Rezensionszeitschrift für Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung
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Review of: Christie Launius, Holly Hassel: Threshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies. Ways of Seeing, Thinking, and Knowing. London u.a.: Routledge 2015.
How to teach perspectives, methods, theories and practices of Gender and Women's studies in an introductory course? Christie Launius and Holly Hassel address this question in their volume, based on their long-term teaching experience at the University of Wisconsin. This volume has been developed as working material for students and can be used as textbook in class. In four chapters, students will be presented four specific threshold concepts, will learn how to apply them and get to know about their respective implications and significance. The interesting point of this book is not so much the key concepts chosen, but the authors' focus on a decidedly feminist practice in teaching.
Copyright (c) 2016 Stephanie Sera https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Maddie Breeze: Seriousness and Women’s Roller Derby. Gender, Organization and Ambivalence. London u.a.: Palgrave Macmillan 2015.
In her autoethnographic study in the field of sports sociology Maddie Breeze presents a captivating analysis of the roller derby scene. Starting from empirical material she develops a new sociological concept of 'seriousness' and '(wanting-)to-be-taken-seriously' which contrasts with established, linear and normative models – both are re-conceived as a contradictory and ambivalent practice. Thus, Breeze is able to show how new forms of identity and of organization can be successfully established in processes of transformation, without having to negate or dismiss previous ones. A highly recommendable book, not only for sports sociologists.
Copyright (c) 2016 Wiebke Dierkes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey (Hg.): Eingreifende Denkerinnen. Weibliche Intellektuelle im 20. und 21. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: Mohr Siebeck Verlag 2015.
This anthology is the result of a conference organized by its editor Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey. It comprises the interventions of 14 critical intellectuals (of 'female' gender) - from Käthe Kollwitz to Naomi Klein, thus responding to the rising demand for including a greater number of 'female' intellectuals into academic debate. The introduction written by the editor provides a highly readable and sophisticated starting point to the field of 'research on intellectuals', and to the fact that women tend to be neglected in this area. The contributions of this volume invite their readers to delve deeper into the works of these (in some cases yet rather unknown) female thinkers.
Copyright (c) 2016 Meike Penkwitt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Vera Cuntz-Leng: Harry Potter Que(e)r. Eine Filmsaga im Spannungsfeld von Queer-Reading, Slash-Fandom und Fantasyfilmgenre. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2015.
Vera Cuntz-Leng shines in her queer theoretical analysis of the Harry Potter series. Both the books and films are exposed to a queer interpretation by Slash, a specific form of fanfiction. By presenting both a queer theoretical re-reading and an analysis of queer fan practices the author succeeds to show why the septalogy is that popular with the queer Harry Potter Fan Art Community. Not only does she offer a new perspective on the Harry Potter phenomenon, which has developed a life of its own due to the excessive number of re-writings and sequels produced by fans. She also contributes to the scientification of the subgenre 'fantasy' and takes into account the lack of interest on the part of Queer Theory as refers to the pop-cultural phenomenon of fandom.
Kommunikations- und Medienwissenschaften
Copyright (c) 2016 Marcus Felix https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Anita Engels, Sandra Beaufaÿs, Nadine V. Kegen, Stephanie Zuber: Bestenauswahl und Ungleichheit. Eine soziologische Studie zu Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftlern in der Exzellenzinitiative. Frankfurt am Main u.a.: Campus Verlag 2015.
This book by Anita Engels, Sandra Beaufaÿs, Nadine V. Kegen and Stephanie Zuber assembles the findings of an accompanying research program concerning gender (in)equality in the German ‘Initiative for Excellence’. Based on an impressive array of research methods and theories (the latter unfortunately dealt only briefly with) the authors present inspiring substudies e.g. about living and labor conditions of the members of institutions of excellence, about their networking and publishing, and executive positions, as well as about concepts of gender equality at the universities involved. All of these concepts aim at analyzing whether the underrepresentation of female academics in top positions is being reduced or reproduced. Regrettably though, little regard is given to the organizational perspective.
Copyright (c) 2016 Heike Kahlert https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Kirsten Achtelik: Selbstbestimmte Norm. Feminismus, Pränataldiagnostik, Abtreibung. Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag 2015.
