Cheshire Calhoun
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199257669
- eISBN:
- 9780191598906
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199257663.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This book is about placing sexual orientation politics within feminist theorizing. It is also about defining the central political issues confronting lesbian and gay men. It brings the study of ...
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This book is about placing sexual orientation politics within feminist theorizing. It is also about defining the central political issues confronting lesbian and gay men. It brings the study of lesbians from the margins of feminist theory to the centre by critiquing the analytic frameworks employed within feminist theory that render invisible the difference of lesbians from heterosexual women. The basic features of lesbian and gay subordination are also addressed by exploring the differences between heterosexual dominance and gender and race relations. Throughout the book, the aim is to re‐centre lesbian and gay politics away from concern with sexual regulations and towards concern with the displacement of gays and lesbians from the public sphere of visible citizenship and from the private sphere of romance, marriage, and family.Less
This book is about placing sexual orientation politics within feminist theorizing. It is also about defining the central political issues confronting lesbian and gay men. It brings the study of lesbians from the margins of feminist theory to the centre by critiquing the analytic frameworks employed within feminist theory that render invisible the difference of lesbians from heterosexual women. The basic features of lesbian and gay subordination are also addressed by exploring the differences between heterosexual dominance and gender and race relations. Throughout the book, the aim is to re‐centre lesbian and gay politics away from concern with sexual regulations and towards concern with the displacement of gays and lesbians from the public sphere of visible citizenship and from the private sphere of romance, marriage, and family.
Cheshire Calhoun
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199257669
- eISBN:
- 9780191598906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199257663.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This introductory chapter lays the groundwork for future chapters by suggesting that feminist theorizing must make a methodological shift from thinking that heterosexism is just a by‐product of ...
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This introductory chapter lays the groundwork for future chapters by suggesting that feminist theorizing must make a methodological shift from thinking that heterosexism is just a by‐product of sexism, to thinking of lesbian and gay subordination as a separate axis of oppression that intersects with gender, race, and class axes of oppression. It also introduces the two central features of lesbian and gay subordination. The first of these is that the principal damaging effect of a heterosexist system is that it displaces lesbians and gays from both the public and private spheres of civil society so that they have no legitimated social location. The second is that the principal ideologies rationalizing lesbian and gay displacement are that there are only two natural and normal sexes/genders; that lesbian and gay sexuality is excessive, compulsive, and disconnected from romantic love; and that, for a variety of reasons, lesbians and gays are unfitted for marital and family life. The last part of the chapter makes general remarks on how the book fits into the essentialist–constructionist controversy.Less
This introductory chapter lays the groundwork for future chapters by suggesting that feminist theorizing must make a methodological shift from thinking that heterosexism is just a by‐product of sexism, to thinking of lesbian and gay subordination as a separate axis of oppression that intersects with gender, race, and class axes of oppression. It also introduces the two central features of lesbian and gay subordination. The first of these is that the principal damaging effect of a heterosexist system is that it displaces lesbians and gays from both the public and private spheres of civil society so that they have no legitimated social location. The second is that the principal ideologies rationalizing lesbian and gay displacement are that there are only two natural and normal sexes/genders; that lesbian and gay sexuality is excessive, compulsive, and disconnected from romantic love; and that, for a variety of reasons, lesbians and gays are unfitted for marital and family life. The last part of the chapter makes general remarks on how the book fits into the essentialist–constructionist controversy.
SUSAN J. OWEN
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198183877
- eISBN:
- 9780191674129
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198183877.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter deals with sex and gender issues. It considers the dramatic language of sexual politics, focusing on the interface between party politics and questions of gender and sex. It aims to ...
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This chapter deals with sex and gender issues. It considers the dramatic language of sexual politics, focusing on the interface between party politics and questions of gender and sex. It aims to reinstate gender in the language of ‘high’ politics and to examine what the Tory and Whig languages of sexual politics really said, and the real contradictions behind them. It examines the rhetorical use of gender issues in party politics. It also shows that the dramatic language of politics invokes patriarchal family ideology.Less
This chapter deals with sex and gender issues. It considers the dramatic language of sexual politics, focusing on the interface between party politics and questions of gender and sex. It aims to reinstate gender in the language of ‘high’ politics and to examine what the Tory and Whig languages of sexual politics really said, and the real contradictions behind them. It examines the rhetorical use of gender issues in party politics. It also shows that the dramatic language of politics invokes patriarchal family ideology.
