This paper examines how gender is represented within conspiracy theories by drawing on data from a corpus composed of conspiracy theory documents. It presents an analysis of the collocates of gendered nouns, highlighting the ways that conspiracy theorists use language to reinforce connections between religiosity and masculinity and understandings of femininity that rely on biological gender essentialism. Further, this paper highlights the overlap in values between religious masculinity and hegemonic masculinity that occur within this discourse. It also argues (...) that the ways in which gender is represented in conspiracy theory discourse shares links to far-right ideology, even when the conspiracies in question do not have direct or overt connections to the far-right. (shrink)

This research investigates the representations of gendered social actors within the subversionary discourse of equal educational opportunities for males and females in Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) books. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the theoretical framework, the authors blend van Leeuwen’s (Texts and practices: Readings in critical discourse analysis, Routledge, London, 2003) ‘Social Actor Network Model’ and Sunderland’s (Gendered discourses, Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, 2004) ‘Gendered Discourses Model’ in order to examine the depictions of male and female social (...) actors within this gendered discourse. The gendered discourse of equal opportunities was buttressed by such representations within a tight perspective in proportion to gender ideologies prevailing in Iran. Resorting to CDA, we can claim that resistance against such gendered discourse in Iranian EFL textbooks militates against such gender norms. These representations of male and female social actors in school books are indicative of an all-encompassing education, reinforcing that the discourse of equal opportunities is yet to be realized in the education system of Iran. (shrink)

This paper examines the introduction of European anatomy to Japan via translated medical texts in the eighteenth century. It argues how detailed illustrations of the body found in the texts presented a new discourse by which to objectify and control the body, and new metaphors and analogies by which to view society. Inspection of bodily parts through dissection and the reading of anatomical texts marked a transition to Western forms of science, to ‘reliable’ knowledge which was certified by the social (...) status of the author. By looking at one important text, the Kaitai shinsho [A New Book of Anatomy] , it will be shown that changes in representations of the body reflect the social construction of gender. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship between gender, nations and nationalisms vis-a-vis the Indian state's nationalist identity and perceptions of security. It explores how the postcolonial Indian state's project of nation-building — reflective of a western secular-modern identity and a Hindutva-dominated identity — incorporates gender, with continuities and discontinuities, to articulate divergent forms of nationalist/communalist identities, `cartographic anxieties' and nuclear securities. The article contends that with the recent rise of the Hindu-Right BJP, guided by Hindutva ideology, the nature of (...) representing the Indian nation, its women and securities has changed from a geopolitical to a cultural perception — thereby necessitating a rereading of the Indian nation, nationalism, gender and its perceptions of security. (shrink)

Ireland has struggled with its ‘feminine’ identity throughout its history. The so-called ‘chasmic dichotomy of male and female' is embedded in colonial and postcolonial constructions of Irishness and it continues to manifest itself in contemporary cultural representations of Ireland and Irishness. This study explores issues of gender and nationality via a reading of a 70-second television advertisement for Caffrey's Irish Ale, titled ‘New York’. The article suggests that, although colonial and postcolonial discourse on Ireland continues to perceive the ‘feminine’ (...) in problematic terms, this is gradually changing as Irish women increasingly, in poet Eavan Boland's words, ‘open a window on those silences, those false pastorals, those ornamental reductions’ that have confined us. (shrink)

How did the events of the early modern period affect the way gender and the self were represented? This collection of essays attempts to respond to this question by analysing a wide spectrum of cultural concerns - humanism, technology, science, law, anatomy, literacy, domesticity, colonialism, erotic practices, and the theatre - in order to delineate the history of subjectivity and its relationship with the postmodern fragmented subject. The scope of this analysis expands the terrain explored by feminist theory, while (...) its feminist focus reveals that the subject is always gendered - although the terms in which gender is conceived and represented change across history. Feminist Readings of Early Modern Culture not only explores the representation of gendered subjects, but in its commitment to balancing the productive tensions of methodological diversity, also speaks to contemporary challenges facing feminism. (shrink)

