Info on the annual Women of Color celebration at Penn

Excerpt from the wonderful poem read at the 2006 Women of Color lunch

Friedberg introduces her article with a look at the twin birth of psychoanalysis and cinema and argues that "Freud's theory of the unconscious. . .was, from the start, a theory in search of an apparatus. Yet the cinema, an apparatus which could reproduce and project specular images, from its beginnings, an apparatus in search of a theory" (41). Drawing on Chodorkoff and Baxter, Friedberg offers a reading of the history of the making of Secrets of the Soul, including Freud's rejection of the project. She calls the film the first 'that directly tried to represent psychoanalytic descriptions of the etiology of a phobia and the method of psychoanalytic treatment" (45). Friedberg points to the various ironic name puns having to do with Freud's lack of involvment in the film: that Pabst, the director of Joyless Street--Die FREUDlose Gasse (my emphasis) was asked to direct a film "mit Freud," when Freud refused to be involved; and that the actor who plays the pshychoanalyst in Secrets, Pavel Pavlov, shares his name with "Freud's mightiest theoretical opponent, the physiologist Ivan Pavlov" (46). Friedman goes on to describe and analyze the film, which she notes is separated into five parts: Pre-Dream; The Dream; Post-Dream; Analysis; and Cure. She notes that the happy ending of the film works as a kind of advertisement for psychoanalysis, arguing that Abraham and Sachs in consulting on the film, intented to "extol its curative virtues" (51).

Wood examines how Disney uses his film Cinderella to “civilize” his viewers by presenting models of proper behavior while entertaining them. Snow White, like Cinderella, sings while she does her household chores. In analyzing Disney’s conservative ideology, she touches upon how his views affect his other works, such as Snow White.

            To keep his films entertaining, Disney reworked European marchen. He included well-loved romantic plots and added comic relief through subplots involving animals and secondary characters, such as the dwarves in Snow White. Marriage is based on love, rather than family constraints. “Love’s first kiss” wakes both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty from their slumbers. Disney used realism in his animated films to present a sense of immediacy to his audience. He included a solid plot and clear personalities to the characters so that viewers would feel a deeper connection with the story. The seven dwarves in Snow White each have their own unique name, temperament, and appearance. The recurring gags, often in the form of handicaps, also keep children viewers interested. For example, Dopey is mute and clumsy while Doc has a stutter and is absent-minded.

            Disney supports wish-fulfillment, as is evident in his films. Dreams in Cinderella are similarly important in Snow White. While Cinderella sings of “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” Snow White opens her story with “I’m wishing / For the one I love / To find me.” Disney reassures viewers that with good effort and self-control, one will get the desired result. According to him, the ultimate wish for girls is to marry the rich and handsome Mr. Right.

Shortsleeve tries to articulate the fear that Disney inspires in critics, and from where this fear originates. He views it as a slippery slope process. Beginning in the 1930’s, criticism of Disney’s corporate, artistic, and public influences worsened with time. Disney’s personal ideology, reflected in the way he worked with people, appears in his films.
            Walt Disney elicits a range of complaints from critics. The primary one that appears is of the “Disneyfication” of fairy tales, the simplification of stories. Many critics view the Disney versions as patronizing and overly sentimental. Disney has created a form of entertainment that restricts thought-provoking expression. Others argue that the racial stereotypes Disney shows in his films encourage racism in viewers across the world and further US imperialist agenda. Feminists claim that depictions of Barbie-like heroines give young girls negative body images. Some say that Walt Disney has unacceptable labor practices in his studios and that he displays a false innocence to the media.
            Shortsleeve believes that what frightens people is that the Disney Company has remained unchanged from its glory days in the 1930’s. After bitter arguments with his animators in 1941, Walt Disney lost his confidence, and the company ideologically stalled in the “magic” of the ‘30s. The company still exhibits contradictory values, with heavy-handed management of employees, yet support for the common man in its films. The incongruity of its totalitarian tendencies with its democracy attractions at its amusement parks leads to confusion from critics and the general public alike. This confusion has led to tension, suspicion, and paranoia.
            Despite his criticism, Shortsleeve acknowledges the positive impact Disney has had on America, especially during the Great Depression. Audiences wanted to escape their dreary lives for two hours, to enter a fantasy world where everything ends happily. When Disney decided to create his first full-length animated film (Snow White), even his oppressed employees regained new hope and excitement at the thought of being involved in such a ground-breaking project.

Snow White exhibits the “Disneyfication” about which so many critics complained. It diverges from the original Grimm version toward simplification and sentimentality. Disney’s clear belief in self-reliance and hard work are evident in the dwarves’ “Heigh Ho, It’s Off to Work We Go” song, as well as in Snow White’s agreeable temperament while doing chores. Disney expected his animators to work just as willingly, but they were unhappy that they would not receive screen credit for their efforts, and so began the strike in ’41 that destroyed Walt’s confidence and locked the company in its ‘30s mindset.

