG IS NOT FUNNY, JON, AND SEXISM IS MORE THAN “INAPPROPRIATE,” MR. WHITEHOUSE SPOKESPERSON! by Carol P. Christ

by Feminism and Religion

Originally published on the Feminism and Religion project

Why is it OK to insult women, our bodies, and our sexuality in ways that it is no longer OK to insult other groups?more Why is it OK to insult women, our bodies, and our sexuality in ways that it is no longer OK to insult other groups?

The recent controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s rant about Sandra Fluke would not be so important if Limbaugh were not the “voice” allowed to say things that Republican politicians cannot say in public. Republican politicians wish to appeal to men who would say exactly what Rush said, while watching Fox News or over a beer with their buddies.

The Virgin-Whore split is alive and well in our culture. Sandra Fluke  finally did get to testify in a hearing called by Nancy Pelosi.  She  assumed a woman’s right to choose when and with whom we have sex and whether and when we will have children, but she did not focus on sexual freedom. One of her examples was a married woman who could not afford birth control and another was a woman who needed birth control pills for reasons having nothing to do with sex or sexual activity. She did not appear in Congress in a mini-skirt (though she should have had every right to do so) but in a business suit. Yet she was called a slut and a prostitute and asked to post porno films of herself on the internet.

Marta Kolářová: Protest against Globalization. Gender and Feminist Critique (Book Review)

by Ľubica Kobová

The book review was orginally published in Slovak Sociological Review 3/2010 (Spring), pp. 280-284. The journal is available at http://www.ceeol.com/.

Book review of Marta Kolářová: Protest proti globalizaci: gender a feministická kritika [Protest Against... more Book review of Marta Kolářová: Protest proti globalizaci: gender a feministická kritika [Protest Against Globalization: Gender and Feminist Critique]. Published by Sociologické nakladatelství (SLON), Prague, 2009, 253 pp.

You dont train for a marathon by sitting on the couch: Performances of pregnancy 'fitnes' and 'good' motherhood in Melbourne, Australia

by Meredith Nash

This article explores informants' negotiations around the performance of pregnancy “fitness” and “good” mothering... more This article explores informants' negotiations around the performance of pregnancy “fitness” and “good” mothering through exercise. Although exercise has been discussed as a way to “empower” middle-class women, I suggest that this position is problematic in its co-optation of the language of “feminism” and also in its lived experience. For my pregnant informants, “liberation” through exercise was clearly contradictory. In this article, I argue that pregnant women are encouraged to embody a “fit” pregnancy. Findings suggest that there is no time in a woman's life when she is “free” to be inactive; she must constantly engage in a high-level of physical activity to maintain an appropriately feminine body and to prove her “self” “publicly” as capable.

'Working out’ for two: performances of ‘fitness’ and femininity in Australian prenatal aerobics classes

by Meredith Nash

In this article, I consider the distinctly classed places/spaces in which affluent Australian pregnant women... more In this article, I consider the distinctly classed places/spaces in which affluent Australian pregnant women physically maintain their bodies through aerobics. The case study described is drawn from data obtained between 2006 and 2008 in a longitudinal study examining feelings about body image and ‘fatness’ in a sample of pregnant women in Melbourne, Australia. The ways in which pregnant bodies are disciplined within gym spaces are discussed through a case study of a prenatal fitness centre, FitForTwo, and drawing on narrative data of pregnant informants. FitForTwo is described as a primary site for the performance of ‘fit’ pregnancy and underscored by bodies that can be shaped, trained, moulded and modified. This case study is analysed against a backdrop of a growing Australian moral panics about ‘fighting’ maternal obesity. It adds to a body of feminist geographical and qualitative studies of pregnancy, bringing both a more sustained, longitudinal analysis than previously offered, and an Australian context that offers rich comparative material.

Brides n' bumps: A critical look at bridal pregnancy identities, maternity wedding dresses, and post-feminism

by Meredith Nash

Published in Feminist Media Studies

This paper accounts for the rise of a monolithic contemporary post-feminist pregnant bridal identity that is upheld... more This paper accounts for the rise of a monolithic contemporary post-feminist pregnant bridal identity that is upheld and sold as the “ultimate” pleasure of femininity in Australia, the US, and the UK. I shall critically analyse the enfranchisement of the contemporary pregnant bride as a “new” consumer identity using the purchase of a maternity wedding dress as a key example. I argue that as pregnancy is already an experience deeply embedded in the marketplace, with this comes the added pressure for pregnant women to use bridal maternity clothing to conform to normative feminine bodily ideals. This claim is supported by interviews with a sample of Australian pregnant brides as part of a longitudinal qualitative study of pregnancy and body image. I conclude that as much as the pregnant bride challenges convention, in many ways, paradigms of femininity, in this context, remain ultimately unchanged and unchallenged.

'YOUR SWORDS DO NOT CONCERN ME AT ALL': THE LIBERATION THEOLOGY OF ISLAMIC CHRISTIANITY

by Duane Alexander Miller

Published in St Francis Magazine, Vol 7:2, April 2011, pp 228-260.

In this article the author argues that contextual theology is not created by outsiders, but by insiders. He finds in... more In this article the author argues that contextual theology is not created by outsiders, but by insiders. He finds in the conversion narratives and poems of ex-Muslim Christians theological texts, which he then analyzes.

Disability and Neoliberal State Formations.

by Karen Soldatic

Soldatic, K. and Meekosha, H. (2012) Disability and Neoliberal State Formations. In N. Watson, A. Roulstone and C. Thomas. Routledge Handbook of Disability Studies, London, Routledge, Chapter 15.

