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 Subtle invasions: Aspects of Samoan women's wartime experiences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Saui'a Louise Marie Tuimanuolo Mataia-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
Sexual Encounters ◽  
Women’S History

<p>During World War Two the peaceful “occupation” of the Samoa Islands by US Forces combined with existing colonial conditions to transform the lives of Samoans in important yet also subtle ways. Drawing on thirty two oral history interviews and the papers of the colonial administrations this thesis examines the wartime lives of Samoan women. Their accounts of their experiences reveal how they understood the war at the time and after years of life experience. Using approaches from social history and women’s history this thesis illustrates women’s agency in finding ways to manage the new social contexts and situations created by the war.  The central argument of this thesis is that it was the ordinary business of negotiating daily life during the war that engaged and normalised social changes. These mundane everyday acts were significant historical moments that wove new and unique motifs into the tapestry of Samoan women’s history. The war brought to Samoa a multitude of American servicemen who saw Samoa through a ‘romantic’ lens as an arcadia of unrestrained social mores. In contrast, through this research Samoan women reveal their wartime experiences in their own words. The women’s narratives indicate that the war interrupted lives in many ways causing them to rethink their roles in response to the changes.  The four areas of Samoan women’s lives that this thesis examines are their roles in their families and communities, their involvement with the churches, their engagement with wartime popular culture and lastly their wartime sexual encounters. The discussion opens with a portrait of Samoan society during the 1920s and 1930s, depicting the social and political forces that shaped women’s lives and influenced their understandings of their wartime experiences. This discussion highlights how colonial entanglements had a bearing on the different trajectories that women’s lives took during the war. The thesis then turns to explore the arrival of the war, examining the women’s initial experiences and reactions with a particular focus on what they learnt from their experiences and how they adapted to change in the context of their communities and families. The study finds that social transformation was a response to the war’s disruption of physical and cultural space and the critical structures and ideologies that are central to Samoans’ way of life.  The second part of this enquiry examines how wartime circumstances affected Samoan women’s sometimes tense relations with the Christian churches. The churches occupied a central place in Samoan society as a provider of both spiritual nurture and secular education for women during the war years, so they deserve specific attention. Wartime conditions created opportunities that expanded and rejuvenated the scope of Samoan women’s agency which had been marginalised and narrowed by Christian influence before the war. At the same time, the war heightened the pre-war tensions between Samoan women’s agency and the power of the churches. Despite the clergy’s reluctance, the churches provided spaces in which American troops socialised with the Samoan population, creating social situations that were difficult to control.  The third area analyses Samoan women’s engagement with wartime popular culture and how the consumption of introduced material culture galvanised their autonomy and enabled them to tailor social transformation to suit their personal perceptions. Wartime popular culture in its many forms contributed to the rapid absorption of new ideas and the adaptation of cultural practices. Women’s engagement with this popular culture resulted in ‘on the ground changes’ that stimulated social transformation and which should be appreciated as significant historical moments in their own right.  The fourth area of discussion investigates Samoan women’s wartime sexual encounters. The perception that Samoan women’s sexual encounters with American servicemen were characterised by an unrestrained morality on their part ignores other factors that shaped these encounters, including violence and their own bodily knowledge and preparedness. This study shows that Samoan women had a variety of sexual encounters during the war and their narratives speak volumes about the pains of such life-changing moments.  There was no single or archetypal wartime experience. The thirty two interviewees experienced the war in different parts of the Samoa islands and their social and political alignment has influenced their perceptions and understanding of their wartime lives. The social transformation brought by the war involved considered responses from the women who sought to balance personal and family interests and Samoan values. Exploring the women’s wartime lives reveals their resilience and their ability to overcome difficulties and effect change for the better of their community.</p>

The Social Intentionality of Battered Women’s Agency in Ghana

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Baffour Adjei
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Abusive Relationships ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Violent Relationships ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relational Embeddedness ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
Decisions To Stay ◽  
Personal Decision

There is a growing body of research which suggests that victims of intimate partner violence (IPV; mostly women) continue to remain in abusive relationships. Many of the Western psychological theorisations focus on battered women’s personal dispositions and/or the self-creating (individualistic) view of agency to explain why victims remain in violent relationships. These studies seem to suggest that staying in a violent relationship is a personal decision that victims make in free will, and that victims who continue to stay fail to act on their own behalf. Drawing upon the Ghanaian communal conceptualisation of personhood and the social norms of marriage and divorce, this study questions the individualistic theorisations of battered women’s decisions to stay in or leave abusive relationships. The article argues that battered women’s agency in negotiating the stay/leave decisions in abusive relationships does not only originate in an independent autonomous self, nor constituted by a person’s internal motives, but also, and even primarily, it is culturally grounded and dependent on social relations for its realisation. The article concludes that the agency of abused women in Ghana has a social intentionality, in the sense that battered women’s intentional behaviour in marital relationships is both constituted by self and constrained by their relational embeddedness.

Prologue to Perdition

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis A. Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
The Body ◽  
Value Systems ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Tensions ◽  
Women’S Agency

Chapter five explores the societal backlash against the social and moral changes occurring in Cuban society, especially as it related to the growing presence and agency of women. The traditional value systems had fallen into disarray, and as a result, as Pérez writes, “A misogynist mood settled over the body social.” The chapter shows how those resistant to women’s agency deployed the concept of the coquetería, or coquet, to rebuke and decry the modern woman. The narrative of the coquet was used as a means of retaining social control. The chapter goes on to explore how new leisure pastimes, such as music, dancing, and time spent in salons and cafes, revealed social tensions, often creating public uproars and consternation. The chapter ends with an analysis of how gender distinctions, including conceptions of masculinity, began to unravel, leading to new freedoms and deepening anxieties.

scholarly journals Subtle invasions: Aspects of Samoan women's wartime experiences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Saui'a Louise Marie Tuimanuolo Mataia-Milo
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Social Transformation ◽  
Women's History ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Effect Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
Sexual Encounters ◽  
Women’S History

<p>During World War Two the peaceful “occupation” of the Samoa Islands by US Forces combined with existing colonial conditions to transform the lives of Samoans in important yet also subtle ways. Drawing on thirty two oral history interviews and the papers of the colonial administrations this thesis examines the wartime lives of Samoan women. Their accounts of their experiences reveal how they understood the war at the time and after years of life experience. Using approaches from social history and women’s history this thesis illustrates women’s agency in finding ways to manage the new social contexts and situations created by the war.  The central argument of this thesis is that it was the ordinary business of negotiating daily life during the war that engaged and normalised social changes. These mundane everyday acts were significant historical moments that wove new and unique motifs into the tapestry of Samoan women’s history. The war brought to Samoa a multitude of American servicemen who saw Samoa through a ‘romantic’ lens as an arcadia of unrestrained social mores. In contrast, through this research Samoan women reveal their wartime experiences in their own words. The women’s narratives indicate that the war interrupted lives in many ways causing them to rethink their roles in response to the changes.  The four areas of Samoan women’s lives that this thesis examines are their roles in their families and communities, their involvement with the churches, their engagement with wartime popular culture and lastly their wartime sexual encounters. The discussion opens with a portrait of Samoan society during the 1920s and 1930s, depicting the social and political forces that shaped women’s lives and influenced their understandings of their wartime experiences. This discussion highlights how colonial entanglements had a bearing on the different trajectories that women’s lives took during the war. The thesis then turns to explore the arrival of the war, examining the women’s initial experiences and reactions with a particular focus on what they learnt from their experiences and how they adapted to change in the context of their communities and families. The study finds that social transformation was a response to the war’s disruption of physical and cultural space and the critical structures and ideologies that are central to Samoans’ way of life.  The second part of this enquiry examines how wartime circumstances affected Samoan women’s sometimes tense relations with the Christian churches. The churches occupied a central place in Samoan society as a provider of both spiritual nurture and secular education for women during the war years, so they deserve specific attention. Wartime conditions created opportunities that expanded and rejuvenated the scope of Samoan women’s agency which had been marginalised and narrowed by Christian influence before the war. At the same time, the war heightened the pre-war tensions between Samoan women’s agency and the power of the churches. Despite the clergy’s reluctance, the churches provided spaces in which American troops socialised with the Samoan population, creating social situations that were difficult to control.  The third area analyses Samoan women’s engagement with wartime popular culture and how the consumption of introduced material culture galvanised their autonomy and enabled them to tailor social transformation to suit their personal perceptions. Wartime popular culture in its many forms contributed to the rapid absorption of new ideas and the adaptation of cultural practices. Women’s engagement with this popular culture resulted in ‘on the ground changes’ that stimulated social transformation and which should be appreciated as significant historical moments in their own right.  The fourth area of discussion investigates Samoan women’s wartime sexual encounters. The perception that Samoan women’s sexual encounters with American servicemen were characterised by an unrestrained morality on their part ignores other factors that shaped these encounters, including violence and their own bodily knowledge and preparedness. This study shows that Samoan women had a variety of sexual encounters during the war and their narratives speak volumes about the pains of such life-changing moments.  There was no single or archetypal wartime experience. The thirty two interviewees experienced the war in different parts of the Samoa islands and their social and political alignment has influenced their perceptions and understanding of their wartime lives. The social transformation brought by the war involved considered responses from the women who sought to balance personal and family interests and Samoan values. Exploring the women’s wartime lives reveals their resilience and their ability to overcome difficulties and effect change for the better of their community.</p>

The Materiality and Social Agency of the Malaḥfa (Mauritanian Veil)

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-174
Author(s):  
Katherine Ann Wiley
Keyword(s):  
Social Hierarchy ◽  
Social Agency ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Women’S Agency

Abstract:This article examines the malaḥfa, a veil that has long been popular in Mauritania, using the scholarship of materiality to analyze how it and the wearer co-constitute each other. This approach demonstrates how the malaḥfa’s particular form and fabric provide women with certain constraints and possibilities; women activate these qualities to exercise agency, be it in redefining their positions in the social hierarchy, exercising control in their relationships, or asserting authority over others. Focusing on the malaḥfa’s materiality illustrates how such garments can be central to women’s agency and power, and demonstrates how women shape the broader social hierarchy.

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).

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