Literature as a Source of Ecological Sustainability with reference to Feminist Writings

Eco Feminist Literature has successfully addressed many ecological and environmental concerns in relation to the exploitation of women in various forms. It has been long that the relationship between the ecology and literature is established with the wide range of literary works having its base on environment and its issues. Women Autobiographies are a form of literature that are used by women writers to express their feelings of themselves in the forms of Memoirs .In certain cases people living in certain geographical regions are captivated by their staunch religious practices which plays an adverse role in preserving the ecological balance. Therefore this paper is an attempt to portray the extremism that exists in the Swat valley and how women autobiographies can contribute to the maintaining the eco system.

Reunion with Self in Terry McMillan’s I Almost Forgot About You

The novel I Almost Forgot About You by Terry McMillan, which deals with the problem of finding your own identity by studying the components of personality and the context in the formation of identity, is examined. African American feminist literature consists of common themes like sense of being different, managing multiple selves and quest for identity. Terry McMillans works represent African American female characters struggle for self-realization that help them in better understanding of the present and planning for the future by reestablishing their identity. The predicament of Georgia, protagonist of the novel, is that she has lost selfhood after subsequent divorces. In due course of time, her role in the family becomes diminished; also she loses interest in the professional life. Her aimlessness and strong desire to restore self leads her to search for male companion among her old boyfriends. She believes that self-satisfaction is possible with exploration of self for that she decides to go on a train trip and tries to focus on nurturing the hobby of woodwork. It helps her in regaining her internal and external self. Thus, the leitmotif of the novel is the search for your own identity as an attempt of inquiry for the destined future.

"I just find it awkward": Girls' negotiations of sexualised pop music media

<p>This thesis examines girls’ relationship with and consumption of female pop stars’ music media. It is contextualised within a period of extensive academic and media debate about girls’ engagement with what has been termed the sexualisation of culture. Much of the alarm concerning girls’ premature sexualisation is underpinned by the presumption of girls as passive media consumers who are uniformly influenced by sexually saturated female pop music, particularly its ubiquitous representation of hyper (hetero) sexually desiring femininity. The notion of girls as precociously sexualised by hypersexual female pop music media has gained homogenous status within mainstream media and popular psychology texts. Girls’ pleasurable consumption and negotiation of a sexually laden media landscape is approached in this research as complicated by their contradictory positioning as savvy consumers within the postfeminist girlhood consumer market and simultaneously as victims within mainstream media and academic literature. Grounded in feminist poststructuralist understandings of girls’ subjectivity, the thesis explores the possibilities of self that representations within female pop music media enable and constrain for girls. Furthermore, the thesis explores ways in which girls make sense of these discourses while carefully managing their positioning as consumers. The research upon which this thesis is based has two parts. Part one of the research involved focus groups within which 30 pre-teen girls, identifying as ‘Kiwis’ or ‘New Zealanders’ discussed their engagement with female popular music media. The second part comprises a thematic discursive and semiotic analysis of girls’ self-recorded group video performances to a favourite pop song by a female artist. Discursive analysis of the professional music videos on which girls’ performances were based accompanied analyses of girls’ videos. The thesis contributes to a growing body of critical feminist research which responds to sexualisation claims that underpin hegemonic understandings of contemporary girlhood. The analyses presented in the research challenge moralistic notions of girls as uniformly influenced by pop music media by highlighting their navigation of this media as a contradictory process of appropriation and rejection. This complex negotiation, while seen in previous feminist literature, is uniquely captured within this thesis through the innovative employment of a performance method that extends feminist theorisations which problematise binary assumptions of girls’ engagement with sexualised media. This research identifies girls’ meaning making as a contradictory and plural process and provides novel insights about girls’ negotiation of postfeminist femininities in their own self-making in relation to self. Crucially, the thesis highlights the way in which girls’ navigation of sexualised media can be understood as occurring through both rejection and reproduction of postfeminist femininity ideals. Contextualised in New Zealand, the research extends knowledge about girls’ navigation of sexualised media beyond a US/UK social context. It also advances the small body of New Zealand literature about girls’ media engagement broadly and about the ways they experience sexualised media in particular.</p>

