SibĂŠal Feminist and Gender Studies Network Journal Issue 3: Revolutionary Genders Summer 2018
Cover Image Credit: Image of the Savita Halappanavar mural by graffiti artist Aches at the Bernard Shaw Pub, Brendan Harkin ďƒ“ All Rights Reserved.
This journal is available online at: issuu.com/sibealnetworkjournal
SibĂŠal Feminist and Gender Studies Network Journal Three: Revolutionary Genders (2018)
2
SibĂŠal Network
SibĂŠal was formed in 2006 by Susan Cahill and Claire Bracken, postgraduate students at that time who were responding to the great need for an organisation that focused on feminist and gender studies on the island of Ireland. We are now over ten years in operation and aim to continue creating networking opportunities for postgraduate students and early career researchers. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email us at: sibealnetwork@gmail.com
3
Editor’s Introduction In a year when feminism has taken centre stage, this year’s Sibéal Journal on ‘Revolutionary Genders’ is more pertinent than ever. With the overwhelming support for the Together For Yes campaign in the Irish Repeal the Eighth Referendum, Irish feminism has asserted itself as truly revolutionary. However, there is a long way to go for equality across the island of Ireland with the continued need for the dismantlement of direct provision in the south and for reproductive justice in Northern Ireland. Supporting the work of Movement for Asylum Seekers in Ireland and Alliance for Choice in their respective campaigns is of the utmost importance for full equality across Ireland, north and south. Feminism has also reached a new global revolution with the wave of testimonies against sexual abuse in the work-place through the #MeToo movements. Being outspoken about experiences of gendered oppression is revolutionising how we live today. This journal is dedicated to the continuation of revolutionary feminist activism in the pursuit of full equality. I would like to thank the contributors and reviewers for their time and effort in striving for such excellent scholarship within the academic field of feminist and gender studies. This issue contains articles which explore the legacy and remembrance of the Magdalene Laundries, the representation of non-binary genders in literature, and the feminist approach to exploring the work of male primary teachers. I would like to extend thanks to the out-going journal editor Dr Noirin MacNamara; this journal would not have come into being without Noirin’s support at every step. Thanks to photographer Brendan Harkin for his kind donation of the cover image. Finally, I would like to thank my board member colleagues: Dr Chamindra Weerawardhana, Arpita Chakraborty, Danielle Roberts, and Dr Clare Gorman. Aimée Walsh, Journal Editor A.Walsh1@2016.ljmu.ac.uk 4
Contents Suzanne O’Keeffe: Shifting Tides: Disrupting Inequality Through Democratic Research Designs ....................................................................................................................................6 Wesley Macheso: The Obscure Object?: Gender identity and the Intersex Anatomy in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel .................................................................................................. 28 Nancy Rochford Flynn: Not Having to Think, You Just Did: Magdalenism and the Importance of Active Commemoration as a means of Countering Cultural Forms of Forgetfulness ......................................................................................................................... 49 Arpita Chakraborty: Book Review: Beatty, Aidan, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884–1938, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016. ...................................................... 75 Muireann O’Dwyer: Book Review: Máiréad Enright, Julie McCandless and Aoife O’Donoghue, Northern/Irish Feminist Judgements: Judges’ Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity, Bloomsbury, 2017 .................................................................................. 79 Amy Finlay-Jeffrey: Book Review: Amy Lamé. From Prejudice to Pride: A History of the LGBTQ+ Movement. London: Wayland, 2017 ................................................................ 83 Call for Papers .................................................................................................................. 86
5
Suzanne O’Keeffe Shifting Tides: Disrupting Inequality Through Democratic Research Designs Abstract This paper is a call for academic research that has transformative potential: intellectually, educationally, and socially. It is an argument to think differently, to produce knowledge differently, to produce different knowledge and to explore different ways of living in the world. Specifically, this paper examines the experiences of a female researcher engaging in research with five Irish male primary teachers. Guided by the research question, what are male teachers’ understandings of masculinities and how do they impact on their daily lives? the design of this study consists of three rounds of interviews. Collaboration, reflexivity, and feminist ethical perspectives are major considerations for the researcher. Two key methodological points are focused on. First, it documents the importance of negotiation with participants: negotiation of description and interpretation. Second, it explores the possibilities of placing major emphasis on participants’ voices during the phases of data analysis and writing up, which is very often a neglected area. In totality, this paper suggests that if we are to move academic research in the direction of long-term, sustainable social transformation, democratic research designs must be at the forefront of this movement.
Introduction Ireland is an interesting site in which to study issues of equality and justice. First, the concept of equality is central to Irish public life and one of the basic foundations of its national life. Equality is enshrined in the 1922 Irish Free State Constitution, which guaranteed inter-alia, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens under Article 40.1 (Hogan and Whyte, 2003: 1389). Yet, the definition of citizenship heavily depended on gender-role expectations. The word ‘woman’
6
indicated domesticity, nurturing and dependency. Citizenship for women was clearly defined in their roles as wife and mother. It was not until Ireland joined the European Union in 1973 that Irish progress on gender equality was reflected in legislation, ‘The greatest impetus to removing the discrimination against women came through legislation – much of it brought about by our membership of the EEC’ (Barnes, 2015: xxii). More recently, Ireland has demonstrated an increased public display of justice and equality, through the historic Irish Marriage Equality Referendum (2015) and the election of the first openly-gay and youngest-ever Prime Minister (2017). However, national progress has simultaneously been accompanied by a number of shortcomings, such as the absence of a scheme of redress for Magdalene Laundry survivors and their subsequent exclusion from the 2002 Redress Act (O' Donnell, 2011), and the ex-gratia surgical symphysiotomy payment scheme (Clarke, 2016), which has silenced the voices of women affected by the practice of surgical symphysiotomy. Whilst, an immense amount of philosophical work on the idea of equality and justice has been carried out in the last thirty years (Lynch and Baker, 2005), we have yet to experience a holistic and integrated approach to these concepts. This is largely due to the nature of power. As a term of relationality, power is in all relationships to some degree or another (Burkitt, 2014; Giddens, 1985). It is typically associated with domination and vested in the state, religion, rulers and so forth (Lykes and Coquillon, 2007). Issues of power are complex within research. In the context of European affairs, Ireland has been an enthusiastic participant in all major reviews of teachers and teacher education.
However, reviews such as Males into Primary Teaching (Primary
Education Committee, 2006), Sé – Sí Gender in Irish Education (Department of Education and Science, 2007), and an extensive promotion campaign in 2006 to attract more men into teaching called MATE (Motivation, Ability, Teamwork, Excellence) have had little impact on the lives of male teachers. First, these reviews offer little debate on the cultural context underpinning them. Second, the voices of male teachers are not present in these documents and the reviews do not offer clarity on why men are not entering teaching. Finally, these reviews offer an uncertain, 7
indefinite and unclear approach to the decline of male teachers in Ireland. As stated in the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) report on Gender Imbalance in Primary Teaching (2004: 14), ‘there may be little reason to view the imbalance as a problem’. The fact that these reviews have failed to impact on the lives of male teachers may be due to their traditional, hierarchical, positivist nature. Whilst research conducted in this manner, from the top down, potentially contributes toward solving social problems, it generally acts for marginalised groups rather than mobilising these groups to act for themselves (Lykes and Coquillon, 2007). Traditional research like this does little to redistribute power, to interrogate traditional understandings of power or to encourage an ability to act. Democratic research designs reconceptualise the very notion of power, suggesting alternative ways of conducting research so that power is utilised as a capacity for change. These designs have huge potential for sustainable change as they are better able to produce outcomes that shape the policy landscape differently. For example, the next phase of the small scale study detailed in this paper is the establishment of seminars, workshops and a national conference supported by the Teaching Council of Ireland.
This will support teachers in engaging in
conversations about their experiences at national level, an outcome not possible within traditional hierarchical research designs. As democratic research designs encourage an ability to act, the participants of this study will be at the forefront of this next phase. The equality movement in education must consider academic research designs as central to advancing the equality movement beyond a stagnant position. This paper suggests that if we are to move academic research in the direction of long-term, sustainable social transformation, democratic research designs must be at the forefront of this movement.
The Participants I begin by introducing the participants whose stories are at the heart of this paper. All the participants mentioned in this paper wrote their own introduction. Each participant also chose 8
either to use a pseudonym or to keep his own name. Each introduction serves as ‘an entrée’ that illustrates ‘how their past is ‘insistent’ in the tellings of their present’, as outlined by Jackson and Mazzei (2013: xii). This is a nod to poststructural thinking, which considers how shifting contexts such as texts and the way they are read, leads to shifting meanings. Identities are never stable (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012: 11) but are continuously being unmade and remade depending on particular situations. John: ‘I am interested in the role of men today. Roles are shared, roles are swapped more often ... Alas, it’s the male who’s made redundant and has no means. Power and position don’t come from employment now so therefore another set of values must be found.’ David: ‘I'm 24 years of age ... Despite being relatively newly qualified I would estimate that I've been in approximately twenty different staffrooms as a teacher. On each occasion, as a male, I was in the minority.’ Eoin: ‘I have 34 years of teaching experience … For me, the fact that the gender imbalance in the teaching profession remains largely a non-issue is something that reflects on the social, political and cultural mores of the society in which Irish schools now exist.’ Michael: ‘I have a specific interest in gender issues arising from a report issued by the Dept. of Education in 1994 called ‘Gender Equity - Action Research Report’. This challenged many stereotyping practices of the time and much of it is still relevant today.’ Neil: ‘I have been teaching for fifteen years in both rural and urban schools … In all cases it’s overwhelmingly female, a predominantly female environment.’
Working together and separately, the participants and I paved the way through the terrain of masculinities in Irish primary schools; exploring established ways of thinking that have an effect on male teachers’ everyday realities.
Education in Ireland: influences of culture, gender segregation and religion. Education in Ireland has traditionally been shaped by strong cultural values placed on it within Irish society. Whilst Catholicism is a marker of identity, particularly in Ireland, the separation of religion from the ‘secular’ life of a country is not always clear cut (Tuohy, 2013). There are often unexamined assumptions or practices in the organization of a society that are based on a religious 9
approach (Tuohy, 2013: 135). This is particularly true in relation to primary schooling, whereby schools have long been embedded in Irish communities with a high emphasis placed on teaching as a ‘vocation’ and on teachers hearing ‘a call’ (Coolahan, 2013). The churches, in particular the Roman Catholic Church, have played a central role in the formation and development of Irish education (Tuohy, 2013).
In accordance with traditional Roman Catholic thinking, gender
segregation was one of the distinctive aspects of the structure and culture of Irish education (Drudy and Lynch 1993; Lynch and Lodge, 2002). All teacher education institutions held denominational status and, except for the Church of Ireland College, they were single sex until the 1960s. Prior to teacher education institutions becoming co-educational, there were separate male and female lists of entry (Drudy, 1999). Today, the Roman Catholic Church still retains significant power over systems and structures of education at all levels (Fahie, 2017: 10). For example, over 96% of primary schools promote a denominational ethos and 92% are under the direct, or indirect, control and / or ownership of the Roman Catholic Church (Devine, 2011, as cited in Fahie, 2017). The main teacher education institutions remain denominational. Another striking feature about schools in Ireland has been the role of philanthropy and the idealism of ‘patrons’ to serve a local community. A monopoly exists in school patronage and the State depends on private patrons, in particular the Roman Catholic Church, for school provision of denominational education (Tuohy, 2013). Although these schools are publically funded, private patrons retain a significant role in the overall management of a school under the Education Act 1998.
