Mary, Quite Contrary: The Novels of Mary Davys, 1700-1727

As a relatively unknown author, Mary Davys (1674-1732) has garnered scant scholarly attention and little admiration for her work. Those who have written on Davys’s prose fiction most often mention the last three texts she published, Familiar Letters betwixt a Gentleman and a Lady (1716), The Reform’d Coquet (1724), and The Accomplish’d Rake (1727), yet rare mention is made of her first three novels. Moreover, of her later novels, many scholars read them as socially conservative and as representations of Davys’s support of and belief in patriarchy. My project disproves the long-standing and generally agreed upon conceptions regarding Davys’s writings and demonstrates the significance of her life’s work to studies of the novel. By investigating contemporary cultural issues, discussing the popular genres and modes of early eighteenth-century England, and comparing and contrasting Davys’s fiction to other authors’, I explore the myriad ways in which Davys experimented with the formal properties of the novel. Also, by closely examining each novel independently, I foreground Davys’s willingness to engage with charged contemporary topics such as rape, suicide, the laws surrounding inheritance, and male privilege. Not only does she engage with these topics; there is a discernable voice of protest imbedded in the narratives. At times, the techniques Davys employed and the plots she created in her work obscured her social concerns, yet with close reading, subversion also surfaces as one of Davys’s methods. An analysis of Davys’s experimentations with prose fiction and form illuminates the ways in which those innovations allowed Davys to criticize the culture in which she lived. Furthermore, an investigation of the whole of Davys’s work and the totality of her novels—looking at both form and content—exemplifies the importance of Davys for students of feminist thought and the development of the novel.

Stereotypes below the Surface : A Comparative Study of Three Popular Young Adult Novels in the Romantic Fantasy Genre

In recent years, the young adult genre has become increasingly popular and is experiencing a "second golden age.” It might be expected in such novels, when written by women and featuring gifted female heroines, to find some kind of a feminist message. Indeed, the heroines are often perceived as strong and capable. However, they fall in line with several old gender stereotypes. The three novels chosen for this study are: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. I will show that women, although perceived as strong and capable on the surface, often conform to stereotypes. In order to do this I analyse how women are portrayed from different perspectives. Women are often perceived as passive in romantic situations, and objectified through the normative male gaze. It is interesting that also in novels written by women for women, the male gaze is prominent. Through this the female reader gains the desire to be objectified, implicitly from the narrative, which is something that works against women’s empowerment in society. Furthermore, the female protagonists rarely, or never, threaten patriarchy in any way and generally work toward reinstating patriarchy which is perceived as the only sensible option. Women in power, who do threaten patriarchy, are portrayed as sadistic witches.

Reinforcing the glass ceiling: The consequences of hostile sexism for female managerial candidates

Previous research has established that benevolent sexism is related to the negative evaluation of women who violate specific norms for behavior. Research has yet to document the causal impact of hostile sexism on evaluations of individual targets. Correlational evidence and ambivalent sexism theory led us to predict that hostile sexism would be associated with negative evaluations of a female candidate for a masculine-typed occupational role. Participants completed the ASI (P. Glick & S. T. Fiske, 1996) and evaluated a curriculum vitae from either a male or female candidate. Higher hostile sexism was significantly associated with more negative evaluations of the female candidate and with lower recommendations that she be employed as a manager. Conversely, higher hostile sexism was significantly associated with higher recommendations that a male candidate should be employed as a manager. Benevolent sexism was unrelated to evaluations and recommendations in this context. The findings support the hypothesis that hostile, but not benevolent, sexism results in negativity toward individual women who pose a threat to men's status in the workplace.

A VIOLÊNCIA CONTRA AS MULHERES NA VIDA COTIDIANA Um estudo do Livro da Aliança a partir de Êxodo 20,22-23,19

