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Abstracts
of Papers Presented at the 4th Conference of the Federation:
11-14 August 2003, Queen's University Belfast
Arranged By Surname:
Q - Z
Marian
Quartly (Monash University, Australia)
Yossef Rapoport (West
End Lane, London, UK)
Jacqueline Ravelomanana (University of Antanrario, Madagascar)
Bharati Ray (Calcutta,
India)
Linda
Reeder (University of Missouri-Columbia, USA)
Maria José Remédios
and Áurea Adão
(Universidade Lusofona e Technologias, Portugal)
Jane Rothstein (New
York University, USA)
Judith Rowbotham (Nottingham Trent University, UK)
Louise Ryan (University College, London, UK)
Lynn Sacco (University
of California Santa Barbara, USA)
Alice
Sanger (University of Manchester, UK)
Egami Sachiko (Ferris Women's University, Japan)
J
Pamela
Sharpe (University of Western Australia)
Verene Shepherd (University
of the West Indies, Mona)
Shmuel
Shilo (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel)
Beverley Shirley (University
of West Indies, Mona)
Igor Shkolnikov (Ivanovo State University,
Russia)
Olga Shnyrova
(Ivanovo State University Russia)
Elizabeth
Smyth (University of Toronto, Canada)
Yuko Takahashi
(Tsuda College, Japan)
Margaret
Tennant (Massey University, New Zealand)
Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert
(University of Bristol, UK)
Cornelie Usborne (University
of Surrey Roehampton, UK)
Miranda
Walker (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Angela Wanhalla (University
of Canterbury, New Zealand)
Bernadette Whelan (University of Limerick, Ireland)
Merry Wiesner-Hanks (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA)
Maria Wolf (University
of Innsbruck, Austria)
Akiko Yoshie (Teikyo University,
Japan)
Irina Yukina (St Petersburg,
Russia)
Edith Zack (Bar Ilan University, Israel)
Venera Zakirova (Socio-Psychology Center "Family
Service" and Bashkir State University, Bashkortostan Republic, Ufa, Russia)
Marian Quartly (Monash University, Australia): ‘ 'The Time is Not Yet Ripe': The Australian Women's National League and Modernity, 1903-1922
The elite women who founded the Australian Women's National League in the political
interests of the ruling class did so in conscious reaction to the mobilisation
both of middle class women by liberal suffragists, and of labouring men and
women by the Australian Labor Party. Historians and contemporary critics have
always painted the League’s politics as reactionary, or at best staunchly
conservative. Certainly their early formulation of women’s citizenship
was effectively limited to the defence of home and motherhood against socialism
and free love. But the League is marked as modern by their management of the
mass electorate and their manipulation of candidate pre-selection. By the end
of the war they were calling for electoral reform: preferential voting and proportional
representation. Their idea of the 'modern woman' expanded to embrace a female
bureaucracy and female representation on government agencies and municipal councils
- though not yet in state and federal parliaments. And the impact of war and
social schism led some vocal members to advocate full-blown progressivism: gendered
equality and harmony of class interests within a state actively organised for
national efficiency. But others still reacted with caution; 'The Time Is Not
Yet Ripe'.
Yossef Rapoport (West End Lane, London, UK):
Sources of Patriarchal Authority in the Late Medieval Near East: From Repudiation
to Regulation
In the medieval Islamic Near East, divorce and patriarchy were inseparable. Contemporary chronicles and collections of fatwas of the Mamluk period demonstrate that the prerogative of unilateral repudiation was the single most important element of marital authority. For women divorce was considered to be a social and economic disaster; even if they remarried, they were in danger of losing custody over their children. Although social realities did not always correspond to this patriarchal ideal, divorce remained associated with unilateral repudiation until the late medieval period. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, however, one can perceive a shift in the foundations of patriarchal authority. On the one hand, the rich literary sources of late fifteenth century Cairo and Damascus depict divorce as a more balanced affair, in which women very often had their say. On the other hand, we also find a much closer regulation of family life by the courts, and especially by the courts of military officials. The growing intervention meant both increasing protection for abused women as well as state enforcement of marital authority. In the last decades of the fifteenth century we find, apparently for the first time, husbands who turn to state officials and ask for their help in disciplining their wives. Taking as an example a key case of adultery from the early sixteenth century, I will argue that, in sharp contrast to the medieval tradition, the state had now attempted to actively and directly impose its own version of patriarchy; in this sense, at least, the late medieval state had begun to resemble an early modern one.
Rosemary Raughter (University College, Dublin, Ireland):
Putting a Stop to Barbarity and Murder: Lady Arbella Denny and the Dublin
Foundling Hospital, 1758-78
In the decades fo1lowing the establishment of the Dublin Foundling Hospital, a succession of parliamentary committees reported unacceptably high mortality rates, abuse and neglect of the children in the institution, and corruption in its management. An exception to the almost universal disregard of such reports was Lady Arbella Denny's intervention in the Hospital's affairs, an initiative which she justified by the argument that “the wants of young children the negligence of nurses, and the general management of such an institution" fell decisively within the conventional female "sphere of observation". For twenty years, beginning in 1758, Denny supervised the day-to-day running of the institution and introduced a range of reforms which according to a contemporary "put a stop to barbarity and murder and saved the life of thousands". This paper will consider attitudes to illegitimate and foundling children in 18th-century Ireland as reflected in the regime within the Foundling Hospital and in the lack of any sustained demand for reform of the institution. It will also assess Denny's achievement, the factors which may have motivated her initial involvement, the effectiveness of the innovations which she introduced, and her claim to be considered a pioneer, both in the field of child care and in the creation of a public role for women.
Jacqueline Ravelomanana (University of Antanrario,
Madagascar): Women in Madagascar Society
My paper is about the history of Malagasy women throughout the ages, or rather
the image of the Malagasy woman. The people of Madagascar have always tried
to produce a certain feminine ideal. I'll concentrate on the period from the
sixteenth century to the present day.My analysis falls into three major periods:
-The first period covers the legendary age when creation myths helped to define
everything that served both the traditional environment (the physical world:
'TONTOLO IAINANA' and the cosmos) and its institutions. Woman, daughter of God,
descended from heaven, is the centre of the world (ANDRIAMBAVILANITRA).
-The second period begins with the establishment of the kingdoms in the sixteenth
century and ends at the close of the nineteenth century with the arrival of
the French and the beginning of colonization. Malagasy women have an ambivalent
role. Woman remains the centre of the world, the heavenly princess, for she
has this power (VIRTUS, UTIS) the HASINA which will allow some rash warriors
to consolidate their political power. Thus religious and political powers are
intertwined due to woman's HASINA. Also, kings and rulers (the ANDRIAMABAHOAKA)
become gods or demigods (ZANAHARY AN-TANY). As for women, they become a form
of currency, while remaining the guardians of tradition.
-The nineteenth century was a period of torment for the Malagasy people. Madagascar
felt the consequences of the cultural and industrial revolutions of the West,
with imperialism on the one hand. On the other hand internal politics of unification
by Sakalava rulers, then Merina rulers, had dragged the country into tribal
warfare for about three hundred years. The role of `warrior' predominated and
women played a lesser part.
-The third period can be divided into three sub-sections:
- From 1896 (beginning of French colonization) to 1960 (independence). Malagasy
women keep their traditional role of mother and guardian of tradition. Colonization
takes advantage of this status.
-1960 to 1991: Malagasy women and men alike are overwhelmed by unfortunate experiments
in `socialization and socialism'. Women are weakened in relation to men. -1991
onwards. Malagasy women, like their sisters everywhere, have to face up to universal
problems and problems which are becoming universal: being educated, healthy,
qualified for a job and reconciling all those things with their role as mother.
This paper will be presented in French.
Bharati Ray (Calcutta,
India): On Women and Family: Bamabodhini Patrika
I have chosen in this article to focus on the Bamabodhini Patrika, literally
the Journal for the Enlightenment of Women,, because it commands a crucial position
as a source for the writing of social history, especially women's history, in
the nineteenth and the early twentieth century colonial Bengal. In the first
place, it was the first journal in Bengal, in fact in India, meant only for
women, and it survived for sixty years from 1863 to 1922, indicating its continued
popularity with readers. Second, it appeared at a historical moment, when the
indigenous culture of Bengal was faced with a challenge from the Western civilization.
The colonial power, having won the political battle, was threatening a cultural
conquest. Western influence and belief systems were about to penetrate the homes
of Bengali men. In the conflict between the colonial culture and the culture
of the colonized, what role were women expected to play? How did men perceive
the formidable challenge to their roots, the crisis of values, and the position
of women in the changing world? Why did they feel the need for women's education,
and to what purpose? How did they plan to utilize the services of women as a
bulwark against the cultural onslaught on their most sacred place, the home?
All these are mirrored in the Bamabodhini Patrika. Third, and most important,
the journal reflected the contemporary construction of women not only by men
but also by women themselves. It is the first documented evidence in Bengal
of women's thinking about women. Well-known female authors contributed to the
journal. But of much greater significance were the compositions of not-so-well-known
authors. The journal from the very start published writings by women. There
was a special section entitled 'Bamarachana' (women's writings) for encouraging
the newly educated women to take up the pen. To this section ordinary housewives-about
whose bio-data nothing is known-- sent poems, articles and short stories. If
these pieces did not have literary merit, they had immense historical value.
They reflected the questions, the dilemmas, the problems, the pains and the
pleasures of ordinary women. And they revealed what ordinary middle class women
thought about themselves. Women wrote for women. The writers and the readers
interacted, formed opinions, and developed awareness. Their place in history
must be acknowledged; many of them by throwing the first set of challenges against
the patriarchal system in colonial India created a space for latter day feminists.
Bamabodhni Patrika, although belonging to the genre of didactic literature,
had a dual role to play in Indian social history. It reflected both the dominants
and the challengers. This article will have three sections. In the first, I
will discuss the historical setting that produced the journal. Here I will argue
that the relation between the sexes is integrally connected with other relations,
such as class and race, and in the Indian setting, caste. The journal that refined
new roles for women in the backdrop of Western political and cultural aggression
on India was a product of the politics of power -colonialism versus nationalism--
and the emergence of middle class/upper caste Indian leadership. In the second
part, I will deal with the contents of Bamabodhini, and demonstrate how they
rearticulated the notion of middle class Indian womanhood, designed for furthering
the class/caste interests of the time and for promoting the orthodox Indian
tradition of containing women's sexuality and emphasizing only her procreative
role. The third section will show how the journal impacted on contemporary female
thoughts and presumably-if literature be any mirror of lived reality-on their
lives. I will borrow the ideas of Denis Kandiyoti, to state that under a firmly
entrenched system of patriarchy women who derive some benefits from it tend
to support it. Finally, I will capture and bring out the voices of dissent.
I will contend that the same system that produces collaborators also generates
a space for nonconformists. This paper is based on, apart from the writings
in Bamabodhini Patrika, indigenous Bengali sources, mostly contemporary, and
relevant published literature in English.
Linda Reeder (University of Missouri-Columbia,
USA): Female Insanity and the Making of a Nation, Italy 1860-1920
In this paper I propose to use case files of women admitted into two psychiatric
hospitals, San Clemente in Venice and Santa Maria della Pieta in Roma, to explore
the relations between sexuality, gender and class in the making of modern Italy
. This paper analyzes patient histories (culled from a database of approximately
3,000 records) to see how region, age and class affected medical diagnosis and
treatment. These files, combined with the published writings of leading psychiatrists
trace the ever-changing line that constituted "normal" and "deviant"
behavior for Italian women between 1860 and 1920, and uncover the critical role
sexuality played in constructing gender ideals. In their capacity as doctors
and as medico-legal experts, Italian psychiatrists helped define the parameters
of modern Italy. As mediators between the family and the state, their advice,
diagnoses and treatments strengthened the position of male privilege and power
in the state by norming women to heterosexual practices in both public and private
life. This paper explores the how family relations and expectations shaped ideas
of "normal" female behavior in Italian society, arguing that notions
of female sexuality and gender roles held by doctors and family members influenced
the construction of the Italian woman subsequently incorporated into the legal
structure of the new state. In this talk I discuss forms of female resistance.
Psychiatrists repeatedly use a woman' s reluctance to get married, rejection
of children, desire to move through the world like a man, as evidence of her
deviance. Class differences shape these medical and familial models of femininity
and female resistance. By framing the idea and experience of female insanity
in the context of nation-formation, this paper deepens our understanding of
the pivotal position of gender and female sexuality in building the Italian
nation-state.