The private patron appoints the principal, controls the selection and
appointment of the Chairperson of every school's Board of Management, appoints two other board members as patron nominees and is the legal employer of every teacher in that school (Fahie, 2017, 10 - 11). However, over recent decades, fundamental shifts in the structure of schooling have taken place with the growth of the multi-denominational system of schooling (Darmody, Smyth, and McCoy 2012, as cited in Fahie, 2017). Educate Together, the patron body of the Educate Together Charter network, has established 81 primary schools nationwide. Whilst, the 10
overall picture within Ireland over the past 30 years is one of dramatic change, both culturally and socially, there is still ‘a lingering residue of traditional attitudes concerning gender roles’ (Barnes, 2015: xxii). This is particularly evident in relation to Irish legislation and education. For example, the Equal Status Acts (2000 - 2015) prohibit discrimination in the supply of goods and provision of services on nine grounds namely gender, marital status, family status, age disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, and membership of the Traveller Community.
However, two
exemptions to these Acts exist in the provision of education in Ireland: gender and religion (DES, 2005: 13 - 14). Single-sex schools may refuse pupils on the grounds of their gender and schools promoting certain religious values may refuse pupils on the grounds of their religion.
Personal incentive for undertaking this research The incentive for undertaking research on men in teaching initiated from reflections on American sociologist Michael Kimmel’s (2008) book, Guyland. The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. Considering the buddy culture experiences of young American men today, similar to ‘Laddism’ in Britain and Australia, Kimmel (2008) unmasks a landscape devoid of the traditional signpost, signals and clues that had once marked out young men’s journey to manhood. In its place, Kimmel (2008) identifies a new stage of development, a phase in which young men avoid the responsibilities of adulthood, an arena that regularly challenges young men’s sexuality, a code that pressurises young men to conform. Kimmel’s compelling account surprised me. After all, masculinity appears to be an obvious, taken-for-granted and visible phenomenon. For the first time, I realised that men do not have as much social power and confidence as I had come to expect. My thoughts led to my male colleagues who appear to hold positions of power in schools due to their physicality coupled with the pre-eminence of the male teacher in Irish society. I was drawn to discover more about the most obvious staff member of a school, whose physical appearance marks one out as different. Yet, it was a certain social distance male teachers maintain
11
with pupils and colleagues in terms of care and staffroom interactions that gave rise to a personal stimulus of inquiry.
Research Design Ethical approval Approval for the study was sought from, and granted by the Research Ethics Committee at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. Participants were advised of: •
The voluntary nature of participation.
•
Confidentiality and anonymity.
•
The purpose of the research.
Data Collection Data sources generated for the research were as follows: •
In-depth interviews;
•
Fieldnotes;
•
Governmental reports;
•
Transcripts
Male teachers were invited to participate in this research through an open call I placed in Ireland's largest teachers' union monthly magazine, InTouch (2014). This research consisted of three interconnected yet distinct phases of individual interviews. The categorizing of data collection into 3 phases enables methodological self-reflection and interactive relationships to develop between researcher and researched (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2011; Rapley, 2011). The entire process of interview, analysis, and discussing themes with participants was repeated during each phase.
Sequential interviews facilitated collaboration and moves toward reciprocity.
Each
participant shared as much as they wished about their lives and their experiences. It also created
12
opportunities to expand and develop ideas discussed. Phase 1 began on a personal level, exploring why primary teaching appealed to each participant, staffroom interactions, and perceptions of care. American anthropologist James P. Spradley’s (1979) ethnographic interview was used to guide informal interviews during Phase 1 because it shares many features with a friendly conversation into which the researcher slowly introduces a number of questions. Spradley’s ethnographic interview advances two major themes: developing rapport with participants and attaining meaningful information through descriptive questions.
Examining the nature of interview
questions and descriptive questions in particular was especially useful as major issues were discovered during the early months of the research. Phase 2 and Phase 3 focused on how the assumptions presented by the participants are the result of their discursive constructions as male teachers. In other words, it focused on our ideas regarding gender that come to us through language. For example, Eoin recounts his experience securing employment in a local school. Eoin: ‘The school I am in at the moment … I went there via the panel. It was a Nun who... [pause]. I was the only person on the panel and she [As Principal] made the mistake of applying for a teacher and then when she realised I was going to be a man, she was kind of like … frantic efforts to back-peddle. But obviously the whole thing was in motion then. Some of the other teachers told me she used to refer to me as the man (Laughter) …’
The assumption presented by Eoin is the result of his discursive construction as a male teacher. However, it is further produced and reinforced in the history of care and children, whereby attributions of care have tended to shape or have been shaped by public perceptions of care.
Thinking with theory: Judith Butler This research draws on feminist poststructural enquiry to address the research question, what are male teachers’ understandings of masculinities and how do they impact on their daily lives? The work of contemporary theorist, Butler (1999), influenced the methodological choice, data collection and analysis of this research. Butler’s (1999) theory of gender performativity is interweaved into the theoretical framework, informing the embedded question, what are the 13
performative acts that (re)produce male teachers’ subjectivities as primary school teachers? It is questionable whether there is any utility in analysing, yet again, the work of Butler and particularly that of Gender Trouble. Yet, Butler’s (1999) theory has had such a profound effect on the evolution of the feminine subject, her theory could possibly be revisited to extend a contemporary thesis of the masculine subject in light of current global transformations. Gender, according to Butler (1999: xvi), is an internal feature of us, ‘one that we anticipate and produce through certain bodily acts’. It is a performance brought into existence through action and repetition, rather than the expression of a pre-existing reality. Furthermore, Butler’s (1999: xvii) ontological view illustrates gender as a culturally authorized performance, ‘a repetition and a ritual’, which requires a body to execute within a heteronormative matrix of intelligibility. In other words, Butler’s theory of performativity considers gender as a performance that one grows into through repetition. This is particularly interesting for this study of male primary school teachers as is Butler’s (1999: 5) account of ‘the workings of gender oppression in the concrete cultural contexts in which it exists’. The naturalization of gender performance, Butler claims, accepts and privileges heterosexuality. Butler’s theory of gender performativity works to unsettle the normalizing and regulating categories of gender through the surface politics of the body. When the body is regarded as a cultural locus of gender meanings, the natural aspects free of cultural imprint become unclear. In this study, these cultural contexts are considered to be the school and the society in which the school exists.
Data Analysis A voice-centred relational method of data analysis involves four readings of data. Each reading troubles the data in different ways. Using four different coloured highlighter pens, each transcript is read four different times following a four-step reading process. Reading One consists of dualreadings; reading for the plot and reading for reader-responses to what the participant has said. Reading Two reads for ‘I’, ‘You’ and ‘We’. This allows for a reading of difficult subject matters or 14
topics that were challenging to address. Reading Three reads specifically for relationships. Reading Four reads for cultural, political, social and structural issues.
Reading One Reading for the plot sought to establish the main story being told and who the protagonists were. This reading is attentive to recurrent images, words, metaphors and contradictions in the narrative as the subplots are established. It highlights emotional and personal responses to various interpretations of readings. It draws attention to places of agreement and disagreement and to places where I was clearly surprised by what I heard. Reading One produces a different encounter with data. The reader-response element of Reading One is unique as it emphasises how the researcher is implicit in how a text is shaped and presented.
Reading Two: Self-Knowing Reading Two consists of reading for the voice of ‘I’. In this reading, attention is drawn to ‘I’, ‘You’ and ‘We’. This allows for a reading of difficult subject matters or topics that were challenging to address. Reading Two enhances the depth of the study, disallowing a focus on macro coding. Spending time exploring how the participant perceives and experiences their daily lives created a space between the participant’s way of speaking and seeing and the researcher’s way of representing stories.
Reading Three: The Enactment of Agency Reading Three reads specifically for relationships. In the analysis employed in this study, Reading Three consists of readings for relationships with colleagues and with the workplace. This reading allows the reader to place the participants’ stories within the broader cultural and societal landscape. It facilitates further in-depth analysis of cultural and societal factors that may impact on the daily teaching lives of participants and their colleagues. This reading moves the data beyond 15
the personal and places it in a context that has material consequences. This reading allowed the data to go beyond the traditional limits of research practice and encourages thinking that does not centre on ourselves as researchers or on the participants. This shakes up the privileging of the discursive in postmodern thought.
Reading Four: Entering the World Reading Four places respondents’ accounts and experiences within broader cultural, political, social and structural contexts. In Reading Four I listened for how the participants described the structural and ideological forces ‘as constraining and/ or enabling’ (Mauthner and Doucet, 1998: 132). For example, David, a research participant, alludes to the correlation between economic structures impinging on his career. David: ‘If I was from Dublin, I wouldn’t be a teacher basically because the cost of living is so high. My rent is around a third of what I’d earn in a month…’
In this study, Reading Three and Reading Four were often used together as relationships with colleagues and relationships with the wider world often depend on and intra-act with one another. Though the method is very detailed and time-consuming, it places the voices of the participants above the researcher's and incorporates the researcher’s background and history into the analysis process. This allows data collection and analysis to intermingle and promotes methodological selfreflection and interactive relationships to develop between researcher and researched. Emerging themes are discussed with participants, which can yield fresh new insights. Participants are placed in a more powerful position by controlling the direction the interview takes. As Michael stated, ‘I think that’s making a leap too far with what you are saying there,’ when I questioned the link between gender imbalance in schools and Ireland’s commitment to the European neoliberal agenda of choice, competition and markets. New understandings emerged of my role as a variable within the research process and addressed the feminist question of unequal and inevitable power dynamics. Participants were extra 16
cautious in responding to my questions, particularly in Phase 1 and Phase 2. I realised that gender influences even the questions it was possible to ask. I believe that participants were extra cautious in responding to particular questions: it was acceptable to inquire about conversations in the staffroom, caring for pupils, discipline, peer perceptions, public perceptions, interactions with colleagues, and the role of trade unions. Questions relating to sexual orientation, homophobia, and paedophilia were not welcomed because of the close working relationships between these men and young children.
Limitations of the research design Full reciprocity was the aim of this design, although partial reciprocity was the reality. Interviews were conducted in a collaborative, dialogic and interactive manner that required personal selfdisclosure of teaching experiences. Participants regularly asked questions about my experiences as a teacher. Meanings were negotiated at various junctures in the research process from informal conversations before the interviews began through to emails when data collection was complete. This created various opportunities to put into practice an interactive research design that tested the usefulness and validity of emerging themes. Also, a shortage of time was a major constraint on data analysis. Not all transcripts could be read using all four stages of data analysis. While all interviews were read using phase 1, only 7 out of 11 transcripts were read using the four stages of data analysis during phase 2 and phase 3. The 7 transcripts were chosen by the openness of participants, who spoke at length on various topics and gave rich and detailed data. Also, it was difficult to differentiate between the readings, particularly Reading Three, reading for relationships, and Reading Four, placing people within cultural contexts and social structures. Overall, this research design implemented an innovative and tailored version of the interview process using an approach that facilitates depth and multilayer treatment of data.
17
Findings A tale of the immaculate perception I naively expected the interview to be like a conversation with someone who has a common interest.
I imagined each teacher would inadvertently fill in the gaps in knowledge and
understanding I had acquired thus far. I looked forward to the sense of clarity that would come from the stories the teachers would convey to me. While I enjoyed learning about male teachers’ experiences and hearing how they navigate daily school life, there were times when my interpretations of those same experiences were different to those I listened to. Examples include details of conversation topics that female staff members engage with in the staffroom, whether male members of staff are more or less suited than female teachers to teach infant classes and the differences in male and female school leadership. In such cases, I discovered that I did not share their values (Kirsch, 1999). For instance, I did not agree with Neil’s perception of female teachers in the staffroom. Neil: ‘…if it’s a more female dominated environment you would be kind of more careful of what you would say … you would be more cautious of anything that might give rise to any slight offence. Whereas in a maleto-male encounter, you tend to go with the flow and give as good as you get and not worry so much…’
Sometimes I disclosed my differing opinions, for example when David suggested that female teachers are more suited to teach infant classes. David: ‘… there are certain things that female teachers can do that male teachers can’t really do …’
Other times I remained as a ‘voyeur’, examining the details of other people’s lives without having to reveal any of my own (Kirsch, 1999). For example, I listened but did not debate the topic with Michael when he disagreed with my question relating to the declining number of male teachers and neoliberalism. Michael: ‘I don’t think there’s links between it and the gender imbalance in schools’ Suzanne: ‘So you think Europe has …’ Michael: ‘Has no influence.’
18
The research design of this study is particularly interested in how feminist approaches to interviewing rejuvenate qualitative methods. It no longer places the researcher in the position of ‘known author’ as outlined by Denzin (1989: 19), whereby an author can record and make sense of the life in question. Instead, the researcher’s voice is placed beside that of the participants, adding another layer to what has been documented and enhancing the richness of possible interpretations. Jackson and Mazzei’s (2013) affirmation that we do not have to give up on the interview resonates with current feminist calls to work the ruins of foundationalism and interpretivism. Similarly, Lather’s (2010: 70) hope for the future of qualitative research to be negotiated in ‘kinds of practices that are on the edge of what is precisely thinkable and doable’ can be read in relation to Jackson and Mazzei’s (2012: 7) enactment of the interview as a process of data / theory / writing that expands and stretches previous ways of knowing.
A journey of discovery Meeting participants for the first time was more challenging than I had first anticipated. These initial meetings were infused with different styles of masculinities and femininities. Different bodily and social distinctions were also on display. I felt I had to work extra hard at balancing a friendly, non-threatening presence with an air of competence and professionalism. John: ‘Why men? What do you intend to do with your findings?’
Such moments, Kirsch (1999: xii) believes, have value, ‘they can prompt us to be more reflective, self-critical, and sensitive in our interactions with participants’.
Relationship-building is an
important consideration when interviewing those unlike 'Us'. Considering the belief that society has taught us to regard the opposite sex with suspicion and that culture has bred in us a spirit of competition for different forms of power (Rohr and Martos, 2005), communication was open and frequent. It also facilitated the collection of rich and interesting data as power barriers between researcher and participants were broken down. Phase 2 and Phase 3 were more like a reunion of old acquaintances. Before the voice recorder was turned on, both the teacher and I caught up on 19
happenings from the intervening period. They were interested to hear how the research was progressing and what themes were emerging from the first round. I was interested to hear how school life was. Both parties knew what to expect from the experience and from each other. We understood it was really a team effort to create this research endeavour. I certainly did not have all the answers but together we discussed various school experiences.
Collaboration with
participants allowed me to validate findings with each teacher as themes emerged.
Such
collaboration blurs the boundaries between researcher and participant and is an important first step toward engaging in ethical and socially responsible research (Kirsch, 1999).
Discussion Feminist Ethical Perspectives Developing a feminist ethical perspective means providing insights into the research design, sampling procedures and responsibility towards participants (Hesse-Biber, 2007). The attention given to relationships with participants illustrates the goals of feminist research to be ‘for’ rather than ‘on’ people. This perspective encourages an ability to act, laying the foundations for sustainable and long-term change. Research in this manner fosters empowerment. It gives back reports to participants to check descriptive and interpretive validity. It is highly interactive. For example, Michael alludes to a new-found empowered feeling at the beginning of Phase Three. Michael: ‘…because I have engaged with you around this I have been more open about it in my own school … at least I am more comfortable now to let it be known that I am not convinced that that’s good. In fact I think it’s bad. And I am happy to kind of say that now and mainly really only since I started engaging with this. I just take a chance and say it.’
This is what Lather (1991: 60) terms the goal of emancipatory research, ‘…to encourage selfreflection and deeper understanding on the part of the researched at least as it is to generate empirically grounded theoretical knowledge’. To do this, research designs must be reciprocal and must resonate with people’s lived concerns and aspirations, serving as a catalytic role.
20
Empowering Research Designs In order to be scholar activists and gender revolutionaries at once, spaces must be forged to enact feminist research designs so that something 'other' may been seen. This requires rethinking the relationship of qualitative research to governmental policy within and against a neoliberal climate (Lather, 2010). Lather (1991; 2010) argues for a critical approach to educational research that focuses on ‘democratic capacity building and interruption of ‘top-down’ directive approaches and ‘state instrumentalism’ (Ozga, 2000: 76, as cited in Lather, 2010: 5). Democratic research designs are a powerful way to engage in this revolutionary approach. The initial step of such an approach is to develop an understanding of the world view of research participants. Central to this understanding is a research design where participants are actively involved in the construction and validation of knowledge. As was the framework of the study documented in this paper, a reciprocal approach corrects researcher preconceptions and inspires cultural transformations through consciousness-raising. David alludes to the consciousness-raising goals of feminist research. David: ‘Now more than ever, I have begun to question how my gender has both influenced my teaching career and impacted on others’ perception of me as a person.’
It requires conducting research in a non-elitist and non-manipulative manner. In sum, a rethinking of qualitative research and its relationship to educational policy requires a research stance which is open-ended and ‘profoundly sceptical of appearances’ and ‘common sense’ (Lather, 1991: 65). If we are to tackle the various structural inequalities associated with increased corporate interests in education and new public management, an ideological struggle is necessary.
Ending relationships Just as the beginnings of research relationships often take a considerable amount of negotiation, the ending is no different (Pillow & Mayo, 2007). I doubt whether I will become close friends, visit occasionally, or write or telephone the participants as expressed by Oakley. This type of close friendship is likely to be structured by the research topic and also by 'the perceived ‘role’ of the 21
researcher within the research relationship' (Letherby, 2003). Is there a way to 'end' research responsibly? In this study, I forwarded draft data collection chapters to each participant for review, and I encouraged them to provide feedback. Although not all participants responded to this request, those who did made very worthwhile considerations: John: ‘Your extract makes for interesting reading. Your observations of the power relations and negotiated positions of interviewer and interviewee during our interviews are fascinating!’
Just as the relationship itself does not end with the completion of fieldwork, I believe the relationship built with participants during the course of this research is one based on friendliness rather than friendship. Throughout this research endeavor, a commitment was needed from both the participants and from me. This was facilitated and supported by maintaining a 'flow' of communication between each stage of the research journey. As a result, I feel the goodwill for what we have created together. This working relationship will now form the basis of the next stage of the movement: national seminars, workshops and conferences.
Conclusion This paper recommends placing a growing appreciation on the need for research that advances a more equal world. One sustainable way of achieving this goal is through democratic research designs, whereby power is utilised as a capacity for change. Democratic research designs facilitate long term change by challenging accepted forms of knowledge or ‘the naturalness of social arrangements’ (Lather, 1991: 63). In traditional qualitative research, the voice is heard and recorded, coded and categorised. Democratic research designs intend to counter this practice through disruption and irruption of meaning making (Mazzei and Jackson, 2009: 5). It requires listening to participant voices with ‘soft ears’ or ears that are ‘open to more nuanced understandings and interpretations … demonstrating the ways that an appeal to poststructuralism affords researchers a broader framework for better understanding the obvious…’ (Mazzei and Jackson, 2009: 8). In order to change what counts as official knowledge requires working hard 22
against the neoliberal restructuring of society and assembling a substantial line of defence against ‘dominant groups’ predictable reactions’ (Apple, 2013: 165).
However overwhelming this
challenge sounds, it is achievable. It is possible, Apple (2013: 127) contends, to ‘break away from a forged (and at times forced) consensus, thus opening up the space for a new social and educational imaginary’. It requires work on many levels, cultural, economic, and historical and in many sites, policy and practice. We all have a role to play. ‘…answers can best be found by joining in the creative and determined efforts of building a counter-public’ (Apple, 2013: 166). This paper is a creative offering towards our responsibility as researchers to produce more research that is in response to the experiences, desires and needs of marginalised groups.
