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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Gender studies
More women are studying science at university and they consistently
outperform men. Yet, still, significantly fewer women than men hold
prestigious jobs in science. Why should this occur? What prevents
women from achieving as highly as men in science? And why are so
few women positioned as 'creative genius' research scientists?
Drawing upon the views of 47 (female and male) scientists, Bevan
and Gatrell explore why women are less likely than men to become
eminent in their profession. They observe three mechanisms which
perpetuate women s lowered 'place' in science: subtle masculinities
(whereby certain forms of masculinity are valued over womanhood);
(m)otherhood (in which women's potential for maternity positions
them as 'other'), and the image of creative genius which is
associated with male bodies, excluding women from research roles.
Policing Sex in the Sunflower State: The Story of the Kansas State
Industrial Farm for Women is the history of how, over a span of two
decades, the state of Kansas detained over 5,000 women for no other
crime than having a venereal disease. In 1917, the Kansas
legislature passed Chapter 205, a law that gave the state Board of
Health broad powers to quarantine people for disease. State
authorities quickly began enforcing Chapter 205 to control the
spread of venereal disease among soldiers preparing to fight in
World War I. Though Chapter 205 was officially gender-neutral, it
was primarily enforced against women; this gendered enforcement
became even more dramatic as Chapter 205 transitioned from a
wartime emergency measure to a peacetime public health strategy.
Women were quarantined alongside regular female prisoners at the
Kansas State Industrial Farm for Women (the Farm). Women detained
under Chapter 205 constituted 71 percent of the total inmate
population between 1918 and 1942. Their confinement at the Farm was
indefinite, with doctors and superintendents deciding when they
were physically and morally cured enough to reenter society; in
practice, women detained under Chapter 205 spent an average of four
months at the Farm. While at the Farm, inmates received treatment
for their diseases and were subjected to a plan of moral reform
that focused on the value of hard work and the inculcation of
middle-class norms for proper feminine behavior. Nicole Perry's
research reveals fresh insights into histories of women, sexuality,
and programs of public health and social control. Underlying each
of these are the prevailing ideas and practices of respectability,
in some cases culturally encoded, in others legislated, enforced,
and institutionalized. Perry recovers the voices of the different
groups of women involved with the Farm: the activist women who
lobbied to create the Farm, the professional women who worked
there, and the incarcerated women whose bodies came under the
control of the state. Policing Sex in the Sunflower State offers an
incisive and timely critique of a failed public health policy that
was based on perceptions of gender, race, class, and respectability
rather than a reasoned response to the social problem at hand.
This new edition of Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections with Other
Animals and the Earth begins with an historical, grounding overview
that situates ecofeminist theory and activism within the larger
field of ecocriticism and provides a timeline for important
publications and events. Throughout the book, authors engage with
intersections of gender, sexuality, gender expression, race,
disability, and species to address the various ways that sexism,
heteronormativity, racism, colonialism, and ableism are informed by
and support animal oppression. This collection is broken down into
three separate sections: -Affect includes contributions from
leading theorists and activists on how our emotions and embodiment
can and must inform our relationships with the more-than-human
world -Context explores the complexities of appreciating difference
and the possibilities of living less violently -Climate, new to the
second edition, provides an overview of our climate crisis as well
as the climate for critical discussion and debate about ecofeminist
ideas and actions Drawing on animal studies, environmental studies,
feminist/gender studies, and practical ethics, the ecofeminist
contributors to this volume stress the need to move beyond binaries
and attend to context over universal judgments; spotlight the
importance of care as well as justice, emotion as well as reason;
and work to undo the logic of domination and its material
implications.
Trans* surgery has been an object of fantasy, derision, refusal,
and triumph. Contributors to this issue explore the vital and
contested place of surgical intervention in the making of trans*
bodies, theories, and practices. For decades, clinicians considered
a desire for reconstructive genital surgery to be the linchpin of
the transsexual diagnosis. In the 1990s, new histories of trans*
clinical practice challenged the institutional claim that
transsexuals all wanted genital surgery, and trans* authors began
to argue for their surgically altered bodies as sites of power
rather than capitulation. Subsequent contestations of the
medico-surgical framework helped mark the emergence of
"transgender" as an alternative, more inclusive term for gender
nonconforming subjects who were sometimes less concerned with
surgical intervention. Contributors move beyond medical issue to
engage "the surgical" in its many forms, exploring how trans*
surgery has been construed and presented across different
discursive forms and how these representations of trans* surgeries
have helped and/or limited understanding of trans* identities and
bodies and shaped the evolution of trans* politics. Contributors.
Paisley Currah, Joshua Franklin, Cressida J. Heyes, Julia
Horncastle, Riki Lane, J.R. Latham, Sandra Mesics, Eric Plemons,
Katherine Rachlin, Chris Straayer, Susan Stryker
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