From a historical perspective, the journalist Kirsten Achtelik tackles a topic that up to the present day has been widely ignored within the field of academic and political feminism: the feminist concept of self-determination and social-political questions when it comes to using reproductive technologies. Her argumentation is prompted by discussions about recent biotechnological developments, mainly as regards prenatal diagnostics, rendered problematic in a context of diagnosing handicaps. Achtelik creates a convincing synopsis of feminist positions and of positions of feminists with disabilities, thus illustrating just how closely related are the topics of disability and gender.
Copyright (c) 2016 Heike Ursula Raab https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Kirstin Mertlitsch: Sister – Cyborgs – Drags. Das Denken in Begriffspersonen der Gender Studies. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2016.
In her doctoral thesis Kirstin Mertlitsch outlines a starting point for a (re-)formulation of feminist and queer philosophy. She contrasts the notion of a universal male reason with the notion of 'conceptual persons' (Deleuze/Guattari). Thinking along the notion of 'conceptual persons' is rooted in corporealities and society and takes place both through knowledge and affects. The everyday practices of 'conceptual persons' set sight on new horizons of the process of 'Becoming-Different' and thus influence and shape their male and female readers. Mertlitsch identifies the thinking patterns of 'sister', 'nomadic subject', 'new mestiza', 'cyborg' and 'drag' and analyzes the transformations of the epistemological processes they engender.
Copyright (c) 2017 Folke Brodersen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Anna Döpfner: Frauen im Technikmuseum. Ursachen und Lösungen für gendergerechtes Sammeln und Ausstellen. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2016.
Anna Döpfner presents a first analysis of gender relations in museums of technology. Due to her long-term experience at the German Museum of Technology/Berlin, she both brings an insider's view and offers a vast array of examples from the international landscape of museums, while displaying a profound knowledge of Women's and Gender Studies. The author not only shows the prevalence of a male-oriented, narrow and affirmative notion of 'technology' that excludes women, but also analyzes the historical causes of this structural inequality and offers short-term and long-term approaches for changing the practice of museums. She advocates a critical cultural history of technology in which to put up for discussion social and gender-specific conditions, beneficial effects, consequences, economies and the faith in progress.
Copyright (c) 2016 Daniela Döring https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Juliane Witzke: Paratext Literaturkritik Markt. Inszenierungspraktiken der Gegenwart am Beispiel Judith Hermanns. Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen & Neumann 2017.
Juliane Witzke analyzes contemporary paratextual strategies of staging as exemplified in the works of Judith Hermann (between 1998 and 2014). Her monography not only fills a research gap concerning the academic recognition of this female author, but also enhances the methodological discourse within literary studies, as her tools of analysis are widely applicable. Another strong point of her analysis is how she takes into account changes of media (e.g. readers as critics). Her frequent reference to gender aspects – in particular when she interprets Hermann's changed strategy as a successful staging of 'naturalness' – would in places have needed a more profound gender-theoretical reflection.
Copyright (c) 2017 Sandra Folie https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Mona Motakef: Prekarisierung. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2015.
In her book Mona Motakef offers a valuable insight into the on-going sociological debate about increasing precariousness. The phenomenon of increasing precariousness includes all processes of social change which unsettle a society's traditional institutionalizations and normality, leading to social insecurity. Motakef takes a broad view of 'increasing precariousness', thus not only providing the perspective of traditional industrial sociology, but also including aspects of gender research. The author states that the increasing precariousness of existence could form the starting point for a wide range of political actions such as 'postoperaism'. The review discusses what can be gained from an expanded definition of precariousness.
Copyright (c) 2016 Martin Spetsmann-Kunkel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Ulrike Lembke (Hg.): Regulierungen des Intimen. Sexualität und Recht im modernen Staat. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2017.
Since the change in paradigm from „Moralstrafrecht“ (a moralistic conception of criminal law) to „Rechtsgüterschutz" (protection of legal rights) the state officially refrains from interfering in the consensual sexual relations of its citizens. Despite this narrative of liberalisation, there exist numerous juridical intrusions on intimacy, sexuality and gender, as this volume edited by Ulrike Lembke clearly illustrates. Not all authors succeed in combining juridical questions with questions that go beyond the legal realm and which are of relevance for other disciplines. Nevertheless, this volume can also be recommended to people outside the legal profession who take an interest in the nexus between law and sexuality.
Copyright (c) 2017 Katharina Schoenes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Norbert Finzsch, Marcus Velke (Hg.): Queer | Gender | Historiographie. Aktuelle Tendenzen und Projekte. Berlin: LIT Verlag 2016.