Suzanne O’Keeffe Mary Immaculate College Suzanne.OKeeffe@mic.ul.ie
Reference List Apple, M. W. (2013) Can Education Change Society? New York, NY: Routledge. Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway. Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham: Duke University Press. Barnes, M. (2015) Foreword, pp. xxi – xxiii, in Fine-Davis, M. Gender Roles in Ireland. Three Decades of Attitude Change. Routledge: Oxon and New York. Britzman, D. P. (1995) ‘The question of belief’: Writing Poststructural Ethnography, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 8:3, 229-238, DOI: 10.1080/0951839950080302. Britzman, D. P. (2000) ‘The question of belief’: Writing Poststructural Ethnography. In St. Pierre, E. A. and Pillow, W. S. (Eds.) Working the Ruins. Feminist Poststructural Theory and Methods in Education. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 27 – 40. Brown, L. and Gilligan, C. (1992) Meeting at the Crossroads. New York, NY: Ballantine Books. Burkitt, I. (2014) Emotions and Social Relations. London, England: SAGE. Butler, J. (1999) Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. 10th anniversary edition. New York, London: Routledge. 23
Clark, M. H. (2016) The Surgical Symphysiotomy Ex Gratia Payment Scheme. Report to Minister for Health Simon Harris TD of Judge Maureen Harding Clark. 19th October 2016. [Online] Available at: http://health.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/The-Surgical-Symphysiotomy-Ex Gratia-Payment-Scheme-Report.pdf (Accessed 30 Sep 2017). Coolihan, J. (2013) 'Towards an new era for teacher education and the engagement of the teaching profession', Irish Teachers' Journal, 1 (1), November 2013. Corbin, J. and Strauss, A. (2015) Basics of Qualitative Research. Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, Inc. Darmody, M. Smyth, E. and McCoy, S. (2012) 'School Sector Variations among Primary Schools in Ireland'. Department of Children and Youth Affairs. In Fahie, D. (2007). 'Faith of our fathers - lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers' attitudes towards the teaching of religion in Irish denominational primary schools', Irish Educational Studies, Vol, 36 (1), pp. 9 - 24. Department of Education and Skills (DES) (2005) Schools and the Equal Status Acts, 2nd ed. Dublin: Equality Unit. Department of Education and Skills (DES) (2007) Sé Sí - Gender in Irish Education. Dublin: Equality Unit. Denzin, N. K. (1989) Interpretive Interactionism. Newbury Park, CA and London: SAGE. DeVault, M. L. and Gross, G. (2007) ‘Feminist Interviewing: Experience, Talk, and Knowledge’. In Hesse-Biber, S. N. (Ed.) Handbook of Feminist Research. Theory and Praxis. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc, pp. 173 – 198. Devine, D. (2011) Immigration and Schooling in the Republic of Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press. In Fahie, D. (2017) 'Faith of our fathers - lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers' attitudes towards the teaching of religion in Irish denominational primary schools', Irish Educational Studies, 36 (1), pp. 9 - 24. Drudy, S. (2009) (ed.). Education In Ireland: Challenge and Change. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan Ltd. Drudy, S. and Lynch, K. (1993) Schools and Society in Ireland. Dublin, Gill and Macmillan Edwards, R. and Ribbens, J. (1998) ‘Living on the Edges: Public Knowledge, Private Lives, Personal Experience. In Ribbens, J. and Edwards, R. (Eds.) Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research. Public Knowledge and Private Lives. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, pp. 1 – 23. Fahie, D. (2007) 'Faith of our fathers - lesbian, gay and bisexual teachers' attitudes towards the teaching of religion in Irish denominational primary schools', Irish Educational Studies, Vol, 36 (1), pp. 9 - 24. Giddens, A. (1985) The National State and Violence. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hammersley, M. and Atkinson, P. (1995) Ethnography. Principals in Practice. (2nd ed.) London: Routledge. Harding, S. (1991) Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?: Thinking from Women’s Lives. NY: Cornell 24
University Press. Hekman, S. (2014) The Feminine Subject. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Hekman, S. (2010) The Material of Knowledge. Feminist Disclosures. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Hesse-Biber, S. N. (Ed.) (2014) Feminist Research Practice. A Primer. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California, CA and London, UK: SAGE Publications. Hesse-Biber, S. N. (Ed.) (2007) Handbook of Feminist Research. Theory and Praxis. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc. Hesse-Biber, S. N., & Leavy, P. (2011) The practice of qualitative research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Hogan, G. W. and Whyte, G. F. (2003) J. M. Kelly. The Irish Constitution. (4th ed.) West Sussex and Dublin: Tottel Publishing Ltd. Human Rights Watch (2010) Ireland. A State of Isolation. Access to Abortion for Women in Ireland. New York NY: Human Rights Watch. InTouch. (2014) Why the decline in male primary school teachers? Issue 148: 43. Irish National Teachers Organisation, (2004) Gender Imbalance in Primary Teaching – A Discussion Document. The Demise of the Male Primary Teacher? Dublin: INTO Publications. Jaggar, A. M. (Ed.). (2008) Just methods: An interdisciplinary feminist reader. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Jackson, A.Y. and L. A. Mazzei (2012) Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research. Viewing data across multiple perspectives. London and NY: Routledge. Kimmel, M. (2008) Guyland. The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Kirsch, G. E. (1999) Ethical Dilemmas in Feminist Research. The Politics of Location, Interpretation, and Publication. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lather, P. (2009) Against empathy, voice and authenticity. In: Jackson, A. Y. and Mazzei, L. A. Voice in Qualitative Inquiry. Challenging conventional, interpretive, and critical conceptions in qualitative research. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 17 – 26. Lather, P. (1992) Critical Frames in Educational Research: Feminist and Post-Structural Perspectives, Theory and Practice, Qualitative Issues in Educational Research (Spring 1992), 31 (2), pp. 87 – 99. (Online) Available: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1476394. Lather, P. (2010) Engaging Science. Policy: From the Side of the Messy. NY: Peter Lang Publications, Inc. Lather, P. (1991) Getting Smart. Feminist Research and Pedagogy With / In the Postmodern. NY: Routledge. Lather, P. and Smithies, C. (1997) Troubling the Angels. Women Living with HIV/AIDS. Colorado: Westview Press. 25
Letherby, G. (2003) Feminist research in theory and practice. Buckingham, UK; Philadelphia, PA, USA: Open University Press. Lykes, M. B. and Coquillon, E. (2007) Participatory and Action Research and Feminism’. In: Hesse-Biber, S. N. (Ed.) (2007) Handbook of Feminist Research. Theory and Praxis. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc., pp. 297 – 326. Lynch, K. and Baker, J. (2005) Equality in education: an equality of condition perspective, Theory and Research in Education, 3 (2): 131-164, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1477878505053298. Lynch, K. and Lodge, A. (eds.) (2004) Diversity at School. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. MacLure, M. (2003) Discourse in educational and social research. Buckingham, UK and Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press. Mauthner, N.S. and Doucet, A. (1998) Reflections on a Voice Centred Relational Method of Data Analysis: Analysing Maternal and Domestic Voices. In Jane Ribbens and Rosalind Edwards eds., Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research: Private Lives and Public Texts. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, pp. 119-144. Mazzei, L.A. and Jackson, A. Y. (2009) Voice in Qualitative Inquiry. Challenging conventional, interpretive, and critical conceptions in qualitative research. London and New York, NY: Routledge. McCracken, G. (1988) The Long Interview. Qualitative Research Methods Series 13. London: Sage Publications, Inc. Morgan, W. (2000) Electronic Tools for Dismantling the Master’s House: Poststructuralist Feminist Research and Hypertext Poetics. In St. Pierre, E. A. and Pillow, W. S. (Eds.) (2000) Working the Ruins. Feminist Poststructural Theory and Methods in Education. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 130 – 149. Oakley, A. (1981) Interviewing women: A contradiction in terms. In Roberts, H. (1981) (Ed.) Doing Feminist Research. . Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 30-61. O'Donnell, K. (2011) 'Justice for Magdalenes', Irish Human Rights Commission and Law Society of Ireland 9th Annual Conference, October 2011, [Online], available at: http://www.ihrc.ie/publications/list/dr-katherine-odonnell-justice-for-magdalene (Accessed 04 Oct 2017). Ozga, J. (2000) Policy Research in Education settings: Contested Terrain. Buckingham: Open University Press. Pillow, W. S. and Mayo, C. (2007) ‘Toward Understandings of Feminist Ethnography’. In Hesse Biber, S. N. Handbook of Feminist Research. Theory and Practice. London; New Delhi; Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, pp. 155 – 171. Primary Education Committee (2006) Males into primary teaching. Report of the Primary Education Committee. Dept. of Education and Science. Gender Equality Unit. Dublin: Stationery Office, 2006. 26
Rapley, T. (2011) Some pragmatics of data analysis. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative research: Issues of theory, method and practice (3rd ed.). London, England: SAGE., pp. 273–290. Riessman, C. K. (1987) When Gender is not Enough: Women Interviewing Women. Gender and Society, 1 (2), page(s): 172-207, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243287001002004. Rohr, R. and Martos, J. (2005) From Wild Man to Wise Man. Reflections on Male Spirituality. Ohio: Franciscan Media. Spradley, J. P. (1979) The Ethnographic Interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Shaarani, S. R., Eeden, W. van and O’Byrne, J. M. (2015) The Irish experience of Symphysiotomy: 40 years onwards, Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 36(1), pp. 48 – 52. Tuohy D (2013) Denominational Education and Politics: Ireland in a European Context. Veritas: Dublin, OH. Van Maanen, J. (2011) Tales of the Field: On Writing Ethnography, 2nd Edition, Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing. Chicago and London: The Chicago University Press.
27
Wesley Macheso The Obscure Object?: Gender identity and the Intersex Anatomy in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel Abstract This paper questions the obscurity of the intersex body, drawing from the way this body exists as an inscrutable object within societies when it comes to sexual orientation and gender identity as portrayed in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (2010). Employing Robert McRuer’s ‘Crip theory’ and Erving Goffman’s ‘Stigma’, the paper argues that Wayne Blake, the intersex protagonist in the novel, is being constantly forced to attain an ‘able-bodied status’ and to conform to standards of compulsory heterosexuality. Since his body does not conform to what Susan Wendell calls ‘disciplines of normality’, Wayne becomes an ambivalent subject with regard to his gender identity as he becomes alienated from both his own body, which he fails to understand, and from the society, which does not recognise or accept his difference. From the analysis of the novel, the discussion asserts that the realisation that no body is ideal and that we all fall short in certain corporeal aspects (whether perceptible or not) will help in challenging and debunking the stigma against the intersex anatomy. In order to create room for the unthreatened existence of intersex identity, mainstream society should direct its efforts towards understanding intersexuality merely as difference and not as disability or monstrosity.
Introduction: The Puzzle of Intersex and the Social Construction of Gender In the introduction to his book, Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes, Gerald Callahan (2009) makes a rather shocking statement concerning Western societies or societies heavily influenced by and/or shaped in Western binary thinking. He proclaims that ‘in truth, humans come in an amazing number of forms, because human development, including human sexual development, is not an either or proposition. Instead, between ‘either’ and ‘or’ there is an entire spectrum of possibilities’ (Callahan, 2009: xi). This challenges the popular Western 28
normative convention that one is either born male or female to assume a masculine or feminine gender identity, which eliminates other gender identity possibilities, rendering those born outside or in-between these two ‘supposed’ identities abnormal or obscure. Among those who are rendered obscure in normative societies are people born with the intersex anatomy. These may be ‘neither male nor female’, or they may identify as ‘both male and female’. As such, their gender identities become contentious in mainstream society since the coding for two sexes in Western societies leaves no room for the unthreatened existence of different bodies. From the backdrop of this ‘controversy’ regarding sexuality and gender identity, this paper examines the issue of gender identity in Wayne Blake, the protagonist born with the intersex anatomy, in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (2010). The paper situates the novel within a body of contemporary queer literature. Among other things, studies in this field aim at bringing to light and addressing issues concerning Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersexual, and Questioning (LGBTIQ) individuals in mainstream society. As Steven Angelides (2001) argues in A History of Bisexuality: Queer theory shares with post-structuralism and deconstruction a profound distrust of identity. Categories of identity are seen to be exclusionary and normative, falsely unifying and universalizing, contingent and illusory. Their construction, moreover, is seen to rest on classical binary logic that fails to do justice to the representation of difference (Angelides, 2001: 14).
The paper is therefore grounded in queer theory as it is concerned with examining social attitudes towards bodies that are seen as deviant or abnormal in mainstream society. Wayne Blake in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (2010) struggles to marry societal demands, bordering on notions of normality, with his own personal feelings and convictions with regard to his gender identity. Through her narrative, which gives detailed attention to an intersex character, Winter reveals the problems that intersex individuals face growing up in normative societies – how they try to resolve the conflict between their individual convictions with regard to their gender identity and society’s convictions and demands on the same, and how they cope (or fail to cope) with changes in their bodies as they mature amidst social prejudice and misunderstanding. The portrayal 29
of Wayne Blake has the potential to stimulate the reader to empathize with him and reconsider the normative conventions of gender and sexuality. In my examination of the life of Wayne Blake in Winter’s Annabel (2010), I argue that the intersex anatomy is the basis for the creation of bodily ambivalence in intersex individuals. As such, the individual with the intersex anatomy is an ambivalent subject with regard to their gender identity as they become alienated from both their body, which they fail to understand, and from society, which does not understand or accept their difference. This is because although gender identity is determined by both biological and sociological factors, it is society that plays a major role in ascribing gender identity on these individuals, based on their dominant physical characteristics at birth. As such, society’s disregard of other biological factors such as the individual’s internal anatomy and the secretion of hormones that shape an individual’s psychology in the development of their gender identity lead to identity crises and dilemmas in these intersex characters who may want to identify with a gender that the society does not recognise in them. Employing Robert McRuer’s ‘Crip theory’ and Erving Goffman’s ‘Stigma’, I argue that Wayne Blake is being constantly forced to attain an ‘able-bodied status’ and to conform to standards of compulsory heterosexuality. Since his body does not conform to what Susan Wendell (1996: 87) calls ‘disciplines of normality’, Wayne becomes a victim of stigma leading to the ambivalence in his gender identity as he is alienated from his society, which does not understand or accept his difference, and from his own body, which he fails to understand as it fails to conform to normative standards of physical development. What is of interest in McRuer’s Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness & Disability are the concepts of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ and ‘compulsory able-bodiedness’, which McRuer identifies as being responsible for definitions and conceptions of normality and abnormality in issues of gender, sexuality, and the condition of the physical body. Crip theory ‘emerges from cultural studies traditions that question the order of things, considering how and why it is constructed and naturalized; how it is embedded in complex economic, social, and cultural 30
relations; and how it might be changed’ (McRuer, 2006: 2). In his theory of ‘compulsory ablebodiedness’, McRuer argues that, the system of compulsory able-bodiedness, which in a sense produces disability, is thoroughly interwoven with the system of compulsory heterosexuality that produces queerness: that, in fact, compulsory heterosexuality is contingent on compulsory able-bodiedness, and vice versa (2006: 2).
McRuer (2006: 2) employs the term ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ to refer to society’s tendency of upholding heterosexual orientation as the normal relations between the sexes while simultaneously ‘pathologizing’ and policing homosexuality as abnormal or deviant. Compulsory heterosexuality is intertwined with compulsory able-bodiedness in that both systems work to (re)produce the able body and heterosexuality. Thus the relationship between heterosexuality and able-bodiedness has to be exposed and questioned in order to achieve equal recognition and tolerance for queer/disabled bodies. I use Crip theory to demonstrate that an individual with an intersex anatomy, as portrayed in Winter’s Annabel (2010), fails to conform to standards of able-bodiedness since their sexual anatomy is regarded as abnormal or obscure. At the same time, such individuals do not conform to normative standards of heterosexuality since their physical bodies do not always sexually perform in accordance with their presumed sex and gender of rearing. As such, the individual becomes a victim of stigma from the society, which does not understand or recognize their difference, and they also become alienated from their own body, which they fail to understand. The need to conform to standards of normality, and at the same time, to express individual autonomy and personal feelings in the intersex character/person, leads to ambivalence in their gender identity. Erving Goffman uses the word stigma to refer to an attribute that is deeply discrediting. The dehumanizing effects of stigma on individuals with intersex anatomy are evident in Winter’s Annabel (2010). Wayne expresses the ambivalence that Goffman identifies as a possible consequence of stigma. Goffman notices that ‘given that the stigmatized individual in our society
31
acquires identity standards which he applies to himself in spite of his failing to conform to them, it is inevitable that he will feel some ambivalence about his own self’ (Goffman, 1963: 130). Goffman remarks that ‘it is in his affiliation with, or separation from, his more evidently stigmatized fellows, that the individual’s oscillation of identification is most sharply marked’ (Goffman, 1963: 130). In my examination of the novel, I analyse how this ambivalence manifests in Wayne Blake as he struggles to comprehend and/or change his gender identity amidst social prejudice and misunderstanding. Crip theory is relevant to the study of intersexuality in that, as Morgan Holmes observes in Critical Intersex, The nascent field of intersex studies is not precisely the same as disability studies, but intersex studies draws as much from the impulses, theoretical frameworks, and critical lenses of disability studies as from the development of queer theory/studies and gender studies informed by feminist theory (2009: 5-6).
Most importantly, Holmes highlights the relationship between intersexuality and disability studies by pointing out that ‘parents and families of intersexed children confront a world informed by the premise of defect, not of neutral variation’ (Holmes, 2009: 6). He further points out that ‘the heterosexual difference model is built upon the male/female sex binary’ (Holmes, 2009: 6), which leaves no space for the existence of intersex gender identities. In my analysis of the novel, I adopt Riki Wilchins’ definition of gender identity as ‘an individual’s internal sense of self as being male, female, or an identity between or outside these categories’ (cited in Nagoshi et al, 2014: 4). This definition gives primacy to the individual on issues of gender identity. However, analysing the lived experience of Wayne Blake reveals that on the topic of intersexuality, society claims the upper hand in assigning gender identity to infants, which may lead to problems of ambiguity, confusion, and dissatisfaction as they grow up. Jemison Green defines gender as a system of classification that describes characteristics and behaviours that we ascribe to bodies (cited in Nagoshi et al, 2014: 5). He argues that society then attributes those characteristics and behaviours to being either masculine or feminine. Gender 32
identity then is assumed to be consistent with one’s biological sex, where ‘sex’ is regarded as a system of classification that divides body types based on presumed reproductive capacity as typically determined by visual examination of the external genitalia (cited in Nagoshi et al, 2014: 5). An examination of the life of Wayne Blake in Winter’s Annabel (2010) reveals that, since mainstream society does not recognise the existence of an identity between or outside the two categories of male and female, the individual with the intersex anatomy becomes ambivalent with regard to their gender identity as the gender they identify with in their inner self is often inconsistent with their socially perceived biological sex. The experience of Wayne Blake illustrates that the society does not understand the intersex individual and often tries to ‘fix’ them so that they conform to ‘accepted standards’ of normality. This attempt at ‘fixing’ is in part what leads to the ambivalent position adopted by the character. As Morgan Holmes (2008: 66) points out in Intersex: A Perilous Difference, ‘one must be recognised as either a boy or a girl, as either a man or a woman, in order to live securely, unthreatened, at a basic level of access to a ‘legitimate’ subject position’. The failure of the intersex body to access a ‘legitimate subject position’ renders it an inscrutable object in mainstream society. Suzanna Kessler (1990: 6) argues that management of intersex cases is based on the theory of gender proposed by John Money and Anke Ehrhardt in 1972. She observes that ‘physicians tell parents that social factors are more important in gender development than biological ones, even though they are searching for biological causes’ (Kessler, 1990: 16). Her argument is that, in essence, the physicians teach the parents Money and Ehrhardt’s theory of gender development. In so doing, ‘they shift the emphasis from the discovery of biological factors that are a sign of the ‘real’ gender to providing the appropriate social conditions to produce the ‘real’ gender’ (Kessler, 1990: 16-17). Wayne Blake in Winter’s Annabel becomes a victim of this procedure, where social factors are given primacy in gender assignment at the expense of equally important biological factors, and this leads to the ambivalence in his gender identity.
33
My reading of the intersex anatomy is in part influenced by arguments put forward by the gender theorist Judith Butler (1999: 520). In Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, she argues, ‘any gender is an historical situation rather than a natural fact’. Her position is that ‘what is called gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo’ (Butler, 1999: 520). She advances the stance that gender is performance and that ‘discrete genders are part of what ‘humanizes’ individuals within contemporary culture; indeed those who fail to do their gender right are regularly punished’ (Butler, 1999: 522). This entails that it is society that socializes people into distinct genders by setting forth expectations and acceptable standards of behaviour befitting membership into such a gender. In this regard, either one comes out as male or as female to accomplish masculine or feminine gender roles respectively. Hence the intersex character in Winter’s Annabel (2010) struggles with identity issues since he does not necessarily perform his gender in accordance with agreed social standards of masculinity and femininity. Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (2010) challenges hetero-normative categorizations of gender by exposing the system of compulsory heterosexuality, which, according to Butler, ‘is reproduced and concealed through the cultivation of bodies into discrete sexes with ‘natural’ appearances and ‘natural’ heterosexual dispositions’ (Butler, 1990: 524). As Adrienne Rich (1980: 637) argues in her essay, ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’, ‘heterosexuality, like motherhood, needs to be studied as a political institution [...]’. She further argues that ‘the failure to examine heterosexuality as an institution is like failing to admit that the economic system called capitalism or the caste system of racism is maintained by a variety of forces, including both physical violence and false consciousness’ (Rich, 1980: 648). The point is, in order to allow the flourishing of other gender identity possibilities, the normative discourses of compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory able-bodiedness have to be constantly questioned and challenged through various disciplines, including literature.
34
‘Am I weird?’: Wayne Blake’s Struggle with Intersexuality and Gender Identity in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (2010) is a third person narrative of the life of Wayne Blake, an intersex child born to Jacinta and Treadway Blake in March of 1968 in the village of Croyden Harbour, on the south east Labrador coast in Canada. The story follows the life of Wayne from infancy to adulthood. The third person omniscient narrative style employed by Winter allows the reader to understand how different characters in the novel consider intersexuality, in general, and the condition of Wayne Blake, in particular. By exploring the perspectives of several characters through her narration, Winter allows her readers to have a multi-dimensional view on societal attitudes towards intersex anatomy. Wayne Blake’s ambivalence in identity is epitomised in the two names denoting the two conflicting identities that he has in the novel. He is popularly known as Wayne Blake but a family friend, Thomasina, who knows about his peculiar anatomy, calls him Annabel, a name he later accepts after realising the true nature of his ambiguous anatomy. Commenting on the novel, Carrie O’Grady (2011) observes that Winter’s Annabel is ‘a quiet, inward-looking treatment of a quiet inward-looking person who is, in a way, more human than most, being man and woman in one, yet who feels completely alone in a small world’ (O’Grady, 2011: n.p). She points out that Kathleen Winter gives us a vivid picture of Labrador, and its frontier aspect – chill winds, hard work, taciturn hunters who live half the year out in the bush – makes it the perfect setting for a story about isolation (O’Grady, 2011: n.p). Although O’Grady and other scholars discuss issues of identity and the struggle between the individual and society in their reading of Annabel (2010), none of them pays special attention to the underlying disciplines behind the society’s binary perception of gender and how that perpetrates stigma on the intersex hero. In my analysis of the novel, I pay detailed attention to the normative discourses of compulsory able-bodiedness and compulsory heterosexuality that impact negatively on Wayne Blake with regard to his gender identity.
35
One thing of interest in the novel is that, when assigning gender identity to the infant Wayne, sociology prevails over biological conditioning. As Kate Bornstein (1998) argues, ‘gender assignment is given at birth and normally centres around the presence or absence of a penis’ (cited. in Nagoshi et al, 2014: 4). This observation points to the social construction of gender over gender’s purported biological fixity. In Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (2010), Wayne Blake is pronounced male at birth simply because even though he possesses a penis, a vagina and a single testicle, the penis is relatively bigger, prompting his father, Treadway, to name him a boy. This later on leads to the ambivalence in his identity as his body matures into adulthood and performs differently from other bodies such that the society regards it as an object of obscurity requiring correction. Wayne’s ambiguous sexual anatomy is first noticed by Thomasina, a family friend to the Blakes: It was as the baby latched on to Jacinta’s breast that Thomasina caught sight of something slight, flowerlike; one testicle had not descended, but there was something else. She waited the eternal instant that women wait when a horror jumps out at them. It is an instant that men do not use for waiting, an instant that opens a door to life or death. Women look through the opening because something might be alive in there. What Thomasina knew, as she looked through the opening this time, was that something can go wrong, not just with the child in front of you, another woman’s child, but with your own child, at any time, no matter how much you love it (Winter, 2010: 13).