Media reflect and affect social understandings, beliefs, and values on many topics, including the lives of autistic and disabled people. Media analysis has garnered attention in the field of disability studies, which some scholars and activists consider a promising approach to discussing the experiences of – and for promoting social justice for – autistic people, who remain underrepresented on scripted television. Additionally, existing portrayals often rely on stereotyped representations of disabled individuals as objects of pity, objects of inspiration, or villains. (...) Television may also serve as a primary source of public knowledge about disabled people and the concept of disability. It is therefore essential that such portrayals avoid stigma and stereotyping. We take a disability studies lens to critically analyze and compare representations of diverse people, who may sometimes be conflated in the popular imaginary, across television series about autistic characters, those with cerebral palsy, and a character with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. We employ an intersectional analytic framework to problematize representations of autistic and disabled people, using television, feminist, and critical disability studies literatures. We analyze how the formal structure of television storytelling can either enable or disable its characters, as well as how portrayals of disability that display a sensitivity to concerns raised by critical disability discourse do not necessarily display the same sensitivity when they intersect with marginalized experiences of gender, sexuality, race, and class. (shrink)

This article reflects on the meaning and effects of three ongoing and simultaneous processes: the ‘globalization’ of feminism and gender discourses; the articulation of knowledge production in global structures and central locations; and the feminist dialogues between geopolitical divides such as ‘East/west’, ‘North/south’, ‘center/periphery’, and ‘indigenous/non-indigenous’. While the postwar East/west European divide is the specific focus, the article interweaves comparative elements from Latin America’s decolonial debate throughout in order to analyze the ways in which feminism as a disputed discourse (...) can be deployed to advance both neoliberalization as well as decolonization – and decolonization not only of feminism’s discourses, but of capitalist modernity’s discourses themselves. (shrink)

The study focuses on the links between gender and national security in the legislative arena in Israel, considering whether men and women legislators prioritize security differently, alongside other thematic policy areas. The centrality of national security issues in Israeli politics makes it a good case study for these questions, as it enhances existing gendered stereotypes. The article examines two competing hypotheses. The first suggests that Israeli female legislators will mostly refrain from addressing national security policy issues, focusing instead on (...) softer policy issues, such as gender equality, education, health, and welfare. The second suggests the opposite, claiming that women legislators in Israel will align themselves with their male counterparts’ set of priorities, focusing heavily on issues related to national security. The study finds support mostly for the former: Israeli female legislators are especially active in policy areas relating to women’s issues and children/family and are less active in regard to national security, a policy area heavily dominated by male legislators. (shrink)

In late 2003, the Canadian media reported that the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice would start offering arbitration in family disputes in accordance with both Islamic legal principles and Ontario's Arbitration Act of 1991. A vociferous two-year debate ensued on the introduction of “Sharia law” in Ontario. This article analyzes representations of Muslim women's agency that came to the fore in this debate by examining reports in three Canadian newspapers. The debate demonstrated two notions of agency. The predominant perspective conceptualized (...) Muslim women's agency as their ability to resist domination, tying secularization to agency. A second strain of the debate portrayed agency as embedded in intersecting social forces of domination and subordination. The first perspective homogenized diverse Muslim communities, fostering the gendered racialization of these communities. Understanding agency as embedded, by contrast, enabled conceptualizations of Muslim women as agentic religious subjects. (shrink)

Children’s literature provides a critical method of socialization and familiarization with gender roles, providing examples, boundaries, and limitations for gender identity construction. While extensive research has been done on how children’s literature depicts both traditional and non-traditional gender roles, very little research has been published on the cultural differences between literary representations. The aim of the present paper is to describe the representations of social roles of men and women in American, Czech, and Spanish children’s books published (...) between 2010 and 2020. Three best-selling children’s picture books from each year from each respective culture were selected and analyzed, culminating in a thematic analysis of ninety-nine books. Using inductive thematic analysis, the study found all three cultures to be conservative in their depictions of gender roles, with Czech books as the most likely to feature traditional gender roles. Spanish books are more, and American books are the most subversive in their depiction of gender roles, containing an increasing number of non-traditional elements over an examined time period. (shrink)