Ching Yau
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099876
- eISBN:
- 9789882206625
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099876.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This volume poses new challenges to queer studies and demonstrates the study of Chinese sexuality as an emergent field currently emanating from multiple disciplines. Issues related to sexuality have ...
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This volume poses new challenges to queer studies and demonstrates the study of Chinese sexuality as an emergent field currently emanating from multiple disciplines. Issues related to sexuality have acquired a new visibility in China in the past several years. The growth of religious fundamentalists and global gay discourses, heightened media attention and even more intense censorship, LBGTIQ activist movements, and the struggles of sex workers, have all contributed to this visibility. There is an urgent need for intellectual work to articulate and analyze the complexity of issues of sexuality, and the ways in which different norms line up and become synonymous with one another, in order to build situated knowledge in strengthening the discursive power of non-normative sexual-subjects-in-alliance. This book showcases the work of scholars working mostly outside Euro-America and focuses on cities including Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. It is a sustained collections on Chinese non-normative sexual subjectivities and contemporary sexual politics published in English. It highlights the various ways in which different individuals and communities — including male sex workers, transsexual subjects, lesbians, and Indonesian migrants — negotiate with notions of normativity and modernity, fine-tuned according to the different power structures of each context, and making new and different meanings.Less
This volume poses new challenges to queer studies and demonstrates the study of Chinese sexuality as an emergent field currently emanating from multiple disciplines. Issues related to sexuality have acquired a new visibility in China in the past several years. The growth of religious fundamentalists and global gay discourses, heightened media attention and even more intense censorship, LBGTIQ activist movements, and the struggles of sex workers, have all contributed to this visibility. There is an urgent need for intellectual work to articulate and analyze the complexity of issues of sexuality, and the ways in which different norms line up and become synonymous with one another, in order to build situated knowledge in strengthening the discursive power of non-normative sexual-subjects-in-alliance. This book showcases the work of scholars working mostly outside Euro-America and focuses on cities including Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Beijing. It is a sustained collections on Chinese non-normative sexual subjectivities and contemporary sexual politics published in English. It highlights the various ways in which different individuals and communities — including male sex workers, transsexual subjects, lesbians, and Indonesian migrants — negotiate with notions of normativity and modernity, fine-tuned according to the different power structures of each context, and making new and different meanings.
April R. Haynes
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226284590
- eISBN:
- 9780226284767
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226284767.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
The Introduction outlines the special place of female masturbation in modern and historical American women’s movements. During the 1970s, masturbation became a symbol of women’s liberation. Anne ...
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The Introduction outlines the special place of female masturbation in modern and historical American women’s movements. During the 1970s, masturbation became a symbol of women’s liberation. Anne Koedt and Betty Dodson challenged popular Freudian theories of healthy female sexuality as passive and dependent on male partners. Noting that dominant sexual prescriptions reified broader gender inequalities, they asserted that women must achieve independent pleasure in order to become empowered individuals. By conflating female masturbation with subjectivity, these feminists unknowingly mirrored nineteenth-century patterns. Female moral reformers of the 1830s, who first crusaded against masturbation, also asserted women’s sexual subjectivity and independence. These groups treated white feminine mores as an index of all women’s oppression. However, African American sexual politics differed because the dominant culture historically defined black women in opposition to white feminine passionlessness. Rather than prioritizing individual agency, they addressed sex as one aspect of interlocking social structures. The introduction also charts historical theories of sex that supported white patriarchy and libertine republicanism and defines key terms deployed by nineteenth-century radical sex reformers, or ultras. Finally, it brings modern theories of intersectionality and relationality to bear on the history of sexuality.Less
The Introduction outlines the special place of female masturbation in modern and historical American women’s movements. During the 1970s, masturbation became a symbol of women’s liberation. Anne Koedt and Betty Dodson challenged popular Freudian theories of healthy female sexuality as passive and dependent on male partners. Noting that dominant sexual prescriptions reified broader gender inequalities, they asserted that women must achieve independent pleasure in order to become empowered individuals. By conflating female masturbation with subjectivity, these feminists unknowingly mirrored nineteenth-century patterns. Female moral reformers of the 1830s, who first crusaded against masturbation, also asserted women’s sexual subjectivity and independence. These groups treated white feminine mores as an index of all women’s oppression. However, African American sexual politics differed because the dominant culture historically defined black women in opposition to white feminine passionlessness. Rather than prioritizing individual agency, they addressed sex as one aspect of interlocking social structures. The introduction also charts historical theories of sex that supported white patriarchy and libertine republicanism and defines key terms deployed by nineteenth-century radical sex reformers, or ultras. Finally, it brings modern theories of intersectionality and relationality to bear on the history of sexuality.