Stone argues that Walt Disney has created household names of heroines in his films, but in so doing, is encouraging passivity and inaction from female viewers who are influenced by the pretty-but-dumb characters. Disney has changed the role of women from the original stories for the worse in his films. The Grimm brothers have 40 heroines in their tales, and not all are passive and pretty. Their villains are not always women, either. While Grimm heroines are often not rewarded for having spirit, Disney females are even less so. The three Disney films based on other fairy tales (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella) all star an innocent, beautiful girl who is victimized by a jealous, evil villainess.

            Disney encourages the image of a perfect housewife in his heroines. They all exhibit patience, obedience, passivity, diligence, silence, and beauty. To become a heroine for Disney, one must have all those qualities. To mute the heroine inside oneself, one must simply don dirty rags. While in Disney, Cinderella is only a heroine when properly cleaned and dressed, in traditional fairy tales, the heroines may be unattractive and disheveled. Their appearance does not affect their success. In Snow White, it is her beauty that eventually leads to her success. It is because of her face that the prince falls in love with her and frees her from sleeping death with love’s first kiss.

            In recent tales, there is great disparity between hero and heroine characteristics. Heroes are judged on their ability to overcome difficulties. They succeed by acting. Heroines, on the other hand, do not develop throughout the story because they start out perfect, without defects. All they need is their beauty and passivity to succeed. This is apparent in both the Grimm and Disney versions of Snow White. Snow White’s beauty is emphasized, as is her kindness toward others and chipper attitude toward housework. She does nothing in either version, except clean house and look pretty, qualities that Stone believes Disney is encouraging in women throughout the world.

Because this article takes a methodological approach, it is not very accessible for the average film scholar. It also talks about trends as a whole, leaving out the detailed scene analyses that those interested in films often enjoy. But the article does a good job of trying to examine what the medium of film might have to say about our culture, and its strength lies in its ability to offer empirical evidence of trends, such as an explosion of romantic comedies in the 1990s, as opposed to individual examples. In this way, we can look at the trends of particular decades. When Sabrina was released, in the 1950s, for example, romantic drama was more popular than romantic comedy, a reversal of what is currently true. Other subsets that are popular now, such as teen romances or romances that feature supernatural elements (like 1990's Ghost), were nearly nonexistent in the 1950s.

The study also found that cultural conditions have effectively killed many formerly popular plotlines of romance movies. Couples in different classes, for example, no longer offer a "convincing dramatic impediment." Movies that feature these aging romantic conventions," then, can only remain popular today as "relics of an earlier era." This statement serves to justify Sabrina's ongoing popularity despite its perhaps hard-to-swallow plotline. All in all, romantic films, even the current ones, do continue to reinforce some of the more conservative romantic tendencies in our culture, namely the importance of marriage and fidelity, and this has not changed since the days when Sabrina was released.

All three versions have the same essential Cinderella story skeleton. The "Cinderella" terminology that is often used in describing them is not quite apt, however, because the character of Sabrina is self-reliant and never depends on a man to save her. How strong she is does vary from version to version, though.

Wood argues that in the original play, Sabrina is autonomous, politically active, and well-educated. She returns from Paris not because she is in love with David Larrabee, but to escape a marriage proposal that she doesn't want to be tied down to. She doesn't need to be rescued, and her relationship with Linus becomes one of mutual companionship. Gender and class issues are sidestepped when Sabrina declares herself as self-supporting and her chauffer father comes into a windfall of money.

In the play's original adaptation for the screen, Wilder and his associates conceived Sabrina as a teenager in puppy love. Though her time in Paris leaves her sophisticated, this Sabrina is not educated or assertive, like her predecessor, and becomes an object to be passed between the Larrabee brothers. She chooses Linus, in the end, because she wanted to care for him. Wood argues that this allows the movie to become "a dark study of gender," because "Sabrina feels strongest when she is helpful to others, when she denies her own needs and desires." Wood refers to the theories of developmental psychologist Nancy Chodorow, which state that while boys develop intimacy problems, girls learn to doubt their identities. This can lead to passivity and vulnerability to manipulation in women like Sabrina.

Wood reasons that the 1995 film version, while not without problems, is instilled with better representations of gender politics. The Sabrina character is in the fashion industry, less domestic than cooking, and while in Paris she "finds herself." This autonomous description is at odds with her actions, though, as she still displays a tendency towards caretaking.

All three versions are at fault because class and gender problems disappear without explanation during the happy ending. The film versions, though, let Sabrina be manipulated by men and lose her own identity.  Wood's analysis of the role of gender in the play and films gives readers a way to understand these ingrained cultural messages, rather than just consuming the film as entertainment.

"Images, information, and discussion about these inexpensive novels marketed to women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Includes lists of writers (some with biographical information) and publishers, an overview of the dime novel series, a cover galley, and links to articles and stories. Discusses libraries with dime novel collections. From the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University." (via LII)

"Timeline of major milestones achieved by women throughout American history, such as Elizabeth Blackwell (1849), the first woman in the U.S. with a medical degree; Belva Ann Lockwood (1879), the first woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court; and Effa Manley (2006), the first woman elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Includes links to additional information for selected women. From Information Please." (via LII)

Barry, Kathleen Morgan.  NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 2002 Dissertation.

Kolm, Suzanne Lee.  BROWN UNIVERSITY 1995 Dissertation.