The article focuses on the differences between Eastern and Western art, characteristics of the representation of women's images in Eastern and Western art, and aesthetic criteria regarding women's images in Eastern and Western art. The author emphasized the need to understand the image of women in Eastern and Western visual artworks in different cultural and historical contexts and concluded that studying the image of women in visual art can help one better understand regional gender paradigm differences. To understand (...) the representation of women in Eastern and Western cultures, it is necessary to first understand the differences and similarities between these two cultures in order to gain a deeper understanding of how women are portrayed in these cultures. A few of the differences that can be found between East and West include the geographical structure, the ethno-cultural colors, the social outlooks, and the aesthetic ideals of the two regions. In addition to these factors, it is also important to consider how the visual arts of the two regions differ in their methods, materials, and religious, philosophical and philosophical perspectives. Throughout the article, the author discusses these aspects in great detail, showing specific approaches as to how the female image is represented in Eastern and Western visual art traditions. As such, the article provides valuable insight into the cultural divide between East and West and how their respective artistic styles have interacted with each other. (shrink)

This paper explores the kinds of representations of the woman leader produced discursively in the Finnish business media. The paper draws on the idea that jobs and organizations are gendered and, to the extent that gendered features are valued differently, with masculinity being favoured particularly in managerial positions, the status of women and men leaders becomes unequal. Based on the assumption that the media form a powerful force which creates and maintains meanings in contemporary society, we focus on articles published (...) in a leading business newspaper and major business magazines in Finland. Three discourses are built based on the texts, namely a patriarchal, a victim and a professional discourse. The results of the study imply that the texts are largely reified in terms of masculinity, and that one underlying problem is the shortage of female role models and lack of the feminine perspective in the dominant discourse. It is suggested that, if we are to develop alternative, “new” ways of constructing the woman leader into being, the writing in the business media texts should opt to test the limits of the current discourses by voicing comments regarded as expressly feminine, instead of taking the masculine as the dominant norm. (shrink)

Critically examining popular ESL textbooks, this accessible and engaging book uncovers gender and ethnic representations that impact young English language learners in US public schools and provides equitable, egalitarian alternatives.

Recently, Wesley Buckwalter and Stephen Stich have argued that there are different gender philosophical intuitions and that these differences may play a role in explaining the marginalization of women philosophers. To the contrary, I defend the view that intuitions are in part socially constructed and the product of stereotypical behaviours. My paper has two aims: firstly, to offer some speculations about the effect of Buckwalter and Stich’s hypothesis and to focus on whether “intuition” is a gendered notion; secondly, to (...) argue that Buckwalter and Stich’s approach is inadequate, by showing that the data in the studies they report are insufficient to support their conclusion and that their thesis does not comply with the view that gender differs from one society to another. (shrink)

Simply counting the numbers of women present in politics is an inadequate basis for theorizing the difference they might make. Drawing on research on British MPs Act), this article shows how insights gained from empirical research can inform and improve our theorizing. It suggests that the relationship between women’s descriptive and substantive representation is better conceived as complicated rather than straightforward.

Women's lack of participation in science and technology careers is foreshadowed by their low participation in these undergraduate majors. Kanter's theory of tokenism suggests that the effects of being in the numerical minority are responsible for women's absence from the science and technology pipeline. This article uses data from a sample of undergraduate women at a large state university to consider the effects of gender-disproportionate enrollment on women's persistence in majors. Many of the male-dominated majors were in science and (...) technology fields. The authors tested Kanter's theory of tokenism, including the effects of sex ratio in the major, performance pressure, and role entrapment on undergraduate women's likelihood of persistence. In support of Kanter's model, the authors found that performance pressure has a significant, negative effect on likelihood of persistence. However, contrary to Kanter's argument, women in more gender-balanced majors were most likely to be contemplating a change in major. (shrink)