Thomasina’s realisation that ‘something can go wrong’ with a child points to mainstream society’s ideals with regard to gender identity and sexual anatomy. In order to be regarded as normal, one has to either identify as male or female and there is no room for difference or other gender identity possibilities. This is where we begin to see how the disciplines of compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory able-bodiedness, as theorized by Robert McRuer (2006), operate in issues of intersexuality. Anne Fausto-Sterling also observes that, when describing intersex children, ‘doctors use specific medical terminology such as ‘sex chromosome anomalies’, ‘gonodal anomalies’, and ‘external organ anomalies’ that indicate that intersex children are just unusual in some aspect of 36
their physiology, not that they constitute a category other than male or female’ (Fausto-Sterling, 2000: 15). This attitude becomes the root cause of the stigma that intersex people encounter in life, leading to feelings of ambivalence with regard to their gender identity. The denial of the possibility of another gender category outside the two ‘norms’ is what pressures parents of intersex children to seek corrective surgery. Upon realising that her child has ambiguous genitalia, Jacinta Blake becomes devastated as she is afraid of her child growing up with an ‘abnormality’. She does not tell her husband about the peculiar condition of their baby and her biggest fear is manifested in the question she asks Thomasina, ‘Will other people love it?’ (Winter, 2010: 19). Being a liberal character, Thomasina tells her that ‘That baby is all right the way it is. There’s enough room in this world’ (Winter, 2010: 19). As a father figure in a patriarchal society, Treadway exercises the authority allowed him by masculinity to decide the baby’s sex and gender of rearing. He realises that ‘his baby had both a boy’s and a girl’s identity, and he knew a decision had to be made’ (Winter, 2010: 20). For him, There was only the fact of which sex organ was the most obvious, which one it would be most practical to recognize, the easiest life for all concerned [...] He wanted to know what was, not what might be. So he refused to imagine the harm in store for a child who was neither a son nor a daughter but both (Winter, 2010: 20).
For Treadway, letting the baby live the way it was born ‘would not have been a decision. It would have been indecision, and it would have caused harm’ (Winter, 2010: 20). Jacinta and Thomasina, the closest women to the affected child, do not challenge Treadway’s decision although they feel that it may not be in the best interest of the child. Hence in the process, Treadway as a masculine figure automatically becomes the gendering agent. Informing Treadway’s decision to solicit the ‘true sex’ of the baby is the fear of stigma. In the words of Robert McRuer, ‘nearly everyone, it would seem, wants to be normal in the ablebodied sense’ (McRuer, 2006: 7). This is because being perceived as abnormal in mainstream society attracts stigma. The parents understood that since their child did not qualify for an ‘ablebodied’ status due to his ambiguous genitalia, ‘normals’ would think that he was not quite human. 37
As Goffman argues it is on the assumption of a norm that people ‘exercise varieties of discrimination, through which effectively, if often unthinkingly, [they would] reduce his life chances’ (Goffman, 1963: 18). The fear of stigma due to abnormality is expressed in Jacinta’s musings: Whenever she imagined her child, grown up without interference from a judgemental world, she imagined its male and female halves as complementing each other, and as being secretly, almost magically powerful. It was the growing up part she did not want to imagine. The social part, the going to school in Labrador part, the jeering part, the what will we tell everyone part, the part that asks how will we give this child so much love it will know no harm from the cruel reactions of people who do not want to understand (Winter, 2010: 21).
Upon deciding the gender of the child, the parents then consult a physician who tells them that the point is ‘to create a believable masculine anatomy [...] we try to make the baby comfortable as a male in his own mind, and in the minds of other people who are in his life now or will be in the future [...] we try to decide the true sex of the child’ (Winter, 2010: 32-33). The physician’s idea of creating ‘a believable masculine anatomy’ underscores the argument raised by Judith Butler, Julie Nagoshi, and others, that gender identity is a social construction that is achieved through the enforcement of sex roles and acceptable standards of behaviour based on the individual’s perceived sex as judged from their perceived body. In the narrative, we learn that in assigning gender identity on the infant Wayne Blake, sociology prevails over biology as it is mostly his parents and doctors who decide that he be male, hence the attempt ‘to create a believable masculine anatomy’ (Winter, 2010: 32-33). These people connive to ‘fix’ Wayne so that he attains an ‘able-bodied’ status that would help him escape social stigma. However, as the plot unfolds, this procedure backfires as Wayne’s body fails to conform to normative standards of development and ends up functioning as an obscure object in his society leading to his alienation from both his body, which he does not understand, and from the society, which does not understand or accept his difference.
38
‘I wouldn’t call what you have a disorder. I’d call it a different order’ In her article titled ‘Inventions of Sexuality in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel’, Mareike Neuhaus points out that ‘when society distinguishes between normal and abnormal bodies, this distinction is drawn based on interpretations of actual bodies against preconceived notions of what bodies should look like and how they should function in everyday life’ (2012: 126-127). She further argues that, ‘intersex people who have undergone surgery as infants or small children have to become invisible to themselves in order to become intelligible to the cultural matrix’ (Neuhaus, 2012: 127). This is what is expected of Wayne Blake as he grows up in a normative society in Winter’s Annabel. We learn that upon what his parents and doctors consider a successful surgery, Wayne is expected to grow up as a ‘normal’ boy, his vaginal opening having been closed in an effort to conceal his unusual anatomy. However, the narrative shows that the girl inside the boy does not die after the corrective surgery. This is revealed, among other things, when at eleven years old his teacher, Mr. Henry, wants him homosexually and Wayne’s body responds to the man’s desire. As much as Mr. Henry’s behaviour is both morally and legally wrong, bearing in mind that he is an adult and Wayne is a child, one can still not help noticing Wayne’s corporeal difference from other boys in his body’s response to the man’s desire. The narration goes: Wayne knew Mr. Henry wanted him. He didn’t know how, exactly, but he knew it had to do with appetite, and he avoided being alone with that man again. No matter what Mr. Henry did to meet Wayne alone, Wayne was a step ahead, even if he had to run. So he escaped from Mr. Henry, but he could not escape from the fact that a man had wanted him, and that his body had responded to that man with a secret desire of its own. An exquisite stirring, unwanted, involuntary, mysterious. A child of eleven awakens to sexual ecstasy and keeps it to himself, and thinks for a brief time that he, or she, is the only one in the world to whom this has happened. For a little while Wayne’s ecstasy remained hidden, like the bulb of any bloom, underground (Winter, 2010: 69, emphasis added).
The author’s use of floral imagery in the above quotation becomes very important to the subject at hand since it symbolically presents intersex identity as natural and beautiful as any other ‘flower’
39
in nature, whose beauty cannot be stifled from blooming despite different measures taken by society to conceal and/or curtail it. Judith Butler’s assertion that gender is more of a performance than it is a natural fact also comes into play in the novel. Butler argues that ‘what is called gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo’ (Butler, 1999: 520). In Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (2010), Treadway yearns to impose his own model of masculinity on Wayne through what Butler calls ‘a stylized repetition of acts’ (Butler, 1999: 519) so that his assigned sex would match his gender of rearing. He thinks it is wrong for Wayne to be watching synchronised swimming since he regards it as a feminine sport. Wayne also desires a girly swimsuit but he is told that ‘people will not let boys wear that’ (Winter, 2010: 55). Treadway prefers science to the arts and tries to make his son think along those lines. He does not like the fact that Wayne admires and wants to befriend a girl called Wally Michelin: Through grade six, Wayne and Wally remained friends, and while Treadway wished Wayne would befriend a boy, he did not act. He hoped the friendship with Wally would end on its own. But when he watched Wayne and Wally meet in the mornings and walk to school, he did not like it (Winter, 2010: 74).
Treadway’s actions reveal that intersex children like Wayne are sanctioned by their societies to perform in accordance with the gender that is imposed on them without their consent. The novel shows that this is what eventually leads to their confusion and ambiguity since their internal anatomy is often in conflict with the gender roles they are expected to perform. Wayne becomes alive to his bodily ambivalence as a result of the intersex anatomy when he develops feminine features at puberty. The obscurity of his body shocks both him and his parents as they fail to comprehend his unusual development: [Treadway] had not been able to stop looking at his son’s body and seeing things he did not want to admit. His son looked like a girl. He talked like a girl, his hair was like a girl’s, and so were his throat and chest. When they had peeled down the tops of their overalls, Treadway had seen that his son had breast buds, small and tender through his undershirt, and it had shocked him. He wondered if Wayne
40
had noticed them himself, or if any of the boys at school had teased him about it. The buds were very small, but they were present. What if they grew larger? What was wrong with the doctors? (Winter, 2010: 100).
In this particular case, the confusion is in Treadway’s mind, which is particularly shocking given the fact that he is the one who decided that Wayne would be raised as a son. Perhaps, more importantly, the confusion also exists in the mind of the subject, Wayne. One particularly distressing aspect of his developing anatomy is that his penis never responds to sexual desire. Instead, it is rather the area where there was a vaginal opening that responds. In one particularly emotive moment in the narrative, [Wayne] lay in bed and touched his own penis. It did not respond, but the place behind it, underneath it, buried in his body between his legs, did respond. If he touched the skin underneath his testicle and rubbed it, it made the hunger clamour and grow wild. He pressed and pushed a little, and he thought of penises going into vaginas while he did so, and in a couple of minutes the hunger between his legs opened its mouth and devoured a shuddering, delicious and joyful series of electric jolts that delighted his whole body (Winter, 2010: 101).
In this moment of ecstasy, one can read the futility of science in trying to control nature by attempting to fix bodies that are regarded as obscure and/or abnormal. As the authors of Gender & Sexual Identity: Transcending Feminist and Queer Theory assert, If one accepts the essentialist view of gender as deriving from physical sex, then intersex individuals embody a gender that is literally in between the categories of the heteronormative gender binary. One can then see the irony of medical doctors and psychiatrist believing that they can use procedures and forced socialization to artificially put an intersex individual in one category or the other (Nagoshi et al, 2014: 26).
Enforcing compulsory heterosexuality on Wayne Blake through medical intervention proves to be futile. The desire to make his body purely masculine fails to materialize as his natural anatomy refuses to conform to the expectations of society even after the medical intervention. In spite of the hormone injection therapy, meant to make Wayne’s body follow a masculine path, it refuses to be controlled. The result is the confusion that prompts Wayne to ask his parents; ‘Is what I 41
have [...] called something?’ (Winter, 2010: 96), and to ask Thomasina; ‘Am I weird?’ (Winter, 2010: 123). The situation becomes worse when Wayne’s feet start peeling and he starts having constant stomach aches. It is later discovered that his abdomen is swollen – full with menstrual blood (Winter, 2010: 122). His parents lie to him that he has a blood disorder but Thomasina tells him that ‘I wouldn’t call what you have a disorder. I’d call it a different order. A different order means a whole new way of being. It could be fantastic. It could be overwhelmingly beautiful, if people weren’t scared’ (Winter, 2010: 129). Being liberal, Thomasina is open minded and embraces the possibility of other forms of existence outside the sex binary of male and female. For her, intersex identity is another possibility, which unfortunately, society does not want to recognise and accept since intersex bodies neither conform to the ideals of compulsory able-bodiedness nor compulsory heterosexuality in sexual and social performance. Wayne’s health condition requires that he undergoes immediate surgery. It is after the surgery that Thomasina tells Wayne the truth about his anatomy. Doctor Lioukras, the physician he consults, tells him: [You are] a true hermaphrodite [...] it means you have everything boys have, and girls too. An almost complete presence of each [...] And your penis. If you weren’t taking your pills [...] Your penis wouldn’t be as large as it is now [...] You would become more like a girl than you are now. You’re already a girl inside (Winter, 2010: 145).