Maria José Remédios and Áurea
Adão (Universidade
Lusofona e Technologias, Portugal): The Compulsory Education
for Portuguese Girls in 1960 – Echoes in the Periodic Press
This communication is based on the work developed in the project the education in the Portuguese periodic press (1945 – 1974) in which the main aim is to give the Portuguese researchers a thematic itinerary of sources concerning the thirty years between the final of the II world war and the 25th April 1974 revolution. This period corresponds to a time of deep transformations in the European societies in which the economic development and the expansion of the social well-being among wide layers, were accompanied by a tendency in the direction of the democratic access to the cultural goods. However the Portugal of Salazar kept itself away from this tendency which only began from the sixties on. The periodic press was until the expansion of other mass media (television, Internet) the main instrument to the public opinion formation. With the rise of “Estado Novo” ideologically sustained by an anti-liberal thought based on catholic religion, the woman existence is mixed with the family and only the household chores are reserved to her. She only participates in the public life through the family affairs and education. A speech focus on the praise of difference, announces the social construction of education. The coeducation is a danger to avoid, conceiving itself as the easy maker of the moral deterioration when associate to the equality of women towards men. Dominating the adjustment of school education to the social structure from the fourties on, the mechanism of resistence to the social transformations, that began especially with the 2nd World War, became inoperative and the education policy must change its direction. With this communication I intend to analyse the repercussions that the governmental measures of enlargement to four years the female sex compulsory school education in 1960, when all over Europe that school education and women were taking an important place and when in Portugal four years was already the compulsory school for boys since 1956.
This paper will be presented in French
Daniela Rossella (University of Florence, Italy):
Indian Women and Sexuality: Family, Religion, and Society
The roots of the neglected condition of Indian women in ancient and modern India, stem from the Classical Sacred Law, which does not judge the woman qua woman, but as the embodiment of the abstract idea of womanliness. Ancient laws concerning women's familiar and social life are set in the context of women's sexuality. Both sacred tradition, and popular opinion viewed women as creatures of ungovernable and insatiable lust. The fear of woman as a sexual being mirrors patriarchy's deep-rooted splitting of her into a being of pure sexuality, and a creature completely pure of sexuality: the wife-mother. In this role she must be restrained. Becoming a wife constitutes her unique personal and social aim: all the more so because she can take no part in the religious life. Thus, marriage (as a religious-sexual contract) is the best instrument to control women's sexuality: woman's consent to sexual intercourse is implicit - obligatory by law in the act of marriage; and the woman is forced to be an instrument of procreation (barren women are considered a familiar-social anathema). Woman's supposed uncontrollable lust had to be bound before puberty, by early marriage. Hence today's social plagues such as the arranged marriages, the dowry system, with its dowry deaths; prostitution as a unique possibility for a dowryless girl; abortions of female foetuses or female infanticide; the psychological-sexual persecution to which widows are often subjected as a consequence of the loss of their status of wives; the similar-based problems faced by women-divorcees (social stigma, shame, sexual exploitations). Clearly, the roots of discrimination against women lie in Indian religious-cultural beliefs; furthermore, today's so-called Sanskritization stresses this cultural assimilation to Hinduism as defined by Sanskrit texts, i.e. the imitation of conservative Hindu norms of womanhood. In society, it involves both refusing girls' education and the removal of women from the job market. Thus, to be born a woman even today handicaps her health, education, and her private and social life.
Jane Rothstein (New York University, USA): The “Mother in Israel Speaks, Or Does She?”: Reading American Jewish Women’s Sexuality in Interwar Popular Religious Literature
This paper addresses the problems inherent in reading popular American Jewish religious literature, especially the literature that focuses on the set of Jewish law and practice that prohibits sexual intercourse during a wife’s menstrual period, for evidence about American Jewish women’s sexuality in the interwar years. During the years between the First and Second World Wars -- years that bridge the mass migration of Eastern European Jews to the United States and the rise of the second generation of American-born Jews -- American Jewish religious and lay leaders published a series of popular manuals and articles instructing Jewish women on their religious roles, particularly their domestic religious vocation. A number specifically focused on instructing and informing women about the practice and rationale for Judaism’s menstrual Laws -- the laws of niddah (separation), also known as taharat hamishpahah (family purity) -- which prohibit married couples from sexual intercourse, and a range of other intimate behaviors, during menstruation and for several days after and require wives to immerse in a mikveh (ritual bath) before resuming physical intimacy with their husbands. This relatively large group of popular texts is an exceptionally rich source for exploring American Jews changing understanding of women’s sexuality and of the intersections between gender, sexuality, and religious practice in modern America. In the absence of a large number of personal sources by American Jewish women of this era that deal with these issues, this group of texts takes on even greater interpretive weight. The great majority of these texts, however, were written by men for Women’s use and were written with the purpose of instructing on the presumption that the mimetic process, by which Jewish women would, ideally or in the Old Country, learn religious practice from their observant mothers, had broken down. It is impossible, therefore, to read these popular texts as straightforward representations of Jewish women’s experiences with reconciling Jewish and American understandings of sexuality and gender. In raising the question of whether and how we hear Jewish women’s own voices in these texts on Jewish women’s sexuality, this paper will explore the relationship between the prescriptive and the actual within the texts.
Judith Rowbotham (Nottingham Trent University,
UK): Sisterhood? British Ladies and Their ‘Heathen Sisters’ c.
1870-1914
With pressure for greater success in gaining converts behind them, British lady missionaries went out to the foreign field with ‘heathen’ women as their prime conversion targets, and a reformation of their living patterns as the major tool in this campaign. British missionary ladies set out, explicitly and very consciously, to create dissatisfaction amongst their ‘heathen sisters’ about their daily lives, in ways which brought together the concepts of Christianity and Civilisation. The conduct and dress codes presented to women as being central to both their salvation and their cultural advance had profound effects on the self-vision of those convert ‘sisters’, as the experiences of women such as Pandita Ramabai, and Ellen Lakshmi Goreh underlines.
Kristin Ruggiero (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA): Public Satire and Private Secrets
This paper uses criminal case records and popular periodical literature to discuss the parameters of popular legal culture in Argentina in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Prosecutors and judges highlighted the "beastliness" of "infanticidal mothers," and the most lenient among them imposed sentences of four and a half years penitentiary for the crimes of infanticide and abortion, providing that the accused could demonstrate a sense of shame. Greater sentences of more than ten years were reserved for women who cou1d not demonstrate shame nor any desire to protect the child from harm. The clergy supported the harsh treatment of infanticide and abortion, lamenting the undermining of motherhood and family values by such deviant women. The new science of anthropological criminology, led by Italian Cesare Lombroso, also supported harsh treatment of deviant women. Lombroso argued that women who committed infanticide, abortion and prostitution were "natural" criminals who could be expected to commit even worse crimes - arguments that prosecutors and judges then used to scientifically legitimate their cases against accused women. Popular periodic literature often vilified these "unnatural" women. Just as often, however, this literature adopted a humorous stance toward dominant models of moral purity, immorality, and state and religious agencies that were supposed to be guarding the nation's reputation and character. Alongside articles listing the awardees of "virtue" and motherhood contests, popular magazines poked fun at girls "martyred" by their parents in the interest of beauty - dressed in cloth helmets to keep their ears flat or having their noses pinched to make them less pronounced, acts that supposedly molded internal character at the same time. Lombrosian science also attracted humorously negative comment for its theory that the internal person could be known through observation and measurement of his or her external features, such as the nose, eyebrows, chin, and forehead. Finally, government offices such as the agency that protected minors amid religious entities such as orphanages were mocked when the press discovered that they were involved in fraud and sex scandals. The protectors had become part of the problem. As in the United States and Ireland, Argentine society valued, in the extreme, female morality and motherhood. It was not above making light of these values, though, which provides a wider parameter for examining the mores of an emerging nation.
Louise Ryan (University College, London, UK): Family Connections: Irish Women's Oral Testimonies of Emigration in the 1930s
Irish emigration has often been viewed as a rupturing of family life, especially in rural Irish society. The large scale emigration of young women in the early twentieth century - often dubbed an exodus or a haemorrage was seen to be particularly threatening to the stability and continuity of the family and hence the nation (the national family). This paper examines the complexities and continuities of family connections through the experience of emigration. Based on oral history interviews with 11 women who emigrated in the 1930s, this paper explores the ways in which family loyalty and obligation were played out. Using the concept of social networks, I suggest that far from rupturing the family, migratory networks often worked to reconstitute families in varied ways. However, this is not to underestimate the tensions involved in maintaining family connections after emigration. The main responsibility for preserving family links and supporting family members fell on women rather than men. Thus these 11 women' s oral testimonies vividly reveal the many complexities and contradictions inherent in leaving but simultaneously maintaining 'the family' . Issues of autonomy, obligation, defiance and obedience were recurring themes in all the oral testimonies. This paper, by focusing on oral histories of 1930s emigrants, adds a new dimension to the study of Irish women's emigration and also adds to a theorisation of the role of social networks and family connections in women's experiences of emigration.
Lynn Sacco (University of California Santa Barbara,
USA): A Brute in Human Form': Respectability and the Incestuous
Father
This paper examines the ways in which beliefs about sexual behaviors both shaped and reinforced social hierarchies based on race, class, and ethnicity. It uses late nineteenth and early twentieth-century court records and newspaper accounts about criminal prosecutions for father-daughter incest, to investigate how U.S. society made sense of "uncivilized" sexual behaviors. Scholars of this period have examined the ways in which discourses about sexuality affected race relations, but not the ways in which nativist discourses shaped modern notions of class and sexuality. Although numerous professional discourses about incest insisted that incest was rare behavior confined to socially-marginalized groups, newspaper accounts and court records reveal that incest was neither uncommon nor safely contained outside of the mainstream. Saccocs paper argues that in the absence of analytical tools such as psychoanalysis, psychology, or feminist theory, U.S. society relied upon ideology to understand sexuality. Tragically, ideologies about incest, sexuality, masculinity, and nation excluded--by definition--the possibility that certain groups of men, identified by race, ethnicity, and class, were capable of committing incest. Newspapers, courts, and professional discourses acknowledged incest only as a rhetorical register that emphasized the utter depravity of men who committed it. However, this rhetoric could not account for those instances in which apparently "respectable" men were accused of having engaged in unqualifiedly "unnatural" sexual behavior. As a result, while the idea of incest was resoundingly condemned, and its occurrence among socially-marginalized groups treated as evidence that justified social stratification, evidence of its occurrence among the white middle and upper classes was mislabelled, ignored, or denied.
Egami Sachiko (Ferris Women's University,
Japan) The New Ideology of
Good Wife and Wise Mother in China and "Modern Girls": 1930s Discourses
on "Women Should Return to the Home"
A major debate arose in mid-1930s China over the question "Women should
return to the home". In this paper I will analyze the positions of four
different groups, examining the new ideology of good wife and wise mother, the
positions taken by women who opposed these ideas, and the views of gender that
underlay all of the participants' critiques of the "modern girl".
Although these "modern girls" often found it difficult to give expression
to their views in a world dominated by Confucian virtues, the patriarchal system
and the rise of an urban consumption culture, there were many modern girls who
were seeking autonomy in their personal lives, exploring new understandings
of sexuality, and struggling to find ways to balance work and marriage.
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Alice Sanger (University of Manchester, UK): Piety, Gender, Sexuality and the Family in Early Modern Italy: Perceiving the roles of Medici Women
This paper focuses on Florence in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and on the patronage of the grand duchesses of the Medici dynasty. My aim is to explore intersections of gender, feminine sexualities and family roles with religious codes and practices through an assessment of the devotional identities of these famously pious and high-profile figures. My paper contends that, in contrast to conventional estimations of their piety, the grand duchesses' devout identities should be connected to the public as well as to the private or personal realm. Analysis of the forms of Medici women's piety as expressed through art patronage and religious ritual, I believe, sheds light on diverse aspects of their personae, their roles as wives and widows, as mothers, as members of illustrious dynasties, and as charitable and concerned leaders with far- reaching responsibilities. My perspective is an art historical one, and a key interest of this paper is in the possibilities that piety offered Medici women for public 'visibility', for seeing and being seen in relation to the religious realm. Analysis of the use of private chapels in the devotional lives of the grand duchesses is read in relation to the ceremonial acts and devotions which took them beyond palace walls: the significances, for example, of religious rituals and sacred performances staged by grand duchess Maria Maddalena of Austria in Palazzo Pitti in Florence, and of processions from the palace to the Florentine church of Santis sima Annunziata on the other side of the Amo. Other rituals with emphatic public emphasis will also be considered: the funeral of grand duchess Giovanna of Austria in 1578, regular and special visits to favoured churches and shrines, including pilgrimages to La Vema and Loreto between 1573 and 1613, the dowry processions led by the grand duchesses in the early seventeenth century, and celebrations surrounding the births of Medici children in the same era. My aim is to show how diverse acts with religious resonance connected Medici women to ideals of exemplary femininity which privileged family responsibilities in particular, and thus were used to visibly defme and delineate women's familial and dynastic roles. The Medici family is perhaps the most studied Renaissance family of all, but it is only recently that the roles of the grand duchesses of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries have begun to be closely scrutinised. My paper contributes to this emerging field of interest by contending that through analysis of women's devotions and appearances in public we may bring more sharply into focus relationships between gendered, sexual, political and dynastic identities and the realms of the personal and the religious in early modem Italy.
