Before Bandung: The Anti-Imperialist Women\u27s Movement in Asia and the Women\u27s International Democratic Federation

The 1949 Conference of the Women of Asia held by the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) amplified a new anti-imperialist solidarity movement for women in the global South. Leftist feminists emerged from anticolonial movements to organize mass-based women’s groups, a process that created new alliances between regional women’s groups. In India, and across Asia, most groups concentrated their efforts on rural women embedded in the agricultural economy. This article looks at the forms of solidarity and the ideologies of anti-imperialist women’s activism that turned the charity model of Western feminist internationalism on its head. Before the celebrated Bandung Conference of 1955, Asian and African WIDF members emphasized a solidarity of commonalty as well as one of complicity in the international women’s movement to fight colonialism and neocolonialism in the new postwar order

Here and There, A Story of Women’s Internationalism, 1948-1953

https://scholarworks.smith.edu/swg_books/1003/thumbnail.jp

Marxist and Socialist Feminism

Beginning in the 1840s, Marxism has analyzed unpaid, reproductive “women’s work” as an integral part of capitalism. Marxist feminism historicizes reproduction in relation to production to better understand women’s exploitation and oppression in capitalism. Marxist feminism also theorizes revolutionary subjectivity and possibilities for an anti-capitalist future. Particularly important to Marxist feminism are its theories of imperialism and primitive accumulation, or theft, of land, resources and women’s unpaid labor to the reproduction of lives and generations

Gita and Betty: An Internationalist Love Story

Gita and Betty: An Internationalist Love Story is part of Faith in the Masses: a collection of 12 essays by historians and activist-scholars on various aspects of the 100-year history of the CPUSA. The essays in this book demonstrate the Communist Party, USA\u27s century long commitment to equality, workers\u27 rights, peace, and socialism. They highlight the struggle for African American equality, Black liberation, and women\u27s rights, and place athletic, cultural, and literary activities well within the scope of CPUSA work. This book asserts that the CPUSA played a leading role in the social and economic justice struggles of the 20th century. Included in this collection are three essays that challenge the narrative dominant within traditional academic circles that the CPUSA became a marginal political force post-1956. Faith in the Masses adds the historiography of the CPUSA with a discussion of Communist involvement in the 1960s and 1970s youth and student upsurge, peace, civil rights, and the movement for environmental sustainability.https://scholarworks.smith.edu/swg_books/1004/thumbnail.jp

Peace and the Barrel of the Gun in the Internationalist Women’s Movement, 1945–49

In 1949, at a conference instigated by the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) held in Beijing, China, the Asian Women’s Conference solidified an anticolonial, antifascist, and antiracist theory for organizing women transnationally. This transnational feminist praxis drew its movement demands and strategies from the masses of women in anticolonial movements, both rural and urban poor women. It also framed a two-fold theory of women’s organizing: it delineated one platform for women fighting imperialism within colonized countries, and another platform for women fighting imperialism within aggressor nations. This transnational feminism supported an explicitly pro-socialist vision for the future

Speciation of Mercury by Chromatography Coupled with Atomic Spectrometry

A commercial GC-AFS instrument has been developed and optimised for the speciation of organomercury. This instrument couples a GC oven to a modified atomic fluorescence detector via a ceramic pyrolyser. Organomercury compounds in dichloromethane solvent were directly injected through a Programmable Temperature Vaporiser Injector onto a DBl Megabore column. Once separated, the compounds eluted from the column and were atomised in the pyrolyser then detected by AFS. The direct injection technique, ceramic pyrolysis design and argon purged detector have improved previous instrument designs by enhancing and maintaining sensitivity. The instrumental limit of detection was determined to be 0.25 pg Hg absolute. Methods were developed for the extraction of methylmercury from a variety of marine samples. The techniques were validated using mussel homogenate and dogfish liver (IAEA 142, SRM 8044 and DOLT-2) certified reference materials. An interlaboratory comparision exercise was participated in and a method was developed for the detemination of methylmercury in Fucus sea plant (IAEA 140). A concentration of 0.63 ± 0.006 ng g-1 was reported. The material is now certified at 0.626 +0.139 ng g-1. Of all the participating laboratories, this was the closest result to the certified value. The instrument and methods were also applied to soil and sediment samples. Once again validation was performed with a CRM sediment, IAEA 356. Although this material has been reported to give positive artifact formation when using a steam distillation sample preparation procedure, good agreement and no artifects were observed upon analysis. A further contaminated land, an uncontaminated soil and sediment sample were also studied. For all the samples studied by GC-AFS total mercury measurements were also made following an appropriate digestion procedure and CV-AFS. A gas chromatograph was also coupled with ICP-MS and HPLC was coupled to CV-AFS as comparative techniques. Both approaches were optimised and validated with CRM's. The GC-ICP-MS had the advantage of providing additional element information and confirmed the presence of methylmercury bromide in the final mussel homogenate extract. The HPLC approach found to be much less sensitive than the GC techniques and also suffered from vapour generation interferences. The PTV injector was considered for large volume injection and thermal desorption techniques. Injector breakdown problems were overcome by optimising the conditions and solid phase adsorbent for cold splitless injection. A recovery of 70% was achieved for a 50 ul large volume injection of methylmercury chloride in DCM. This technique indicated the possibility that LVI may in the future offer increased method sensitivity.PS Analytical Ltd and the Teaching Company Schem

Feminist Scholarship Review: Gender and Sexuality Studies and the Liberal Arts Education

Published from 1991 through 2007 at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, the Feminist Scholarship Review is a literary journal that describes women\u27s experiences around the world. FSR began as a review of feminist scholarly material, but evolved into a journal for poetry and short storie