O espaço social subjacente à unidade literária de Êxodo 20,22-23,19 pressupõe uma sociedade agrária. Aparentemente é monótona, marcada por inúmeros conflitos sociais. O contexto social é de empobrecimento das famílias clânico-tribais israelitas. A nova economia se organiza em torno do santuário. Na pesquisa, há bastante consenso quanto à origem desta unidade literária conhecida como Livro da Aliança. É literatura jurídica de caráter religioso. Uma prescrição jurídica não precede as condições da realidade a que vai se referir, mas prescreve sobre as condições e situações já existentes. Na pesquisa clássica atual, encontram-se duas grandes correntes sobre a origem e a época desta literatura. Uma defende que o Livro da Aliança remonta à época pré-estatal, passagem do tribalismo para a monarquia; a outra argumenta que o Livro da Aliança, enquanto corpus codificado de leis, é um produto tardio , possivelmente surgido no final do século VIII ou início do século VII a.C. O Livro da Aliança é a base literária da presente pesquisa. Quanto à origem e à época do Livro da Aliança, sigo a corrente que defende ser o texto da época final do período tribal, anterior à monarquia. Esta época foi marcada por grandes mudanças econômicas: passagem de uma economia solidária de subsistência para uma economia de concentração do produto. A tese consiste em analisar a violência contra as mulheres, estruturada no discurso jurídico do Livro da Aliança. Busca-se desvendar os mecanismos que justificam e naturalizam as práticas de violência. O destaque é a violência contra as mulheres escravas, contra as filhas e, de modo especial, enfatizo as violências contra as mulheres feiticeiras. Evidencio três categorias de escravas prescritas no texto: as escravas domésticas, que sofrem violências físicas, podendo chegar até à morte debaixo do castigo da vara; as escravas temporárias, que têm seus olhos destruídos e os seus dentes quebrados; e as filhas que são vendidas como escravas. Sua sexualidade é transformada em mercadoria. Há filhas que são seduzidas, violadas e submetidas como mulher ao seu estuprador. O único grupo social descrito a partir da sua função pública são as feiticeiras. As violências são institucionais e sexistas. O patriarcado é o princípio organizador da sociedade. A característica do Livro da Aliança é marcadamente androcêntrica.(AU)

Discourses of friendship between heterosexual women and gay men:mythical norms and an absence of desire

Gay men and heterosexual women may share some common interests in critiquing hetero-patriarchy. However feminism and gay liberationist politics do not always coincide and the role of individual subjectivities in recognising oppressive discourses of normativity remains debated. Interviews were conducted with seven friendship dyads of heterosexual women and gay men. Transcripts were subjected to discourse analysis, which suggested extensive management of heterosexist norms in the friends' accounts of friendship. The analysis highlighted ambiguity over the 'male' status of gay men, a concern with constructing the friendships as legitimately asexual, and the use of parody in the face of homophobia to disrupt normative assumptions. Although we primarily considered the role of heterosexist discourses, there is also evidence that other dimensions of non-normativity (for example, gender and ethnicity) are implicated in friendships constructed around shared otherness and mutual non-normativity. © 2010 SAGE.

The fevered novel from Balzac to Bernanos:frenetic Catholicism in crisis, delirium and revolution

