Bikinis and Other Atomic Incidents: The Synthetic Life of the Nuclear Pacific

This article examines a range of mid-twentieth-century American fashions, particularly women’s intimate wear, that went by the name of “bikini.” In doing so, it identifies the bikini as an overt but unremarkable incident of racial and colonial violence. Treating the nuclear Pacific as conspicuously incidental in mainstream atomic culture enables new insights on the visual interplay between white femininity and primitive sexuality—an interplay that, the author argues, was integral to establishing domestic virtue and modern living as atomic age touchstones of “peace.” To elaborate on this argument, this article tracks the bikini’s achievement of propriety within a broader fashion revolution spurred by the use of high-tech fibers in swim, sleep, and support garments. It shows how an atomic ideal of “nature” arose from an imperial desire for security in the face of extreme risk—both the global risk of nuclear war and the domestic risk of sexual promiscuity.

Chart Chicks and Gear Girls

This chapter situates the voices of 1960s young women pop singers in a broader landscape of representations of young, white femininity and the historiography of 1960s British pop, Swinging London, and British girlhood. Drawing primarily on music magazines and fashion and entertainment magazines produced for young women in the 1960s (including titles such as Boyfriend, Fabulous, Honey, Mirabelle, and Petticoat) it shows how music was construed as a key element of modern, youthful, white femininity and self-expression. The chapter connects stories told about girl pop singers and popular narratives about young women seeking independence and shows how these stories are ultimately about attaining access to voice. These narratives about young women’s voices shaped music industry attitudes toward young women as consumers and producers of music, in turn shaping the kinds of musical opportunities that were available to girl and young woman singers.

Fairies and Fairness:

The traditional association of whiteness with fairies warrants a closer examination, as this mythological yearning for a specific childlike realm reveals an idealization of a white past. Indeed, the likening of women to a pure, infantile domain reveals an elevation of whiteness, which, by default, degrades people of color as lesser. While there has been considerable scholarship on the racialization of Charlotte Brontë’s Haitian character Bertha Mason, the construction of whiteness in conjunction with Jane Eyre’s character has remained largely unexplored. I explore these themes of the construction of whiteness through fairies and the romanticization of a white past through a close analysis of humanity in Jane Eyre. I first investigate Victorian and Edwardian fairy visuals, moving on to demonstrate how Jane’s individuality and feminism gains autonomy with her religious spiritualism. I also show, however, how the faerie language in the novel serves to override and disregard Jane’s position as a human being with agency due to Mr. Rochester’s aesthetic of white femininity. Through close readings of the supernatural in Jane Eyre, I scrutinize how the use of fairy language creates a power imbalance where the dehumanization of women and minorities creates a male fantasy directly opposed to the theme of the individual. I discuss how the sexualization and racialization of women as supernatural beings bolsters the self-serving, problematic construct of the ‘human’ which continuously labels women and minorities as less than. Therefore, to restructure this racism and misogynistic thought, I propose a decentering of humanity from a white male perspective, seeing women and minorities not as a monolithic “Other,” almost supernatural beings, but as equally human and worth of respect and dignity.

RACIAL INEEUQALITY AND SEXIST OPPRESSION IN TONI MORRISON'S BELOVED

This study examines the construction of racialized society and gendered identities in fictional text of Morrison's Beloved. The research aim is to analyze and explore how these identities are constructed in Beloved by using a feminist approach. We find that the imposed ideal of femininity is absorbed and patriarchy is assumed. Female’s black characteristics are repressed both intra-communally and inter-communally. In the former, black female characters are not ‘fitted’ to white femininity as they strive for identity crisis even among the blacks. In the latter, they are whim of male dominance-subject of incest, rape and seduction. Though, women are doubly repressed, it is not the racial discrimination that threatens and jeopardizes black women identity rather a sheer domination of patriarchal power from within and without exaggerating debasing women life among the whites. Therefore, this paper reflects on the manifestation of femininity and patriarchy in a radicalized society and how these two interact in women life in Morison's Beloved.

White Women and a Chinese Game

In the 1920s, mahjong allowed middle-class and elite Americans to imagine, appropriate, or reject an exotic Asian sexuality while maintaining their own respectability. Gendered ideas of race, specifically of Asian cultures as feminine, also encouraged Americans to understand the game as a feminine pastime. In turn, Chinese Americans leveraged mahjong’s popularity for economic opportunities. The choices that these Chinese Americans faced, however, were fraught with pitfalls. As the game spread across the nation, mahjong unleashed criticisms of Chinese influence and women’s leisure that linked female mahjong players with neglectful and self-centered domesticity. The ways in which mahjong symbolized modern American culture, buttressed by Orientalist ideas of race and gender, allowed the game to stand in for debates over white femininity. Rather than merely a temporary foray into the exotic, mahjong came to represent the threats posed by changing gender, sexual, and racial norms during the 1920s.

Performing Nordic White Femininity

This study is an intersectional investigation of how the first two international Swedish superstars, Jenny Lind (1820–1887) and Christina Nilsson (1843–1921), performed gender, race, nationalism, and class during their respective tours of the United States of America in 1850–1852 and 1870–1872. The purpose is to chart early transatlantic performances of Nordic white femininity and Swedishness as well as to discuss the symbolical values and associations that it signaled. I will argue that Lind and Nilsson set out a template of idealized Nordic white femininity in the U.S. and that they contributed to the growing identity and self-awareness of Swedish-Americans.