Julie Schwartzmann (Western Galilee
College, Israel): Isaac Arama and His Theory of Two Matches
The negative attitude of medieval Jewish thinkers toward women and femininity is well established. Yet once we come to terms with the dark discourse of misogyny, we are able to discern the different shapes and shades of the phenomenon. Suddenly we discover that some thinkers are less blatant, some opinions less offensive. This seems to be the case with Isaac Arama (15th cent., Spain). Arama’s biography may explain his moderate attitude toward women. Misogynist statements appear, as a rule, in philosophical commentaries on the Torah intended for intellectuals. Arama’s Akedat Itzhac, by contrast, was originally an oral creation that addressed a heterogeneous congregation. As a rabbi, Arama could not ignore the wives, the mothers and the daughters who probably were part of his audience. As a rabbi he could not proclaim in his Saturday morning sermon that the woman is intellectually closer to the animals than to the man, a statement that could – and did -- appear in philosophical commentaries. Although Arama is certainly not a feminist, the reader can feel his genuine empathy toward women, and especially his touching faith in a true and lifelong marital love, based on mutual respect and attraction. Some of Arama’s statements sound quite modern, and may serve as an answer to those who claim that any attempt to judge medieval attitudes from the standpoint of modern society is anachronistic. In this paper I show that Arama, a syncretic thinker not committed to the rigid principles of Aristotelian philosophy, developed a much more moderate attitude toward women than that of his fellow philosophers. Arama does so not by suggesting new ideas, but by carefully choosing appropriate Rabbinic sayings. Yet each time he turns to metaphysical issues, his attitude toward women changes for the worse. I use the example of Arama’s theory of two matches to show how his attitude toward women shifts from moderate toward openly negative, depending on the context of the discussion.
Christabelle Sethna (University of Ottawa, Canada):
"Private Acts, Public Borders: Canadian students and the geography
of abortion, 1960-1970.”
Contraception was illegal in Canada till 1969. It was decriminalized in the same year divorce became legal. On this occasion, then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau declared that “The State has no business in the nation’s bedrooms”. Very few Canadian scholars have explored the impact of the pill on this country even in revised histories of birth control, in second wave feminism or in studies of the baby boom generation, possibly because of the assumption that unlike access to abortion, access to contraception was no longer a major issue once the Criminal Code was reformed in 1969. My paper challenges this assumption: Contraception did not become as private a decision as the changes in the Criminal Code, and Trudeau’s declaration would lead one to expect. Based on my ongoing study of the history of the birth control pill in Canada, this paper will show that the single, young, white middle-class female who became the icon of the sexual revolution, ironically had very limited access to birth control services both before and after revisions to the Criminal Code legalized contraception and decriminalized abortion. In addition, young, single, pregnant women seeking illegal or legal abortions were forced to cross repeatedly provincial, national and international borders to achieve their goal before and after 1969. Focusing on the university student population, I will outline the key role university students played in providing contraceptive and abortion services for young women. The origin of student agitation in favour of contraception and abortion was the refusal of many campus Health Services to prescribe oral contraception to sexually active single female students, dooming many who became pregnant to a dangerous illegal abortion. The need to travel to secure an abortion served to radicalize female university students toward feminist organizing around the repeal of the abortion law, access to contraception and good reproductive health care for women – in short around making reproductive issues truly private ones.
Catherine Shannon (Westfield State College, USA):
Representations of Women in Northern Ireland in the Field Day Anthology
of Irish Writing
"The Northern Ireland Conflict which erupted in 1968 has produced a veritable
cottage industry of scholarly and journalistic analysis on the causes and nature
of the conflict, and now of the on-going peace process. Yet until about 1990,
commentary on the role of women in the conflict was negligible or extremely
simplistic. Women were usually portrayed as passive victims of para-military
mobsters or bomb-throwing viragoes, and as Godmothers of hate, inspired by the
historical cliches of "Mother Ireland" and Cathleen Ni Houlihan on
the one hand, or "Orange Lil" on the other. In the last decade, new
research and writing has produced a more sophisticated understanding of the
historical agency of women at various stages of the conflict, and how Northern
women responded to the labyrinthine complexities and challenges of living and
raising their families admist protracted and intense sectarian and political
warfare. My paper will consider how the varied selections in the Field Day Anthology
accurately reflect women's roles as historical agents at various stages of the
conflict, their very diverse experiences of "The Troubles" depending
on their location, religion, class, and education, and the impact of feminism
in influencing and often complicating Northern women's political identity.
Pamela Sharpe (University of Western Australia):
The Boundaries of Obligation: The Pinneys and Poor Kin 1680-1750
From the 1680s a Dorset family called the Pinneys saw rising wealth as a result of their endeavours in property-holding, money-lending, colonial trades, lace dealing in London and in farming. Yet due to failed marriages, early widowhood and unfortunate circumstances with leaseholding, not all members of the extended Pinney family fared well This paper considers the ways in which poor female relatives made claims on the Pinney fortunes and how these were accommodated within the broad notions of family and kin, as well as credit networks that were operating at the time. These interactions enable us to consider recent historical scholarship that draws attention away from the nuclear family and towards wider family ties. What did a sense of family mean to the Pinneys and what can be assumed about their attitudes to affective relationships from their reaction to marginal members? How did this differ from their reciprocal connections with non-kin? And how did their Presbyterian religious beliefs influence this? This paper draws on the correspondence, -journals and accounts of the Pinney family to consider where the Pinneys thought the boundaries of their obligations to kin lay I will place the relevant documents within the context of my previous work on narratives written by the poor in industrializing England.
Verene Shepherd (University of the West Indies,
Mona, Jamaica): Sex in the Tropics: Women, Gender and Sexuality
in the Discourses of Asian Labour Migration to the British Caribbean
In his Empire and Sexuality, Ronald Hyam takes the view that historians of empire have to come to terms with sex if only because it is there; that the expansion of Europe was not only a matter of ‘Christianity and commerce’, but also of ‘copulation and concubinage.’ The revelations in the Journals of the enslaver and manager Thomas Thistlewood, who lived in Jamaica from 1750-1786, has also forced us to confront the issue of sex in the ‘colonized tropics’ as part of the project of colonization. This presentation will explore the treatment of the issues of sex and women’s sexuality in the slavery discourses of the era of modernity. It will demonstrate the intersection of power, class, race (and racism) and gender in slave societies and suggest the ways in which such discourses are not irrelevant to present debates about the representation of the Caribbean woman in the expanding tourist culture. The presentation will compare hegemonic male representations with the under-explored female writer’s representations.
Margalit Shilo (Bar Ilan University,
Israel): The Jerusalem Regulations as a Reflection of the Perception
of Women
Jerusalem of the Ottoman period was a remote provincial town, and it's small Jewish community had unique character. For Jews Jerusalem symbolizes the glorious past and the hoped for redemption. Since it was considered by Jews from all over the world as the most sacred society it benefited from constant donations, yet these were never enough and the community had more than its share of problems. It was an extremely poor society, and for various reasons, which I will explain in my proposed lecture, the percentage of women was much higher than that of men. Over the centuries, the leaders of the Jewish community passed a variety of special regulations; aiming mainly at ensuring its economic survival, preserving its unique spiritual character and molding the conduct of all new arrivals. The rabbis of the Holy City were conscious of their special position, by virtue of which they could exercise control over the lives of the Jerusalemites, who recognized their authority. The study of the Jerusalem regulations, mainly these which deal with women and family matters, reveal to us not only male and female perceptions but also the ways in which the community preserved its character. Jerusalem was the only community which forbade men between twenty to sixty years o1d to live unmarried. Those who did not many were expelled from the city. On the other hand, women were not forced to get married, and the well to do widows who wanted to remarry had to pay the community in order to be allowed to remarry. The regulations which were concerned with women’s clothing and modesty were also aimed at guaranteeing an atmosphere of gloom and self-abnegation in the mournful city, Other regulations dealt with marriageable age, economic professions of women and the exposure of women in the public sphere. Oriental ways of life were frequently adopted by Jews who immigrated from Europe, and European ways of life by Oriental Jews. The Jerusalem regulations expose the complex system in which gender notions guaranteed the complex and unparalleled character of the Jewish community or the Holy City.
Shmuel Shilo (Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel): The "Killer-Wife" in Jewish Law and Lore
The Talmud prohibits a woman that has been widowed twice from remarrying for a third time and defines such a woman as a "killer-wife" because of the fear that her husbands did not die by pure chance but that some deficiency in the woman was the probable cause of their death. The fear is that the same fate will befall any man who would marry her. To this very day, "killer-wives" have had severe problems of remarriage. There are Orthodox rabbis today who will not perform a marriage ceremony for a "killer-wife". This is especially problematic in Israel where there is no civil marriage and matters of marriage and divorce for Jews are under the jurisdiction of Rabbinical courts. There is no parallel rule concerning a man whose two wives died while married to him. This rule is similar to the Talmudic ruling that if two of a woman's children died after being circumcised - perhaps due to hemophilia - one is prohibited to circumcise any other siblings of the children who died. The paper will discuss the Talmudic and post-Talmudic legal and extra-legal literary sources. There were attempts to alleviate the woman's plight by interpreting the prohibition so that it applies only in certain restricted situations. The especially liberal attitude of Maimonides who had a very strong influence on later legal developments of the rule, will be highlighted. The paper will attempt to explain the motives and fears behind the rule and the influences on its development, especially that of the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. Possible Biblical and Apocryphal antecedents as well as cross-cultural exchanges will also be discussed.
Beverley Shirley (University of West Indies, Mona,
Jamaica): The Journey: Women Redefining Their Social Space
To Claim Better Opportunities For Themselves and Their Children, Jamaica 1900-69.
The 1970s in Jamaica marked the era of social changes. Despite several socioeconomic problems which led to massive unemployment, decreasing educational opportunities, violence, persistent exploitation by the business sector and corruption in general, there emerged the struggle for social rights and justice which resulted in the enactment and amendment of legislation protecting the rights of women and children. This era saw the development of several feminist organizations, such as the Women's Bureau, Sistren, Women's Centre for Jamaica Foundation, among others, as women became more aware of their rights and the need for change in a patriarchal society in which they were so marginalized by social policies. Activism has always been an integral part of the social past of Jamaican society. This paper will observe the period prior to the 1970s, to examine women's involvement in activism and the journey to claiming social rights for themselves and their children. The paper will therefore look at the manifestations of feminisms within the Jamaican experience within and outside of the confines of the law. Since the Jamaican society includes a mixture of different peoples of different races, ethnicity, cultures and religions, it would be interesting to observe how women dealt with their various issues and at what point they converged despite the differences, as well as how activism aided integration. The paper will highlight and attempt to condense activism during the period 1900-69. It will also attempt to analyze the social gains, the opportunity costs, and legislative changes, as women journeyed through a hegemonic patriarchal sphere into creating new opportunities for themselves and their children.
Igor Shkolnikov (Ivanovo University, Russia):
“Rehabilitation of Flesh”: Evolution of the Notions on Male/Female Sexuality
in Russia in the nineteenth century.
