Gender

Adolescence, Literature and Censorship:

Unpacking the Controversy Surrounding Judy Blume

By Mallory Szymanski | 0 comments |

While discussing the history of “book banning” and more recent debates on the idea of censorship, the author argues that Judy Blume’s work stands as a point of familiarity, comfort and understanding amongst adolescents. The paper finds its primary focus in Blume’s exploration of the idea of sexual normativity and acceptance amongst peers, but also speaks to broader issues that Blume explores in her texts – diseases, abnormalities, parental association and peer-pressure. Overall, the author asks that both readers and critics re-examine the social, environmental and literary value of Blume’s work within, what the author argues, is an unaccepting, often sceptical social milieu. Blume’s work has been pivotal as a tool for social affirmation and growth among adolescents by citing letters, opinions and critiques who responses reaffirm their love for Blume’s work.

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Constructing an Image

Pregnant Women, Crack Cocaine, and the Media in American History

By Holly Karibo | 1 comments |

In Constructing an Image Holly Karibo traces the development of the mythology of the ‘crack mother’ in mainstream American media during the 1980s.  The author demonstrates how implications of race, class, and gender in the popular press furthered the systematic marginalization of minority women, and particularly, African American single mothers, effectively reinforcing the burgeoning conservative and patriarchal ideologies being espoused by the New Right.  Through a comprehensive analysis of the decade’s print media, Karibo argues that the racial targeting of the ‘crack scare’ served to strengthen both the concept of the middle-class, nuclear family, and the notion of a ‘normal,’ female, maternal instinct.  Thus, the author concludes, the ‘crack scare’ which emerged in American society at the close of the twentieth century is demonstrative of the ways in which media representations have been instrumental in constructing particular social categories, which in turn, serve to further legitimize the hegemonic power structure that inform American society.

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A review of Hard-Boiled Masculinities by Christopher Breu

By Brooks E. Hefner | 0 comments |

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Sexing the Terrorist:

Tracing the National Body at Abu Ghraib

By Cait Keegan | 0 comments |

For the vast majority, the specter of the racialized and homophobic violence documented at Abu Ghraib was an inexplicably unsettling sight. In this article Cait Keegan attempts to explain this discomfort by examining what these abuses and the public perception of them implied and revealed about the desire for an impermeable and purified American national body. Keegan reads the creation and implementation of the figure of the terrorist as a signifier for national incoherence and as a tool for the symbolic control and oppression of other socially undesirable groups, particularly queer people. The homosexual humiliation at Abu Ghraib, employing the terrorist body as a floating signifier, is interpreted to signal a new level of innovation in the use of homophobic terror as a technology of nationalistic militarization and expanding empire. Ultimately, Keegan argues that popular interpretations of Abu Ghraib disclose American society’s inability to recognize and defuse its own heterosexist practices.

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Home-Making and Nation-Building:

The Better Homes in America Campaign as Social Index

By Jaqueline Shine | 0 comments |

An excerpt from her longer thesis on the cultural meaning of home in the interwar United States, this paper explores the degree to which popular images of the American home were instrumental elements of the sociopolitical construction of the homeownership ideal from 1920 to 1935. Through examining articles written in the Delineator—a popular women’s magazine in the 1920s—and its well known “Better Homes in America Campaign,” the author deconstructs the language of social norms and problematizes their use. Tracking President Hoover’s interest in the project, the Delineator is revealed to have been a vehicle not only for maintaining a gendered and polarized social order, but also for disseminating government ideological concerns of race and consumerism. Moreover, these early attempt at broadening government influence through managing media representations and codifying American identities ultimately set the stage for the American federal government’s large-scale interventions in the postwar housing market.

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President W.H. Bush, Masculinity, and America's Invasion of Panama City in 1989

By Maureen Mahoney | 0 comments |

Based on an examination of official and unofficial document, editorial cartoons, and various media sources, Mahoney argues that competing definitions of masculinity influenced George H.W. Bush’s foreign Policy in the invasion of Panama City in 1989, this article participates in a revisionist historiography that considers gender as a significant category of analysis to understand American international relations. The author shows that, at the outset of his presidency, Bush adopted a cautious approach to foreign policy, which emphasized cooperation and peace through diplomacy. But soon Bush’s legitimacy as President was called into question, notably by some elements of the media and a fringe of the public who associated political power with a forceful and aggressive ideal of masculinity. By invading Panama, Bush finally shed his image as a flimsy and meek politician and thus confirmed his legitimacy as President to jingoist elements of American society.

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