A great internet resource for finding International organizations dealing with womens' issues around the world.

from Duke...view it with IE (not Firefox)

"Archive of issues of a "triannual, multimedia, online-only journal of feminist theories and women's movements." Topics of some of the issues include feminist television studies, Zora Neale Hurston, feminism and violence, the legacy of Margaret Mead, and feminist views of the family. Includes photos, videos of conference proceedings, and other material from the collection of the Barnard Center for Research on Women. From Barnard College." (via LII)

Black American Feminism is not a comprehensive bibliography of black American feminist thought, however, it does seek to be comprehensive in subject coverage, citing sources from numerous subject areas within the humanities, social sciences, and health, medicine and science. Citations date back to the nineteenth century to the present, with the majority of references representing the very influential contemporary black feminist thought that emerged in the the 1970s and continues today. The bibliography is primarily arranged by discipline and subject. There are 4 broad discipline based section headings: Arts and Humanities; Social Sciences; Education; Health, Medicine and Science; and 6 sections related to format: (Auto)biographies, Memoirs, and Personal Narratives; Interviews; Speeches; Multidisciplinary Anthologies; Periodicals: Special Issues; and Web Sites. Under the disciplines, citations are arranged under more narrow subject headings. In cases where a text fits into multiple categories an effort was made to cite it in both areas. Many sources appear in various books and journals. Reprints that I have knowledge of are noted so that researchers have options when trying to locate materials.

"Collection of bibliographies on a variety of topics related to women's studies, such as women novelists and mystery writers, women in the performing and visual arts, ecofeminism, Jewish women, "the glass ceiling," women in higher education, and "Brave, Active & Resourceful Females in Picture Books." From the Women's Studies Librarian's Office, University of Wisconsin." (via LII)

"Interviews with and about Betty Friedan, "the Founder of the National Organization for Women, the National Women's Caucus, and the National Abortion Rights Action League" and author of books such as "The Feminine Mystique." From the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program, "The First Measured Century."" (via LII)

"This site features educational materials on issues affecting women, such as trafficking in women and girls, honor killings, and the war in Sudan. Find articles about current events, discussion groups, and details about legislation and opportunities to help improve the situation of women. A project of the Women's Funding Network, "an international organization ... committed to improving the status of women and girls locally, nationally and globally."' (via LII)

Military and militarism in Israeli society / edited by Edna Lomsky-Feder and Eyal Ben-Ari. [0791443515 (alk. paper)] Albany : State University of New York Press, c1999.
Call#: Van Pelt Library U21.5 .M445 1999

Women in the Israel Defense Forces : a symposium held on 21 November 2002 at the Israel Democracy Institute / [editor in chief, Uri Dromi]. [9657091683 ] Jerusalem : Army and Society Forum, 2003.
Call#: Van Pelt Library UB419.I75 W65 2003

"This website discusses issues related to the education of girls and gender equity in education. Features an overview of the benefits of promoting increased girls' education in low-income countries, an outline of key issues (such as drop-out rates and poverty), data resources, publications, details about projects in specific countries, and related links. From the World Bank." (via LII)

Herstory [microform]. Berkeley, Calif. : Women's History Research Center, 1971- Call#: Microfilm cont 319 Covers newsletters, journals, and newspapers published by women's liberation groups between 1956 and 1971. International in scope.

Call#: Van Pelt Library HQ1420 .C65 2003

Call#: Van Pelt Library HQ1410 .M63 2002

Call#: Van Pelt Library HQ1410 .W644 2003

Call#: Van Pelt Library HQ1426 .L475 1987

Call#: Van Pelt Library Reference Stacks HQ1410 .K444 1997

Contains 40,000 articles from more than 100 journals, magazines, newsletters, special reports, unpublished papers and conference proceedings devoted to gender and women's issues. Holdings: The database contains a large body of archival material, in some cases, as far back as 1970.

A searchable collection of primary documents and images on a wide range of topics pertaining to U.S. women's history.

This full-text database provides international coverage of current issues such as employment and the workplace, social & political issues, violence and exploitation, development and human rights, health and reproductive rights, legal issues, education, culture and customs, demographics, contemporary family life, and arts and media. Holdings: 1992 to the present, (selected reports back to 1990).

"The Lesbian Herstory Archives of New York City, the largest and oldest Lesbian archive in the world, began in 1973 as an outgrowth of a Lesbian consciousness-raising group at the Gay Academic Union. The founders were concerned about the failure of mainstream publishers, libraries, archives, and research institutions to value Lesbian culture. It became obvious that the only way to insure the preservation of Lesbian culture and history was to establish an independent archives governed by Lesbians."

"The Forum is a non-partisan student organization of Harvard Law School dedicated to bringing open discussion of a broad range of legal, political and social issues to the Harvard Law School campus." The audio of past programs (some dating back to 1954) is archived here.

"In 1997 the Sophia Smith Collection (SSC) at Smith College received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to process eight collections: the papers of Constance Baker Motley, Dorothy Kenyon, Mary Kaufman, Frances Fox Piven, Jessie Lloyd O'Connor, and Gloria Steinem and the records of the Women's Action Alliance and the National Congress of Neighborhood Women. These six individuals and two organizations were chosen in large part because of their impressive achievements, as 'Agents of Social Change,' the name by which the project became known."