Keeping It Real

by Sharon RedHawk Love

The mother/researcher in blurred boundaries of a reflexive research process

by Chrissie Rogers

Researching from the inside out can be challenging yet a rewarding and valid process. This paper specifically engages... more Researching from the inside out can be challenging yet a rewarding and valid process. This paper specifically engages with a reflexive research process as a feminist. I propose that there is space within sociological research for biographical interludes even though I still question where I am in this research process and should I even be there? This paper is about where „my selves. are in this research process among the mothers and fathers interviewed. Our common ground is that of parenting a child with learning difficulties. I identify with feminists, mothers, and parents and my narrative is similar to some of those who I have interviewed. I draw attention to these issues and remind others and myself that when you start the research process however many books on interviewing techniques and methodology you have read your own personal response to „others. narratives can affect your research process. The results of this paper illustrate both the difficulties and the advantages of researching from the „inside. in an attempt to move forward with this emotional/creative and illuminating methodology much varied knowledge can be gained about the gendered and differentiated social world.

A Personal Journey of Embodiment by Stacia Guzzo

by Feminism and Religion

originally published on the Feminism and Religion Project.

My struggle and fascination with the subject of embodiment began at a young age. Perhaps my first sense of the nuances... more My struggle and fascination with the subject of embodiment began at a young age. Perhaps my first sense of the nuances of being an embodied being began with the realization that my younger brother was considered “different” as a result of being born microcephalic (having an abnormally small head and brain) and therefore having lifelong developmental delay. I remember wondering: How is it that the body can work so perfectly sometimes and yet have so many complications other times? What had happened to make his development so starkly contrast my own? And why can’t it fix itself?

As a high school student, my struggle manifested in the forms of anorexia and bulimia. The anorexia came first, and began almost as if a switch had been thrown. I dieted severely and dropped 60 pounds in a little under 3 months, in the end making it a goal to lose a pound a day. My cheeks sunk in. I slept through lunch. I found little occasion to laugh. And still I could not see an ounce of beauty or satisfaction when I looked at my body. I poked at the jutting bones of my pelvis and wished my bones were smaller. I saw my body as a devious enemy. During my junior year, I became bulimic as a means of coping with increasing pressures by family and friends to eat.

Finally during my senior year in high school, everything came to a head. After beginning to consistently throw up blood, I secretly arranged a meeting with my pediatrician. She made me give her my word that I would put an end to my bulimia…and just as abruptly as I began, I stopped, true to my word.

In my freshman year of college I was sexually assaulted by a member of our social group. I told few people and silently cursed my femininity. College was a time when I neither loved nor hated my body; rather, I simply disconnected from it.

Continue reading: http://feminismandreligion.com/2012/01/10/a-personal-journey-of-embodiment-by-stacia-guzzo/#more-2112

A Next Wave of Scholarship by Kwok Pui Lan

by Feminism and Religion

Published in the Feminism and Religion Project

I came to the United States in 1984 to begin my doctoral studies at Harvard Divinity School. It was an exciting time... more I came to the United States in 1984 to begin my doctoral studies at Harvard Divinity School. It was an exciting time to do feminist theology and religious studies. Womanist ethics just began to emerge, as Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon has just completed a dissertation on the subject at Union Theological Seminary in 1983. I count it as a blessing that she was teaching at the Episcopal Divinity School, just on the other side of the Cambridge Common.

The mid-1980s saw the paradigm shifts in feminist studies in religion, as womanist, mujerista/Latina, Asian and Asian American women began to articulate their own theological understanding. If Womanspirit Rising (1979) was a reference text for our field, which contained essays by white women, we had the first reader by radical women of color, This Bridge Called Our Back(1981).
(continue reading online)

Zombie esthetics or how to survive the trauma that has always been eating our brains

by Joyce Burstein

M/E/A/N/I/N/G 25th Anniversary Edition, edited by Susan Bee and Mira Schor

Feminist Music By Gina Messina-Dysert

by Feminism and Religion

Last week Caroline Kline shared the article “Feminist Films” and discussed the Bechdel Test as a way to identify... more Last week Caroline Kline shared the article “Feminist Films” and discussed the Bechdel Test as a way to identify whether or not a film is feminist.  It left me wondering – can we identify music as feminist in the same way?  Music generally does not offer dialogue between two women.  But there are instances where we find two women singing together about feminist issues like the 80’s classic “Sisters are Doin’ it for Themselves.”  There are also women singing about or to women, like Juliana Hatfield’s “My Sister.” And there is music that acknowledges women’s struggles as women like Ani Difranco’s “I’m No Heroine,” No Doubt’s “I’m Just a Girl,” and Pink’s “Stupid Girls”.    But is this the only way to identify feminist music? 

Traversing Hegemony: Gender, Body and Identity in the Narratives of Israeli Female Israeli Backpackers

by Chaim Noy

Special Issue titled Female Travelers II. Tourism Review International, 12(2): 93-114. (2008).

AFRICAN WOMEN: REFLECTIONS ON THE PERILS OF UNWARRANTED COSMOPOLITANISM

by Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome

Globalization, feminism & power an african perspective

by Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome

LISTENING TO AFRICA, MISUNDERSTANDING AND MISINTERPRETING AFRICA: REFORMIST WESTERN FEMINIST EVANGELISM ON AFRICAN …

by Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome