scholarly journals ‘Men fall like boiled eggs. Women fall like raw eggs.’ Civilised female bodies and gender relations in British National Hunt racing

2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippa Velija ◽  
Lucinda Hughes

This purpose of this article is to contribute to the existing research on the gendered nature of equestrian sports by discussing how power relations continue to position females on the margins of National Hunt (NH) racing. In the UK, NH racing is the most male-dominated form of racing; at the time of writing, 100 males hold a professional jockey licence, compared to just 4 females. In this article we draw on figurational sociology, specifically the concepts of the civilised body, interdependence and habitus to offer a critical analysis of the gendered experiences of eight amateur and professional female jockeys. The experiences of female jockeys cannot be understood without considering their networks of interdependencies with trainers, owners, male jockeys, breeders and the wider racing industry. We argue that early involvement in the figuration through family ties supports the development of a gendered racing habitus that influences the social identities of female jockeys who normalise their own limitations. Civilised female bodies are positioned in the figuration as weaker than males and needing protection from potentially risky horses. We argue that because safe horses are chosen by trainers and owners, these limit the opportunities and number of rides for female jockeys, these (gendered) decisions obscure issues of power that enable male jockeys to dominate in the NH figuration.

Author(s):  
Vaijayanti Bezbaruah ◽  
Nilika Mehrotra

In its early conventional sense, disability was largely understood in bio-medical model which subsequently was supplemented with the psycho-social underpinnings of disability. In recent times, the social identities in terms of race, religion, class, caste, and gender add other dimensions to the social science discourse on disability studies. The chapter attempts to inform through the dimensions of age and aging in relation to the disability discourse, drawing from ethnographic cases over a period of research in North India. In the process, this chapter offers an analysis of disability and aging with focusing on the lack of access to social and familial resources for people with disability who are old and people who acquire any kind of disability in their old age. This chapter examines uncertainties experienced by the older disabled and the disabled older persons in relation to the extent of family ties and other social resources in both the rural and urban context.


2022 ◽  
pp. 90-101
Author(s):  
Vaijayanti Bezbaruah ◽  
Nilika Mehrotra

In its early conventional sense, disability was largely understood in bio-medical model which subsequently was supplemented with the psycho-social underpinnings of disability. In recent times, the social identities in terms of race, religion, class, caste, and gender add other dimensions to the social science discourse on disability studies. The chapter attempts to inform through the dimensions of age and aging in relation to the disability discourse, drawing from ethnographic cases over a period of research in North India. In the process, this chapter offers an analysis of disability and aging with focusing on the lack of access to social and familial resources for people with disability who are old and people who acquire any kind of disability in their old age. This chapter examines uncertainties experienced by the older disabled and the disabled older persons in relation to the extent of family ties and other social resources in both the rural and urban context.


2009 ◽  
Vol 12 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 629-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippa Velija ◽  
Dominic Malcolm
Keyword(s):  

Africa ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-651 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam de Bruijn

AbstractIn pastoral Fulbe society in central Mali women had and in some degree still have an important social and economic role, concentrated on a milk economy organised through a special female-headed, women-centred unit called by the Fulbe fayannde, or ‘hearthhold’. In a society of semi-nomadic pastoralists who live most of the year in small social units, social relations and networks are very important, perhaps even crucial to the success of their main survival strategy, which is transhumant cattle-keeping. In the literature on the Fulbe this social unit has received relatively little attention. An analysis from the perspective of the ‘hearthhold’ sheds new light on property and gender relations in Fulbe society in general.Drought has had an enormous impact on the situation of the Jallube studied in this article. Economic change—a switch to agriculture and production for the market—has brought about a shift of focus for the men. Economically, milk is no longer essential for them, and hence the fayannde loses its importance; socially, too, the role of the fayannde, as symbolised by milk, is changing. For women the erosion of the fayannde is serious: an analysis of marriage gifts shows how important the fayannde is not only to the social organisation of the Jallube but also to their economic viability. In times of stress this importance may be greater for women than for men. The decline of the fayannde may lead to a transformation of gender relations, the marriage ceremony and women's social security—changes that the return of the rains or the re-establishment of herds may not reverse.


1998 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-504 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Burkitt

This paper concentrates on the recent controversy over the division between sex and gender and the troubling of the binary distinctions between gender identities and sexualities, such as man and woman, heterosexual and homosexual. While supporting the troubling of such categories, I argue against the approach of Judith Butler which claims that these dualities are primarily discursive constructions that can be regarded as fictions. Instead, I trace the emergence of such categories to changing forms of power relations in a more sociological reading of Foucault's conceptualization of power, and argue that the social formation of identity has to be understood as emergent within socio-historical relations. I then consider what implications this has for a politics based in notions of identity centred on questions of sexuality and gender.


2014 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 114-117
Author(s):  
Amr G. E. Sabet

This book examines the “plight” of women and gender relations in an attemptto give voice to an excluded and marginalized group in the closed and conservativesociety of Saudi Arabia (pp. 1, 2). Al-Rashid problematizes the“woman question,” designating it as both a state and a social problem that defiesconsensus regarding its causes and solutions, where giving voice becomesthe first step toward reclaiming denied rights. She contextualizes her study bylooking at the historical roots and “interconnection between gender, politics,and religion that shapes and perpetuates the persistent exclusion of Saudiwomen” (p. 3). By so doing, Al-Rashid essentially depicts the roots of this“extreme form of gender inequality” as structural and related to the complexrelationship between the Saudi state and the Wahhabi religious establishment.This relationship, which takes the form of religious nationalism, provided fora narrow definition and interpretation of just who was entitled to belong to the pious community. Narrow interpretations of rituals and jurisprudence, aswell as how gender relations are to be conducted or acquire validity, both createdand exacerbated the social and religious boundaries within Saudi societyand between it and other Muslim cultural interpretations ...


2020 ◽  
pp. 123-136
Author(s):  
Ahmed Kanna ◽  
Amélie Le Renard ◽  
Neha Vora

This concluding chapter explores the question of what decolonized ethnography and academia can look like. It argues that de-exceptionalizing the Arabian Peninsula as a field site requires deconstructing an idealized vision of Western academia as a presumed site of democracy and liberalism. The projects of anthropology and sociology, as they have been invested in anticolonial and antiracist justice and breaking down binary understandings between East and West, self and other, civilized and savage, are implicated in the continuing use of the exceptional and spectacular as tropes in ethnographic writing, revealing just how much work is yet to be done within their disciplines. Within these disciplines, some have questioned the various hierarchies that are realized through the production of knowledge, not only between the social scientists and their “objects” or “fields,” but also among social scientists themselves, particularly the ways in which power relations in terms of status, racialized identification, class, and gender shape perceptions of their expertise or lack thereof. The chapter then assesses how centering not only the Arabian Peninsula but gender, sexuality, race, household, and other topics that have until now been seen as marginal might provide better information about the societies social scientists study as well as transnational processes, globalization, and the contemporary world.


Societies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadine Naguib Suliman

This study examines the relationships between extractive industries, power and patriarchy, raising attention to the negative social and environmental impacts these relationships have had on communities globally. Wealth accumulation, gender and environment inequality have occurred for decades or more as a result of patriarchal structures, controlled by the few in power. The multiple indirect ways these concepts have evolved to function in modern day societies further complicates attempts to resolve them and transform the social and natural world towards a more sustainable model. Partly relying on queer ecology, this paper opens space for uncovering some hidden mechanisms of asserting power and patriarchal methods of domination in resource-extractive industries and impacted populations. I hypothesize that patriarchy and gender inequality have a substantial impact on power relations and control of resources, in particular within the energy industry. Based on examples from the literature used to illustrate these processes, patriarchy-imposed gender relations are embedded in communities with large resource extraction industries and have a substantial impact on power relations, especially relative to wealth accumulation. The paper ends with a call for researchers to consider these issues more deeply and conceptually in the development of case studies and empirical analysis.


2001 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Prem Chowdhry

One of the more popular self-projections of women in the oral tradition of rural north India is the image of a lustful woman, which directly contradicts the dominant and ideal image of the chaste woman and offers an alternative moral perspective on kinship, gender, sexuality and norms of behaviour. This article explores the construction of the lustful woman based exclu sively upon women's songs produced collectively by women and sung by women for an audi ence consisting purely of women. It seeks to understand how and why this image, common to both men and women's songs, has different connotations and messages. The construction of meaning around this image is explored in the social context of power relations and status con siderations existing within the family, caste and class. As such, the article seeks to understand how far the subversiveness of these songs finds its echo in the actual transgressive behaviour of women in caste/class and gender relationships, and with what effect. It highlights the construc tion of masculinity, pleasure and deprivation, which cuts across several societal hierarchies. The inevitable conflict within a worldview where different and contradictory beliefs and desires coexist brings to the fore the interface between ideology and practice.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
SELT Djihad Afaf ◽  
Kaid fatiha BERRAHAL

At the peak of the spatial turn, space and gender have become critical notions that have a direct influence on the social construction of nations. In this vein, Lefebvre identifies space as a physical entity that has a mental representation. He affirms that the physical space is the outcome of a set of values and experiences that reproduce society. Nevertheless, the mental space results from the power relations embedded within the physical one. The manipulation of these spaces produces a gendered one in which women are considered inferiors. This paper investigates the interplay between gender and space production along with the power relations they entail. It examines how this manipulation stimulates resistance precisely through discourse in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid Tale (1985) and Oryx and Crake (2003). The research is carried out on Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism as a theoretical frame, relying on a combination of analytical as well as descriptive methods. This article concludes that gendered spaces are being manipulated by religious doctrines as well as corrupt political structures that aim to relegate females to marginal spaces in favor of their male counterparts.


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