"This site offers two approaches for the study of specific time periods in American women's history. Each section includes a timeline that links specific events with highly relevant online sources, followed by a guide to research sources (e.g., census, newspapers, secondary sources) that are appropriate for the specified time period."

An online exhibit from the Jewish Women's Archive, "explor[ing] Jewish women's impact on feminism and on the American Jewish community."

"The materials in this on-line archival collection document various aspects of the Women's Liberation Movement in the United States, and focus specifically on the radical origins of this movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Items range from radical theoretical writings to humourous plays to the minutes of an actual grassroots group."

WomenWatch is a central gateway to information and resources on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women throughout the United Nations system. Information is broken down by topic, and region with links to local groups and statistics.

GenderStats is an electronic database of gender statistics and indicators designed with user-friendly, menu-driven features. Data by region, country, or topic.

Chinese women, living and working / edited by Anne E. McLaren. [0415312175 (alk. paper) ] London ; New York : RoutledgeCurzon, 2004.
Call#: Van Pelt Library HQ1767 .C45253 2004

"The Bibliography on Gender and Technology in Education has been created by gender equity specialist Jo Sanders. Focusing primarily on information technology, the bibliography is comprehensive as of 2005 and draws on international research as well as intervention literature. It contains nearly 700 entries and is extensively annotated, key-worded, and searchable. Sanders compiled the bibliography for her 2005 review article, "Gender and Technology: A Research Review.""

""The first-ever World Health Organization (WHO) study on domestic violence reveals that intimate partner violence is the most common form of violence in women's lives -- much more so than assault or rape by strangers or acquaintances." The full text of the 2005 report (with data and quotes) is accompanied by fact sheets with information about women's health and domestic violence in Brazil, Ethiopia, Japan, Samoa, and several other countries." (LII)

Gefen and Ridings, both local Philadelphia scholars, begin by recapping women's and men's sociolinguistic patterns of discourse as prior discussed in the literature. They hypothesize that women, more than men, will wish to both receive support from and give support to a virtual community in which they are participating.  In addition, they hypothesize that such support will influence women's assessment of the quality of that virtual community, and that women will more constantly than men rate their virtual community as having higher quality.  They surveyed 39 discussion boards, which they divided into men's, women's, and mixed boards.  As to be expected, women more than men were found to go to discussion boards for support. One of the interesting results they found is that the men surveyed also sought rapport and support, but did so more often in men's-only communities, presumably where an expectation of common language would be held, and did not rate them lower in quality, even though rapport-seeking can be considered as indicating inferior social status among men according to past sociolinguistic studies.  When the men did seek rapport in mixed-gender groups, it did not affect their assessment of the board's quality because there was an expectation of rapport-seeking inherent in the mixed-gender environment, since women were present and rapport-seeking is a characteristic of women's speech.  The authors admit that even as they tried to control for gender-bias in the chosen bulletin boards, that some of the communities were specifically support/rapport based (eg. cancer support) and that may have skewed the data towards women's speech and away from men's speech.

Example of a citation where diacritical accents present in Franklin or VCAT don't translate well to Penntags.  They usually come back as other English charactes instead of accented vowels. 

Penntext/PDF available

In this article, Herring discusses her research into both asynchronous communication via discussion list and synchronous communication via IRC in which women were subject to harassment and demeaning characterizations by men.  In both instances, the result was that the affected women fell silent or complied with the male behavioral normatives.  I think it is important to note the forums chosen, as there may have been some issues inherent to the discussion which should be considered above and beyond the linguistic patterns. The discussion list was Paglia-L, a group dedicated to discuss the writings of the cultural theorist Camille Paglia, who is often referred to as an "anti-feminist feminist" and who often generates polemical discussions among women as often as in mixed company.  The IRC channel was #india which is primarily composed of expatriates from India living in English-speaking countries, and as such, specific Indian cultural patterns may have also influenced the speech found on that channel.  What is most useful to me from this essay is how Herring defines harassment online, shows examples of its resistance and escalation, and finally shows how the female participants accommodate or conform to the degrading situation.  If these examples can be extended across the internet, it would indicate that male-female communication suffers from similar breakdowns as those that can occur on the job or in any face-to-face situation where harassment may surface and as such, that we have a long way to go to address gender equality online.

 

PDF/full text available

Winter and Huff's study focuses on a 1996 survey of a women's only online bulletin board for computer scientists called SYSTERS. Although the study is 9 years old, it still brings voice to women who were previously marginalized as gender minorities in their field of work/study.  The authors discuss the issue of same-gender boards being both "havens" and "ghettos" for women online, and also provide some support for Cass Sunstein's theory that the internet allows for the consolidation of like opinions - both positive and negative, as in the case of women's forums and online sexual harassment, respectively.  Based upon their work, the authors felt that the differences between the genders in online communication was equal or magnified to that present in speech.