Tamara Levitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199730162
- eISBN:
- 9780199932467
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730162.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter examines how Gide revolutionized the expression of male same-sex desire in the writing strategies he developed for the narcissus plucking moment in Perséphone. In his treatise on ...
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This chapter examines how Gide revolutionized the expression of male same-sex desire in the writing strategies he developed for the narcissus plucking moment in Perséphone. In his treatise on pédérastie, Corydon, Gide countered the dominant belief of his time that desire was always heterosexual by proposing that male same-sex desire could be directed toward the goal of pleasure rather than reproduction. Gide established his point of view against the unrelenting insults of his contemporaries, however—a framework that determined how he positioned himself as a writer. In Perséphone, he coupled Persephone’s same-sex desire with a simultaneous need to fulfil social obligation, and framed both actions against the exclusionary French sexual politics of his day. Persephone’s attraction to the underworld reflects Gide’s interpretation of Orpheus’s “backward glance,” and his understanding of same-sex desire as taking place within a colonial frame. His bifurcated stance leads to a fragmented writing style or “bricolage” in the narcissus-plucking scene.Less
This chapter examines how Gide revolutionized the expression of male same-sex desire in the writing strategies he developed for the narcissus plucking moment in Perséphone. In his treatise on pédérastie, Corydon, Gide countered the dominant belief of his time that desire was always heterosexual by proposing that male same-sex desire could be directed toward the goal of pleasure rather than reproduction. Gide established his point of view against the unrelenting insults of his contemporaries, however—a framework that determined how he positioned himself as a writer. In Perséphone, he coupled Persephone’s same-sex desire with a simultaneous need to fulfil social obligation, and framed both actions against the exclusionary French sexual politics of his day. Persephone’s attraction to the underworld reflects Gide’s interpretation of Orpheus’s “backward glance,” and his understanding of same-sex desire as taking place within a colonial frame. His bifurcated stance leads to a fragmented writing style or “bricolage” in the narcissus-plucking scene.
Moyra Haslett
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184324
- eISBN:
- 9780191674198
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184324.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
This chapter examines the extent to which Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan was seen to be politically subversive and the extent to which the Don Juan legend made it so. The allusive appeal of the poem ...
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This chapter examines the extent to which Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan was seen to be politically subversive and the extent to which the Don Juan legend made it so. The allusive appeal of the poem to the upper and lower classes was attributed to its invocation of specific class configurations and to its politics, which were not solely sexual. The poem was also placed in the unusual position of having attracted just about the only readers which it ostensibly neglected to address, the working class.Less
This chapter examines the extent to which Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan was seen to be politically subversive and the extent to which the Don Juan legend made it so. The allusive appeal of the poem to the upper and lower classes was attributed to its invocation of specific class configurations and to its politics, which were not solely sexual. The poem was also placed in the unusual position of having attracted just about the only readers which it ostensibly neglected to address, the working class.
Suzanne Franzway, Nicole Moulding, Sarah Wendt, Carole Zufferey, and Donna Chung
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781447337782
- eISBN:
- 9781447337836
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447337782.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter draws together theoretical perspectives in developing an argument about gendered violence and women's citizenship. It suggests that the state's role in securing, enabling, and ...
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This chapter draws together theoretical perspectives in developing an argument about gendered violence and women's citizenship. It suggests that the state's role in securing, enabling, and maintaining the rights of citizens plays an important part in how violence is perpetrated and challenged. The apparent failure of the state to protect women as citizens from persistent violence is examined, with particular attention to the sexual politics of power and violence and the interconnections of material conditions, discourses, and subjectivities in the everyday life of the citizen. The chapter proposes that the persistence of domestic violence is implicated in the sexual politics of citizenship. In addition, the discursive impact of a politics of ignorance serves to deny or obscure how women's inequality, materially and discursively, is produced and reproduced in everyday life.Less
This chapter draws together theoretical perspectives in developing an argument about gendered violence and women's citizenship. It suggests that the state's role in securing, enabling, and maintaining the rights of citizens plays an important part in how violence is perpetrated and challenged. The apparent failure of the state to protect women as citizens from persistent violence is examined, with particular attention to the sexual politics of power and violence and the interconnections of material conditions, discourses, and subjectivities in the everyday life of the citizen. The chapter proposes that the persistence of domestic violence is implicated in the sexual politics of citizenship. In addition, the discursive impact of a politics of ignorance serves to deny or obscure how women's inequality, materially and discursively, is produced and reproduced in everyday life.
Suzanne Franzway, Nicole Moulding, Sarah Wendt, Carole Zufferey, and Donna Chung
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781447337782
- eISBN:
- 9781447337836
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447337782.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
The challenge of violence against women should be recognised as an issue for the state, citizenship, and the whole community. This book examines how responses by the state sanction violence against ...
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The challenge of violence against women should be recognised as an issue for the state, citizenship, and the whole community. This book examines how responses by the state sanction violence against women and shape a woman's citizenship long after she has escaped from a violent partner. Drawing from a long-term study of women's lives in Australia, including before and after a relationship with a violent partner, it investigates the effects of intimate partner violence on aspects of everyday life including housing, employment, mental health, and social participation. The book contributes to theoretical explanations of violence against women by reframing it through the lens of sexual politics. Finally, it offers critical insights for the development of social policy and practice.Less
The challenge of violence against women should be recognised as an issue for the state, citizenship, and the whole community. This book examines how responses by the state sanction violence against women and shape a woman's citizenship long after she has escaped from a violent partner. Drawing from a long-term study of women's lives in Australia, including before and after a relationship with a violent partner, it investigates the effects of intimate partner violence on aspects of everyday life including housing, employment, mental health, and social participation. The book contributes to theoretical explanations of violence against women by reframing it through the lens of sexual politics. Finally, it offers critical insights for the development of social policy and practice.
Suzanne Franzway, Nicole Moulding, Sarah Wendt, Carole Zufferey, and Donna Chung
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781447337782
- eISBN:
- 9781447337836
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447337782.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter argues that sexual politics is present in all aspects of our lives, including gendered violence, the state, and citizenship. It adds that sexual politics opens up new possibilities for ...
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This chapter argues that sexual politics is present in all aspects of our lives, including gendered violence, the state, and citizenship. It adds that sexual politics opens up new possibilities for understanding the persistent effects of domestic violence by shifting attention to the politics of gender relations. This shift away from the binary category of gender as men/women to the active and relational dynamics of sexual politics undercuts assumptions that gendered violence is natural or inevitable, or that violence is only caused by individuals. Sexual politics has material and discursive effects and offers an understanding of how the gendered dynamics of domestic violence and its long-term consequences have remained largely hidden from view. This chapter argues that the persistence of violence against women is implicated in the sexual politics of citizenship and the state. Hence, the challenge of violence against women is recognised as an issue for the state, citizenship, and society.Less
This chapter argues that sexual politics is present in all aspects of our lives, including gendered violence, the state, and citizenship. It adds that sexual politics opens up new possibilities for understanding the persistent effects of domestic violence by shifting attention to the politics of gender relations. This shift away from the binary category of gender as men/women to the active and relational dynamics of sexual politics undercuts assumptions that gendered violence is natural or inevitable, or that violence is only caused by individuals. Sexual politics has material and discursive effects and offers an understanding of how the gendered dynamics of domestic violence and its long-term consequences have remained largely hidden from view. This chapter argues that the persistence of violence against women is implicated in the sexual politics of citizenship and the state. Hence, the challenge of violence against women is recognised as an issue for the state, citizenship, and society.
Ariane Cruz
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479809288
- eISBN:
- 9781479899425
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479809288.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This chapter examines black women’s participation in BDSM and how these performances illustrate a complex and contradictory brokering of pain, pleasure, and power for the black female performer. I ...
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This chapter examines black women’s participation in BDSM and how these performances illustrate a complex and contradictory brokering of pain, pleasure, and power for the black female performer. I reveal BDSM as a critical site for reconsidering the entanglement of black female sexuality and violence. Within BDSM, violence becomes both a mode of pleasure and a vehicle for accessing and contesting power. The chapter begins with a brief section that frames black women practitioners of BDSM in the context of still very vigorous feminist debates surrounding sexuality, violence, and BDSM. Here, I stage the unique theoretical and practical challenges of the unspeakable pleasures aroused in racial submission and domination that BDSM presents to black women specifically. I examine race play as a particularly problematic yet powerful BDSM practice for black women, one that unveils the contradictory dynamics of racialized pleasure and power via the eroticization of racism and racial-sexual alterity. In particular, I argue that race play unsettles the dichotomies of transgression/compliance, subversion/reproduction, mind/body, and fantasy/reality that buttress BDSM. This chapter unveils performances of black female sexual domination and submission in BDSM as critical modes for and of black women’s pleasure, power, and agency.Less
This chapter examines black women’s participation in BDSM and how these performances illustrate a complex and contradictory brokering of pain, pleasure, and power for the black female performer. I reveal BDSM as a critical site for reconsidering the entanglement of black female sexuality and violence. Within BDSM, violence becomes both a mode of pleasure and a vehicle for accessing and contesting power. The chapter begins with a brief section that frames black women practitioners of BDSM in the context of still very vigorous feminist debates surrounding sexuality, violence, and BDSM. Here, I stage the unique theoretical and practical challenges of the unspeakable pleasures aroused in racial submission and domination that BDSM presents to black women specifically. I examine race play as a particularly problematic yet powerful BDSM practice for black women, one that unveils the contradictory dynamics of racialized pleasure and power via the eroticization of racism and racial-sexual alterity. In particular, I argue that race play unsettles the dichotomies of transgression/compliance, subversion/reproduction, mind/body, and fantasy/reality that buttress BDSM. This chapter unveils performances of black female sexual domination and submission in BDSM as critical modes for and of black women’s pleasure, power, and agency.
Srila Roy
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780198081722
- eISBN:
- 9780199082223
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198081722.003.0002
- Subject:
- Sociology, Politics, Social Movements and Social Change
This chapter introduces the reader to the Naxalite movement, its history and historiography, and outlines the ethnographic context on which the book draws. It maps the movement particularly in terms ...
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This chapter introduces the reader to the Naxalite movement, its history and historiography, and outlines the ethnographic context on which the book draws. It maps the movement particularly in terms of its gendered and classed economies, and thereby locates it in a longer tradition of communist and peasant struggles in Bengal and accompanied anxieties around sexuality, gender, class, and violence. This discussion also outlines the conceptual gaps in the feminist theorization of resistant violence, and calls for a stronger understanding of everyday violence as being continuous with the violence of political conflict. The last part of this chapter outlines the ethnographic context on which the book draws, offering some reflections on the kinds of issues thrown up in the course of fieldwork conducted in Kolkata.Less
This chapter introduces the reader to the Naxalite movement, its history and historiography, and outlines the ethnographic context on which the book draws. It maps the movement particularly in terms of its gendered and classed economies, and thereby locates it in a longer tradition of communist and peasant struggles in Bengal and accompanied anxieties around sexuality, gender, class, and violence. This discussion also outlines the conceptual gaps in the feminist theorization of resistant violence, and calls for a stronger understanding of everyday violence as being continuous with the violence of political conflict. The last part of this chapter outlines the ethnographic context on which the book draws, offering some reflections on the kinds of issues thrown up in the course of fieldwork conducted in Kolkata.
Moyra Haslett
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184324
- eISBN:
- 9780191674198
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184324.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism, Poetry
This chapter examines the sexual political implications of Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan. It highlights the fears that a pervasive female reading of the poem would make the sexual political issues ...
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This chapter examines the sexual political implications of Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan. It highlights the fears that a pervasive female reading of the poem would make the sexual political issues raised by the legend and Byron's poem apparent, for the vehemence of the reviewers' fury cannot be considered separately from the provocative context which the legend automatically effected. The early history of the legend demonstrated a special relationship of intimacy between many of the versions and their implicitly male readers and spectators.Less
This chapter examines the sexual political implications of Lord Byron's epic poem Don Juan. It highlights the fears that a pervasive female reading of the poem would make the sexual political issues raised by the legend and Byron's poem apparent, for the vehemence of the reviewers' fury cannot be considered separately from the provocative context which the legend automatically effected. The early history of the legend demonstrated a special relationship of intimacy between many of the versions and their implicitly male readers and spectators.