The construction of sexuality in Russian society in the nineteenth century was conditioned by several factors. First of all, ideas and notions on male/female sexuality, gender roles, marriage and love were formed under the strong influence and control of Russian traditions and Orthodox Church. The latter was one of the most influential conservative institutions that dictated the gender-stereotyped behavior for men and women. On the other hand, Russian gentry were well-educated and rather open to European society and it could not ignore the discussions on sexuality emerging in Europe at that time. The great impulse for the development of new notions on sexuality was given by the social changes that happened in Russian society in the 1860s. It was the period when views on gender roles of men and women became more liberal. That was due to the fact that the whole public life of Russian society became liberating and democratic. Actually, the evolution of notions on sexuality coincided with the evolution of the Russian political system. Thus, periods of liberal reforms stimulated more liberal views on sexuality and vice versa – the period of the conservative reaction was followed by the propaganda of the traditional values. On the eve of the twentieth century Russian newspapers and magazines were full of articles debating the problems of free love. The reflection of these discussions can be found in Russian art and literature (for instance, decadence). It was then that the concept of the “sex question” appeared in Russia for the first time. The attitude of society towards such issues as adultery, civil marriage, etc. became more and more tolerant. On the other hand, these impulses met a very strong reaction from the conservative side of society (clergy, lawyers, doctors). Both liberal and conservative camps were involved in a sharp discussion about male and female sexuality and this fact proved that Russian society witnessed the process of gender stereotypes being challenged. As a result, the “rehabilitation of flesh” undertaken during that period of time, led, in my opinion, to the first wave of a sexual revolution in Russia at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, which was, probably, more radical than the equivalent Western ones.
Olga Shnyrova (Ivanovo State University Russia):
The Impact of the European Notions about Marriage and Love on Russian Society
in the second half of the 19th and the Beginning of the 20th centuries.
Problems of love and marriage always existed in European society. Social and cultural changes in the nineteenth century led to serious changes in marriage patterns and in notions concerning gender roles in marriage and love, in male and female sexuality and in sexual behavior. The beginning of the twentieth century brought a re-evaluation of many fundamental stereotypes of male and female roles in private and public spheres. Large numbers of research works and publications on love, marriage and sexuality during this period reflected high level of interest inthese problems in European society. Russian society (we refer mainly to the middle and high classes) also could not avoid discussion about love and male/female roles in marriage. A lot of translated foreign works, concerning these problems, written by doctors, biologists, thinkers and public activists, men and women, appeared in Russia. Most of the translated works of that period belonged to French and German authors. Soon many of these writings found a response among Russian liberal and conservative thinkers and activists, participants of Russian women’s movement. The publications were discussed, quoted and frequently referred to. Many Western ideas on love and marriage gained support among Russian liberal and socialists thinkers, but they were contrary to Christian Orthodox views and that is why were critiqued by conservative and Orthodox Church thinkers. But, nevertheless.the new notions about love and marriage penetrated into Russian public consciousness and seriously changed the ideas of love and marriage in Russia in the beginning of the twentieth century. All these problems will be reflected in my presentation.
Maina Chawla Singh (University of Delhi, India): Margaret Noble (Sister Nivedita:1867-1911) : A Missionary for India.
Irish-born Margaret Noble arrived in India as a disciple of Swami Vivekananda in 1898. Soon after, her Guru initiated her and as 'Nivedita' she assumed the dress and life-style of a 'sanyasini' (ascetic). During the remaining thirteen years of her life (1898-1911) Bengal became her home. In Calcutta, Nivedita founded a girls' school and did community work in slum areas. She wrote prolifically in contemporary journals on Indian culture, Hinduism, and the cause of self-determination for British ruled India. In 1902, Nivedita actively joined nationalist politics, advocating Hindu revivalism, and militant Hinduism drawing inspiration from Ma Kali. Living mostly in underprivileged neighbourhoods, Nivedita often assumed a maternal role within the local community. This paper focuses on Nivedita's understandings of Indian society, religion, Hindu family life, spirituality and female sexuality, to demonstrate how these shaped her views on women's roles in public life and her staunch support for Hindu Revivalism, which on the one hand, pitted her sharply against Christian missionaries and on the other, aligned her with conservative Hindu right-wing politics.
Patricia Skinner (University of Southampton, UK):
Family-centred? The Concerns of Female Authors and Contributors in the Middle
Ages
This paper seeks to explore the historiographical trend towards looking for female voices in medieval texts, whether male- or female-authored, through focusing on what those texts say about familial relationships and the memory of ancestors. It asks why, in the postfeminist age, we continue to need to engage in such exercises (myself included!), whether we have reached a point in medieval studies where 'looking for women's voices' has outlived its usefulness as an end in itself, and whether we should not, rather, be interested in the content rather than the sex of the author. Recent meetings of the Gender and Medieval Studies group in the UK have begun to touch on this question, and in a deliberately.
Judith Smart (RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia):
Conservative Women, Leadership and Organisational Strategy: the
Australian Women’s National League 1919–45.
In the wake of the Great War, during which AWNL membership had climbed to 54,000, the organisation faced a number of challenges. These came from an aging leadership, competing organisations and rapidly changing ideas about feminine citizenship. From its earlier unassailed position of dominance as the representative of women’s voice in non-Labor politics as well as the largest organisational force behind the National Council of Women of Victoria, the AWNL now faced competition from new groups such as the Victorian Farmers’ Union (later Country Party) Women’s Section, the Country Women’s Association, and the Housewives’ Association. Each of these organisations had specific aims that had been part of the AWNL’s agenda and they now attracted those whose interests were similarly focused. The CWA and the Housewives also aimed to draw in the large numbers of ordinary women who had earlier joined the AWNL for its social activities and domestic focus, and who were largely indifferent to its political program, other than in the most general terms. In the postwar years, too, the climate of civic culture for women changed markedly as confidence, expectations and achievements expanded. The AWNL’s political program began to look timid and outdated. In this context, the leadership of Eva Hughes, so powerful in the pre-war and war years, and her successor, Margaret Crocker, came under question from a group of younger women. Hughes and Crockers’ defence of a limited role for women in the political sphere sounded increasingly like jeremiads in the wilderness as women gained the right to stand for parliament, appointment as Justices of the Peace and respect for their lobbying skills as consumers. When Elizabeth (May) Couchman assumed the presidency of the AWNL in 1927, she interpreted her election as a mandate for change and began to reposition the League in relation to the mainstream (or malestream) conservative parties. Though the organisation never regained its unquestioned dominance of the non-Labor women’s movement, it was saved from irrelevance and, through Couchman’s leadership and skills in political bargaining, women gained considerable influence in the nascent Liberal Party from 1945. This paper examines the process of challenge, change and accommodation that preceded this and made the advantageous terms of merger possible.
Elizabeth Smyth (University of Toronto, Canada):
Sisters in Christ, Blood Sisters and Sisters in Struggles: The construction
of family among Canadian Roman Catholic Women Religious
This paper analyzes the complex familial relationships created among women who were members of Roman Catholic religious communities in the Post-Vatican II world. Drawing on data collected from over 300 interviews with women religious, this paper explores the changing definitions of sisterhood, of hierarchical relationships within congregations and within the patriarchal church and the shifts in the theological basis of the social service work of women religious, especially in the aftermath of the Medaillin declarations. The paper concludes with a discussion of directions for further study, especially with reference to multicultural and ecumenical paradigms.
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Camille Soucie (York University, Toronto, Canada):
Female Anti-Suffragists and the Creation of an Expanded Domestic Sphere
This paper will explore the ways in which female anti-suffragists in Ontario
tried to shift the boundary between private and public to create an expanded
domestic sphere that moved beyond the physical space of the home. The rhetoric
of motherhood was central to this attempt. Female anti-suffragists used their
position as mothers, or potential mothers, to justify both their inclusion in
local government, and their exclusion from provincial and federal government.
This exclusion did not mean that female anti-suffragists saw the boundary of
the domestic sphere stopping at the city limits, however. Instead, women's role
as "mothers of the race" or "imperial mothers" extended
this sphere to the nation and the empire. Drawing on the often discrete literatures
on maternalism, gender and imperialism, and antisuffrage, I will place female
anti-suffragists within the prevailing discourses on motherhood. Male anti-suffragists
argued that women's work of mothering was wholly private and that motherhood
disqualified women from participating in any form of government. Maternal feminists
argued that it was specifically because women were mothers that they should
be granted the franchise. Female anti-suffragists envisioned a role for women
that extended from the home to the edges of the empire but that was largely,
but not always, extra-parliamentary. This paper will contribute to the understanding
of the often complex ways that women sought space in the public sphere by bringing
their interests as mothers outside of the home.
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Liesbet Stevens (Katholieke University, Belgium):
Women’s Sexuality in the Belgian Criminal Code of 1867
When Belgium became an independent country in 1830, the Napoleon Criminal Code
dating from 1810 had been in force in this area since 1831. It remained in force
after the independence because of the lack of a valid alternative. It would
take 36 years for a Belgian Criminal Code to see the light. This Criminal Code
of 1867 was highly influenced by the basic assumptions that underpinned the
Napoleon Criminal Code and that was also true for the criminal framework of
human sexual behaviour. In 1867 the Belgian legislator's primary concern with
regard to the criminal framework of sexual behaviour was to distinguish between
`immorality' and `criminality'. This concern was translated into incriminations
using `the protection of the middle-class family' as a demarcation line. The
criminal offences concerning rape and indecent assault, prostitution and corruption
of minors, public indecency and adultery - i.e. the criminal framework on sexual
behaviour anno 1867 in Belgium - were designed to protect the middle-class family
as the corner stone of the nineteenth century society. The ideas on sexuality,
including on women's sexuality, were shaped within that framework. I will argue
that the above mentioned incriminations and their interpretation show that in
the Belgian Criminal Code of 1867 women's sexuality was conceptualised as an
activity with the following characteristics:
- maximum two persons should be involved
- these persons should not be of the same sex
- penile-vaginal penetration and male orgasm were considered as the aim of sexual
activity - the persons involved should have attained a minimum age
- preferably within marriage and within marriage as exclusive
- conducted in private
Furthermore, I will show that at least implicitly a distinction was made between
virtuous and immoral women and this according to their sexual behaviour. However,
women's sexual activity that did not have the above mentioned characteristics
was not as such incriminated. The criminal framework did not aim to protect
women from certain types of sexual behaviour. It aimed to protect the Belgian
middle-class family in the nineteenth century from anxiety over sexual behaviour.
This implied in the first place that sexual scandals needed to be avoided. Secondly,
the protection of the middle-class family in sexual matters demanded the protection
of reproduction within marriage. The protection of the physical integrity took
third place in this hierarchy. Finally, the protection of the middleclass family
was deemed to require the protection of its privacy.
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Nancy Stockdale (University of Central Florida, USA): Biblical Motherhood: English Women and Empire in Palestine, 1860-1948
At the heart of colonial encounters in the era of the New European Imperialism were the personal interactions between indigenous residents and strangers, between the colonized and the colonizers. In 19th- and early 20th-century Palestine, a variety of European interests entrenched themselves, in an effort to manipulate and control the "Holy Land," a place revered (and contested) by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. At the forefront of this quest were the British, who--through their elaborate network of religious institutions, educational facilities, medical establishments, and large tourist trade--asserted their dominance in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, and eventually came to rule the country by the League of Nations-sponsored Mandate (1922). Fundamental to imperial success or failure were a myriad of English women who played an active role in the dissemination of English culture and authority in this contested space. Their encounters with and representations of Palestinian women shaped a portrait of Palestine as a backward, ignored place in need of English moral and political leadership, and contributed to the larger realm of popular pseudo-Orientalist imagery of a decayed and untrustworthy "East." Largely viewed through the lens of the Bible, Palestine and its residents were removed from their contemporary context and seen as living examples of Biblical history and prophecy. By "colonizing the Bible" in their representations of Palestine, English women assisted the actual establishment of British authority in the region. Disputes over maternity and motherhood were foundational locations for conflict between English and Palestinian women, both before and during the British Mandate over Palestine. Using the Bible as a supplementary maternity guide to European attitudes about child rearing, English women's writings about the region reflected a widely-held belief that Palestinian mothers should combine the character of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and English domestic values. Native women, unable or unwilling to raise their children in this manner, were considered degenerate mothers and unworthy of living in the sacred space of the Virgin. Missionaries and other long-term English residents in Palestine established "mothers meetings" in an effort to destroy indigenous maternal knowledge and implant English methods, and those Palestinians who embraced English maternity became living Madonnas, stand-ins for Mary and proofs of the Biblical stories set in the Holy Land. Those Palestinians who rejected English maternal theories, however, were vilified, and their methods of child rearing were added to a list of reasons of why the English believed they should take political control of the Holy Land.
