Clever Girls and the Literature of Women's Upward Mobility

Clever Girls and the Literature of Women's Upward Mobility PDF Author: Mary Eagleton
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319719610
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book

Book Description
This book follows the figure of ‘the clever girl’ from the post-war to the present and focuses on the fiction, plays and memoirs of contemporary British women writers. Spurred on by an ethic of meritocracy, the clever girl is now facing austerity and declining social mobility. Though suggesting optimism, a public discourse of ‘opportunity’, ‘aspiration’ and ‘choice’ is often experienced as an anxious and chancy process. In a wide-ranging study, the book explores the struggle to move away from home and traditional notions of femininity; the persistent problems associated with women’s embodiment; the pressures of class and racial divisions; the new subjectivities of the neoliberal era; and the generational conflict underpinning austerity. The book ends with a consideration of feminism’s place as a phantom presence in this history of clever girls. This study will appeal to readers of contemporary women’s writing and to those interested in what has been one of the dominant social narratives of the post-war period from upward to declining mobility.

Clever Girls and the Literature of Women's Upward Mobility

Clever Girls and the Literature of Women's Upward Mobility PDF Author: Mary Eagleton
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319719610
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

Get Book

Book Description
This book follows the figure of ‘the clever girl’ from the post-war to the present and focuses on the fiction, plays and memoirs of contemporary British women writers. Spurred on by an ethic of meritocracy, the clever girl is now facing austerity and declining social mobility. Though suggesting optimism, a public discourse of ‘opportunity’, ‘aspiration’ and ‘choice’ is often experienced as an anxious and chancy process. In a wide-ranging study, the book explores the struggle to move away from home and traditional notions of femininity; the persistent problems associated with women’s embodiment; the pressures of class and racial divisions; the new subjectivities of the neoliberal era; and the generational conflict underpinning austerity. The book ends with a consideration of feminism’s place as a phantom presence in this history of clever girls. This study will appeal to readers of contemporary women’s writing and to those interested in what has been one of the dominant social narratives of the post-war period from upward to declining mobility.

Clever Girls

Clever Girls PDF Author: Jackie Goode
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303029658X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book

Book Description
Winner of the Working-Class Studies Association's "Jake Ryan and Charles Sackrey Award for a Book about the Working-Class Academic Experience" This collection by three generations of women from predominantly working-class backgrounds explores the production of the classed, gendered and racialized subject with powerful, engaging, funny and moving stories of transitions through family relationships, education, friendships and work. The developments that take place across a life in processes of ‘becoming’ are examined through the fifteen autoethnographies that form the core of the book, set within an elaboration of the social, educational and geo-political developments that constitute the backdrop to contributors’ lives. Clever Girls discusses the status of personal experience as ‘research data’ and the memory work that goes into the making of autoethnography-as-poiesis. The collection illustrates the huge potential of autoethnography as research method, mode of inquiry and creative practice to illuminate the specificities and commonalities of experiences of growing up as ‘clever girls’ and to sound a ‘call to action’ against inequality and discrimination.

A. S. Byatt and Intellectual Women

A. S. Byatt and Intellectual Women PDF Author: Leanne Bibby
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031086716
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book

Book Description
This monograph is a study of the work of British author A. S. Byatt, exploring the cultural representation of the woman intellectual in her fiction. It argues that Byatt’s representations of this figure show narratives of intellectual women to be inherently mythopoeic, or capable of restructuring the myth of the intellectual as male by default. This mythopoeia is, furthermore, intrinsically feminist in function, thus potentially broadening the conventional, limited view of women in intellectual history. The book will be the first study of Byatt’s work to examine this figure in detail, and the first study of women intellectuals in historical and literary discourse to apply concepts of mythopoeia and sexual difference in ways that allow new readings of women’s status and work in public spheres.

We Are Not Born Submissive

We Are Not Born Submissive PDF Author: Manon Garcia
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691223203
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book

Book Description
A philosophical exploration of female submission, using insights from feminist thinkers—especially Simone de Beauvoir—to reveal the complexities of women’s reality and lived experience What role do women play in the perpetuation of patriarchy? On the one hand, popular media urges women to be independent, outspoken, and career-minded. Yet, this same media glorifies a specific, sometimes voluntary, female submissiveness as a source of satisfaction. In philosophy, even less has been said on why women submit to men and the discussion has been equally contradictory—submission has traditionally been considered a vice or pathology, but female submission has been valorized as innate to women’s nature. Is there a way to explore female submission in all of its complexity—not denying its appeal in certain instances, and not buying into an antifeminist, sexist, or misogynistic perspective? We Are Not Born Submissive offers the first in-depth philosophical exploration of female submission, focusing on the thinking of Simone de Beauvoir, and more recent work in feminist philosophy, epistemology, and political theory. Manon Garcia argues that to comprehend female submission, we must invert how we examine power and see it from the woman’s point of view. Historically, philosophers, psychoanalysts, and even some radical feminists have conflated femininity and submission. Garcia demonstrates that only through the lens of women’s lived experiences—their economic, social, and political situations—and how women adapt their preferences to maintain their own well-being, can we understand the ways in which gender hierarchies in society shape women’s experiences. Ultimately, she asserts that women do not actively choose submission. Rather, they consent to—and sometimes take pleasure in—what is prescribed to them through social norms within a patriarchy. Moving beyond the simplistic binary of natural destiny or moral vice, We Are Not Born Submissive takes a sophisticated look at how female submissiveness can be explained.