This anthology comprises 18 contributions which deal with LGBTIQ* history from different perspectives. It thus offers an insight into different projects and into the complexity of a LGBTIQ* history. Unfortunately, the perspective of lesbian women comes off rather badly. Also the way this fact is connected to hegemonic productions of knowledge is not reflected upon. Hence, this is a missed opportunity to ask which epistemological implications would have to be changed in order to render possible that LGBTIQ* histories become 'writeable' within the academic world.
Copyright (c) 2017 Veronika Springmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Ursula Offenberger: Geschlecht und Gemütlichkeit. Paarentscheidungen über das beheizte Zuhause. Berlin: De Gruyter 2016.
How do heterosexual couples establish themselves and their home as interrelated unities by means of heating technology ? This is the question the author answers by presenting an exciting qualitative approach based on Grounded Theory and situation analysis. In her analysis, she describes the trajectory of the construction process, as well as the respective technological, symbolic and knowledge systems (in the sense of processual organizing according to Strauss): systems in which the concepts of 'twosome structures', 'home making', '(un) doing gender' and 'technology' interact. This analysis offers some interesting insights concerning the sociology of gender, of couples and of technology as it manages to consistently dynamize the construction theory approach.
Copyright (c) 2017 Katja Hericks https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Kathrin Baumstark: „Der Tod und das Mädchen“. Erotik, Sexualität und Sterben im deutschsprachigen Raum zwischen Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. Berlin u.a.: LIT Verlag 2016.
Kathrin Baumstark examines the motif of „Death and the Maiden“ on the basis of visual artworks from the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age by Hans Selbald Beham, Hans Baldung Grien and Niklaus Manuel Deutsch. She includes contemporary concepts of death, dying, and postmortal existence and highlights the construction of gender roles. She adopts a critical stance towards her selected literature and includes a variety of perspectives and discourses in her line of reasoning.
Copyright (c) 2017 Ruth Isser https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Maria Häusl, Stefan Horlacher, Sonja Koch, Gudrun Loster-Schneider, Susanne Schötz (Hg.): Armut. Gender-Perspektiven ihrer Bewältigung in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2016.
This anthology deals with the complex relation between poverty and gender. By analyzing recent and past problem areas, as well as by offering a variety of approaches to the topic (psychological, literary, linguistic, social, cultural), the authors highlight diverse facets of this relation and their manifold interactions. Special emphasis is given to how female (and male) poverty is perceived, judged and interpreted, as well as to how it is embedded in contemporary contexts, ways of thinking and categories of social injustice.
Copyright (c) 2017 Christoph Lorke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Sabine Hark, Paula-Irene Villa (Hg.): Anti-Genderismus. Sexualität und Geschlecht als Schauplätze aktueller politischer Auseinandersetzungen. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2015.
This collection of essays, edited by Sabine Hark and Paula-Irene Villa, analyzes those public attacks on gender studies and gender mainstreaming that can be subsumed under the label 'anti-genderism'. The authors deal with topics and methods of the anti-gender discourse, its main agents and its social conditions. The authors provide a coherent portrait of these politics, which would, however, benefit from further analysis of social conditions and of intersectional relations as regards other resentments.
Copyright (c) 2017 Christian Hammermann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Madeline Doneit, Bettina Lösch, Margit Rodrian-Pfennig (Hg.): Geschlecht ist politisch. Geschlechter-reflexive politische Bildung. Opladen u.a.: Verlag Barbara Budrich 2016.
This anthology deals with the status quo and the significance of the discussion of gender in political education with the aim of bringing up to date the debate about gender- reflective educational work. The authors answer these questions from both a theoretical and practical perspective. Much space is given to the practice of political education. The authors provide an interesting basis for discussion for both theoretically informed reflections on practice and a practically informed construction of theories. Refreshingly, the inherent contradictions of this approach form the volume's starting point, not its conclusion.
Copyright (c) 2017 Inga Nüthen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Zülfukar Çetin, Heinz-Jürgen Voß: Schwule Sichtbarkeit - schwule Identität. Kritische Perspektiven. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag 2016.
The authors Zülfükar Çetin and Heinz-Jürgen Voß provide a discussion they consider both necessary and urgent: To what extent does 'the homosexual' increasingly serve as a figure of discourse for Western hegemony (and this not only due to being instrumentalized, but due to actively participating in current discourses)? The focus, hence, is on the question of how a group - prima facie not regarded as privileged - is embedded in power relations. 'Visibility' and 'identity', the two keywords from the book's title, are taken up repeatedly and analyzed in different contexts. Those, who judge the book by its size and thus expect a concise treatise of an introductory character, are mistaken: they will find a complex analysis and tight argumentation.