Shurlee Swain (Australian Catholic University):
'But Could She Ride a Bicycle?' Female Inspectors in the Child Welfare
System, Victoria, Australia 1890-1915
One of the major campaigns of the nineteenth century women's movement sought to create a space for women in those agencies of government which impacted on the lives of women and children. Working from an essentialist position they argued that women, as potential of not actual mothers, had perceptive and disciplinary skills unavailable to the men who traditionally had claimed the paid inspectorial roles. This paper will argue that while this campaign succeeded in creating a female child welfare inspectorate its appeal to maternalism did not necessarily lay firm foundations for professional employment for women in such roles. Nor did it lay the basis for a woman-to-woman inspector-client relationship in which the commonalities of gender could outweigh differences in class, race and ethnicity.
Yuko Takahashi (Tsuda College, Japan): Teacher Training toward Better Education for Women: the Case of Afghanistan
My talk will be on "The Training Program for Afghan Education Reconstruction by Five Women's Universities in Japan -- Teacher Training toward Better Education for Women." I was a member of "Preliminary Mission for Afghanistan-Japan Educational Collaboration," which was sent to Afghanistan by the Japanese government from August 24 to September 2, 2002. After introducing the purpose and basic characteristics of the training program I would like to discuss what I have grasped (regarding education and family) through the preliminary mission and the educational exchange with Afghan educators who will visit Japan this fall. For example, the most urgent issue for Afghan women is that of war widows who have to provide not only for themselves but also for their children. There is certainly the tension between the expected women's role as caretakers in the family as well as community and the work skills they need to acquire for their survival as providers. Part of my ongoing work, based on the Afghanistan collaboration, is to explore what education, including the teacher-training program, can do to resolve such problems.
Seira Tamang (Kathmandu, Nepal): The
Dynamics of Legalizing State Patriarchy in Nepal
By focusing on changes in family law in the country’s civil code, the Muluki Ain (MA), during the Panchayat era of Nepal’s history (1961-1990), in this paper the historical evolution of the role of the state vis a vis “the family” in Nepal is traced. It is argued that in contradiction to dominant historical readings of legal changes for women as constituting a linear progression of laws from conservative Hindu laws of old to modern legislation entailing greater and more freedom for women, the legal changes made to the MA entail much more complicated and contradictory consequences for women in Nepal. More specifically, legal amendments made during Panchayat rule has resulted in the increased power of the Nepali state to intervene directly into family relations, appropriating authority to re-define the relations between family members. This has further led to the encouragement of the development of separate gendered spheres of the feminine domestic realm of the private and the masculine of the public. It is argued that the intersection between the nationalist polices of the state and international development initiatives, specifically of Women In Development (WID), played a critical role in this important period for the history of gender in Nepal.
Margaret Tennant (Massey University,
New Zealand): Mending Broken Families: Voluntary Organisations
and Family Counselling in New Zealand 1930-1960
In New Zealand the space claimed by voluntary organisations was always restricted and secondary to public welfare provision. But as the welfare state expanded, its direction largely the domain of male bureaucrats, voluntary organisations were forced to become more assertive in staking out their distinctive domain. Many found this in family counselling services, their first point of contact usually distressed wives and mothers. This paper foregrounds an organisation first known as the Society for the Protection of Women and Children, and its gradual translation into a Society for the Protection of Home and Family during the 1950s From a focus on protecting women and children from male cruelty, the Society and its female social workers came to place more and more emphasis on family reconciliation At one level, its history illuminates gendered welfare domains as they emerged in a small, centralised welfare state with only a limited tradition of voluntary activity. Second, like similar societies in other parts of the world, it illustrates shifting perceptions of family problems and appropriate solutions to them at a time of wider social change.
Suruchi Thapar-Bjorkert (University of Bristol, UK): Private Thoughts, Public Debates: Re-Negotiating Colonial and National Identities in North India
The Indian nationalist movement served as an important vehicle for encouraging middle-class women to engage in anti-colonial activities and to adopt new role models. The representations of women constructed by the nationalist project enabled women to play a political role through the avenues they opened, in both the public and domestic domains. However, women's emergence into the public sphere from a purdah-bound domestic existence cannot be understood through the dichotomous concepts of public/private but through the interaction between these spheres, which facilitated the complex process of women's emergence in the public sphere. Feminist historiography from the 1970s has recognised the marginalisation of women's constructive role in anti-colonial politics but have inevitably focussed only on public participation rather than on the construction of women's identities and their nation-building roles in the domestic sphere. The project of `nation building' has primarily been associated with the public/political sphere. Moving beyond a simple dichotomy of public and private spheres the proposal will engage with the interconnections of the public and private domains firstly, by going beyond the gendered symbolic repertoire to analyse women's active negotiations within the nationalist movements, by examining the processes through which public activities regulated private spaces and finally by exploring the politicisation of the home/family through diffusion of the public/private boundaries. It locates the domestic as an equally important site of nationalist activities as the public sphere and engages with two transformations - the domestication of the public sphere and the politicisation of the domestic sphere.
Sarah
Diane Toulalan (University of Exeter, UK): "The Act of Copulation
Being Ordained by Nature as the Ground of all Generation": Fertility and
the Representation of Sexual Pleasure
To a modern reader pornography and the representation of reproduction (including
issues to do with the care of the woman during pregnancy, childbirth, post-parturition
and lactation), are mutually exclusive, despite having a common subject matter:
sex. It seems to be stating the obvious to say that pornography today is about
sex but not about reproduction. Many analyses of early modern pornography are
often ahistorical in this respect, assuming that pornography represents the
pleasures of the sexual body in isolation from its function as reproduction
for the pleasure of the reader or viewer. But seventeenth-century pornographic
texts do not conform to modern ideas about the nature of pornography. In these
texts sexual intercourse is defined as for the purpose of procreation, and cataclysmic
consequences result from avoidance of this aim. Discussion of ideas about fertility
therefore can be found alongside descriptions of the sexual body and sexual
acts. In this period the pleasures of sex represented in the pornographic text
are intimately entwined with ideas about reproduction and conception, and an
understanding of the body which is temporally and culturally specific: sexual
pleasure was understood as not complete pleasure if it does not have the possibility
of conception. The connection between the sexual act and its reproductive function
is conveyed frequently through metaphors which connect the body and the state,
or the land, emphasising the notion that social and economic stability depends
on reproductive ability. These seventeenth-century pornographic texts do not
deploy ancient tropes about man as tiller of female soil merely because they
are common (and familiar) metaphors for the sexual act. They represent an act
of which the outcome is crucial to its meaning and its pleasure. Contemporary
understanding of the reproductive body and how "generation" occurred
linked sexual pleasure with conception. We misunderstand early modem pornography
if we think about it solely in modern terms, as a means to the end of sexual
pleasure in and for itself. We also lose the possibility of understanding how
early modern men and women thought about not only sex and sexual pleasure, but
also about their world and its purpose. If we read the texts' emphasis on ensuring
fertility and conception as merely an early modern guide to birth control, then
we miss the most important dimension of this literature. Heterosexual sexual
intercourse and its 'natural' end, reproduction, is crucial for legitimacy,
stability and rule. Here, sex is not just sex: it is reproduction, land and
inheritance.
Katy Turton (University of Glasgow, Scotland):
Revolution Begins at Home: The Life of the First Soviet Family
The revolution of October 1917 in Russia was meant to signal the full emancipation
of women and the utter transformation of the family. There have been numerous
studies of the Bolsheviks’ theory on the women question and the family,
how their ideas were implemented and assessments of how closely their theoretical
ideals matched the lived reality in the Soviet Union. This paper will take a
different approach and focus attention entirely on the attitudes and experiences
of the members of what could be called the First Family of the Soviet Union,
the Ul’ianovs. Comparing Ul’ianov family life before and after the
revolution, as well as raising the issue of the participation of the women of
the family in the underground movement and the post-revolutionary government,
this paper will show how little was altered by the revolution and suggest some
reasons why freeing women from their traditional roles, even in a family which
was at the forefront of the Bolshevik movement, was not an easy nor a quick
task. Finally this paper will outline how the Ul’ianov family has been
portrayed by Western and Soviet historians, in order to shed light on how descriptions
of this family’s lifestyle reflect the beliefs of the society they are
written in.
K G Uma (Bangalore University, India): Women’s
Lives: Rationalisation Versus Tradition
The role of women has been a subject of research for sociologists, histographers and writers. Women’s role in society has been mainly descriptive and has been passed on through religion, mythology, tradition and as accepted even through law and legislation. Oval historians and reminiscences of women in their decent and honourable life is a valuable source of data. Generally histographies of women especially in the Indian context has focused on the more ‘liberated’ ‘urban’ ‘affluent women’ and the source material have been inscriptional, literary and scriptural, the most visible women of history. Most of these histographies have dealt with ‘upper class’ women or ‘professional’ women. The very ‘ordinary’ women has either not been given a serious thought and a serious representation conspicuously absent. It is very interesting and necessary to understand as lessons from the very ‘ordinary’ women, the way their life has been ‘constructed’ and ‘reconstructed’. Did they base their life on strong ‘ideologies’? Where they ‘feminists’ ‘non conformists’ or did they rationalize the situation and adopt to the ‘new system’. What is the meaning that they gave to their lives?
This paper is mainly based on histographies
of six women who faced adversity and of the struggles of these women, their
determination and courage.
These were recorded by personal interviews by the author. The focus has been
on the following:
1) What were the role of the women in families and their role as individuals
in restarting
Their lives?
2) What were the facilitating factors? Was it common to all women, or did it
differ for
Each women?
3) Did the change in their lives bring about a value change? What was the changes
that
Were brought into their lives as a result? Did value change? How did society
react
Then and later?
4) What were the response of their family members and the community to which
they
Belonged?
5) Nature of support? Economic or non economic How did they rationalize their
action?
6) Finally have they redefined their lives and their children through their
experiences?
Cornelie Usborne (University of Surrey Roehampton,
UK): Representation of Abortion in Popular Culture in Weimar Germany
This paper is part of a larger project on Cultures of Abortion in Weimar Germany - the view from below. It will discuss the ambiguous messages conveyed about abortion on screen, stage and in novels. Especially socialist writers and artists constructed the image of the dejected proletarian woman burdened with an unwanted pregnancy and risking goal, injury or even death through a back-street abortion. Examples include plays like Cyankali by Friedrich Wolf which caused a sensation when it was premiered in 1929 in Berlin and on its subsequent tour through Germany and finally when it was made into a film in 1930. This is the case also with films which have only recently been rediscovered such as Kreuzug des Weibes (Womens' Crusade), 1926 by Martin Berger or Madame Lu, Die Frau für diskrete Beratung (Madame Lu, the woman for discreet advice), 1929 by Franz Hofer. Others portrayed the female body as an icon of modernity representing women's new sexual freedom and reproductive self-determinism. This is the case for example in left-leaning films like Kuhle Wampe based on the script by Bertold Brecht and but also in novels by women writers such as Vicky Baum's stud.chem Helene Willführ, Irmgard Keun's, Gilgi - eine von uns where the New Woman achieves independence even after she failed to obtain the abortion she originally sought. Yet, there is a subtext which most popular representation of abortion share: the experience of abortion is nearly always portrayed as a tragedy and so-called quack abortionists as back-street operators who exploit, degrade and endanger women. Yet, the testimonies of many working-class women in abortion court cases throughout the Weimar years tells a more complex story: It is true, women themselves often associated abortion with danger (to their health), fear (of detection), embarrassment (having to find an abortionist) and possible isolation (from family and friends). Yet, within the female working-class culture the meaning of abortion could range from a fairly routine event to a positive experience, the delivery from an unwanted pregnancy, when the abortionist did not appear as a villain but rather as a helpmeet.
Maryann Gialanella Valiulis (Trinity College
Dublin, Ireland): Bodies Do Matter: Women, Citizenship and Sexuality
This paper will focus on the sexual legislation of the Irish Free State during the 1920s and 1930s with reference to women's inclusion/exclusion from citizenship. It will argue that the State, with the sanction of the Roman Catholic Church, used its power to enforce sexual conformity. Women were held hostage to the domestic ideal of the nuclear heterosexual family. The government used sexual difference as a way of limiting women’s citizenship and restricting them to the roles of wife and mother. The government and ecclesiastical leaders clashed with feminists over a basic definition of womanhood and its implication for women’s full and unfettered citizenship in the Irish Free State.
Svetlana Vastchenko (National Academy of Science of Belarus, Minsk): The Priorites of Higher Educated Middle Aged Women in Belarus
An anonymous questionnaire asked middle aged and higher educated Buelorussion
women living in Minsk about their health, family and social problems. Most respondents
worked in Institutes of the National Academy of Sciences and some in Higher
Education schools. They had different professions: physicist, mathematician,
biologist, chemist, economist, and humanitarian specialist. The poll contained
10 questions, which could be divided into two groups. The first group included
questions concerning the state of women's health in middle age. The second group
of questions were connected with family, private life, work, contacts, sexuality,
self-actualization and dress. In the Soviet Union women and men were officially
equal. In 1917 women were authorized to vote in elections and to study in university.