Purpose. Based on actualization of gender discursive features, the current piece aims to clarify and accentuate the manifestation of gender-philosophical ideas interaction: feminism in the framework of objectivism. The source material for the current article is a novel by Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged", which is a philosophical work on objectivism. Theoretical basis. The development of the gender discourse, in particular the discourse of feminism is researched from the retrospective angle. This piece is an attempt to underline peculiarities (...) of female artistic images representation in Rand’s work and the way Rand’s novel influenced the logical development of feminist discourse. Discourse of feminism is a rather peculiar notion for Objectivism, where the notion of gender is, theoretically, annihilated as far as gender is irrelevant for both personal and professional growth, however, practically, gender representation and actualization is ubiquitous in Rand’s philosophy. Originality. The distinctive features of gender discourse in Objectivism are highlighted in this piece; the results are based on the application of comparative analysis. It is argued that philosophy itself may well be perceived through a literary work of fiction, thus making artistic images prototypes of philosophy functionaries. Conclusion. "Atlas Shrugged" is not merely a literary fiction, but rather a philosophical treatise on Objectivism, which is a philosophy of individual struggle and achievement. The main female protagonist of "Atlas Shrugged", Dagny Taggart, is a staunch supporter of Objectivism. In Rand’s opinion Dagny Taggart is a prototype of a true woman of utopian American capitalist society, and it is her artistic image that was misinterpreted by supporters of feminist movement ideas and Dagny Taggart became an icon of feminism, whereas in reality Dagny’s discourse is rather a discourse of femininity, for Dagny despises everything that is connected with feminist ideas and practices, and, it is an error to weave her discourse into a much wider feminist discourse. (shrink)

This article analyses how the new type of worker is constructed in respect to gender in current management literature. It contributes to the increasing body of work in organisational theory and business ethics which interrogates management texts by analysing textual representations of gender. A discourse analysis of six texts reveals three inter-connected yet distinct ways in which gender is talked about. First, the awareness discourse attempts to be inclusive of gender yet reiterates stereotypes in its portrayal (...) of women. Second, within the individualisation discourse, formerly discriminatory elements of gender lose their importance but a gender dimension reappears within the idea of ‹Brand You’. Third, in the new ideal discourse, women are constructed as ideal workers of the future. The article argues that there is little space within this web of discourses for an awareness of the continued inequalities experienced by women in relation to men to be voiced and that this rhetorical aporia contributes to a ‹post-feminist’ climate. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Journal of Social Philosophy, Volume 52, Issue 4, Page 473-490, Winter 2021.

In the context of the perpetual reproduction of consumerism in contemporary western societies, the varied and often contradictory principles of third wave feminism have been misunderstood or redefined by the dominant economic discourse of the markets. The lack of homogeneity in the theoretical debates of the third wave feminism seems to be a vulnerable point in the appropriation of its emancipatory ideals by the post-modern consumerist narratives. The beauty norm, particularly, brings the most problematic questions forth in the contemporary feminist (...) dialogues. In this paper I will examine the validity of the concept of empowerment through practices of the body, practices that constitute the socially legitimized identity of women in a consumerist western society. My thesis is that the beauty norm is constructed as a socio-political instrument in order to preserve the old, patriarchal regulation of women’s bodies. Due to the power of invisibility of the new mechanisms of social control and subjection, the consumerist discourse offers the most effective political tool for gender inequality and a complex discussion about free will and emancipation in third wave feminism debates. This delicate theoretical issues question not only the existent social order, but the very political purposes of contemporary feminism. (shrink)

This paper explores the kinds of representations of the woman leader produced discursively in the Finnish business media. The paper draws on the idea that jobs and organizations are gendered and, to the extent that gendered features are valued differently, with masculinity being favoured particularly in managerial positions, the status of women and men leaders becomes unequal. Based on the assumption that the media form a powerful force which creates and maintains meanings in contemporary society, we focus on articles published (...) in a leading business newspaper and major business magazines in Finland. Three discourses are built based on the texts, namely a patriarchal, a victim and a professional discourse. The results of the study imply that the texts are largely reified in terms of masculinity, and that one underlying problem is the shortage of female role models and lack of the feminine perspective in the dominant discourse. It is suggested that, if we are to develop alternative, “new” ways of constructing the woman leader into being, the writing in the business media texts should opt to test the limits of the current discourses by voicing comments regarded as expressly feminine, instead of taking the masculine as the dominant norm. (shrink)