Copyright (c) 2017 Lisa Krall https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Elisabeth Tuider, Martin Dannecker: Das Recht auf Vielfalt. Aufgaben und Herausforderungen sexueller Bildung. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag 2016.
Sexual education has always been a fiercely disputed discipline of educational science. The current agitation about it can be seen as a reaction to the increasing pluralization of life options and to a general liberalization of norms and values, which are taken into account and reflected in the concepts of a diversity-conscious sexual education. Ultra-conservative, fundamental and radical right-wing groups, though, attack these concepts. The authors take this conflict situation as a starting point to discuss a selected range of topics of an open-minded sexual education that have been under attack and point out the patterns of argumentation of their critics. In doing so, this volume contributes to (re-)contextualize and de-emotionalize the highly emotive debate about sexual education.
Copyright (c) 2017 Marcus Felix https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Christine Wimbauer, Mona Motakef: Das Paarinterview. Methodologie – Methode – Methodenpraxis. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2017.
This book presents the first systematic methodological introduction to couple-interviews as a form of interview in their own right within empirical social research. The authors undertake a thorough analysis to find out wherein lies the additional gain in knowledge of couple-interviews. In addition, through its textbook design, concrete work steps for conducting such interviews are given. As such, the book provides overall a very sound as well as comprehensible and practice-orientated access to this method.
Copyright (c) 2018 Diana Baumgarten https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Nadine Balzter, Florian Cristobal Klenk, Olga Zitzelsberger (Hg.): Queering MINT. Impulse für eine dekonstruktive Lehrer_innenbildung. Opladen u.a.: Verlag Barbara Budrich 2016.
With its knowledgeable introductions and in particular with its discipline-specific contributions, this volume offers a plethora of differentiated approaches and practices of a queer/feminist inspired pedagogy concerning science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This is a highly recommendable and readable collection for all those dealing with (im)possible attempts of teaching and establishing dialogue within the STEM subjects.
Natur- und Technikwissenschaften und Mathematik
Copyright (c) 2017 Sigrid Schmitz https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Jenny Bauer: Geschlechterdiskurse um 1900. Literarische Identitätsentwürfe im Kontext deutsch-skandinavischer Raumproduktion. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2016.
In this literary analysis, Jenny Bauer deals with gendered concepts of subject between hegemony and marginalization, examining four individual cases from German-speaking and Scandinavian Modernism. She approaches her overarching question of what are the interdependencies between space and gender by exploring diverse concepts of masculinity and femininity, heterosexuality and homosexuality. Methodologically, she unites several approaches from the theories of space and gender.
Copyright (c) 2017 Katharina Fürholzer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Caroline Arni: Pränatale Zeiten. Das Ungeborene und die Humanwissenschaften (1800-1950). Basel, Berlin: Schwabe Verlag 2018.
The Basel historian Caroline Arni presents an inspiring and material-rich study of how human science tapped the unborn child as a knowledge object in the 19th century. She elaborates on the contributions of fetal physiology, embryology, psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis and reconstructs which historical cycles were subject to the idea of a maternal influence on the development of the unborn child. Convincingly she shows how the concept of biological development raised unsolvable questions about what makes a human subject. This most readable scientific-historical study also offers a large number of suggestions for the gender-theoretical research into pregnancy and childbirth in the present.
Copyright (c) 2019 Eva Sänger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Marie Reusch: Emanzipation undenkbar? Mutterschaft und Feminismus. Münster: Verlag Westfälisches Dampfboot 2018.
That the connection between motherhood and emancipation in feminism seems to have played no role since the 1990s is seen by Marie Reusch as a weakness of the feminist emancipation project. Her normative study culminates in a categorial grid of the feminist analysis of motherhood and and being a mother and a passionate plea to make the self-understanding of practices, appropriations, and interpretations of motherhood political among women. It is a pity that the supportive and refreshing concerns are put forth only partially and (unfortunately) in a legitimizing manner. In addition, the theoretical, empirical and historical reasoning also consistently disregards the other, East German reality in state socialism and since reunification.
Copyright (c) 2019 Heike Kahlert https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Myra Marx Ferree: Feminismen. Die deutsche Frauenbewegung in globaler Perspektive. Frankfurt am Main u.a.: Campus Verlag 2018.