Book Review: The Fevered Novel from Balzac to Bernanos: Frenetic Catholicism in Crisis, Delirium and Revolution. By Francesco Manzini. (IGRS Books). London: Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, 2011. 264 pp. Full text: This monograph is an important and compelling account of a novelistic tradition that stretches from Georges Bernanos back to Balzac, by way of Léon Bloy, Joris-Karl Huysmans, and Barbey d'Aurevilly. Depending on a master plot that evokes Maistrean themes of blood, sacrifice, and redemption, working in a feverish female body, this canon combines Romantic freneticism and anti-Enlightenment religion to create a compound that Francesco Manzini calls ‘frenetic Catholicism’. The theme of fever, Manzini tells us, was commented on by Huysmans in writing about Barbey d'Aurevilly. When André Gide read Bernanos's Sous le soleil de Satan, he dismissed it as a rehash of Bloy and Barbey. In this present work Manzini aims to make us aware once more of the gradually intensifying themacity of fever in writings more usually classed in theologo-literary categories. His analysis encompasses (though is not restricted to) Balzac's Ursule Mirouët, Barbey d'Aurevilly's Un prêtre marié, Huysmans's En rade, Bloy's Le Désespéré and La Femme pauvre, and Bernanos's Nouvelle histoire de Mouchette. Thus, as Manzini argues in his conclusion, between the freneticism of the Romantics and that of the surrealists this corpus represents an intermediary wave of freneticism, foregrounding fever, hyperconsciousness, dreamlike episodes, and female automatism. Manzini's knowledge of, and ease amidst, the sources is constantly impressive. Much like Richard Griffiths before him (The Reactionary Revolution: The Catholic Revival in French Literature, 1870–1914 (London: Constable, 1966)), he has read both the bad novels and the good ones. For that we are in his debt. His commentary thrives on the oddities of his subjects. He points quite rightly to the peculiar hubris of writers whose contempt for the secular excesses of scientism leads them down a cul-de-sac of primitive medical quackery. Likewise, he underlines how Zola's attempt to unwrite Barbey — exorcising the former's anti-Romantic animus, as much as scratching his anticlerical itch — leads him to recapitulate Barbey's religious authoritarianism in the secular vernacular of patriarchy. Les espèces qui se rapprochent se mangent, to paraphrase Bernanos (Les Grands Cimetières sous la lune). In spite of all Manzini's tightly organized analysis, however, this reader wonders whether the fevered novel ‘best allowed contemporaries — and now […] literary critics and historians — to imagine the issues at stake in the amorphous scientistic, religious, and political debates’ of the period (p. 17). Below the ideological clashes of nineteenth-century science and religion, the two contending dynamics of anthropocentrism and theocentrism are attested and, it can be argued, even more perfectly dramatized in other Catholic literature (Charles Péguy's poetry, for example). In these terms, what distinguishes the Catholic frenetics from their Romantic or surrealist counterparts is that their fevered subject represents an attempt to build a road out of what Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor calls ‘buffered’ individuality, and back towards the theocentric porous subject who is open to divine influence. By way of minor corrections, nuns do not take holy orders (p. 94) but make religious profession by taking vows. Also, the last Eucharistic host is not extreme unction (p. 119) but viaticum.

Representación de la mujer transgresora en la novelística de la Cuba republicana

This dissertation explored the subversive feminine discourse in the most representative novels of the first quarter of the twentieth century in the newly born republic of Cuba. Drawing on the feminist theories of Simone de Beauvoir, Toril Moi and Pierre Bourdieu, these women were analyzed in the context of their time, their class level and their race. Because it is oppressive and theoretically unsatisfactory to reduce women to their general "humanity" or to their "femininity", my purpose was to analyze them as human beings in a "specific situation" and show how they curtailed the laws that patriarchy has prepared for them. The novels studied were: Doña Guiomar, by Emilio Bacardí; A fuego lento, by Emilio Bobadilla; La manigua sentimental, by Jesús Castellanos; Las honradas, by Miguel de Carrión; Las impuras, by Miguel de Carrión, and Ecué-Yamba-O, by Alejo Carpentier. Women will obtain freedom and independence from patriarchal control, symbolic power, symbolic violence, and hypnotic power when they are educated and have obtained a working position in society similar to men or by joining the political struggle in their community, in their country, or in the global organizations.

Barcelona: Espacio literario, espacio urbano en la novela Catalana femenina del Siglo XX

This dissertation analyses, through a rhetorical framework and a literary approach, texts written in Catalan and Castilian by four Catalan female writers (Dolors Monserdà, Maria Aurèlia Capmany, Esther Tusquets, Monserrat Roig ), whose works cover from 1900 to the 1980. Utilizing this urban feminine literature, it discusses the historical-geographical vision about the changes in Catalan society during the twentieth century with its consequences for the urban space, especially the space occupied by women. It is also established that Barcelona's recovery and literary vindication by women has been done through the written text, as literary affirmation and as a matter of conscience in which the city could not be summed up as a backdrop, but rather as an active part of a literary creation, active in the double sense, as a socio-historical space in the novel and as characteristic of their works. The primary purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate that the use of the city as a setting for the novels determines and characterizes those female writers' texts. Consequently, these writings are literary material relevant and essential to the understanding of the Barcelonian women's space. However their use of space is not arbitrary, on the contrary it corresponds to a social order established by the patriarchy where the relation of women to the world is embodied in the intentional and socially restricted space and movements of their bodies. The theoretical perspectives of this study are based on Montserrat Roig's feminist urban space theories. Her theory advocates the right to individuality, denouncing the patriarchal and hierarchical social system present in gendered space from the outside male world to the domestic feminized space. I also turn to the writings of Maria Aurèlia Capmany, who addresses cultural aspects of women's roles revealing a purposive controlled patriarchal society according to a historical-geographical analysis. This study of texts permits a new reading of the Catalan capital and demonstrates that Catalan women writers have consciously willed to give birth to a new history of the city: the history of women as protagonist citizens, producers, reproducers, and consumers of the space represented by the Catalan capital