This realisation makes Wayne totally confused about his ambivalent gender identity and he is always nervous about changes in his body: Wayne took his pills but was always on the lookout for symptoms: swelling abdomen, abdominal pain of any kind, the appearance of breast tissue. Any change in facial or pubic hair. If any of these things happened he was to get Jacinta to drive him to Goose Bay and see Dr. Lioukras right away. Almost every day Wayne imagined such changes had occurred. It was hard to know if he had a real or an imagined ache (Winter, 2010: 161, emphasis added).
42
Wayne’s confusion between his real or imagined ache also alludes to the confusion he feels with regard to his gender identity. His ambivalence emerges as a result of the fact that he fails to tell which is the ‘real’ identity between the one he feels within and the other, which is ‘imagined’ by society in its (mis)construction of gender. As with most intersex cases, the ambivalence that manifests in Wayne’s body as he matures is as a result of the fact that when conducting the corrective surgery in infancy, his parents and doctors, in the words of Katrina Roen, treated Wayne’s body ‘as an object and not as an event in the process of becoming’ (Roen, 2009: 20). Wayne’s ambivalence due to the intersex anatomy comes about since, in infancy, his body was treated as ‘docile’ in that it could be ‘subjected, used, transformed, and improved’ (Foucault, 1977: 136). For Foucault (1977), docile bodies are basically those that are rendered powerless and are objectified under the gaze of the disciplinary powers that seek to control them. In this regard, Wayne’s intersex body manifests as docile since its acceptance into mainstream society is subject to the normative disciplines of compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory able-bodiedness that seek to improve it into acceptable standards of normality. The purported docility of the intersex body connotes the unfortunate fact that society and medicine objectify bodies they strive to control, in the process denying the subjectivity of individuals who possess such bodies. This denial of subjectivity in intersex people renders them powerless and they feel alienated from the rest of society as they feel inadequate as full human beings worth the dignity ‘normal’ people are accorded. The climax of the story perhaps comes when Thomasina tells Wayne that there was a foetus in his fallopian tube the night he went to the hospital (as a result of self-fertilization1). It is this realisation that prompts him to rethink his identity despite what mainstream society made him believe all the while. The pregnancy, on the one hand, affirms Wayne’s existence as a human being
1
This is a kind of fertilization that occurs when male and female gametes (sex cells) produced by the same organism unite. It occurs in bi-sexual organisms, including most flowering plants, numerous protozoans, and invertebrate animals. 43
with a functioning body, capable of giving birth to another as is expected of ‘normals’ in society. On the other hand, this pregnancy may also serve in affirming societal convictions that the intersex individual is ‘weird’ and not ‘normal’ since humans are not known to reproduce through selffertilization. It is this confusing realisation that makes Wayne contemplate taking decisive steps in comprehending his anatomy. He makes a decision to leave his home town in search of a new place where he could live as an intersex individual; a place where he would not feel compelled to fit into the male-female binary. In his analysis of the novel, Shawn Syms points out that, ‘experiencing a confusing identification with femininity from early boyhood, Wayne grows up an outsider, and eventually relocates to St. Johns, where he struggles to take greater control of his body and identity’ (Syms 2011: n.p.). The journey motif employed by Kathleen Winter in the narrative becomes very important in the analysis of the subject matter in the novel. Wayne’s movement from Labrador to St. John’s can be regarded as a journey of self-discovery where he decides to explore other possibilities of gender identity rather than sticking to a community that wants to define him based on its normative convictions of gender as either male (masculine) or female (feminine). He embarks on this journey to reconsider his anatomy and gender identity in a quest of establishing his ‘true identity’ amidst social prejudice and misunderstanding.
Walking the Fissure: Wayne Blake’s Choice and Commitment to Live as Intersex The journey from Labrador to St. Johns marks the beginning of a new life for Wayne Blake. This journey is not only physical but also becomes psychological in that it becomes a travail through which he tries to comprehend his anatomy and decide his gender identity. His soul searching is revealed in his musings as he contemplates: By the fifth mile of a walk like that you forgot where you were and how you had got there. If you had the right boots and clothes, it could rain and you could still walk and think and work out where your
44
life should go, now that you had left things behind that confused you, that defined you as a man when you weren’t a man. Not the son your dad wanted. Not a son who kept up family traditions. Not a Labrador trapper, strong mettled and well read, solitary but knowing how to lead a pack. Instead you were ambiguous, feminine, undecided (Winter, 2010: 202, emphasis added).
Winter’s use of the word ‘undecided’ clearly indicates her character’s conviction that he is neither a man nor a woman. He believes that he is still searching for belonging in a world characterised by binary thinking – a world that does not allow one to exist in a grey area, different from the majority. This fact leaves Wayne Blake confused with his ambivalent gender identity, which comes about because of the intersex anatomy. On this journey of self-discovery, Wayne decides to stop taking the pills that made his body what the world wanted it to be instead of what it wanted to be. He essentially rejects his purported docility by challenging society’s imposition of compulsory heterosexuality and compulsory able-bodiedness on him. He makes this bold decision but his greatest fear becomes that of social stigma; upon the realisation that people in his world belong to a strict gender dichotomy. The people, were one, extremely so, or they were the other. The women trailed tapered gloves behind them and walked in ludicrous heels, while the men, with their fuzzy sideburns and brown briefcases, looked boring as little beagles out for the same rabbit. You define a tree and you do not see what it is; it becomes its name. It is the same with woman and man. Everywhere Wayne looked there was one or the other, male or female, abandoned by the other. The loneliness of this cracked the street in half. Could the two halves of the street bear to see Wayne walk the fissure and not name him a beast? (Winter, 2010: 211).
This male/female binary leaves no room for the existence of intersex individuals since they do not conform to the ‘norms’. As such, they are alienated and left to struggle with the loneliness of their ‘obscure’ identities on the margins of society. Wayne’s intersex anatomy, (which is a mixture of two sexes) makes him exist as an obscure object in a normative society, a condition that makes him qualify as abnormal and/or a beast in the eyes of his society. His body neither conforms to standards of compulsory heterosexuality, 45
which require that you either exist as a man or a woman with heterosexual orientation, nor does it conform to standards of compulsory able-bodiedness that define the ideal human body. Nevertheless, Wayne makes a choice to live as intersex amidst possible stigma and social prejudice and he decides that ‘he would just have to live with whatever happened’ (Winter, 2010: 214). This choice and commitment does not go without consequences. He sees himself as ‘mysterious and undefined’ (Winter, 2010: 216). The changes in his body are noticed by the society and some people, including his boss, begin to resent him. Living with the intersex identity, the narrator tells us that Wayne Blake felt ‘alone in a world where everybody was secure in their place either as woman or man. His aloneness was what made him feel ashamed and he did not know why it had to be so’ (Winter, 2010: 248). Mainstream society does not want to accept Wayne’s decision to live with what Susan Wendell (1996: 85) calls ‘the rejected body’.
Conclusion: Towards Tolerance and the Acceptance of the Different Body The paper has demonstrated that the intersex anatomy is the basis for the creation of a bodily ambivalence in intersex individuals in its examination of the lived experience of Wayne Blake in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel (2010). As such, in order to accommodate the intersex individual in mainstream society, intersex anatomy should not be regarded as disability or as an abnormality. Rather, it must be considered only as a form of difference, since every one of us is, in essence, different from the other. As Susan Wendell argues, ‘difference is also more value neutral than either stigmatization or ‘otherness’, and it is therefore possible and necessary to ask whether a particular kind of difference is as good as or better than ‘normality’’ (1996: 66). Realising that no body is ideal and that we all fall short is certain corporeal aspects (whether perceptible or not) will help in challenging and debunking the stigma against the intersex anatomy. Instead of stigmatizing intersex people, mainstream society should direct its efforts towards understanding intersexuality merely as difference and not as disability or monstrosity.
46
It also ought to be mentioned that literature, as a mirror of reality, tries to bring to light issues that are affecting different societies in different spaces and times. In this regard, the value of the literary text analysed in this paper cannot be overemphasized. Through the fictitious account of the protagonist, this novel serves to expose lives that are usually on the margins by highlighting issues that are often eschewed in mainstream discourses. As such the problem identified in this paper mirrors problems that real people in the real world may be facing, silently or openly. As such, the findings of the paper should not only end with the text in question and the fictional character involved, but they should be applied to address real life gender identity problems that intersex people face in our societies today.
Wesley Macheso Mzuzu University macheso.w@mzuni.ac.mw
Reference List Angelides, S. (2001) A History of Bisexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Butler, J. (1999) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Callahan, G. (2009) Between XX and XY: Intersexuality and the Myth of Two Sexes. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000) Sexing the Body : Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York: Basic. Foucault, M. (1977) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage. Goffman, E. (1963) Stigma. London: Penguin. Holmes, M. (ed.) (2009) Critical Intersex. Famham: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Holmes, M. (2008) Intersex: A Perilous Difference. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press.
47
Kessler, S. (1990) ‘The Medical Construction of Gender: Management of Intersexed Infants’. Signs. Vol. 16.1, pp. 3-26. McRuer, R. (2006) Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York: New York University Press. Nagoshi, J., Nagoshi, C., and Brzuzy, S. (2014) Gender and Sexual Identity: Transcending Feminist and Queer Theory. New York: Springer. Neuhaus, M. (2012) ‘Inventions of Sexuality in Kathleen Winter’s Annabel’. Studies in Canadian Literature. Vol. 37.1. O’Grady, C. (2011) ‘Annabel by Kathleen Winter.’ Rev. of Annabel, by Kathleen Winter. The Guardian. Rich, A. (1980) ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’. Women: Sex and Sexuality. Vol. 5.4, pp. 631-660. Roen, K. (2009) ‘Clinical Intervention and Embodied Subjectivity: Atypically Sexed Children and their Parents’, in Holmes, M. (ed.), Critical Intersex, Famham: Ashgate Publishing Limited, pp. 15-40. Syms, S. (2010) ‘Annabel.’ Rev. of Annabel, by Kathleen Winter. Quill & Quire. Wendell, S. (1996) The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability. London: Routledge. Winter, K. (2011) Annabel. Toronto: House of Anansi Press.
48
Nancy Rochford Flynn Not Having to Think, You Just Did: Magdalenism and the Importance of Active Commemoration as a means of Countering Cultural Forms of Forgetfulness Abstract This article relates to an emerging gendered activism which ensures that women’s stories are represented in historical memory. It aims to redress the current imbalance in representation by telling forgotten and, or, hidden female stories of the once forgotten Magdalene Laundry women. Utilising a qualitative analysis, it presents chronologically a comprehensive picture of the historic abuse suffered by women who were incarcerated in Magdalene Laundries. This analysis places Ireland within its historical context by exploring the integration of nationalism and religion which manifested to enhance the image of a newly independent Irish nation. Moreover, it examines how the influence of the Catholic Church in deciding social care provision, particularly in relation to unmarried mothers was supported by the Irish Free State. The social construction of motherhood within Irish society is reviewed to illustrate how the systematic control for the role of women which followed was a contributing factor to the incarceration of women in Magdalene Laundries. It details an in-depth account of the importance of female purity to this agenda. Furthermore, this article illustrates that in order for the state to achieve the aspiration for female purity, women were oppressed and their voices marginalised. In utilising the theories of Jeremy Bentham (1843) and Michel Foucault (1991) this study implements a framework which outlines how power manifestations developed. The core focus of this study examines active commemoration as a vital means of countering cultural forms of forgetfulness, especially those which fail to connect critically with the past. As James Smith (2007: 183-184) states, cultural representations of the Magdalene story do not provide adequate acknowledgement of the inflictions endured by these women. He suggests that contemporary Irish society has become strangely ‘desensitized’ to this strand of our recent history. Flowers for Magdalenes is promoted as one such critical practice of active commemoration which remembers, acknowledges and gives voice to the once silenced Magdalene 49
women. Moreover, it demonstrates how something which is lost in a society’s amnesia can be brought to our attention for acknowledging and redressing victims and survivors.