Women's movements follow different dynamics in different countries and are mainly characterized by the respective links of gender relations with other dimensions of social inequality, but are also dependent on different strategic decisions by the actors in this context. Myra Marx Ferree demonstrates the plurality and dynamics of feminist politics in the case of Germany compared to the US over the long period from 1848 to 2005. Rather exemplary than systematic broad lines of change of feminism or gender politics are highlighted in their intersectional entanglement with other axes of difference as well as other dimensions of social movement and political action. Above all, the comparative perspective is intended to give new impulses to the development of strategies of feminist politics in a global perspective.
Copyright (c) 2019 Ingrid Kurz-Scherf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Christine Löw, Katharina Volk, Imke Leicht, Nadja Meisterhans (Hg.): Material turn. Feministische Perspektiven auf Materialität und Materialismus. Opladen u.a.: Verlag Barbara Budrich 2017.
The edited volume contains contributions from the social sciences that critically engage theories of new materialism by reading these against Marxist-materialist feminisms. What becomes apparent is the call to embed neomaterialist theories genealogically into ecofeminisim and the critical theory of science. Heterogenous approaches to matter and materiality address fundamental questions for feminist practice and theory and thus indirectly respond to dealing with differences within feminism.
Copyright (c) 2018 Naom Gramlich https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Gökçen Yüksel: Raum und Geschlecht. Die Verräumlichung von Geschlechternormen in der türkischen Provinz Hatay. Weinheim u.a.: Beltz Juventa Verlag 2017.
Gökçen Yüksel explores the relationship between spacial planning and gender orders and for this purpose resorts to 26 interviews with young women from the Turkish province of Hatay. She reveals that spacial planing results from a complex interaction between societal regulations and everyday practices. She reconstructs gendered orders which represents practical restrictions and regulators for the young women. It becomes clear that the women problematize themselves these regulators and specifications and that these have implications on their actions.
Copyright (c) 2018 Judith von der Heyde https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Sabine Gatt, Kerstin Hazibar, Verena Sauermann, Max Preglau, Michaela Ralser (Hg.): Geschlechterverhältnisse der Migrationsgesellschaften. Repräsentationen – Kritik – Differenz. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2017.
In this anthology which results from a conference at the university of Innsbruck, central omissions made by migration studies (such as the underexposure of gender and sexuality as well as the negation of migrants’ agency in the migrational societal reality of European states) are criticized from a postcolonial-feminist perspective. These omissions are thematized with the aid of various disciplinary and theoretical approaches, among others sociology, history, and media studies. The contributions give an overview of current debates within gender sensitive migration studies.
Copyright (c) 2018 Verena Hucke https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Bärbel Schomers: Coming-out. Queere Identitäten zwischen Diskriminierung und Emanzipation. Opladen u.a.: Budrich UniPress 2018.
In her doctoral thesis Bärbel Schomers considers the relationship between discrimination and emancipation within lesbian, gay and trans* lifestyles. After presenting historical highlights stretching from late antiquity to current human rights discourse, she focuses on practices of coming out. In six interviews, Schomers observes a process model consisting of interior self-discovery, addressing significant others and public display. Thereby she equates the micrological construction of visibility with the inscription into a macrological social movement. The review carves out how the unspecified concept of discrimination derives from a dominant concept of emancipation that possessively politicizes the individual.
Copyright (c) 2018 Folke Brodersen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Imke Leicht: Wer findet Gehör? Kritische Reformulierungen des menschenrechtlichen Universialismus. Opladen u.a.: Verlag Barbara Budrich 2016.
Imke Leicht succeeds in presenting critical reformulations of the universalism of human rights that are based in the theory of moral philosopher Seyla Benhabib. At the same time she criticizes Benhabib's theory, as Benhabib's universalism failed to grasp the 'really existing' legal exceptions preventing that human rights de facto apply. Leicht draws upon Judith Butler's critique of social norms, as well as upon Gayatri Spivak's critique of postcolonial reason. Despite the critique of normativity as found in Butler and Spivak, Leicht argues that in order to reformulate the universalism of human rights it is crucial to retain a normative distinction between excluding and emancipating norms.
Copyright (c) 2017 Heike Mauer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Kerstin Böhm: Archaisierung und Pinkifizierung. Mythen von Männlichkeit und Weiblichkeit in der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2017.