John Leonard
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199666553
- eISBN:
- 9780191748967
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199666553.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
Milton has been both deplored as a misogynist and acclaimed as the pre-eminent poet of companionate marriage. This chapter traces the emergence and development of both of these views, as well as ...
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Milton has been both deplored as a misogynist and acclaimed as the pre-eminent poet of companionate marriage. This chapter traces the emergence and development of both of these views, as well as critical responses to prelapsarian lovemaking. Many critics have discussed Milton’s eroticism separately from his sexual politics, but it is a curious fact that the poem’s most bitter or offensive passages are juxtaposed with its most tender professions of love. This chapter asks why this should be so, and argues that critics on both sides of the ‘misogyny’ question have obscured the real issue by either emphasizing or denying Milton’s supposed ‘grudge’ against women. Mary Wollstonecraft offered a more searching criticism when she argued that it is Milton’s love, not hatred, that poses the real threat. The chapter also asks what Milton meant by ‘cheerful conversation’ (in Paradise and the divorce pamphlets), and examines the history of critical responses to angelic lovemaking.Less
Milton has been both deplored as a misogynist and acclaimed as the pre-eminent poet of companionate marriage. This chapter traces the emergence and development of both of these views, as well as critical responses to prelapsarian lovemaking. Many critics have discussed Milton’s eroticism separately from his sexual politics, but it is a curious fact that the poem’s most bitter or offensive passages are juxtaposed with its most tender professions of love. This chapter asks why this should be so, and argues that critics on both sides of the ‘misogyny’ question have obscured the real issue by either emphasizing or denying Milton’s supposed ‘grudge’ against women. Mary Wollstonecraft offered a more searching criticism when she argued that it is Milton’s love, not hatred, that poses the real threat. The chapter also asks what Milton meant by ‘cheerful conversation’ (in Paradise and the divorce pamphlets), and examines the history of critical responses to angelic lovemaking.
Suzanne Franzway, Nicole Moulding, Sarah Wendt, Carole Zufferey, and Donna Chung
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781447337782
- eISBN:
- 9781447337836
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447337782.003.0008
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter returns to the topics broached in the previous chapters and considers the progress made so far. It shows how there have been achievements in many countries in terms of housing, law ...
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This chapter returns to the topics broached in the previous chapters and considers the progress made so far. It shows how there have been achievements in many countries in terms of housing, law reform, policy development, and the provision of support services for women leaving intimate partner violence. But, while these developments are important and could go some way towards improving the safety of women and their children, this chapter argues that not all state responses are sufficiently informed about the nature of the gender inequalities that enable violence, nor of the specific impact of intimate partner violence. It points to areas where state responses to intimate partner violence must improve in order to build women's capabilities to exercise full citizenship. After all, male-dominated sexual politics continues to locate intimate partner violence as an issue of the private sphere while, at the same time, claiming that gender equality has been won anyway and is therefore irrelevant.Less
This chapter returns to the topics broached in the previous chapters and considers the progress made so far. It shows how there have been achievements in many countries in terms of housing, law reform, policy development, and the provision of support services for women leaving intimate partner violence. But, while these developments are important and could go some way towards improving the safety of women and their children, this chapter argues that not all state responses are sufficiently informed about the nature of the gender inequalities that enable violence, nor of the specific impact of intimate partner violence. It points to areas where state responses to intimate partner violence must improve in order to build women's capabilities to exercise full citizenship. After all, male-dominated sexual politics continues to locate intimate partner violence as an issue of the private sphere while, at the same time, claiming that gender equality has been won anyway and is therefore irrelevant.
Kirsten Leng
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501709302
- eISBN:
- 9781501713248
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501709302.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Sexual Politics and Feminist Science examines German-speaking women’s heretofore-neglected contributions to the rethinking of sex, gender, and sexuality taking place within sexology between 1900 and ...
