Indigenous Women, Mother Tongues, and Nation Building in New England: A Tribal Policy Leadership Series

In collaboration with the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project (WLRP), Indigenous women educators and leaders, the Dept. of Women’s and Gender Studies is redesigning WOST/WGS 270, Native American Women in North America, to incorporate a lecture series on nation building and a semester-long community engagement project fostering student leadership in a research and policy formation project focused on legislating and funding a Native American language education law in Massachusetts

I am a Contradiction: Feminism and Feminist Identity in the Third Wave

How is Third Wave feminism defined? What are the implications for self-labeling as a feminist and the evolution of the “I’m not a feminist, but. . . .” group? While much controversy surrounds the etiology and even the very existence of a “Third Wave” of feminism, this nascent movement is a significant aspect of the current dialogue on contemporary feminism. Therefore, it is important to examine the history and the meaning of the identity of Third Wave. In an attempt to elucidate contemporary feminism, four key Third Wave collections of personal narratives were chosen and analyzed for current definitions of feminism. The anthologies used for this research contain the voices of numerous activists from 1995 to 2006 and represent a diverse range of individuals. A thematic analysis produced four themes: inclusion, multiplicity, contradiction, and everyday feminism. An analysis of the interconnections of these themes brought forth the question of whether a movement that is genuinely attuned to inclusion, multiplicity and contradiction can embrace the feminist label, or any label. Labels create boundaries and define the in-group, which is antithetical to these principles of Third Wave feminism. This might explain the current trend in research that finds many individuals supporting feminist ideology but resisting the feminist label. That is, the phrase “I’m not a feminist, but. . . .” may not simply be a reaction to a disparaged label but more precisely, an acknowledgement of the limits and liabilities of categorization

Transnational engagements: cultural and religious practices related to menstruation

This transnational engagement brings together participants from various cultural and religious backgrounds in a dialogue about menstrual practices. They are asked to consider their own experiences with these practices and reflect on how the practices have affected them. The discussion makes clear that participants have varying understandings and views of traditional menstrual practices, and that these views often challenge the common depiction of traditional practices as restrictions that are forced upon women

The tyranny of the male preserve

Within this paper I draw on short vignettes and quotes taken from a two-year ethnographic study of boxing to think through the continuing academic merit of the notion of the male preserve. This is an important task due to evidence of shifts in social patterns of gender that have developed since the idea was first proposed in the 1970s. In aligning theoretical contributions from Lefebvre and Butler to discussions of the male preserve, we are able to add nuance to our understanding of how such social spaces are engrained with and produced by the lingering grasp of patriarchal narratives. In particular, by situating the male preserve within shifting social processes, whereby certain men’s power is increasingly undermined, I highlight the production of space within which narratives connecting men to violence, aggression and physical power can be consumed, performed and reified in a relatively unrestricted form. This specific case study contributes to gender theory as an illustration of a way in which we might explore and understand social enclaves where certain people are able to lay claim to space and power. As such, I argue that the notion of the male preserve is still a useful conceptual, theoretical and political device especially when considered as produced by the tyranny of gender power through the dramatic representation and reification of behaviours symbolically linked to patriarchal narrations of manhood

Woman-Centered Design through Humanity, Activism, and Inclusion

Women account for over half of the global population, however, continue to be subject to systematic and systemic disadvantage, particularly in terms of access to health and education. At every intersection, where systemic inequality accounts for greater loss of life or limitations on full and healthy living, women are more greatly impacted by those inequalities. The design of technologies is no different, the very definition of technology is historically cast in terms of male activities, and advancements in the field are critical to improve women's quality of life. This article views HCI, a relatively new field, as well positioned to act critically in the ways that technology serve, refigure, and redefine women's bodies. Indeed, the female body remains a contested topic, a restriction to the development of women's health. On one hand, the field of women's health has attended to the medicalization of the body and therefore is to be understood through medical language and knowledge. On the other hand, the framing of issues associated with women's health and people's experiences of and within such system(s) remain problematic for many. This is visible today in, e.g., socio-cultural practices in disparate geographies or medical devices within a clinic or the home. Moreover, the biological body is part of a great unmentionable, i.e., the perils of essentialism. We contend that it is necessary, pragmatically and ethically, for HCI to turn its attention toward a woman-centered design approach. While previous research has argued for the dangers of gender-demarcated design work, we advance that designing for and with women should not be regarded as ghettoizing, but instead as critical to improving women's experiences in bodily transactions, choices, rights, and access to and in health and care. In this article, we consider how and why designing with and for woman matters. We use our design-led research as a way to speak to and illustrate alternatives to designing for and with women within HCI.QC 20200930</p