Germanist Kerstin Böhm uses the example of two book series for young adults to research medial development tendencies which influence each other: on the one hand, the market for children and young adult literature is structurally changing due to the growing presence of multimedia. Hardly any bestseller is published solely in book form, very often accompanying audio, audiovisual or graphic products are supplied additionally. On the other hand, this is accompanied out of marketing purposes by an aggressive gendered targeting which aims at clearly recognizable target groups through the use of stereotypes, marketing strategies, and gender based myths for an increase in commercial exploitability.
Copyright (c) 2018 Torsten Mergen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Kristoff Kerl: Männlichkeit und moderner Antisemitismus. Eine Genealogie des Leo Frank-Case, 1860er-1920er Jahre. Köln u.a.: Böhlau Verlag 2017.
In 1915, Jewish factory director Leo Frank was lynched by a mob of Anglo-American men after he had been found guilty for the murder of a young Anglo-American female worker. Through an intersectional analysis, Kristoff Kerl shows how during the course of the scandal, which has become the most renowned example of antisemitic violence in the USA, former set pieces merge into a coherent antisemitic worldview. The background to this was a sense of crisis in the Southern states since the end of the civil war: industrialization, urbanization, the emancipation of slaves, and the rising numbers of female paid labor were interpreted by Anglo-Americans as an attack on their masculinity. The fight against the Jew Frank became a fight for the reinstatement of the hegemonic gender hierarchy.
Copyright (c) 2018 Sina Arnold https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Martina Schattkowsky (Hg.): Frauen und Reformation. Handlungsfelder – Rollenmuster – Engagement. Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag 2016.
This anthology, part of a major project on occasion of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, comprises twelve contributions organised in three thematic categories. They deal with the research question as to whether the Reformation offered women new opportunities of action and thus, new capacities of action. The contributions are discussed in light of this research perspective. The programmatic essay of Ute Gause deserves a special mention as she interlinks the historiography of the Reformation with Gender Studies, and demands a new conceptualization of the Protestant Church's and the Reformation's historiography that would include gender research.
Copyright (c) 2018 Claudia Daiber https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Jürgen Martschukat, Olaf Stieglitz (Hg.): race & sex: Eine Geschichte der Neuzeit. 49 Schlüsseltexte aus vier Jahrhunderten neu gelesen. Berlin: Neofelis Verlag 2016.
Based on a presentation and an analysis of 49 significant documents from four centuries, this book tells the story of the Modern era. The selected sources highlight the relationship between racism and sexuality/gender in a variety of ways.
Copyright (c) 2017 Martin Spetsmann-Kunkel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Andrea Löther, Birgit Riegraf (Hg.): Gleichstellungspolitik und Geschlechterforschung. Veränderte Governance und Geschlechterarrangements in der Wissenschaft. Opladen u.a.: Verlag Barbara Budrich 2017.
The authors of this collection follow the changes of equal opportunity policies and higher education policies with the help of exemplary case studies within institutions of higher education. Their focus lies on the development in Germany, sometimes including other European countries. The significance of higher education in the normative valuation of processes of change is shown with the aid of empirical contributions without losing sight of the structural level. By doing this, the authors succeed in offering a relevant and readable insight into the current discussion about equal opportunity governance in higher education.
Copyright (c) 2018 Heike Mauer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Christine Riegel: Bildung – Intersektionalität – Othering. Pädagogisches Handeln in widersprüchlichen Verhältnissen. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2016.
In her postdoctoral thesis in educational science Christine Riegel examines both the emancipatory potential and the social inequalities that are produced or consolidated by education and educational institutions. Thus, she addresses a crucial topic in education policy and does so in a profound and theoretically well-versed way. She systematizes the perspective of intersectional analysis, in order to describe current educational practices in schools and youth work that are power-based or authority-based, and offers both criticism and suggestions for change. This qualitative empirical research aims at revealing difference and dominance in social practice and to raise an awareness for the question whether constant self-reflection is an essential part of pedagogical interactions.
Copyright (c) 2017 Torsten Mergen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: René Lépine, Ansgar Lorenz: Judith Butler. Philosophie für Einsteiger. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink Verlag 2018.
In this introduction, Judith Butler's thinking is systematically explained and depicted by means of illustrations. Thus, this volume is a varied reading, the unique feature of which is the successful interplay of theoretic text and detailed illustrations, which sometimes makes it possible to understand complex facts in a humorous way.
Copyright (c) 2019 Anne Rauber https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Aylin Basaran, Julia B. Köhne, Klaudija Sabo, Christina Wieder (Hg.): Sexualität und Widerstand. Internationale Filmkulturen. Wien: Mandelbaum Verlag 2018.