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Sexual Politics and Feminist Science examines German-speaking women’s heretofore-neglected contributions to the rethinking of sex, gender, and sexuality taking place within sexology between 1900 and 1933. At a time when sex and gender were sites of intense political contestation, women engaged with new medico-scientific paradigms for understanding sex in order to theorize bodies, drives, and desires in ways that challenged the status quo, refuted misogynistic scientific pronouncements, and imagined new possibilities for gendered and sexual subjectivities. While pointing out sexology’s empowering feminist potential, Sexual Politics and Feminist Science also explores the ways in which women’s efforts to understand sex through science were laced with cognitive biases and sociological prejudices that ultimately circumscribed the transformative potential of their ideas. Sexual Politics and Feminist Science thus seeks to excavate the full range of sexology’s discursive effects and contend with the complex legacy of women’s scientized sexual theories.Less
Sexual Politics and Feminist Science examines German-speaking women’s heretofore-neglected contributions to the rethinking of sex, gender, and sexuality taking place within sexology between 1900 and 1933. At a time when sex and gender were sites of intense political contestation, women engaged with new medico-scientific paradigms for understanding sex in order to theorize bodies, drives, and desires in ways that challenged the status quo, refuted misogynistic scientific pronouncements, and imagined new possibilities for gendered and sexual subjectivities. While pointing out sexology’s empowering feminist potential, Sexual Politics and Feminist Science also explores the ways in which women’s efforts to understand sex through science were laced with cognitive biases and sociological prejudices that ultimately circumscribed the transformative potential of their ideas. Sexual Politics and Feminist Science thus seeks to excavate the full range of sexology’s discursive effects and contend with the complex legacy of women’s scientized sexual theories.
Laura Chrisman
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122999
- eISBN:
- 9780191671593
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122999.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This book examines literary romance as a vehicle for the ideological contradictions of British imperialism in South Africa. It draws upon postcolonial theory and cultural materialism to discuss the ...
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This book examines literary romance as a vehicle for the ideological contradictions of British imperialism in South Africa. It draws upon postcolonial theory and cultural materialism to discuss the imperialist Henry Rider Haggard's fictional accounts of mining in King Solomon's Mines, and Zulu history in Nada the Lily, examining these novels as fraught responses to the introduction of capitalist modernity. It goes on to analyse the counter-narratives of metropolitan and African resistance of feminist Olive Schreiner and black nationalist Sol Plaatje. The book shows how Schreiner's is a much more challenging example of anti-imperialist fiction than Robert Conrad's Heart of Darkness, published two years later. The discussion of Plaatje's Mhudi considers the book as a direct response to Haggard's imperialism and Schreiner's feminist theory. Locating the book through the politics and epistemology of the early ANC, the book reveals how Plaatje challenges Haggard's misogyny and fatalistic historiography. Mhudi, it argues, is a novel whose nationalist and sexual politics are considerably more complex than has been recognized. Plaatje uses his narrative form to articulate both radical and liberal alternatives to white South African rule. The book demonstrates how South Africa played an important if now overlooked role in British imperial culture, and shows the impact of capitalism itself in the making of racial, gender and national identities.Less
This book examines literary romance as a vehicle for the ideological contradictions of British imperialism in South Africa. It draws upon postcolonial theory and cultural materialism to discuss the imperialist Henry Rider Haggard's fictional accounts of mining in King Solomon's Mines, and Zulu history in Nada the Lily, examining these novels as fraught responses to the introduction of capitalist modernity. It goes on to analyse the counter-narratives of metropolitan and African resistance of feminist Olive Schreiner and black nationalist Sol Plaatje. The book shows how Schreiner's is a much more challenging example of anti-imperialist fiction than Robert Conrad's Heart of Darkness, published two years later. The discussion of Plaatje's Mhudi considers the book as a direct response to Haggard's imperialism and Schreiner's feminist theory. Locating the book through the politics and epistemology of the early ANC, the book reveals how Plaatje challenges Haggard's misogyny and fatalistic historiography. Mhudi, it argues, is a novel whose nationalist and sexual politics are considerably more complex than has been recognized. Plaatje uses his narrative form to articulate both radical and liberal alternatives to white South African rule. The book demonstrates how South Africa played an important if now overlooked role in British imperial culture, and shows the impact of capitalism itself in the making of racial, gender and national identities.
Ralph M. Leck
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252040009
- eISBN:
- 9780252098185
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252040009.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This concluding chapter discusses how underlying the choice of Ulrichs as a symbol of resistance to Prussian–Nazi politics resulted to growing popular recognition of sexual politics as a vital ...