Penntext/PDF available

Soukup's study focuses upon two chatrooms - one sports-related and male-dominated, and the other female-based and female-dominated.  His results support the ideas cited by Tannen and others in linguistic studies of discourse, in that the male chatters were more aggressive, argumentative, and power-seeking than the female chatters.  It's unclear to me whether the results can be viewed as reliable or representative, since there may be an inherent social context to a sports-related chatroom/bulletin board that goes above and beyond being merely a male-dominant community.  For example, Soukup cites the fact that the sports-related chatroom essentially turned into a locker room replete with profane and sexist language, including sexual put-downs and challenges between male chatters.  He goes on to note that when male chatters entered the chatroom of the female-based community, that there was frequent inappropriate behavior such that groups of male chatters would take-over the room with sexist remarks or propositioning of the female members. 

 

Tannen's text on gender and conversational interaction seeks to present research into gender differences in conversation as evidenced by direct speech data. The first section is comprised of data about friendship rapport, focusing on "girl talk" (Eder and Eckert, respectively) and storytelling among men and women (Johnstone).  The second part focuses on "conflict talk" both among children at school (Sheldon and Goodwin, respectively) and adults (Brown).  The third section becomes more theoretical as it attempts to rethink the nature of discourse in terms of power vs. solidarity (Tannen) and turn taking (Edelsky).  Finally, James and Clarke review the literature and attempt to reframe the discussion of conversational interruptions among men and women.  While none of this research deals with online communications, I believe that  such analyses can be extrapolated to apply to online discussions both as "female talk" and "conflict talk".

Shade's research, although not linguistic in nature, is useful to provide a background into women's roles in constructing the Internet.  She begins by reviewing research on gendered uses of various communications technologies, including the telephone, radio, and television. She discusses cyberactivism and feminism, as well as public policy determining women's access to the internet.  She cites a case study of women in China and internet access implementation and concludes with a discussion of whether women are merely consumers targeted by merchants or active citizens in an online sisterhood (discussions that we have held in class as well).

In Gender and Politeness, Mills provides a new perspective on common assumptions of women's and men's speech with regard to etiquette and politeness.  In her introduction, she positions herself in the "third wave" of sociolinguists interested in women's speech - who are critical of the "second wave" of linguists such as Deborah Tannen, Dale Spender, and Robin Lakoff (cited elsewhere in my bibliography) for asserting the existance of "women's speech".  Mills prefers to discuss language in terms of "communities of practice" where people are drawn together to perform a common task.  She uses models developed by Judith Butler, Alice Freed, Bonnie McElhinny and others which position that gender is an act which can take place in contexts which are also considered gendered, such that she can attempt to describe gender at a discourse level instead of just at an utterance level or individual level.  As such, she can argue that men and women can alter their levels of politeness based upon interactional context with other speakers instead of following set gendered linguistic patterns.  While none of her research involves online or internet communication, I find her analysis to be an excellent counterpoint to the other linguists I have cited because of her challenge to previous assumptions.

Penntext/PDF available

In this essay, Frederick examines the question of whether computer-mediated communication is truly a democratic utopia where feminist values can flourish.  By studying data from 2 newsgroups, alt.feminism and soc.feminism, she demonstrates that discrimination and exclusion/hostility can continue to occur, even in a supposedly inclusive and politically feminist context.  She concentrates on the ethos of the newsgroups as the basis for constructing either a welcoming or distancing communication arena.  My interest in this article stems from this notion of ethos because I think that it a highly influencing factor which combines with inherent linguistic features of women's speech to produce a speech community.  I believe that any future discussions of the social structure of online communication must address ethos as well as linguistic differences in order to prevent factionalization or balkanization of men and women online, much as one might approach a dialog about multiculturalism and the internet.

In this second edition of her text, Cameron begins with an introduction to the study of language along feminist lines.  She continues with a basic framework of linguistic approaches to language variation and gender and separates the feminist "folklinguistics" from actual empirical studies of language use.  The second half of the book becomes more theoretical, investigating the links between gender and grammar and debating about the power of sexist language.  She overviews the radical feminist theories of silence, oppression, and alienation of women via language.  Later, she recaps the ideas of Spender, Lacan, and Irigaray among others to discuss the concept of a "gendered subject" as seen in a Postmodernist context.  Finally, Cameron wraps up her work by posing issues and concerns to gender studies as she meditates on methods of integrating feminist discourse and language study into real world policies and social change.  While this book does not deal in computer-mediated discourse, the issues addressed are valid in online contexts as well. 

In this text, Coates and Cameron attempt to address in a quantitative way how sociolinguistic differences are found between men's and women's speech.  While the research does not include online communication, it does show grounded empirical studies of women in their own speech communities such as among British Black women and women in mining communities in Wales.  They go on to address gender differences in communication "style" above and beyond format, and delve into examples of gossip, tag questions, and shop talk as female or male speech.  In all cases, the authors attempt to challenge prior academic research and offer new perspectives on the task of analyzing speech on gender lines, as in the example of Swann's "Talk Control: an Illustration From the Classroom of Problems in Analyzing Male Dominance of Conversation."