The contributions in this anthology deal with different facets of motives for resisting sexual behavior in films as well as film aesthetics that programmatically translate sexuality(s) and / or nonconformity into a visual language. The focus is on norms and normativity and strategies to avoid them. The colorful mix includes reviews of (early) films on sexual enlightenment and abortion, ornamental bodies in 1930s films, motifs of womanhood and manhood, 'gender struggle', and the sexual revolution in Yugoslavia. Topics range from blackness in the US, "ecstasy" at Eisenstein, to the desire of zombies and the political potential of unpredictability of (sexual) affects.
Copyright (c) 2019 Melanie Konrad https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Katharina Karcher: Sisters in Arms. Militant Feminisms in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1968. Oxford u.a.: Berghahn Books 2017.
In her study, cultural scientist Katharina Karcher discusses militant feminist activism, paying particular attention to activities against §218 and violence against women, as well as transnational feminist (solidarity) campaigns. One of her focal points is the “Rote Zora” group.
Copyright (c) 2018 Veronika Springmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Lynne Fallwell, Keira V. Williams (Hg.): Gender and the Representation of Evil. New York u.a.: Routledge 2017.
This anthology deals with 'the evil woman' as a transgressor of norms from an interdisciplinary perspective. Media representation of 'the evil woman' is seen as a central element in processes of social negotiation. While the categories of 'evil' and 'gender' are considered constructs and are analysed here in their specifically 'female' codification, the contributions focus on the 19th and 20th century, so that the volume fails to offer a broader diachronic perspective that includes earlier eras. Including these could have put into perspective the rather static image of women which the contributions as a whole suggest. The volume powerfully demonstrates that representations of 'evil' are codified in a gender-specific way.
Copyright (c) 2018 Emma Louise Maier https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Silke Martin, Lena Eckert (Hg.): Schöner Lehren. Gegendert und gequeert. Marburg: Schüren Verlag 2017.
'How to teach media studies in a gender sensitive way that is respectful of diversity? Which principles of teaching can be used and how can they be transformed into methods?' the editors ask in the blurb. The authors answer these questions by presenting five modules for seminars of 90 min each. The modules are contextualized in a programmatic introduction as well as a discussion between the authors on learning processes as regards gender sensitive and diversity sensitive teaching. By means of the five modules the book explores possibilities of planning specific seminars. Apart from this, the volume fails to take a clear stance as to what it wants to achieve and thus, does not fully meet its intended objectives (as presented in the introductory comment).
Copyright (c) 2017 Sarah Dellmann https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Jürgen Budde, Susanne Offen, Anja Tervooren (Hg.): Das Geschlecht der Inklusion. Opladen u.a.: Verlag Barbara Budrich 2016.
The 2016 Jahrbuch Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung in der Erziehungswissenschaft (Annual of Women's and Gender Studies in the Educational Sciences) explores what theorems of Gender, Queer and Disability Studies have to offer as regards the new paradigm of inclusion. The analysis focuses on social norms and processes of normalization. Other main points include intersectionality, care and what ethics could be like if they were less concerned with autonomy but instead with human dependencies and relations.
Copyright (c) 2017 Meike Penkwitt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Inka Greusing: „Wir haben ja jetzt auch ein paar Damen bei uns“ – Symbolische Grenzziehungen und Heteronormativität in den Ingenieurwissenschaften. Opladen u.a.: Budrich UniPress 2018.
Despite efforts at the level of gender equality, women are still underrepresented in STEM at German universities. What may be the reasons? Using methods from the social sciences, scientists are investigating the causes of this gender imbalance. This is also the case of Inka Greusing in her dissertation, in which she points to various immanent structures in our minds, in our behavior and in our study programs. It is made apparent that measures to change the situation are still necessary. The analysis by Inka Greusing represents a carefully elaborated contribution to the field of Gender Studies in STEM subjects.
Copyright (c) 2019 Anelis Kaiser https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Mike Laufenberg, Martina Erlemann, Maria Norkus, Grit Petschick (Hg.): Prekäre Gleichstellung. Geschlechtergerechtigkeit, soziale Ungleichheit und unsichere Arbeitsverhältnisse in der Wissenschaft. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2018.
Here, the relationship between precarious employment and structures of discrimination and inequality in higher education as well as gender equality policies are comprehensively considered. The authors argue that the economisation of education, the emergence of the entrepreneurial university and the associated spread of precarious working conditions in higher education should be considered in conjunction with processes of equality governance, the transformation of gender relations and especially racism at the university. 12 contributions deliberate ambivalences and discuss ways to implement gender equality, a non-racist university and secure employment.