A recent article in this journal by Katrina Hutchison exposes and addresses the cumulative effects of implicit bias on women in surgery. We doubt that there is a single woman in any surgical field who has not experienced both implicit and explicit bias. Many of the issues facing women in surgery seem to be mirrored in both the developed and developing countries. There is little literature describing the exact situation in Africa. South African government institutions have made a concerted effort (...) to improve the representation of minorities in business, education and the health sector. In the hospital setting, hiring is done by means of a quota system based on demographics within that particular sector. This has also resulted in a number of unforeseen epistemic biases. This policy-driven ‘forced’ hiring of female candidates also led to feelings of doubt in the candidates themselves about their merits and competence and capabilities. This epistemic bias can then filter down, feeding the already prevalent imposter syndrome and confidence issues felt by many female surgical trainees. Not only do we need to aim to change the culture in surgical departments by changing the image of the ‘stereotypical surgeon’, we need to extend this message out into our training institutions, communities and peoples’ homes. We believe that this is the only way to change a culture steeped in implicit bias, to be more inclusive of women and other minority groups and shed the assumption that they are lesser. (shrink)

Women are under-represented in surgery, especially in leadership and academic roles, and face a gender pay gap. There has been little work on the role of implicit biases in women’s under-representation in surgery. Nor has the impact of epistemic injustice, whereby stereotyping influences knowledge or credibility judgements, been explored. This article reports findings of a qualitative in-depth interview study with women surgeons that investigates gender biases in surgery, including subtle types of bias. The study was conducted with (...) 46 women surgeons and trainees of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Maximum variance sampling strategies ensured a comprehensive set of perspectives. Data were analysed using iterative thematic analysis to document and classify forms of gender bias experienced by the participants, including implicit bias and epistemic injustice. It found four types of bias affecting women surgeons: workplace factors such as access to parental leave and role models; epistemic injustices—unfair assessments of women surgeons’ credibility by patients and colleagues; stereotyped expectations that they will carry out more of surgery’s carework, such as meeting the emotional needs of patients and objectification. Implicit biases arose in each category. Given that many of the biases identified in this study are small, are harmless on their own and are not necessarily under anyone’s conscious control, important questions arise regarding how they cause harm and how to address them. I draw on theoretical work on cumulative harm to answer these questions. (shrink)

Although more women continue to enter the medical profession, disparities between the sexes in academic medicine persist. This “gender gap” has implications for academic advancement. In 2006, Jagsi and colleagues reported that, although the proportion of women among first and last authors in the United States had significantly increased since 1970, women still represented a minority of the authors of original research and guest editorials in six prominent medical journals.1 In a related 2008 study, Jagsi and colleagues found a (...) substantial increase in women’s representation on editorial boards and as editors-in-chief of several prominent journals.2 We collected more recent data about the gender distribution of authors, members of editorial boards, and peer reviewers for prominent medical journals. Using data from 2010-2011, we determined the proportion of women who were authors of original research or guest editorials, members of editorial boards, or reviewers at six major general medical journals: the Annals of Internal Medicine (Ann Intern Med), the British Medical Journal (BMJ), JAMA, JAMA Internal Medicine, the Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). (shrink)

The attributes of gender in the media are disputable. This can be explained by a conflict generated by culturally acquired alternative imagined hierarchies which are not compatible or may be even contradictory. This article is a philosophical enquiry that examines the representation of gender and the environment in which it is conditioned.

Although a large number of studies have explored the main causes of gender inequality in academia, less attention has been given to the processes underlying the failure of gender equality initiatives to enhance gender representation, especially at the professorial level. We offer a critical discourse analysis of recently promulgated gender policy documents of the five Flemish universities, and demonstrate that defensive institutional work is a fundamental process underlying resistance to gender equality in the academic (...) profession. That is, powerful organizational actors resist gender change by intentionally deploying a combination of discursive strategies that legitimate what we describe as non–time-bound gender equality initiatives: The expected outcomes are undetermined in time, and they delegitimate concrete, time-bound measures that define specific outcomes against well-defined deadlines. By explicitly bringing a temporal dimension into our analysis, we argue that defensive institutional work deflects questions regarding what ought to be achieved when, and contributes to the slow pace of gender change in academia. (shrink)