At the same time, women must work in social production, eight hours a day and
look after the housekeeping. They were also expected to be skilled mothers.
Very hard work undermined the women's health and hamperd their promotion in
the social sphere. Nothing is quietly steady today. As before women are double
jobbing - at work and at home. At present, the majority of Buelorussion women
have graduated from the university or the institute. By contrast, the number
of Buelorussion men with higher education qualifications is far less.
Nevertheless, there is a stereotype that women are less qualified and intelligent
than men. It is very difficult and practically impossible to overcome this stereotype
especially since male experts are interested in perpetuating it and fear increasing
competition for promotion. Access to administrative positions is denied even
for a highly qualified woman, her activities are reduced to her professional
executive functions. A woman who proves her leadership qualities and professional
expertise still cannot expect an important administrative post with real authority.
She faces invisible and impenetrable barriers.
Extremely low familiarity with gender issues among educated Buelorussion women
should also be mentioned. They do not realize that they are being discriminated
against and, therefore, do not regard it as a problem. They are content to play
secondary roles due to the prevailing stereotypes. They can hardly resist men's
pressure and domination, as they lack gender awareness and the skills to defend
their interests.
The analysis of the answers to the social investigation shows that the overwhelming
majority of the well educated Buelorussion women put "family" as their
highest priority and "sexuality" as their lowest (eighth) irrespective
of education level. These sociological results are evidence of very strong patriarchal
traditions in Buelorussion society. Women's potential remains unrealized and
society only suffers from this.
The work received support from UNFPA fund of the United Nations
Anna Vidali (University of Thessaly, Greece):
Perceptions of Adolescence
To explore the relationship that women maintain with their bodies during the crucial passage from childhood to womanhood, I will comment on ten narratives of women who have talked about their lives. Five of these women were aged between nineteen and twenty-one and I interviewed then myself. The same five young women went home to interview their mothers. They asked questions mainly about childhood and adolescence. It is interesting to consider what experiences the mothers chose to tell their daughters as well as how their daughters interpret the information they receive.
Caroline Walker (Bristol University,
UK): Sisters of Mercy: Reconsidering the Role of Nursing Staff
in Marie Stopes’ Mothers’ Clinics, 1921-1939
Marie Stopes’ insistence upon maintaining a regular and detailed correspondence with the health professionals who staffed her Mothers’ Clinics has provided a rich resource recounting both the daily running of the centres and the significant concerns faced by voluntary birth control clinics in interwar Britain. Trained nurses served as the mainstay of the Clinics’ medical staff; local married women with families were often selected in order to enhance the clinic’s relationship with its patients. This paper will draw upon both clinic records and correspondence, in addition to archive material from the Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress, to resituate the roles undertaken by individual nursing staff employed in the Mothers’ Clinics between 1921 and 1939. Highlighting their involvement in developing a relationship between the clinic and the local community, this case study will examine the specific training and instruction the nurses undertook, together with their relationships with doctors and other participants in the establishment and running of the clinics. Moreover, the paper will focus upon the individual relationships the clinic nurses developed with Marie Stopes – their response to her methods and ideas, the level of clinic autonomy achieved, and whether their individual responses to issues facing the centres impacted upon clinic policy. Staff interaction with clinic patients, including difficulties arising with clients, the promotion of favoured methods of contraception and the dissemination of birth control information to the community will also be focused upon. This study re-examines the vital involvement of clinic nursing staff in developing voluntary birth control clinics across Britain during the interwar years. In considering their roles and impact, this paper resituates their significance within the clinic structure, within the local communities and within the interwar birth control movement as a whole.
Miranda Walker (University of Melbourne, Australia):
Rural Women and the Family Economy in 19th Century Colonial Australia
In considering the foundations of feminism in Australia, it is important to take into account the work of white rural women living in the colonies during the 19th century. Women’s labour played a vital role in the colonial family structure; both single and married women living in rural areas played a significant economic role in helping to establish and run bush properties and contributed to the profitability of the family enterprise through unpaid labour on the land. Through the diaries and letters of 19th century colonial women it is possible to understand the nature of the work these women undertook and the value placed on it by the women themselves, their families and communities. In the demands and challenges and no doubt hardships that these women faced, they demonstrated a sense of pride in their usefulness and the contributions they made to the survival and success of the family enterprise and, significantly, an autonomy and independence which, it could be argued, is linked to the success of the woman movement in Australia. This changing role for colonial women is particularly evident when compared to the lives of women who had emigrated from Britain. The new world of the colonies offered women (at least middle-class women) a new perspective and hope for their future and the role of women and work is key in observing how colonial women took advantage of new opportunities in terms of work and how this affected their lives. These opportunities, of course, had become available only through the dispossession of Aboriginal land; the positive experiences of white women must therefore be seen in the context of what was a disaster for Aboriginal women.
Angela Wanhalla (University of Canterbury, New
Zealand): ‘I am well and truly watered down’: Gender, Race and
Intermarriage at East Taieri, New Zealand, 1830s-1920s.
Using the life histories of indigenous women of East Taieri, this paper examines the ways in which intermarriage, as a ‘contact zone’ underpinned a process of cultural and social change that had gender specific outcomes for the families of one small indigenous community in the South Island of New Zealand. Intermarriage occupies a marginal place in New Zealand historiography. This paper offers an examination of intermarriage as exemplified by the small Ngai Tahu community situated at East Taieri, New Zealand over the period of the 1830s to the 1920s, as an illustration of the process of ‘colonial desire’. In doing so, I focus on the indigenous women rather than the men they married, arguing that these women have occupied a marginal place in the history of cultural contact in New Zealand. In the late 1830s, a bay whaling station was established on the coast of this territory. The station was abandoned by 1844, but nevertheless, it left its imprint on the indigenous landscape in the form of intermarriage. Indeed, by 1849 a small community had developed at East Taieri, comprised of former whalers, their Ngai Tahu wives and children. From 1848, the East Taieri district was colonized by British settlers. This movement of ‘newcomers’ into the East Taieri district represented a shift in the pattern of intermarriage from the 1860s, where ‘full-blood’ women were replaced by the ‘half-caste’ daughters of sealers and whalers as preferred partners. As a result, by 1891, East Taieri had the largest mixed descent population of all Ngai Tahu settlements in the South Island, at 82 percent.
Margaret Ward (Democratic Dialogue, Belfast):
Family Survival and Political Conflict: The Role of Motherhood in Northern
Ireland
Northern Ireland has suffered over thirty years of intense inter-communal conflict. Throughout, the family has been a site of struggle, of resistance and of oppression. It has also been a place of refuge from the uncertainties of the outside world. Pivotal to this has been the role of mothers. Women have been responsible for the survival of their families through the adoption of many different strategies of survival: confronting armed soldiers; participating in peace rallies; demonstrating on behalf of their imprisoned sons and daughters; attempting to provide explanations to children on the origins of the conflict; ensuring their children understand the boundaries of 'safe territory', beyond which 'the other' lives. While motherhood has been tied inextricably with 'the troubles' their role has rarely been recognised and the voices seldom heard. This paper is an attempt to consider questions of how cultural and political values are transmitted in deeply divided societies through presenting the views of women from different backgrounds and different generations on how they perceive their role as mothers throughout three decades of 'the troubles'.
Stefan Warg (Umeå University, Sweden):
Fertility, Gender and Class in a Mining District of Northern Sweden
This paper examines the relationship between the gender system, working-class radicalism and demographic change in a mining district in early 20th century Sweden. The general characteristics of the mining industry in late 19th and early 20th century suggest a pattern of clearly defined gender roles. Because of the conditions on local labour markets in mining communities employment opportunities for women were restricted. This condition resulted in a dichotomy between male and female economic roles in mining communities that can be seen to create institutionalised inequalities that, among other things, have an influence on communication within the family. These patterns have been shown to have demographic implications in a way that matters of fertility, sexual behaviour and household duties would be rigidified according to ritualised public conventions. Thus, the specific features of local gender systems in mining communities have been argued to explain the observed high levels of marital fertility in mining regions in Western Europe and North America. (Szreter 1996). The levels of marital fertility among mining populations were generally substantially higher than those among other population groups within the urban-industrial sector of late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century society. These observations were first recognised in the 1911 Fertility Census of England and Wales, and were later confirmed by empirical studies of the interaction between industrialisation and population development. (Haines 1979, Wrigley 1961) However, in the mining communities studied here an early and significant decline in marital fertility can be observed. Marital fertility had already in the early 1920s dropped to levels indicating deliberate family planning. These demographic observations suggest that the relationship between gender roles, gender stratification and fertility change needs to be further investigated. The early decline in fertility cannot, for example, be related to any significant change in economic roles for men and women. The explanations for the observed development of family - demographic patterns discussed in this paper focus on the establishment in the communities of radical organisations connected to the labour movement. These organisations are represented by the local trade - union and by socialist organisations within the feminist movement. The latter organisations can be argued to have been of importance for understanding the changes in attitudes towards childbearing within the family that is manifested by the decline in fertility. First of all the establishment of feminist organisations provided an opportunity for women to participate and interact in the public sphere, which can be regarded as a component to female empowerment in the local arena. Secondly, by analysing the discussions within the organisations, a strong influence of neomalthusian ideas has been detected. Furthermore, these ideas were discussed in a broader context that related the advantages of birth-control to the issue of lessening the domestic burdens of women, which in turn was regarded as an important precondition for political equality of women. The analyses have shown that the interaction between the public and private spheres in local communities are equally important for understanding changes in family and fertility behaviour as are economic conditions in terms of, for example, employment opportunities for women.
Ellen Warne (University of Melbourne, Australia): 'Making' the Child Care Problem: Australian Working Mothers and Access to Child Care in the 1940s and 1950s.
A small number of day nurseries and creches offered places for the children of working mothers in Australia, prior to the second world war. The philanthropic women who formed the boards of these facilities saw the services they provided as charitable outreach and were deeply ambivalent about assisting women who did not unequivocally appear to 'need' paid work. When war-time conditions forced the state and federal governments to become involved in issues of married women's involvement in the paid labour force, the sense of ' national crisis' provided an opportunity for those favouring greater work-force participation of mothers and married women to explore some of the more comprehensive proposals put forth by left-wing women's organisations. This paper will consider the acute sensitivities that underscored the debate about working mothers in the 1940s and 1950s and will explore the difficulties child care facilitators encountered when the war ended and conflicting views of post-war reconstruction failed to negotiate valid structures that would enable, particularly migrant, women's more streamlined participation in the workforce. The paper will explore the advocacy or opposition of left-wing and of philanthropic women in the changing debates about child care in the middle decades of the 20th century.
Kim Warren (Stanford University, USA): Educating the Girls, Changing the Families, Uplifting the Races: African American and Native American Reform in the American West, 1880-1920
This paper examines the ways in which white, middle-class, Christian educators, government officials, and reformers of the United States of America built two parallel education systems for Native American and African American children in the late-nineteenth century. Through these educational systems, reformers insisted on coeducation so that girls would receive as much training as boys in Christian principles, labor skills (domestic for girls and agricultural for boys), and Victorian gender norms. The primary motivation for educating girls was the commonly held belief that racial uplift of both Native Americans and African Americans depended on the roles that wives and mothers played in families. Therefore, reformers designed gender-specific curricula to train both Native American and African American girls in domestic arts and sciences, aswell as child-rearing, teaching, and missionary skills. Reformers believed that by educating girls they could ultimately impact the African American and Native American races. Girls, they observed, would become the mothers and wives that guided families and managed homes, and thus, set the norms for behavior within their communities. They believed that if they could educate the girls, they could change the families. Through the influence of families, they believed they could fit each race into a specific mold that they had determined appropriate for Post-Civil War American society. These race-specific molds were at the core of segregated African American and Native American schools. Native American and African American programs used similar curricula, however, the outcomes of Native American and African American schools were quite different from each other. White reformers at Native American schools expected their students to completely assimilate into white society. They believed that if their students shed their native traditions, languages, clothing, and habits, and replaced these with white, middle-class, Victorian behaviors and practices, they would become like culturally white, and therefore, mix into white society in their work, social interactions, and even marriage. Conversely, reformers imposed limitations on African American students' potential to assimilate. Rather than integrate into the dominant, white society, African American students were expected to use their educations to merge into an under-class of workers for the larger society. With these divergent expectations in mind, reformers educated girls with the intention of reinforcing these norms. This paper compares the experiences of girls at Native American and African American schools, and explores the ways in which girls accommodated, negotiated with, and resisted their educators' agendas.