Copyright (c) 2019 Heike Mauer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Paul Scheibelhofer: Der fremd-gemachte Mann. Zur Konstruktion von Männlichkeiten im Migrationskontext. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2018.
Scheibelhofer is dedicated to the mutual influence of stereotypes of masculinity, notions of strangeness and strategies that migrants use to deal with images conveyed to them. In particular, he argues that the image of the archaic-dangerous Muslim man within the structures of racism and social inequality fulfills two central functions: as an antitype of normative masculinity, it offers a way to positively define a national ‘we’ and as an example of ‘controlling image’ individualized ways to rebel against marginalization without questioning structures.
Copyright (c) 2019 Rebecca Knecht https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Review of: Katharina Volk: Von der Gesellschaftsanalyse zur Utopie. Ein historischer Rückblick auf materialistisch-feministische Theorien. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot 2018.
Katharina Volk, in her theoretical and methodological study anchored in historical materialism, aims to revive feminist critique of the concept of society and search for ideas for a ‘good life’. To this end, she systematically analyzes selected nineteenth and late twentieth-century theories, which deal with the relationship of work and domestic- and care-work in capitalist patriarchy and embeds them in their respective social and political contexts. The careful, sometimes lengthy reconstructions are reminiscent of long-forgotten analyses and criticisms of the connection between the question of women and the social question and provide impulses for contemporary intersectional social theories.
Review of: Ilse Lenz (Hg.): Die Neue Frauenbewegung in Deutschland. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2008
The editor Ilse Lenz collects documents gathered together from multiple thematic trends and fields representing 40 years of the women’s movement in Germany. Embedded in ground-laying introductory texts, each chapter of the volume offers well-known and less known publications by those who took part in the women’s movement. The decision to include emancipated men in the examination can be seen as innovative while the largely absent autonomous women’s movement in the GDR can be seen as an unfortunate flaw. Nevertheless, the source book at hand can be considered a standard work for the history of the German women’s movement.
Copyright (c) 2009 Ramona Bechler https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/
Review of: Barbara Rosenkranz: MenschInnen. Graz: Ares Verlag 2008
The New Right has recently discovered the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming and all of its protagonists as new enemy terrain. The well-informed FPÖ (Austrian Freedom Party) politician Rosenkranz, well known in Austria, polemicizes against “gender ideology” and paints a threatening scenario of an asexual and childless society. For those familiar with gender discourse it becomes quickly clear that these statements are not concerned with the object of criticism per se but instead the wish to perpetuate reactionary gender politics clothed in a new image for the purpose of election politics. The true purpose of the strategy of gender mainstreaming, the fulfillment of the legal task of gender equality, is described as “camouflage” for the goal of abolishing the family. The sexual orientation of specific (often alleged) protagonists of gender mainstreaming is also used as an indication for the goal of promoting asexuality. It is, however, too simple to disregard this as conspiracy theory: The author extensively and decidedly relies on positions against GM that have already been referred to in the bourgeois media landscape – the FAZ and SPIEGEL at the forefront.
Copyright (c) 2009 Regina Frey https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/
Review of: Daniela Klimke: Wach- & Schließgesellschaft Deutschland. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften 2008
In her seminal study of the judgment of criminality and the need for security in Germany the author is able to sweep aside many prejudices, in particular those that see a relationship between gender and the fear of becoming a victim of a crime. She critically examines gender-typifying data collection and proposes a typology of security mentalities. This new instrument for analysis can help us to understand mental states in relation to the fear of criminality.
Copyright (c) 2009 Tatjana Beer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/
Review of: Martina Oster, Waltraud Ernst, Marion Gerards (Hg.): Performativität und Performance. Hamburg u.a.: LIT Verlag 2008
The volume collects different disciplinary perspectives on the performative production of gender in the areas of music, theater, and media culture. The point of departure and nexus of the contributions is Judith Butler’s concept of the performativity of gender, which is discussed in its relevance for women’s and gender research in musicology. Central is the reflection on the musical performance as a performative act for the construction of gender identities. Over and beyond the perspective of musicology, the different studies provide stimulating and broad-reaching impulses for the consideration of artistic forms of expression in the process of the sociocultural construction of gender and sexuality.
Copyright (c) 2009 Isa Wortelkamp https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/de/