Sex Work and Class

Prostitution scandals stigmatize workers for their entire lives, but the politician involved is marred for only one news cycle. “White knight” feminists shame women for sexually catering to the patriarchy but talk from a place of economic privilege. Religious organizations engage in misguided attempts to “save” women who use the industry as a job. Exploitive policies aimed at curtailing sex work hurt the individuals who wish to practice safe sex for their own protection. In the guise of aiding sex workers, or saving them from themselves, those that would advocate for more restrictive policies ignore the ramifications of what these laws would entail.

Essa ciranda não é minha só, é de todas nós: um estudo sobre feminismo, autonomia e consciência coletiva

The notion of autonomy arises in feminism as theory and action for horizontal and building self-appointed women in the project of social transformation. As part of the feminist movement - political subject of women - the autonomy is established dynamically, back and forth from the socio-historical context that sign and thus the correlation of forces that is with the women's group . Thus, for this work it was necessary to feminism take on your current process, which set the transitional period of "onguização" of feminist organizations (1980 to 2000), which discusses the relative loss of autonomy before the alliance as State and dependence on development agencies, for the current period, which incorporates discourses and practices through autonomous groups and their militants. Therefore, this study is based on research of autonomous feminism of young women, characterized as another radical and political integration proposed for that period. The aim then was to analyze the organizational capacity of autonomous feminist collective in Natal/RN, from the knowledge of the structure and dynamics of a group and understanding the consubstantiality gender, 'race'/ethnicity, class for the process organization. And with the participation of the Coletivo Autônomo Feminista Leila Diniz. This was in organizational transition, ending his career as ONGs and leaving for autonomous militancy. In order to achieve the so-objectification proposal, literature review was performed of the categories, feminism, autonomy, patriarchy, feminist activist conscientiously and collective; documentary research relating to the Group; participant observations within their meetings; and a themed workshop with some militants Autonomous Collective, which was produced pictures and speeches. The materialization of these instruments provided research analysis on the elements that constitute the young feminists and contemporary autonomous organizations, in view of the multiple experiences and the diversity of women who configures the subject [the subject] while feminist collective total. As well as taking a feminist militancy conscience expressed by the group studied the necessary re-appropriation of each other in combating patriarchal femininity, the hierarchical naturalizations marking the sex of women and the recognition as sex class for feminist autonomous organization for women's liberation.

Violência contra mulher: expressões da opressão às mulheres sob a égide do capitalismo e do patriarcado

This dissertation is the result of a research process that sought , from the speech of women in situations of violence , examine the difficulties these women to access the "network " of assistance to women victims of violence in the city of Natal/RN . Therefore , we made a critical analysis from the perspective of totality on the processual ontological " being a woman " and " be a man " , articulating the determinations of the subjective and objective dimensions in the lives of women at this juncture . Thus , also reflecting on the system of oppression of women through Capitalism / Patriarchate , articulated with other determinations of reality , as race / ethnicity , sexual orientation , generation and territoriality . Because of the oppression of women in all aspects of social life , the feminist movement led to the public domain claims against the oppressions of women and fight for Public Social Policies that aim to the particularities of women , among them, the social policies of coping violence against women . The speeches of the women interviewed show the contradictory aspect of work in women's lives . On the one hand , can become a means to financial independence ( with the possibility of exit from violent means). On the other , it can become "cause " of justification for the exercise of violence against women by their partners or former partners . Also show that despite legal advances , there is no effective implementation of policies aimed at women . This occurs as a result of capitalism / patriarchy and the context of neoliberal management of big capital . Thus , the feminist movement , as well as the social movement of the working class , must seek the empowerment of women through the struggle to end all forms of oppression , exploitation and domination among humans.