Pamela
Weaver (South Africa): Edith Somerville, Sexuality and the Later
Novels
Two weeks before Violet
Martin Ross's death in December 1915, Edith Somerville wrote her brother Cameron
that "No one but she and I can ever know what we were to each other."
In many respects, this has summed up almost all efforts to tag or define the
nature of Somerville and Ross's relationship since the 1960s. The main biographers
of Somerville and Ross (Maurice Collis and Gifford Lewis) have failed to recognise
the importance of the novels French Leave (1928) and Sarah's Youth (1938) in
terms of their depiction of friendship between women and the issues of sexuality
that Edith and Martin's relationship raise. Perhaps this is because there is
a conflict between what Edith said about such things and what she wrote about
them in her fiction. The close personal relationship between Edith Somerville
and Violet Martin Ross is an area that has, at best, been dealt with in an unsatisfactory
way. At worst, it has been ignored as insignificant in any discussion of the
authors' work, a reflection of what Mooney has described as the heterosexist
stance of the various critics. An acceptance of the fact that the authors' relationship
can be interpreted as lesbian lends significance to the novels French Leave
(1928) and Sarah's Youth (1938), which have been almost completely ignored by
the critics, most notably Gifford Lewis, who argues against Somerville and Ross'
lesbianism yet fails to note the presence of characters who can clearly be interpreted
as such in Edith's last two novels. Lewis' apparent homophobia leads her to
an unfair judgement of Edith's friend Ethel Smyth, who had unsuccessfully propositioned
her and is portrayed as preying on a sexually naive Edith. Her surmise that
Edith was not a lesbian completely ignores the fact that, more than 15 years
after her refusal of Ethel Smyth's advances, Edith wrote a novel that appears
to sanction lesbian relationships. She then sought Smyth's approval of it, and
allowed a gushing blurb by her to appear on the book's dust jacket.
Dana Wessell (University of Toronto, Canada):
“Family Interests, Women’s Power: The Role of the Family in Dowry Restitution
Cases in Fifteenth-Century Valencia”
Using cases dating from 1420-1434 from the court of the Civil Justice in city of Valencia, Spain, this paper with examine the integral part played by a woman’s family in dowry restitution cases. While many historians have examined the part played by the family in the creation and dissolution of a marriage, few have looked at their role in the restoration of the dowry with the husband still living. At the time of her contract of marriage, a woman’s family would help provide her with the all important dowry, giving her the means by which to marry well, according to her social class. But a family’s investment in a woman’s dowry did not end with its devolution to her husband upon marriage. Although the law stated that a husband had the right to administer his wife’s dowry, there were limitations to his control. According to the prevailing laws in Valencia, a woman could seek restitution of her dowry, in the court of the civil justice, for a variety of reasons; including if she felt her husband was mismanaging it. But women did not seek the restoration of their dowries on their own, they usually did so with the support and assistance of their families. Focusing on the labouring classes, who made up the majority of female petitioners seeking the restoration of their dowries, this paper will look at the crucial role as witnesses to the validity and conditions of a marriage played by families in later medieval Valencian society. Contained within these records is a wealth of information that attests to the continuing involvement and interest of a woman’s family in her life and economic assets, even after she has married into another kin group. The court cases also clearly illustrate that a woman had a great deal more control over her marital assets than the law would indicate, and that women, at least in Valencia, were more than willing to challenge their husband’s administration of their property if they did not approve of how they were doing it.
Bernadette Whelan (University of Limerick, Ireland): Flight of Republicans: Irish Female Revolutionaries in the United States, 1916 to 1923
Immediately after the outbreak of the 1916 rising in Ireland, a number of female
representatives of the leading republican families fled Ireland for the United
States. This action was not unusual in Irish history with a pattern set in the
seventeenth century after the Irish defeat in the Battle of Kinsale in 1603
when the leaders left for the Continent. America was regarded as a place of
political refuge from the early nineteenth century onwards. However, much of
the historiography has focused on the activities of male figures abroad. This
paper examines the activities of women who fled Ireland after 1916 and attempts
to unravel their level of politicisation or political activity and their effectiveness
on behalf of the nationalist cause at home. Using Irish, British and American
primary sources, it argues that key female figures were regarded by the American
and British authorities and later by the Irish Free State government, as dangerous
persons whose movements were worthy of surveillance and actions restricted.
Caroline Wiedmer (University of Zurich, Switzerland): The Foetus, the Mother and the Law: A Reading of the Historical Development of Notions of Motherhood and Abortion in Switzerland
Law, like all cultural texts, is suffused in narrative. The way we tell a story--whom we choose as its narrator, for instacne, or where we begin and end it, what tropes we employ, and whether we make it sound like a romance, a thriller or an epic journey--are invisible underpinnings of arguments put forth in constitutions, policy debates, and courts of law. Such narratives, and the arguments they shape, are in turn culturally and historically contingent; in this contingency they both reveal and help to shape what is considered to be “normal” at the time of their telling. The analysis of legal arguments from a narrative perspective promises therefore to reveals deep--seated assumptions about the world. With this in mind, I would like to present a comparative reading of legal and political texts concerning abortion rights in Switzerland at three different times in recent history: in 1941, at the birth of the so-called Strafgesetzbuch or Swiss Penal Code, when abortion was first officially criminalized, then in 1974, when the so-called Fristenlösung (right to abortion within the first trimesetr) was first suggested and then roundly refuted, and finally in 2002, when the Fristenlösung was accepted by a mjority vote of 72%. Proceeding from a narratological analysis that inlcudes such dimensions as the cultural/historical setting for the various narratives, the archetypical narratives employed, the way the plot is presented, the positioning of protagonists and the antagonists, this comparative aims to map the changes in the constellations of mother-pregnant woman-child- and state over the last 60 years in Switzerland. As the juxtaposition of these three historical moments will show, the same sets of questions (Can abortion be legal? Who has the right to decide? When is a fetus a person? What are the rights and or duties of a woman?) Have entirely different valences within different historical settings, and the narrative strategies involved will lead to entirely diffeernt outcomes. Through this comparative study, I hope to illuminate the change in the legal and philosophical subject position of the Swiss woman since 1941.
Merry Wiesner-Hanks (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA): Women's History and World History
Women’s history began as a
revisionist methodology; it started with a story that had already been written,
and found it to be incomplete. We said: “Where are the women?” then
we found them, wrote about them, and convinced a few people who wrote general
“history” to add a few women (usually first in boxes). Then we found
out more about women, started thinking about and talking about gender, and convinced
some “generalists” to stir a little when they added women, which resulted
in separate sections out of boxes. Then because we were used to being revisionist
we revised ourselves and became extremely self- critical, asking “who are
the omen?” and “are there really women?” We searched out categories
of difference, broke down the distinction between sex and gender, and then threw
sexuality into the mixture, so that the categories of difference and the intersections
among them became even more complex. Women’s history now faces a new challenge.
The field of world history is rapidly developing as an area of both specialized
scholarship and undergraduate teaching, and the “canon” is being written.
Those of us engaged in women’s
history need to make sure that this canon includes the insights developed from
the women’s history, gender studies, and the history of sexuality, but
this may mean we will have to be willing to make generalizations that we have
spent several decades questioning, complicating, and problematizing. This challenge
will be particularly acute when we contemplate telling the story in a global
perspective of the theme of this conference - family, private life, and sexuality.
Deborah Wilson (Queens University, Belfast):
Widows and Property in Wealthy Landed Families in Ireland 1750-1850
Although land remained the primary source of wealth among the Irish landed class
in this period, such families were increasingly using non-landed property such
as government or private stocks, and by 1750 it was acceptable practice to provide
for widows by jointure rather than dower. It is one of the aims of this paper
to consider what impact the move away from dependence on land as a financial
resource among landed families had on widows. This paper would consider what
type of property widows owned and what control they exerted over it, beginning
with an analysis of what they received from their husband's wills in the form
of jointure and other bequests. Property issues are a regular theme in the personal
correspondence of the women in this study. In the second part of the paper I
will consider the apparent contradiction between the image of the greedy callous
widow, which emerges in correspondence as well as in contemporary literature
and drama and the fact that it was essential for a newly widowed woman to take
control of her finances. Wills are a useful source for examining what type of
property was owned by women, their power to bequeath such property and attitudes
towards property. In the third part of this paper I will consider the nature
of bequests made by widows in their wills. This will include a consideration
of bequests made to family members and the wider extended family and charitable
bequests.
Nancy Wingfield (Northern Illinois University, USA): “Regulation of Prostitution in Late Imperial Cisleithania: The Example of the Bohemian Lands”
This paper examines specificities of the regulation of prostitution in the Bohemian Lands during the last years of the Habsburg Monarchy through the lens of nationalism. Prostitution may not initially appear to be a topic that would become part of the discourse about nation. The links among prostitution, class, and venereal disease, however, made it a topic of concern for those interested in the moral and physical well being of future generations Czechs and Germans in the Bohemian Lands. I trace nationalist attitudes about dysgenic behaviors and locate them within Czech and German discourses on the role of women in their respective nations. Police regulation of commercial sex in Cisleithania was based on a variety of laws governing public behavior, the earliest of which dated from May 27, 1852. The regulation of prostitution was a compromise between absolute prohibition, which was impossible to enforce, and decriminalization, which was not acceptable to much of “polite society.” Regulation represented both an attempt to police the “immoral” behavior of lower-class women and to curb spread of venereal disease. Local police attempted to register prostitutes, issue them Gesundheitsbücher, and compel them to appear for routine medical examinations. They were not always successful in these endeavors. As elsewhere in continental Europe, regulation of prostitution in Austria was an import from France. Moreover, Austrian educated society’s analysis of prostitution paralleled that of middle and upper classes elsewhere in Europe, which was associated with the traumas of industrialization and urbanization. Regulation of prostitution in the Habsburg Monarchy, however, was unique, because it took shape within context the devoutly Roman Catholic patriarchal, paternalistic, and bureaucratic traditions of the Monarchy. Regulation, however, varied not only regionally, but also locally, a reflection of the traditions of the multinational empire.
Maria
Wolf (University of Innsbruck, Austria):
Infants as a Project of Optimisation. Causes and Consequences of the 'Eugenisation'
of the
Mother-Child Relationship in the 20th Century
In this paper, I will analyse several causes and consequences of the ´eugenisation'
of the mother-infant relationship by the medical establishment during the past
century, which aimed at creating 'perfect' infants through selection as well
as improvement of mothers and their babies.
I will discuss this historical evolution based on the thesis of developmental
psychology, according to which the 'gleam in the mother's eye', as an expression
of joy and recognition, is necessary for the successful development of self-esteem.
Yet I will confront this thesis with a historical anthropology of the gaze -
pointing out the 'gleam in the mother's eye', in which the emerging child's
self develops through mirroring, is in fact not an historical and anthropological
constant. Furthermore, a mother's 'look' at her child is historically shaped
by education proposed by social institutions, such as medicine, which have 'disseminated
eugenic and genetic notions' throughout society. And if a mother cannot be better
than the society in which she lives, we have to discuss how the eugenic scanning
of human beings, which was established in the 20th century as a legitimate way
of perceiving people, affects a mother's gaze at her baby.
The data for the analysis are drawn from an examination of articles published
in the "Wiener klinische Wochenschrift" ("Vienna Clinical Weekly")
between 1900 and 2000, the leading medical journal in Austria. In sum I will
discuss the questions: What were the given reasons for the necessity of medical
regulation of maternal practices? Which tasks did mothers have to accomplish?
Which aims to achieve? Which means to use? And in which relations were mothers,
fathers and children put together (relations of gender and relations of generation)?
Carole
Woodall (New York University, USA):
Dressing the Modern Woman, Fashioning the Nation: The Politics of Fashion
in 1920s Turkish Illustrated Magazines
This paper examines the politics of fashion by employing debates on dress and
hair styles, images and advertisements in 1920s illustrated magazines to underline
the ways that Turkish Muslims engaged in new cultural practices and negotiated
ideas of "modernity" (asrilik) during a period of first allied occupation
and then political consolidation accompanied by urban demographic shifts. The
paper engages in academic debates on the cultural transformation from the Ottoman
Turkish past to present-day Turkey. Utilizing the category of the "modem"
and the "everyday", this paper intends to contribute to projects which
give agency to non-state, non-elite Turkish female, and male, actors. I argue
that in the early-twentieth century, the continuing presence of European and
the growing predominance of American cultural practices, advertising, goods,
and images accompanied by increased visibility of non-elite Turkish women as
wage-earners and cultural consumers problematized the redefinition of the urban
cultural landscape against the larger backdrop of the emerging nation-state.