Smart Girls

Smart Girls PDF Author: Shauna Pomerantz
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520959795
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book

Book Description
Are girls taking over the world? It would appear so, based on magazine covers, news headlines, and popular books touting girls’ academic success. Girls are said to outperform boys in high school exams, university entrance and graduation rates, and professional certification. As a result, many in Western society assume that girls no longer need support. But in spite of the messages of post-feminism and neoliberal individualism that tell girls they can have it all, the reality is far more complicated. Smart Girls investigates how academically successful girls deal with stress, the “supergirl” drive for perfection, race and class issues, and the sexism that is still present in schools. Describing girls’ varied everyday experiences, including negotiations of traditional gender norms, Shauna Pomerantz and Rebecca Raby show how teachers, administrators, parents, and media commentators can help smart girls thrive while working toward straight As and a bright future.

The History of British Women's Writing, 1945-1975

The History of British Women's Writing, 1945-1975 PDF Author: Clare Hanson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137477369
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Get Book

Book Description
This volume reshapes our understanding of British literary culture from 1945-1975 by exploring the richness and diversity of women’s writing of this period. Essays by leading scholars reveal the range and intensity of women writers’ engagement with post-war transformations including the founding of the Welfare State, the gradual liberalization of attitudes to gender and sexuality and the reconfiguration of Britain and the empire in the context of the Cold War. Attending closely to the politics of form, the sixteen essays range across ‘literary’, ‘middlebrow’ and ‘popular’ genres, including espionage thrillers and historical fiction, children’s literature and science fiction, as well as poetry, drama and journalism. They examine issues including realism and experimentalism, education, class and politics, the emergence of ‘second-wave’ feminism, responses to the Holocaust and mass migration and diaspora. The volume offers an exciting reassessment of women’s writing at a time of radical social change and rapid cultural expansion.

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Slouching Towards Bethlehem PDF Author: Joan Didion
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book

Book Description
A RICH DISPLAY OF SOME OF THE BEST PROSE WRITTEN TODAY IN THE USA.

What Women Want

What Women Want PDF Author: Gayle Graham Yates
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674950795
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book

Book Description
The women's movement is perhaps the most baffling of the recent social reforms to sweep the United States. It is composed of numerous distinct groups, each with specific interests and goals, each with individual leaders and literature. What are the philosophies behind these groups? Who are their leaders and how have their ideas evolved? Do they have a vital connection with the women's movement of the past? And where are feminist groups headed? In this study that brilliantly illuminates the literature and purposes of feminists, What Women Want: The Ideas of the Movement, Gayle Graham Yates has produced the first comprehensive history of feminist women's groups. Concentrating chiefly on the movement from 1959 to 1973, when it erupted in such activist groups as the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Women's Equity Action League (WEAL), and the National Women's Political Caucus (NWPC), the author analyzes in detail their literature, factions, and issues. Her survey encompasses virtually every major expression of the movement's multiple facets, from The Feminine Mystique, Born Female, and Sexual Politics, to Sex and the Single Girl and Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen. In a significant breakthrough, the author discerns the pattern underlying this diversity, which should contribute to a fuller understanding of future developments in the women's struggle. She accomplishes this by identifying three key attitudes informing the movement: the feminist, the women's liberationist, and the androgynous or cooperative male-female relationship. The author provides a sensitive, yet critical analysis of the chief spokeswomen in contemporary America, activists like Gloria Steinem, Shulamith Firestone, and Ti-Grace Atkinson. She treats each of the feminist ideologies with balance and respect, yet is refreshingly unafraid to criticize new developments. She bolsters her own conclusions in support of an androgynous or "equal sexual society" with a judicious spirit. Scholars and the general public alike will find Yates's book not only an indispensable contribution to women's studies, but also a strong and timely addition to contemporary American life and thought.

Education, Aspiration and Upward Social Mobility

Education, Aspiration and Upward Social Mobility PDF Author: Aqsa Saeed
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030822613
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Get Book

Book Description
This book explores the career aspirations, achievements and consequent social mobility of a group of British Pakistani women. It uses Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital to analyse how these women, living in a segregated Pakistani community located in a deprived northern town in the UK with poor employment opportunities, acquired the resources to pursue further and higher education, obtain qualifications and enter professional careers. The author discusses and analyses how cultural capital features in homes, schools and workplaces, as well as how the women navigate and modify intersecting gender, ethnic and class identities in order to create specific career trajectories. Illuminating the rich intersections of biography, history and society, the author captures important qualitative data which acts as a microcosm for contemporary discussions on social mobility, multiculturalism, Muslim communities, race, and gender in Britain.

The Business of Being a Woman

The Business of Being a Woman PDF Author: Ida Minerva Tarbell
Publisher: IndyPublish.com
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 270

Get Book

Book Description