This journal (2004) is a very cool read for feminist scholars and anyone interested in body politic.  Although I am not sure that any of the essays will apply to my work, I was quite interested in Schleiner's essay "Female-Bobs Arrive at Dusk", which talks about the phenomenon of fan-created female heroine patches for video games in the late 1990's (part of our discussion with Nick Monfort).  I was hoping to be able to use the essay by Aristarkhova "Femininity, Community, Hospitality: Towards a Cyberethics" in order to discuss issues of hospitality and community for women online, but she spends the entire time theorizing on the ideas of Derrida and community without talking about language and speech.

In this compilation of essays edited by Jones, the central theme is about how the internet is a virtual culture of its own and how that culture can be described in sociological terms.  Of particular interest to me for fan related discourse is Watson's study of the Phish.net fan community, which describes an online fan base of 50K+ members and their interactions.  Shaw discusses gender and sexual orientation and internet communities in his essay "Gay Men and Computer Communication: A Discourse of Sex and Identity in Cyberspace", which although does not related to women's speech, does deal with issues of communication and constructed identity.  Later in the volume, Dietrich takes on gender and internet journals in their construction of a body politic.  Finally, Zickmund addresses the problem of internet hate speech or "cyberhate" and how "the other" is defined online.

While I am not dealing with the subject of "cyberrape" as we read about LambdaMOO in the class assignment, if anyone is interested, Richard MacKinnon has a chapter in this volume titled "Punishing the Persona: Correctional Strategies for the Virtual Offender" which further discusses the rape and subsequent punishment of online offenders at LambdaMOO and elsewhere.

This very recent compilation (2005) contains 11 scholarly articles on the subject of adolescent girls and their use of the web, from perspectives of age, gender, ethnicity, and sociology/media theory.  With regard to the subject of teenage girls and fandom, I am interested in Scodari's work on the negotiation of age and gender in TV fan newsgroups, since I am also discussing women's speech in such groups.  Mazzarella continues this topic with her discussion of the "cultural economy" of teenage girls fandom on the internet.  Finally, Thiel takes on the description of the construction of identity and gender identification for girls over instant messaging, which she describes as both a cultural and an experimentation space.  While this text does not discuss specific linguistic topics, it does serve as an interesting sociological reference for young women's behavior on the internet, which could influence or inform linguisitic decisions online.

This text consists of three sections regarding women's use of the internet.  Part One deals with the definition of gender as part of a user's identity on the net, in particular for internet gamers (Paasonen) and female professionals (Dorer)  The second part concerns how women are addresses as consumers of the internet and networks, with examples from online communities like Oprah.Com (Cooks/Paredes/Scharrer) and other women's websites (Gustafson).  Part Three gives examples of everyday uses of the internet for bringing girls and women together, and also discusses the problems and strategies inherent for lesbians online (Poster).  Finally, the fourth and last part talks about gender and new media in the contexts of the school, politics, and television viewing.  This looks to be a very interesting text from a sociological perspective which can supplement the other linguistic texts in the bibliography.

Robin Lakoff is one of the so-called "first generation" of linguists to look at women's speech as being quantitatively different from men's speech, and also one of the first generation of feminists to look towards linguistics as a scientific study to which to prove inherent sexism in language.  Although this text is dated (1975), it does serve as a key cited secondary reference for many of the articles published recently about gender and discourse.  Even other linguists who go on to refute Lakoff's dichotomies continue to cite her work regularly.  For my purposes, I may choose to quote from part 2 of her book "Why Women are Ladies" which deals with forms of politeness and how women specifically express politeness in speech, topics which I feel are still relevant today on the internet.

In this academic text, Tannen begins by examining the relationship between power and solidarity in various linguistic strategies - namely indirect speech, interruptions, silence, topic changes, and conflict.  She continues to expand upon the cultural, ethnic, stylistic, and gendered differences in conversational interruptions.  She compares the physical alignment of speakers to topical cohesion of the discourse and finds positive correlations. Finally, with Robin Lakoff, she explores the pragmatics of conversational strategies from a selection for Scenes From a Marriage.  Unlike her general books, this text goes into more scientific linguistic detail and analysis which could prove useful to apply to internet speech between genders.

Although this text of Deborah Tannen's is geared toward the general reading public more than an academic audience, and focuses upon verbal speech more than written, it proved useful on various fronts.  Tannen writes from the perspective that sociolinguistically, boys and men have been socialized differently from girls and women, and that their discourse reflects such societal influences and expectations.  Chapter 6: "Community and Contest" discusses the differences between the genders with regard to cooperation, community building and partnership versus fighting, conflict, and competition.  Chapter 8: "Dammed if You Do" focuses upon issues of politeness, apology, criticism, and boasting as key differences between male and female speech, which can be extended to internet media communication as well.

Tannen writes from the perspective that there are key, quantifiable differences in men's and women's speech from a sociolinguistic perspective which can be applied to workplace communication.  Although this book was written for a general non-academic audience, it can offer some interesting theories of spoken language and gender and power in an office environment, which arguably could be extended to email or electronic communications on the job.  Chapter 2 deals with conversational rituals that take place on the job: routines such as apologizing, giving criticism, ritual fighting, compliments, and complaints.  Chapter 2 discusses "Indirectness at Work" and how indirect speech can be viewed as both powerless and powerful depending upon the gender of the speakers and listeners.  In my experience, such rituals and directness/indirectness are key features in gendered speech found both in real-time verbal speech and in written internet venues.