"I just find it awkward": Girls' negotiations of sexualised pop music media

<p>This thesis examines girls’ relationship with and consumption of female pop stars’ music media. It is contextualised within a period of extensive academic and media debate about girls’ engagement with what has been termed the sexualisation of culture. Much of the alarm concerning girls’ premature sexualisation is underpinned by the presumption of girls as passive media consumers who are uniformly influenced by sexually saturated female pop music, particularly its ubiquitous representation of hyper (hetero) sexually desiring femininity. The notion of girls as precociously sexualised by hypersexual female pop music media has gained homogenous status within mainstream media and popular psychology texts. Girls’ pleasurable consumption and negotiation of a sexually laden media landscape is approached in this research as complicated by their contradictory positioning as savvy consumers within the postfeminist girlhood consumer market and simultaneously as victims within mainstream media and academic literature. Grounded in feminist poststructuralist understandings of girls’ subjectivity, the thesis explores the possibilities of self that representations within female pop music media enable and constrain for girls. Furthermore, the thesis explores ways in which girls make sense of these discourses while carefully managing their positioning as consumers. The research upon which this thesis is based has two parts. Part one of the research involved focus groups within which 30 pre-teen girls, identifying as ‘Kiwis’ or ‘New Zealanders’ discussed their engagement with female popular music media. The second part comprises a thematic discursive and semiotic analysis of girls’ self-recorded group video performances to a favourite pop song by a female artist. Discursive analysis of the professional music videos on which girls’ performances were based accompanied analyses of girls’ videos. The thesis contributes to a growing body of critical feminist research which responds to sexualisation claims that underpin hegemonic understandings of contemporary girlhood. The analyses presented in the research challenge moralistic notions of girls as uniformly influenced by pop music media by highlighting their navigation of this media as a contradictory process of appropriation and rejection. This complex negotiation, while seen in previous feminist literature, is uniquely captured within this thesis through the innovative employment of a performance method that extends feminist theorisations which problematise binary assumptions of girls’ engagement with sexualised media. This research identifies girls’ meaning making as a contradictory and plural process and provides novel insights about girls’ negotiation of postfeminist femininities in their own self-making in relation to self. Crucially, the thesis highlights the way in which girls’ navigation of sexualised media can be understood as occurring through both rejection and reproduction of postfeminist femininity ideals. Contextualised in New Zealand, the research extends knowledge about girls’ navigation of sexualised media beyond a US/UK social context. It also advances the small body of New Zealand literature about girls’ media engagement broadly and about the ways they experience sexualised media in particular.</p>

Feminist Issues and the Popularity of Feminist Literature in the World and Vietnam

Currently, feminism and feminist movements seem to have become “popular” and is extremely in favor of all aspects of social life. Especially in the field of literature, the trend of feminist research shows that the need for equality and charity as well as the fight for gender equality is becoming more and more urgent both in the world and Vietnam. This is a large and in-depth research topic, but with the limited volume of the article, the author only mentions feminism issues, feminist theory as well as the popularity of feminist literature. At present time comparing and contrasting feminist literature in the world as well as in Vietnam so far. Since then, it is clear that the value of feminist literature and the popularity of feminist literature is an inevitable development in the current gender equality trend.

Metaphor of Cigarettes: Feminism in Kate Chopin’s An Egyptian Cigarette

Objectives: Kate Chopin is regarded as one of the pioneers of the feminist literature in the United States. Her works mainly express her caring for women. Since the 1960s, the western academic circle has set off a long overdue upsurge in the study of Kate Chopin and her works, repositioning and giving Chopin a classic status in the history of American literature.This paper aims to analyze the revival and awakening of the heroine’s self-consciousness and reveal the inner world of a “new woman” at the turn of the century through the heroine’s behavior of taking the initiative to smoke and eventually giving up.Cigarettes, which appear repeatedly in this short novel with symbolic meanings, have a special metaphorical function. Through analyzing the social and historical environment of the emergence of “new women” in American society and the “new women” in An Egyptian Cigarette, this paper attempts to explore the multiple political and cultural connotations reflected by cigarettes and reveal Chopin’s feminist consciousness through the novella.

