Since I last drafted an editorial, the UK has voted to sever its former political association with Europe and has replaced well-known abstainer from the ‘This is what a feminist looks like’ T-shirt (David Cameron) with a (female) Prime-Minister (unelected). The US has escalated to President a man apparently obsessed with reinvigorating the Texan brick-manufacturing industry. It seems I cannot turn my back for a minute and as a tribute to our European and American colleagues, I have included papers here based on continental European studies and one paper on Texan politician, Wendy Davis.
Assessment of my editorials over time reveals that the number of downloads more than doubles when I discuss one of the following four themes: the feminist position of my nieces (the elder; Swedish, the younger; Italian), a sexist headline from a UK newspaper, a political event of feminist curiosity or advice to authors on just how hard it is to get published in the JGS. Since the number of downloads brings attention to the articles, I will add as follows: during the summer of 2016, The Daily Telegraph asked if Theresa May was Britain’s most feminist Prime Minister ever, comparing her solely to Margaret Thatcher. The journalist apparently took for granted that no male Prime Minister could be described as a feminist. Theresa May had after all worn the Feminist T-Shirt referred to above. Asking if Theresa May is the most feminist Prime Minister is like asking if my eldest niece is my most favourite Swedish niece. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen and covering three out of the four most desirable themes for securing download in two sentences is an achievement of which I will remain proud until someone corrects me (usually a niece).
In issue 2 in Uneven paths, Tobío explores the causes of the slowdown in women’s employment in Italy, using comparisons with Spain as the departure point. The paper analyses the peculiarities of the Italian labour market as well as the educational attainments of the Italian population and the pervasive presence of the black economy. The roles that the political weakness of feminism, the Catholic Church, family networks and the North–South duality are all considered.
In Why does it happen? Gefter et al. examine male-perpetrated violence against women (MVAW). Emerging research suggests that feminist beliefs may facilitate recovery from the effects of such violence. Qualitative interviews here suggest that women who endorsed feminist beliefs cited societal influences on MVAW, whereas women who endorsed feminist beliefs less strongly were more likely to blame women for MVAW; offering stereotypical views of women as passive and fragile.
In Narratives of progress, Neuman, Gottzén and Fjellström scrutinize studies that have identified ‘masculine’ cooking as leisure and ‘feminine’ food work as care-oriented (meal planning, shopping, cooking and cleaning up after meals). This article draws on interviews with Swedish men about cooking and gender equality. Narratives of progress come to light here where men’s participation in household labour has become a self-evident responsibility regardless of whether it is fun or not. The authors argue for reconsideration of the simplistic picture of men’s cooking as only being for the self or for leisure and that a desirable masculinity among contemporary Swedish-born men is represented by a man whose cooking skills have progressed beyond survival level.
In First be a woman? Charatsari and Papadaki-Klavdianou look at Thessalian women farmers’ lives; still affected by the transformations that took place in Greece since the 1950s. The stories of women indicate that progress regarding woman’s position has been slow and that gender role appropriateness was a difficult concept to extinguish. Since the migrations of the 1970s, however, there has been more favourable change and the extent that migration facilitated this is examined.
In The dreaded body, Fahs examines, from an intersectional perspective, how women construct a viscerally disgusting body and how this produces appropriate femininity. The papers use qualitative data to illustrate how US women imagined a body that they dreaded. The language of disgust and loathing appears; weaving together women’s fears about fatness, dark skin and becoming old or disabled.
In Stigmatized Portrayals of Single Women, Gong, Tu and Jiang explore the portrayals of single womanhood in China. Among the three prevalent news frames examined (conflict, responsibility and human interest), the results show that news reports about single women commonly employed human-interest frames and concentrated on single women’s conflicts with other social groups as well as the conflicts between singles and societal expectations. News stories also ascribed the responsibility for being ‘single’ to the women themselves, this was not the case for new stories about single men.
In The Bechdel in India, Kapoor, Bhuptani and Agneswaran use the Bechdel test, traditionally used for Hollywood film, to examine the adequacy of representation of women in Hindi cinema. The work highlights the under-representation and misrepresentation of female characters in contemporary Hindi cinema. While some women-centric and parallel films depict a more balanced portrayal of male and female characters, top-grossing films are heavily lopsided. The subsequent effect of this on perceptions of men and women in society is discussed.
In The Spectacle of Politics, Harp, Loke and Bachmann interrogate women’s marginalization in the US. From a feminist theoretical perspective, and informed by Guy Debord’s concept of the Society of Spectacle, the study examines newspaper coverage of Wendy Davis’s 2013 filibuster to block an abortion-restricting bill in the Texas State legislature. Reports focused on Davis’ personal life and the filibuster became a political spectacle that reified dominant gender values and norms.