Sports Illustrated for Women ended its publication back in 2002. This could imply a lack of female sports fans to read this magazine. In looking at this website, especially in comparison to Sports Illustrated's website, it is clear that not as much work or effort went into its creation. Although, this difference could be from the 3 year span between when SI for women ended and today, during which SI's website could have had major additions and transformations.

"For identification of more than 2,200 English-language feature films and television movies inspired by women's writings [...]. Covers 1913-88 releases. By author, with essential details provided; indexes of film titles and literary sources." (Balay, Guide to reference books, 11th ed, 1996)

"A celebration of women's behind-the-scenes contributions to film. Divided into 13 main sections relating to directors, producers, writers, film editors, animators, stunt women, foreign notables, etc. Sketches contain filmographies and emphasize career accomplishments (and sometimes hurdles). Select bibliography; index of names, titles, and topics." (Balay, Guide to reference books, 11th ed, 1996)

"Writer/producer/director Acker's volume capably fills a surprisingly neglected gap in the film field by profiling more than 120 women directors, writers, producers, editors, stuntpersons, etc., who worked or are working in the U.S. film industry. Coverage is from the 19th century to the present day. Each entry includes a biographical sketch, emphasizing interview quotes, and filmographies (some selective). Acker wisely avoids any critical analyses of her subjects' films, and should be commended for her accuracy. Her resource is more compact, comprehensive, and useful (while more pricey) than works such as Louise Heck-Rabi's Women Filmmakers (Scarecrow, 1984)." (Library Journal, 4/15/91, Vol. 116 Issue 7, p94)

"contains shorter entries [than Women Film Directors: An International Bio-Critical Dictionary] on a wider range of subjects" (Library Journal, 10/1/94, Vol. 119 Issue 16, p72)

"This important work compiles a significant amount of otherwise difficult-to-find information on women filmmakers working in all countries and all contexts, whether mainstream, independent, or experimental/avante-garde. The introduction, which gives generous consideration to a wide range of scholarly contributions, is an excellent synthesis of writing in English on women directors. Following are alphabetical entries of over 200 bibliographic references to interviews and filmographies that would have been more useful with the inclusion of running time, place, and production company. The considerable amount of critical commentary that Foster (English, Univ. of Nebraska) includes is an amalgam of secondary-source opinion and Foster's own viewing of a wide sampling of the films. The only other reference work in this area is The Women's Companion to International Film (LJ 10/1/94), which contains shorter entries on a wider range of subjects. Public and academic libraries with any interest in film will want to acquire both titles, as they will appeal to all types of readers." (Library Journal, 10/15/95, Vol. 120 Issue 17, p54)

"Lowe's appealing work profiles the careers of nearly 300 women active in silent film, mostly as performers. Entries have biographical information, film credits, and, often, a still of the biographee. A few subject entries dot the text, some on unusual topics--e.g., "suffrage films." The work's unique scope--women from any aspect of the early history of the film industry--fills a vacancy in the literature at a time when interest in silent film is growing. For deeper coverage of about 50 early figures, readers may want to consult Ally Acker's Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema 1896 to the Present (1991). The appendixes of Lowe's work often provide arcane information difficult to find elsewhere: which silent film actress had the longest careers, which were WAMPA (Western Associated Motion Picture Advertisers) baby stars and sisters, which are memorialized on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and which covered in the main text functioned behind the scenes in the film industry. Strengths of this title include its breadth and extent of coverage, illustrations, readable style, and unique information." (Choice, June 2005)

An extensive biographical listing with critical/analytic commentary. "A welcome addition to the growing number of reference works on women in the film industry, this book is more general in scope than works confined to cinematic contributions by women during a particular era (e.g., Anthony Slide's The Silent Feminists: America's First Women Directors, CH, Jan'97) or their occupations in the industry (e.g., Women Writers: From Page to Screen, by Jill Rubinson Fenton et al., CH, Feb'91). Its breadth of scope and inclusion of essays about outstanding women filmmakers complement Ally Acker's Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema from 1896 to the Present (CH, Nov'91) and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster's Women Film Directors: An International Bio-critical Dictionary (CH, Apr'96). Entries include filmographies and literature by (and sometimes about) the women profiled. A list of films in which women filmmakers have had a major role has several entries and gives credits and references for further reading. Illustrations enliven the text. A chronology of women filmmakers and indexes by nationality, occupation, awards, distributors, and film titles add greatly to the value of the work. General and academic libraries." (Choice, November 1998)