In this article, which is based on twenty four months of combined online and off-line ethnographic research, I show the way that some Iranian diasporic bloggers use their weblogs as entrepreneurship resources during the ‘war on terror’. Through a discourse analysis of a documentary film about Weblogistan and interviews with diasporic Iranian bloggers in Toronto, I argue that Weblogistan is implicated in discourses of militarism and neoliberalism that interpellate the representable Iranian blogger as a gendered neoliberal homo oeconomicus. The production (...) of knowledge about Iran in transnational encounters between the media, think tanks, policy institutions and the Iranian diasporic self-entrepreneurs, relies on gendered civilizational discourses that are inherently tied to the ‘war on terror’. Following feminist scholars who have theorized militarism and gender, I argue that dominant representations of Weblogistan produce different gendered subject positions for Iranian bloggers. Although the masculine blogger soldier takes freedom to Iran through his active participation in proper politics (enabled by his freedom of speech in North America and Europe), the woman blogger finds freedom of expression in writing about sex and telling the truth of her sex in a confessional mode. It is in this war of representation that women bloggers negotiate their subjectivity while shuttling in and out of local and global politics, as subjects of politics (markers of freedom and oppression) and political abjects (not worthy of political participation). (shrink)

This study examines the representation of male and female musicians in world-class symphony orchestras. Personnel of 40 orchestras of three regions, UK, Europe and the USA and distributions of men and women across the four orchestral departments: strings, woodwind, brass and percussion are compared. Significant differences in representation between orchestras of the three regions are reported. Practices adopted by orchestras when appointing musicians to vacant positions are reviewed and numbers of males and females appointed to rank-and-file and Section (...) Principals are compared. Career patterns of male and female musicians are also compared. Increases in numbers of women appointed to orchestral posts in the last three decades are compared with increases in the proportion of women in the general workforce. The data of orchestral membership are then compared with the numbers of young people receiving tuition on orchestral instruments retrieved from a large national database (n = 391,000 students). Implications for the future of male and female representation in orchestral personnel are then considered. (shrink)

Gendered language is becoming a matter of serious concern for legal drafters and policymakers because 'it is always changing as societal views change' (The University of Calgary: Office of diversity, equity and protected disclosure 2017:1). Many western countries have made considerable progress towards using inclusive legal language. However, inclusive language is not implemented in other parts of the World; the Arab World is no exception. This may be due to the violation of language rules, the decline of language, and the (...) lack of enough evidence that changing the language will change society (Brown in ABA J, 2019) and (Brown in ABA J: 24–26, 2018). In this paper, I explore the challenging socio-cultural and linguistic factors that may hinder the implementation of gender-inclusive language in Arabic and explain the current situation in two current constitutions of Egypt and Tunisia in particular. The main aim of this paper is to conduct a comparative analysis of terminology representing gender in the Egyptian (2014, amended 2019) and Tunisian (2014) Arabic-English Constitutions using corpus-based tools. The analysis shows inconsistent attempts at a more inclusive source text through using neutral terms and adding inclusive pre-modifiers to these terms. It also shows inconsistent translation of gender-specific terminology and pronominal references. Both constitutions explicitly stress the ‘eradication of violence against women’ and express parity between ‘women’ and ‘men’ in terms of ‘equal rights’ and ‘appropriate political representation’ (e.g. in the Egyptian House of Representatives (28%) and the Tunisian Assembly of People’s Representatives (26%)) (International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance, IDEA 2021). Although these percentages are not far away from the representation of women in European countries such as the United Kingdom (35%) (International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance, IDEA 2021), it is the reality of women’s actual roles, change they initiate and their impact in the society that counts. (shrink)

Drawing on accounts from interviews with white women, this article explores the production of narratives of the self. It suggests that the story produced of the self is not inevitable and may revolve around notions of sameness and difference that, in turn, depend on the positionality of individuals in terms of normative discourses of `race', class and gender. Sally can be seen to be reciting the process of subjection in the way she creates herself as the subject of a (...) narrative, using tropes of difference and sameness to explain who she is and who she is not. However, for the others, the norms and conventions of lifestory do not conform with their experiences of subjection. This is because, in the case of Madeleine, she does not experience an easily retold sense of herself, while Deborah appears to want to present herself as so inevitable and conforming to dominant norms that there is no story to tell. (shrink)