KEKERASAN DALAM ‘PERSAHABATAN BERACUN’ ANTARPEREMPUAN PADA NOVEL ANTÉCHRISTA KARYA AMÉLIE NOTHOMB

(Title: Violence in Toxic Friendship Between Women in Amélie Nothomb's “Antéchrista” Novel). Violence is often identified with masculine expressions inherent in men. However, in reality, it is not gender-exclusive because women are also enabled to do so, including against those closest to them such as friends, as revealed in the novel Antéchrista by Amélie Nothomb, a Belgian francophone writer. This study aims to examine how the theme of violence in the 'toxic friendship' between women is displayed in the novel. The method used is descriptive qualitative with a feminist literary criticism approach. The data were collected from the novel using the note-taking technique and analyzed using the content analysis technique. The data consisting of words, phrases, and sentences in French were then translated by the researchers to be classified, interpreted, and studied. The result of the research shows that the novel Antéchrista presents women as victims who are also perpetrators of violence through oppression against each other, motivated by jealousy and intrasexual competition. The form of violence is in the form of psychological and verbal which is manifested in the form of intimidation, humiliation, and ostracism. Keywords: opression, toxic friendship, resistensi, women, feminist literature criticism

Imperatives of recognising the complexities: gendered impacts and responses to COVID-19 in India

This paper argues that the gendered impact of COVID-19 has both visible and hidden dimensions, and both immediate effects linked with lockdowns and longer-term effects that are likely to emerge sequentially in time and affect recovery. Much of the existing feminist literature on the impact of COVID-19 has neglected these complexities and focused mainly on care work and domestic violence. This has diverted attention away from other key concerns such as livelihood loss, food and nutritional insecurity, indebtedness, rising poverty, and the low resilience of most women in developing economies. Even care work and domestic violence have complex facets that tend to be missed. Using examples from India, the paper outlines the kinds of gendered effects we might expect, the extent to which these have been traced in existing surveys, and the data gaps. It also highlights the potential of group approaches in enhancing women’s economic recovery and providing social protection from the worst outcomes of the pandemic—approaches that could guide us towards effective policy pathways for ‘building back better.’

Moving from problems to solutions: A review of gender equality interventions at work using an ecological systems approach

Despite the mounting research on gender inequality in the workplace, progress toward gender parity in organizational practice has stalled. We suggest that one reason for the lack of progress is that empirical research has predominately focused on the antecedents and manifestations of gender inequality in the workplace, paying inadequate attention to the solutions that could potentially improve gender equality and women’s experiences at work. Indeed, we report here that less than 5% of the relevant studies published in preeminent management, psychology, and diversity journals since the turn of the century identify practical interventions for solving gender inequality in organizations. To advance gender equality at work, we argue that a paradigm shift from problem to solution is critical and urgent. Using ecological systems theory (EST; Bronfenbrenner, 1977) as our guiding framework, we present an integrative review of gender equality interventions spanning across the management, psychology, and feminist literature over the past two decades at the ontogenic system, interpersonal microsystem, and organizational microsystem levels of analysis. We subsequently provide an overview of domains not currently addressed in extant research – meso-, macro-, and chronosystems – and identify future research directions to spur progress towards workplace gender equality.

Repression and Resistance in Dalit Feminist Literature

Feminist movements and Dalit feminist movement in India are mainly based on the experience of Repression and gender discrimination. Patriarchy, gender disparity and sexual violence are the basic reasons for these movements and they also find place prominently in the writings of Dalit women as they have come forward to write their experiences from women's point of view around 1980s. Baby Kamble, Urmila Pawar in Marathi, Geeta Nagabhushan in Kannada, P. Shivakami, Bama in Tamil have got national level consideration. Dalit women were raped; insulted and abused by the upper caste people. They are insecure in the society as they have been exploited on the various levels. This feeling of insecurity of the Dalit women is the central theme of their writings. These women writers have come forward to express their ideas, their experiences in social violence as well as in domestic violence and thus they protest their traditional existence with anger and anguish. Geeta Nagabhushan’s dalit novels, Barna’s Sangati (2005), P. Shivakani's Grip of Change (2006) are initial important writings of dalit feminism; Datit feminism writing is different from the conventional way of Feminist writing. Their experiences, expression, method of narration are extremely different from the upper caste women writers. It is found that every woman in the world has been degraded to second grade citizenship. The Dalit women in India suffer more due to their Dalit identity.