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This concluding chapter discusses how underlying the choice of Ulrichs as a symbol of resistance to Prussian–Nazi politics resulted to growing popular recognition of sexual politics as a vital feature of modern history. In this vein, Minister Einem's expulsion of homosexuals from the German officer corps reveals the cultural affinity between the rise of mass armies in the nineteenth century and the construction of modern masculinity. This affinity was a core cultural–political continuity between Prussian authoritarianism and the Nazi dictatorship. Indeed, the aspect of Nazi ideology that most closely resembled the fascist archetype was its gender politics. The choice of Ulrichs as a replacement for Einem, then, symbolizes rising acknowledgment that reactionary sexual politics was the greatest moral–cultural appeal of fascist populism.Less
This concluding chapter discusses how underlying the choice of Ulrichs as a symbol of resistance to Prussian–Nazi politics resulted to growing popular recognition of sexual politics as a vital feature of modern history. In this vein, Minister Einem's expulsion of homosexuals from the German officer corps reveals the cultural affinity between the rise of mass armies in the nineteenth century and the construction of modern masculinity. This affinity was a core cultural–political continuity between Prussian authoritarianism and the Nazi dictatorship. Indeed, the aspect of Nazi ideology that most closely resembled the fascist archetype was its gender politics. The choice of Ulrichs as a replacement for Einem, then, symbolizes rising acknowledgment that reactionary sexual politics was the greatest moral–cultural appeal of fascist populism.
Eileen Fauset
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719055577
- eISBN:
- 9781781702222
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719055577.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Women's Literature
Julia Kavanagh was a popular and internationally published writer of the mid-nineteenth century whose collective body of work included fiction, biography, critical studies of French and English women ...
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Julia Kavanagh was a popular and internationally published writer of the mid-nineteenth century whose collective body of work included fiction, biography, critical studies of French and English women writers, and travel writing. This critically engaged study presents her as a significant but neglected writer and returns her to her proper place in the history of women's writing. Through an examination of Kavanagh's work, letters and official documents, it paints a portrait of a woman who achieved not simply a necessary economic independence, but a means through which she could voice the convictions of her sexual politics in her work. The study addresses the current enthusiasm for the reclamation of neglected women writers, and also brings to light material that might otherwise have remained unknown to the specialist.Less
Julia Kavanagh was a popular and internationally published writer of the mid-nineteenth century whose collective body of work included fiction, biography, critical studies of French and English women writers, and travel writing. This critically engaged study presents her as a significant but neglected writer and returns her to her proper place in the history of women's writing. Through an examination of Kavanagh's work, letters and official documents, it paints a portrait of a woman who achieved not simply a necessary economic independence, but a means through which she could voice the convictions of her sexual politics in her work. The study addresses the current enthusiasm for the reclamation of neglected women writers, and also brings to light material that might otherwise have remained unknown to the specialist.
Suzanne Franzway, Nicole Moulding, Sarah Wendt, Carole Zufferey, and Donna Chung
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781447337782
- eISBN:
- 9781447337836
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447337782.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter is focused on the challenges of researching gendered violence. Here, the chapter presents the empirical foundation and design of a large-scale national study conducted across Australia; ...
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This chapter is focused on the challenges of researching gendered violence. Here, the chapter presents the empirical foundation and design of a large-scale national study conducted across Australia; which included a major survey, in-depth interviews, and constructed life histories. This chapter also considers some of the challenges faced when conducting and participating in gendered violence research in the context of the politics of ignorance and sexual politics. Given the risks that can flow from participating in and conducting research into gendered violence, it was particularly vital that the study was tightly conceptualised and methodologically sound, so that the benefits of participation by contributing to the development of new knowledge clearly outweighed any risks. The research study outlined here aimed to reveal the breadth and interconnected nature of the impact of intimate partner violence on women's citizenship as part of challenging wilful ignorance about violence and its relationship to gender inequality. As such, this research was an inherently political project that involved balancing a number of key considerations.Less
This chapter is focused on the challenges of researching gendered violence. Here, the chapter presents the empirical foundation and design of a large-scale national study conducted across Australia; which included a major survey, in-depth interviews, and constructed life histories. This chapter also considers some of the challenges faced when conducting and participating in gendered violence research in the context of the politics of ignorance and sexual politics. Given the risks that can flow from participating in and conducting research into gendered violence, it was particularly vital that the study was tightly conceptualised and methodologically sound, so that the benefits of participation by contributing to the development of new knowledge clearly outweighed any risks. The research study outlined here aimed to reveal the breadth and interconnected nature of the impact of intimate partner violence on women's citizenship as part of challenging wilful ignorance about violence and its relationship to gender inequality. As such, this research was an inherently political project that involved balancing a number of key considerations.