By the period of the "Roaring Twenties" (qlganyirmi1er), transformations
in the cultural, social, political, and economic spheres were expressed through
a rhetoric of "the modem" in the press: the "modem life"
(asri hayat), the "modem woman" (asri kadan), and "to modernize"
(asrilectirmek). New consumption, entertainment, sexuality, and social practices
were at the center of a cultural reorientation that had already begun in the
nineteenth-century. By the early Turkish republican period, the process of westernization
had effectively become part of the nation-building project. According to the
Turkish nationalist narrative, the framing of the Ottoman past as traditional,
religious, backward was clearly demarcated from the new Turkish Republican present
as modern, secular, and progressive. However, processes of social and cultural
transformations cannot be reduced to such clear-cut dichotomies. Depictions
of and narratives by the modem Turkish woman casting off the veil, bobbing her
hair, wearing knee-length skirts, and dancing the Charleston underlines and
illustrates these ambiguities. For example, in satirical gazettes, male and
female readers encountered caricatures of women having illicit affairs, going
to disreputable bars and cinemas, and blindly following the latest trends. However,
the caption frequently labeled the image as "namuslu kadint" (honorable
woman). In my empirical work I draw upon the abundance of articles that appeared
on fashion in the 1920s Istanbul-based Turkish illustrated magazines, in addition
to debates in the women's press, and caricatures in satirical gazettes. The
visual and printed materials contain a multitude of voices, including social
reformers, journalists, and feminists contesting the role/image of the "woman
of luxury" or the "modern woman" as well as that of the "family-oriented
woman". In other words, debates on fashion that appeared in the 1920s press
underlined the tension over the structuring of the society, of the family, and
of the nation. On the one hand, some writers wanted to engage in "modern"
trends and cultural practices, but on the other hand, critics wanted to safeguard
and protect the Muslim population from these changes. By examining consumer
culture through illustrated magazines, this paper will use the discussion of
fashion to investigate the complexities and ambiguities between imported cultural
practices and local realities. Debates surrounding these contestations reflect
re-configurations of public and private, masculine and feminine, morality and
honor. Although images of the "modern woman" mirror those found elsewhere
in Europe, Asia and the United States, they do not reflect a sole embrace of
"western" ways of being. Instead, they are part of a larger dialogue
on defining alternative modernities, in general and Turkish cultural modernity,
in particular. In the case of the early Turkish Republic, debates on cultural
production/consumption and the "modern woman" were part of the larger
project of refashioning the nation-state and society.
Michal Ben Ya'akov (Efrata College of Education, Jerusalem): Widows in the Jewish Communities of Late Ottoman Palestine
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, widows made up a disproportionate percentage of the ever-growing numbers of Jews in the Holy Land. Economic conditions in the cities were harsh, and mortality rates were devastatingly high. The plight of women, and of widows in particular, was especially distressing. The great majority of widows, both those who immigrated as widows and those widowed after their arrival, was desperately poor, and they barely eked by, especially in the four Jewish Holy Cities of Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron. The absence of extended families, which traditionally included their widows and orphans and supported them, created an urgent need for housing and communal funds for this significant section of the population. Women’s needs and their aspirations, together with the religious environment of the Holy Land, resulted in unique housing options and economic activities, developed by and for widows beyond the norms of traditional daily life. This paper will examine a wide range of demographic, social, economic and geographic factors that converged in space and time, creating unique environments and opportunities for widows, both formal and informal. Based on extensive research analyzing census lists, rabbinical literature, real estate contracts and other archival documentation, as well as photographs, oral documentation and fieldwork, this paper will attempt to reconstruct the changing lives of Jewish women as widows, both in their communities of origin and in Eretz-Israel during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Using North African Jewish immigrant women as a case study, the discussion will focus on those factors which seem to have remained stable, transferring characteristics of women’s lives from North Africa to Ottoman Palestine, separating them from those which seem to have undergone significant change over time and territory.
Katja Yesilova (University of Helsinki, Finland):
Mother: The Essence of the Family, the Moral Backbone of the Nation
In the paper I will inquire the relationship between family and nation in Finland before the Second World War. The focus is on the mother as she became the core figure of the family and the nation. On the ‘abstract’ level the aim is to inquire the relationships between mother-figure, morality and nation. Thus, the analysis traces the rationales in which the mother and motherhood were elementarily attached to the nation body as she was posited as the key figure of the survival and well-being of the nation, the household and the family. The abstract level is also extremely concrete: the inquiry follows the arrangements in which woman’s role was problematized essentially as motherhood, and her space and modality limited to the home, householdworks and childrearing. Inquiry focuses on the philantrophic and national projects in which women were guided toward motherly essence, and in which they were constituted as the centre of the family, the moral backbone of the nation, the natural caretaker of the children, the soul of the home – how family was, at the same time, defined as the ultimately intimate and, became invaded by innumerable public practices of the social state aiming to educate families to their own well being – to normality, and, to intimacy. The mother was tutored to act as the primus motor of the change from traditional to modern, to open up the ‘intimate’ family unit to co-operation with the nation nascent, to the welfare state to be. Thus, the relations between the nation, the family, and the mother were essentially interconnected with rationalities of governing the state through the intimate family, the unit of autonomous modern individuals. The aim of the paper is to inquire the backgrounds of ‘the modern nuclear family’. Focus is on arrangements in which family and living in a family becomes essential, natural and pivotal to the well being of both i) the society and ii) the members of the family – each individual. The inquiry is twofold: on the one hand the focus is on the descend of the understanding of ‘the family’. The perspective is genealogical (Foucault 1998). On the other, the aim is to follow the practices of governing the family, and – especially – governing through family. Thus, the attention is on governmentality (Dean 1999).
Akiko Yoshie (Teikyo University, Japan):
Public / Private in Ancient Japan - The Change of Ideas on Toji (the honorific
title of woman during the ancient period) from Housewife to Leader( Chief) of
the community
The term Ni has been traditionally used as an honorific title for women in Japan. Folklore,which started in modem times, defined "Tojir as a housewife and insisted that women's role in the family was very important from ancient times. This idea(discourse) became popular. Historians were also affected by this idea and analyzed Tojfs activity found in the ancient materials a s the role of a housewife,Ietoji. On the other hand, not only Ietoji,but also Sato(community)toji and Tra(temple)toji were found in materials. It seems that Toil was an honorific title for women who commanded and controlled people to work at either a community or a temple and that letoji was the oldest woman who controlled the clan. In addition, many tablets recently excavated have demonstrated that Satotoji actively controlled people's farming at local community until the early ninth century and that her position was not a formal official post,but was considered a public post. My paper intends to articulate two issues. The first is to analyze the difference of ideas about public and private between the system organized along gender line in modern times and the system of both man and woman working in the public sphere in the ancient period. The second is to consider why woman appeared in records describing daily lives, while she was hidden from official records such as the Imperial Court and Laws
Irina Yukina (St Petersburg, Russia): The Equality of Women's and Men's Sexual Rights as a Problem of Russian Feminism.
One of the leaders of Russian feminism of the first wave Maria Pokrovskaya, a doctor, the organizer and chairman of the Women's Progressive Party and Women's Party Club, editor and owner of the “Women's Herald” journal (1904-1917) believed that the most important problem was the problem of prostitution. The phenomenon of prostitution was for her a quintessence of men's dominance over women. Prostitutes were victims of gender and class antagonisms in the society. Her attitude to this problem was getting more and more radical as the movement was becoming more political. In her works, men appeared as a united anti-female community with no class distinctions. She saw a way of solving this problem in establishing equal sexual ethics for women and men. Chastity before marriage was proclaimed as a real realization of the equality slogan. She supported the creation of the so-called chastity communities, similar to the English White Cross organizations whose members gave the oath to keep abstinence for 25, 30, 40 and more years. She insisted on medical testing of the customers of brothels. She defined men as consumers of prostitution, and put forward the idea of their responsibility and degradation. Pokrovskaya considered such innovations as a real realization of ideas of equality. From today's point of view, we may conclude that she tried if not to abolish control of female sexuality than to establish the same control over that of men. Her activity encouraged discussions of the issue of equality in women's and men's rights. Consequently, in the 1880-1890s, the fate of the prostitute became the subject of discussions. The proposition that the society solves its sexual problems at the expense of women - a social group with no rights - was introduced into public consciousness. Penitential attitude towards prostitutes had been widespread among Russian intelligetsia.
Edith S. Zack (Bar Ilan University, Israel):
The European Music Salon: Private Space as Key to Women’s Professional Emancipation
The revival of Sunday morning musical salon concerts, known as Sonntagmusik,
seems one of the strategies used by Fanny Hensel Mendelssohn, (1805-1847), in
order to form her own creative space. If she could not go out into the world
to experience music making, thought Fanny, she would bring the musical world
into her own home. Growing up in the safe environment of the Mendelssohn household,
Fanny enjoyed the luxuries of an affluent upper class family. And indeed, throughout
the first half of the nineteenth century the Mendelssohn home became the most
important salon in Berlin. It was known for its weekly theatrical performances,
for the literary readings that were conducted by Fanny, and above all for its
regular Sunday musicales. Its guests included figures such as the natural scientist
Alexander Von Humboldt, Goethe, Hegel, and the music critic Adolph Bernard Marx.
Although originally an aristocratic institution, the musical salon, which brought
together amateurs and professionals, was democratic in principle and autonomous
in aspiration. In this paper a typological model of the musical salon, from
the 1770s up to the turn of the twentieth century, will be drawn; its structure
as a private institution will be sketched, its management first by aristocratic
women, then by bourgeois women salonières, the latter carving a place
for themselves in the history of music by taking talented composers (very often
male) under their wings. The functions of the musical salon as a space where
musical works were previewed, the audience, the presented repertoire, and the
significance of this institution in the lives of women musicians (performers
and composers) will be discussed as aspects of this private venue. Within the
discussion, important women salonières and women musicians will be examined.
To mention only a few: Madame Meg de St-Marceaux (the sculptor's wife), the
Princess of Polignac (at whose salon much great French music of the turn of
the century was premiered and commissioned), Isabelle de Charriére, the
opera composer Sophie Gay who with the Duchess d'Abrantés managed the
salon theatre of Count Jules de Castellane, and last but not least, Fanny Hensel
Mendelssohn whose 500 works were written mainly for her Berlin salon.
Consequently, as I will show, although physically conducted in a private space
the music salon turned into 'public space'. Thus, not only was this cultural
phenomenon influential in making music legitimate in the bourgeois universe;
to a certain extent it determined the development of European contemporary music.
Venera Zakirova (Socio-Psychology Center "Family Service" and Bashkir State University, Bashkortostan Republic, Ufa, Russia): War in a Family: Domestic Violence and Human Rights in Russia
In Russian society, domestic violence is still considered a private family
problem, but the role of women is becoming more significant both in the family
and the workforce. Having better education and working in the paid workforce,
while being responsible for housework and the well-being of children has led
to fewer Russian women willing to tolerate victimization in their own families.
Although the former Soviet totalitarian structures are being dismantled, new
forms of political, economic, and social organizations are not yet in place.
In communist Russia, family as an ideological institution shaped official family
policy. The contemporary transformation of Russian society has inevitably touched
family life and women's roles within it.
Although the problem of domestic violence is not new, in the former USSR, it
was classified as a private matter known only to the police. Thus, it was not
the topic of public discussion, public opinion, or scientific analysis, with
the result that the intimacy spheres of friendship, loyalty, and sexuality were
affected by communist ideologies. Even today the problem of domestic violence
is not open for social discussion, and families cover up the crimes within:
Since 1993, 15,000 women have been killed by their husbands and boyfriends each
year. Domestic violence is also the cause of social orphanhood, with more than
5 million children currently neglected by their parents.
Reasons for this are not hard to find. Russian society is extremely aggressive,
with a long history of warfare. Russian men who are prone to violence often
refuse to see their actions as criminal and they receive more understanding
than condemnation from police, who regularly fail to file complaints about what
they call "private family affairs". The prevailing mentality is to
see victims as somehow "deserving" their fate, even though most are
wives and children.
In this paper I will present an analysis of domestic violence in Russia, and
make recommendations for social action, legislation, social condemnation, and
the women's movement.