""In imaging female subjectivity and addressing the spectator as female, feminist filmmakers have created films which transform and innovate cinematic codes and conventions." Smelik switches the focus of feminist discourse from spectator to filmmaker. Unwilling to revive the auteur theory, which she considers to be elitist and phallocentric, she nevertheless investigates the works of such filmmakers as Sander, Campion, Treut, and Adlon and discovers ways in which they subvert traditional cinematic subjectivity, affect, and modes of representation. Smelik's arguments are, of course, deeply rooted in the feminist theory of Lacan, Mulvey, Silverman, Kaplan, Irigaray, et al., but she also includes such figures as Eisenstein and Barthes. She does not privilege any particular theory but uses whatever works for the particular filmmaker she is dealing with. Her choice of films is as refreshing as her method: one is too used to reading about the same feminist films in book after book. Smelik's knowledge of the field is encyclopedic, and her analyses are consistently persuasive. This welcome addition to the ongoing feminist discourse is recommended for upper-division undergraduates through faculty." (Choice, February 1999)

"This fourth volume of a series formerly published semiannually (1975-79) offers wider coverage than do articles in a single periodical issue, and it addresses a general audience. After a brief section defining feminist film theory and criticism, the essays treat individual films (The Women, 1939; Sunset Boulevard, 1950; Kramer vs. Kramer, 1979; Marianne and Julianne, 1981), individual stars (Marilyn Monroe, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, and Jane Fonda), or categories of film genres and authorship. This focus results in a gap between the stated methods and goals of feminist film theory and the subsequent essays that frame questions about women as image or author within traditions of literary analysis. Most contributors do rely on Laura Mulvey's touchstone essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (written 1975) for its psychoanalytically based conception of women's cinematic representation and objectification as the target of a specified male gaze. But the paucity of theoretical development beyond this point makes both essays and bibliography (which appear to be five to ten years old) seem somewhat dated, almost nostalgic. There are notable exceptions, including Richard Dyer's extraordinary study of Marilyn Monroe and sexuality (also published in his book Heavenly Bodies, CH, Mar '87) and Susan Leger's essay on Margeurite Duras, which embraces concerns of women and language as well as early writings of French feminist theory. Usable from lower division onward" (Choice,July 1989)

"The publication of this new edition of Kaplan's anthology of essays, first issued in 1978 and updated in 1980 (CH, Apr'81), is a welcome event. The addition of six articles that augment and deepen the collection's examination of the noir genre from feminist and poststructural critical perspectives makes this volume an indispensable scholarly tool, the most important assemblage on film noir since Joan Copjec's Shades of Noir (1993). Although film scholarship has evolved exponentially in the 20 years since Kaplan's edition was initially released, the original eight essays remain landmark contributions--illuminating approaches to an understanding of the gender tensions shaping and complicating much of US culture in the postwar decades. Several of the new inclusions probe issues of representation and spectatorship beyond the heterosexual divide. Collectively, the added pieces address generational differences between classic and neo-noir cinema and demonstrate the versatility and persistent vitality of the noir mode. Kaplan's introduction to the new edition provides useful historical and critical context, and the supplementary bibliography is a starting point for anyone wanting to investigate the genre. A must for all academic libraries." (Choice, July 1999)

"Unlike many other film criticism collections, which concentrate on the representation of a particular group or genre, this volume collects a range of writings on a number of very different and specific topics and links them together through the rubric of gender. Pomerance (sociology, Ryerson Polytechnic Univ., Toronto) has divided the book into three main areas: gender in non-American films, gender as coded through actions, and transgressive representations of gender that are held up as "paragons or pariahs." While the range of topics makes the volume difficult to pin down conceptually, the essays are, for academic work, quite readable. This collection is unusual enough to warrant a spot in most academic libraries with collections devoted to film studies or gender issues." (Library Journal, 05/01/2001, Vol. 126 Issue 8, p88)

interviews with Pearl Bowser; Margaret Caples; Michelle Citron; Megan Cunningham; Cheryl Dunye; Vanalyne Green; Barbara Hammer; Kate Horsfield; Carol Leigh; Susan Mogul; Juanita Mohammed; Frances Negrsn-Muntaner; Eve Oishi; Constance Penley; Wendy Quinn; Julia Reichert; Carolee Schneemann; Valerie Soe; Victoria Vesna; and Yvonne Welbon.

"This site offers two approaches for the study of specific time periods in American women's history. Each section includes a timeline that links specific events with highly relevant online sources, followed by a guide to research sources (e.g., census, newspapers, secondary sources) that are appropriate for the specified time period."

older, but still relevant?

multiple copies...women film critics

so many copies...importance?

Papers presented at a conference held Nov. 1990 at York University and other papers.

but what is this really about?

website from brandeis with links to health information on many topics, geared toward college-age women

"A collection of digital images containing more than 100 pamphlets published by political and social pressure groups in the United States. Topics include the American Indian Movement, Asian Americans, birth control, Black Panthers, Hollywood Ten, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Rosenberg Case, Sacco-Vanzetti Case, Scottsboro Boys, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and Wounded Knee. From the Michigan State University Libraries."

Pfaelzer, J. (1999). Salt of the Earth: Women, Class, and the Utopian Imagination. Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers, 16 (1): 120-31.

This is an article that deals with representations of working women and class in the film.

"Compilation of links to information about cancer of the cervix, covering diagnosis, treatment, prevention and screening, and topics related to cervical cancer (such as human papilloma virus and cervical dysplasia). Some material available in Spanish. From the National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)."  LII