Twenty-five Somonis for a Good Future

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Roche
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Good Luck ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Female Behavior ◽  
Conscious Decision ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
The Life Course

In Tajikistan the concept of “womanhood” developed in the Soviet period remains at odds with local conceptions of gender roles. These competing forms of female agency force young women to creatively shape their future, drawing on the paradigm of womanhood that befits their life-world. Here, we see how young women take their future into their own hands, in a society that scrutinizes female behavior and seems to restrict women’s agency. Recognizing that an encounter between two people can change the life course of one of them, this article employs a cross-biographic approach to understand women’s agency in Tajikistan. Based on the biographies of a bakhshi (fortune teller) and two young women who visit her, I explore how these two women of marriageable age deal with their emotional world and a society where failure to marry stigmatizes the whole family. The conscious decision of these young women to meet a bakhshi, to actively allow the bakhshi to influence their life course, offers insight on female agency and young women’s strategies in managing their emotions, controlling their futures, and securing good luck (bakht).

scholarly journals "Who is Severe Upon the Ladies Now?": The Tri-Tiered Construction of Female Agency in Frances Burney's 'Evelina'

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia Eve Rink
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Class Mobility ◽  
Women’S Agency

Frances Burney’s novel Evelina follows a young woman through a series of mortifying social interactions, all of which point to a layered concept of women’s agency and the popular perceptions of autonomy during the eighteenth century. Women’s agency in Evelina can be classified as physical agency, emotional agency, or elite agency. Each form of agency is then characterized by the female characters of the lower, middle, or upper classes within the novel. Burney’s uncouth characterization of the lower classes corresponds with physical agency, or the physical ability to create agency outside of social expectations, while elite agency allows upper-class and aristocratic women to act as they wish without public censure. Middle-class Evelina’s emotional agency, accessible to readers through the epistolary format of the novel, relies on her understanding of propriety, sensibilities, and interpersonal connections as a means of navigating social situations and class mobility. Burney’s tiered construction of women’s agency reinforces the importance of sensibility and emotional honesty across highly gendered class lines.    

Hot Girls Wanted and the Ethics of Critiquing Agency in Amateur Porn

2021 ◽  
pp. 002216782110090
Author(s):  
Nisha Gupta ◽  
Eric Greene
Keyword(s):  
Young Women ◽  
Documentary Film ◽  
Social Critique ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women’S Agency

In this edited interview, psychologists Nisha Gupta and Eric Greene have a conversation with filmmakers Jill Bauer and Ronna Gradus about their documentary film Hot Girls Wanted (2015), which is a first-ever look at the realities of the professional amateur porn world and the 18- to 19-year old young women entering into it. This dialogue explores the relationships they developed with the young women they filmed, the ethical questions that arose when pursuing this kind of project, and the challenge in holding the tension between young women’s agency who engage in porn versus the social critique surrounding the amateur porn industry. Ronna and Jill have since gone on to produce the six-part Netflix documentary series: Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On, which explores these questions further.

scholarly journals "I'm quite regardless what the world can say!": Marriage, Media, Agency and the New Female Coterie in the Late Eighteenth Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rachel Boddy
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Women’S Agency

<p>The New Female Coterie was a group of disgraced upper-class women in the late eighteenth century traditionally dismissed as ‘scandalous’, ‘fallen’ or victims. This thesis re-evaluates these women, exploring the ways in which they utilised their agency to navigate divorce and separation proceedings which were designed for the benefit of men. It also investigates the constraints, such as family or wealth, that restricted their agency. The thesis further considers the ways in which the women were empowered by combining as a collective. This thesis utilises under-examined sources such as satirical cartoons, pamphlets, and The Rambler’s Magazine to show that media itself could constrain women either by side-lining women’s agency or by portraying it as a negative and dangerous thing. Media representations of the New Female Coterie provide evidence of the sex panics which, historians argue, reached their apex in the 1790s. This thesis posits instead that anxieties regarding women’s sexual behaviour originated earlier than is often suggested. By examining the under-explored women of the New Female Coterie, this thesis contributes to scholarship on female agency in the Georgian period.</p>

Versioning Womanhood and Muslimhood: ‘Fashion’ and the Life Course in Contemporary Bouaké, Côte D'ivoire

Africa ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 442-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Nathalie LeBlanc
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Cote D'ivoire ◽  
Côte D’Ivoire ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Cote D’Ivoire ◽  
Western Modernity ◽  
Côte D'ivoire ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Do So

AbstractOn the strength of research in 1992–95 and 1998 this article discusses the way Muslim women dress in Bouaké, Côte D'Ivoire, and what it tells us about the trajectory of their lives and view of the world. Arguing that fashion is emblematic of processes of identification, it seeks to explain how young women come to be situated and position themselves in these processes. To do so, it examines the processes through a life course analysis that takes into account local versionings of tradition and aesthetics, Muslim cosmology and ideals of Western modernity. The article shows that as young women gain social maturity and assume the socially defined status of adult they dress and act increasingly in a manner that emphasises Muslim identity. The various ways in which they use dress reflect the stance they adopt towards competing versionings of Islam.

scholarly journals "I'm quite regardless what the world can say!": Marriage, Media, Agency and the New Female Coterie in the Late Eighteenth Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Rachel Boddy
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sexual Behaviour ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Women’S Agency

<p>The New Female Coterie was a group of disgraced upper-class women in the late eighteenth century traditionally dismissed as ‘scandalous’, ‘fallen’ or victims. This thesis re-evaluates these women, exploring the ways in which they utilised their agency to navigate divorce and separation proceedings which were designed for the benefit of men. It also investigates the constraints, such as family or wealth, that restricted their agency. The thesis further considers the ways in which the women were empowered by combining as a collective. This thesis utilises under-examined sources such as satirical cartoons, pamphlets, and The Rambler’s Magazine to show that media itself could constrain women either by side-lining women’s agency or by portraying it as a negative and dangerous thing. Media representations of the New Female Coterie provide evidence of the sex panics which, historians argue, reached their apex in the 1790s. This thesis posits instead that anxieties regarding women’s sexual behaviour originated earlier than is often suggested. By examining the under-explored women of the New Female Coterie, this thesis contributes to scholarship on female agency in the Georgian period.</p>

Human Development in the Life Course

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Zittoun ◽  
Jaan Valsiner ◽  
Dankert Vedeler ◽  
Joao Salgado ◽  
Miguel M. Goncalves ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Human Development ◽  
The Life Course

Social Change and the Life Course: How Can They Be Linked?

1990 ◽  
Vol 35 (9) ◽  
pp. 843-844
Author(s):  
Johannes J. Huinink
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Life Course ◽  
The Life Course
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