"Do alto da colina" - a província do Rio Grande do Norte, o comércio, os rios Potengi e Jundiaí e o complexo comercial do Guarapes 1850 - 1900

The commercial complex Guarapes was during the second half of the nineteenth century most commercial street of Rio Grande do Norte province. In that time frame, you can see its flourishing as one of the central places of trade in the province in 1850, and its subsequent abandonment in 1900. This thesis aims to investigate, in its first part, the paths that help to understand, as the context of the expansion of global markets in the second half of the nineteenth century enabled the conditions for the emergence of the commercial complex. However, trade relations established in this province through the commercial complex, even participating in this global environment, reserved particular characteristics in their social and trade relations, as if dealing with a peripheral province, we look at the uniqueness of the relationship occurred in this space. In the second part, we seek to understand the importance that the rivers Potengi and Jundiaí had to install the commercial complex Guarapes in the second half of the nineteenth century. As the geographical position in relation to rivers, enabled this space became flow zone and confluence of goods distributed to the various parts of the interior of the province. We also monitor the process that made these rivers leave the role of mobility and transport relations in this space, giving way the railways and roads shooting. In the third part, we seek to understand the commercial complex Guarapes in focus. Analyzing their spatial distribution on the landscape, and how the spatial organization held at the same time traces of the Brazilian patriarchy exposed by Gilberto Freyre, but also "modern" features, due to the increase of a new culture inserted material in the province. We also seek to understand elements of material culture that was the environment of the complex, and how these materials are important sources for understanding this society under study. We treat from the biggest to the smallest fragments without hierarchize them. Understanding that, the study associated the written sources and materials provide a gain in understanding of everyday these people who lived in that area of the complex in the second half of the nineteenth century.

A evasão no Curso Técnico Subsequente em Secretaria Escolar no campus São Sebastião do Instituto Federal de Brasília : uma questão de género?

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do grau de mestre no âmbito do Mestrado em Educação Social e Intervenção Comunitária da Escola Superior de Educação do Instituto Politécnico de Santarém

Nancy Spero: pain and politics, 1966-1976

The ten-year period that started with Nancy Spero’s War Series (1966-70) and ended with the completion of Torture of Women (1974-6) were of vital importance to the development of this key figure of feminist art. This was the moment when Spero turned her focus to politics, departing from a practice that was concerned with personal disaffection, instead focusing on profoundly social concerns. Essential to this evolution is a focus on pain. From the War Series through the Artaud Paintings (1970-71), Codex Artaud (1971-2), and Torture of Women, pain, both internal and external, was imagined in multiple forms. In Spero’s explorations of the theme, pain becomes metaphoric of the experience of women living under patriarchy, an amorphous but still profoundly disabling sensation that attacks both body and mind. This thesis explores Spero’s use of physical pain during moment of feminist art’s emergence, seeing it as a political metaphor for the way in which patriarchy invisibly controls and undermines women. Framed broadly by the question of art's relationship with politics during this turbulent period of anti-war and feminist activism, this thesis closely examines the way in which an analogy to pain figures the body in the work in complex terms, pursuing an ideological ambition through recourse to feeling.

Design as Symbolic Violence. Design for Social Justice.

Design embeds ideas in communication and artefacts in subtle and psychologically powerful ways. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu coined the term ‘symbolic violence’ to describe how powerful ideologies, priorities, values and even sensibilities are constructed and reproduced through cultural institutions, processes and practices. Through symbolic violence, individuals learn to consider unjust conditions as natural and even come to value customs and ideas that are oppressive. Symbolic violence normalises structural violence and enables real violence to take place, often preceding it and later justifying it. Feminist, class, race and indigenous scholars and activists describe how oppressions (how patriarchy, racism, colonialism, etc.) exist within institutions and structures, and also within cultural practices that embed ideologies into everyday life. The theory of symbolic violence sheds light on how design can function to naturalise oppressions and then obfuscate power relations around this process. Through symbolic violence, design can function as an enabler for the exploitation of certain groups of people and the environment they (and ultimately ‘we’) depend on to live. Design functions as symbolic violence when it is involved with the creation and reproduction of ideas, practices, tools and processes that result in structural and other types of violence (including ecocide). Breaking symbolic violence involves discovering how it works and building capacities to challenge and transform dysfunctional ideologies, structures and institutions. This conversation will give participants an opportunity to discuss, critique and/or develop the theory of design as symbolic violence as a basis for the development of design strategies for social justice.