Research Rationale The quest for justice and equality is an on-going battle for Irish women, particularly those who were incarcerated in Ireland’s Magdalene laundries. The question of how these women are represented in Irish cultural memory is a relatively new phenomenon. Until recent years the narratives of Magdalene women have been hidden and excluded from Irish history. My interest in this topic began as a result of my work as an interdisciplinary artist. In 2012, I conducted a number of semi-structured interviews with a woman who, for the purpose of this scholarly work, is referenced under the pseudonym of Mary. Mary was incarcerated in the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, Magdalene Laundry, New Ross, Co. Wexford. New Ross is my home town and I was educated at St. Mary’s convent of Mercy which is situated at the former site of the laundry. Having listened to Mary’s narrative I embarked on a body of work utilising art and activism in an effort to acknowledge Mary’s experience and the experiences of other incarcerated women. As James Smith (2007: xviii) states, ‘Magdalene Laundries are part of Ireland’s present not just Ireland’s past’ thus this work strived to exemplify ethical engagement between past and present. Including these narratives as part of Irish cultural memory offers some solace to living survivors who continue to search for support and reconciliation.
Ireland’s Historical context and the Birth of Irish Magdalenism In the nineteenth century, the Magdalene mission was primarily rehabilitative and philanthropic. Magdalene asylums were initially set up as homes for prostitutes and the homeless with the view of rehabilitating women back into society. By the early twentieth century the homes had become increasingly punitive and carceral. The general opinion obtained from reading the contemporary literature available is that the asylums were as Maria Luddy terms it, ‘virtual prisons’, and that the 50
women who were placed there were unlikely ever to leave (Luddy, 2007: 95). The laundries were attached to convents, and were operated by religious Sisters. Women known as penitents were incarcerated in these institutions and required to undertake hard physical labour. This included working with containers of boiling water for laundering and steaming from heavy irons, for which they received no pay (O’ Donnell, 2011). As one survivor recounts; ‘we slopped out like prisoners, wore a uniform like prisoners, our cells locked up like prisoners’ (Yeager, 2014). The life of the penitent woman was characterised by silence and prayer. The women and girls were kept in a perpetual state of psychological turmoil, often unaware of why they were there. They had to be signed out of these institutions meaning many remained ‘to live, work, and ultimately die, behind convent walls’ (O’ Donnell, 2011). The laundries were one fragment of an assortment of interconnected institutions in Ireland which formed what Smith (2007: xiii) describes as, ‘Ireland’s architecture of containment’. These included Mother and Baby Homes, Industrial Schools, adoption agencies and mental asylums. These institutions concealed the most marginalised members of Irish society. Those incarcerated included unmarried mothers, orphans, illegitimate children, those deemed socially transgressive or sexually promiscuous and, or, any person regarded as ‘being in the way’. Kathryn Conrad (2004: 4; 2004: 11) explains that anyone who did not ‘fit the model’ of the expected Irish family structure was ‘excluded, silenced, and punished’. This structure identified heterosexual marriage as the model necessary for ensuring national security and a stable social order. As she further states, Irish nationalist discourse echoed the centrality of the heteronormative family which placed the Irish man as the kernel of family and nation. Women were to be firmly entrenched in the home as wives, mothers and carers. Diane Richardson (2000: 80) concurs, stating that other forms of heterosexuality, for instance, young women who were single mothers, jeopardised this notion. They were therefore exploited and manipulated to serve the ends of those who sought to maintain the concept of ‘purity’ within the family cell.
51
Maryann Gialanella Valiulis (2009: 101) notes that the Irish Government had resolved to devise a conservative, Catholic, Gaelic state which would warrant its application for independence, and women were central to this definition. Catholic bishops’ believed; it would be “unworthy” of any Irish government to introduce legislation contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church . . . therefore the government of the Irish Free State (…) should uphold Catholic social teaching in all legislative decisions (Beaumont, 1997: 565).
Throughout the 1920s the governments in office, Cumann na nGaedheal, and later Fianna Fail willingly incorporated Catholic principles in social legislation (Beaumont, 1997: 565). This collusion favoured institutional provision in response to perceived moral and social deviancy (Smith, 2007: xvi). Power was thus legitimised in Ireland through a fusion of nationalism and religion. This fusion strengthened the influence of the Catholic Church in deciding social care provision, particularly in relation to unmarried mothers. Furthermore, it became the vehicle to implement social services from a particularly conservative moral perspective. The Irish Constitution of 1922 promised equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens; however Caitriona Beaumont (1997: 563) notes that by 1937 this promise of equality transformed into a more ‘gender based’ definition. A hegemonic practice ensued which resulted in the establishment of an ultra-conservative Catholic and moral society which supported this system of gender legislation. The increasing influence of a conservative Irish Catholic moral order meant that these institutions provided both Church and State with the mechanisms and structures to incarcerate women, who in fact should have been protected. This underlines the societal apathy which failed to question their ‘raison d’etre’ (Smith, 2007: 144). Ireland’s new moral superiority had far reaching consequences for these women. As Smith (2007: 4) highlights, single motherhood occurred more often than not as a result of rape, paedophilia and incest 2 Many of these women were victims of sexual abuse by men under
2
In the final analysis of the Carrigan Report 1931 not a single politician, committee member or member of the judiciary offered an alternative to the institutionalisation of women to resolve sexual immortality. Furthermore, nobody argued that the problem of paedophilia and sexual abuse 52
a legal double standard that condemned the female victims as criminals and concealed male culpability (Smith, 2007: xvii). Moreover, men in Irish society benefited from the existence of these institutions because they concealed sexual offences while simultaneously sexualising the women and children who fell victim to society’s moral prescriptions (Smith, 2007: 144). The Irish State turned a blind eye to the maltreatment of these women and co-operated completely with institutions that systematically incarcerated them and stole their right to freedom (Makarushka, 2012: 8).
Irish Idealism and the Concept of Motherhood The Catholic Church constructed a narrative which ‘monopolised the field of sexuality and debate and discussion of sex’ (Inglis, 1998: 30). The image of the Madonna symbolised virtue, thus representations of the Madonna were adopted as the model of idealisation of woman and motherhood. In contrast, those who became mothers outside of marriage were viewed as being ‘a danger to the community’ and referred to as Eve (Illegitimate Children Bill, 1930 cited in Valiulis, 2009: 111). The ideal of the Madonna was an impossible role model for any woman to aspire to. ‘Her virginity made their sexuality problematic, casting them in the role of Temptress to men: symbols of Eve’ (Condren, 2002: 165-166). A conclusion which derives from the notion of Eve suggests that even a married mother was more Eve than Mary, and a mother who bore a child outside of marriage was consigned to the lower ranks; the Magdalene. Ireland needed to demonstrate success, as an independent nation, and this moral superiority platform became its vehicle. Essentially, women’s sexuality was considered to be the crux of the problem in sustaining female purity. To safeguard this notion of purity, women had to
should preside over the ‘problem’ of unmarried mothers. The report and successive legislation licensed the State’s punitive and secretive reply to sexual immortality. Smith 2007 suggests that the origins of Ireland’s containment culture are embedded in the Carrigan Report 1931 & Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935 (Smith, 2007: 5, para 2) 53
be controlled, and thus the systematic control of female sexuality by the State was introduced (Valiulis, 2009: 103). As the accepted view of the female gender was virtuous, devout, and subservient, women were central to the definition of a morally pure state. Women were expected to be nothing more or less than wives and mothers: and in that order, ‘a good daughter who knew her place in relation to family duty, sexuality and sexual desire and who would evolve into a good wife and a good mother’ (Gray, 2003: 125). As the new state began to determine its moral order the role of motherhood became the focal point of this patriarchal system of power. Motherhood therefore became a ‘central mechanism through which women [were] incorporated into the modern political order’ (Carver & Chamber, 2011: 116). Thus the Free State authorised gender legislation with the aim of removing women’s involvement in the political and economic life of the State with the construction of the Irish Constitution. The Irish Constitution in 1937 enshrined within law the position of Irish mothers; Article 41.2.1° states: ‘In particular, the State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved’. Article 41.2.2° continues, ‘The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home’ (Bunreacht na hÉireann, 1937: 158, 160). Motherhood was therefore given a political significance but only in the married sense, thus supporting the confinement of women who transgressed this rigid moral code. Issues of class, status, sexual orientation and respectability were scrutinised (Richardson, 2000). Anecdotal evidence suggests that there were also issues of race and that racialised people in Ireland at this time fell victim to this differentiated social arrangement. With its emphasis on the sanctity of the traditional Catholic married family and placing women within the constraints of the home, the State subjected all other women to an existence of exclusion and vulnerability. The Irish mother was therefore instrumental in developing the Catholic Church’s ‘moral monopoly’ because, she was the crucial link between the institutional structure and the religious devotion of each new generation of Irish Catholics (Inglis, 1998: 238-239). The social construction 54
of the role of motherhood satisfied the expectations of this new moral order. Those who deviated from this moral code were frowned upon and hidden from society thus lending to the existence of Magdalene laundries The State legitimised Magdalene institutions to its citizens as places of refuge and charity, rather than ‘virtual prisons’ (Luddy, 2007) which institutionalised some of Ireland’s most vulnerable citizens. This type of representation performs an antithesis to the intolerable oppression suffered by women as a result of the power of Irish Catholicism. Magdalene laundries thus became part of Ireland's larger system for the control of women and children (Raftery, 1999: 18).
The Construction of Power and Control within the Laundries Our society is increasingly concerned with monitoring, surveillance and control. This has been true even since the 19th-century, when English philosopher, Jeremy Bentham (1843) explored the optimum architectural design of the ‘perfect prison’: the ‘Panopticon’. Power through surveillance is one of the key focal points in Michel Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish (1991). His Panoptic theory developed as a result of Bentham’s Panopticon. The Panopticon was a circular architectural structure which housed prisoners in small individual cells around its circumference. At its core was an observational tower making it possible to simultaneously view each of the tiered cells. Each incarcerated prisoner was seen but could not communicate with the warden or other prisoners. According to Foucault (1991: 200), the prisoner is never aware whether he is being watched at any one moment; but must remain vigilant that he may always be. The prisoner can always see the tower but never knows from where he is being observed, thus inducing in the prisoner ‘a state of conscious and permanent visibility that ensures the automatic functioning of power . . . Visibility [becomes] a trap’ (Foucault, 1991: 201). The Panopticon becomes an apparatus of power which both induces a sense of constant scrutiny, and introduces a new mode of securing mind over body. Foucault used the Panopticon as a metaphor to explore how the relationship between power, knowledge, and surveillance operated in gaining social control. 55
Bentham (1843) decreed that power should be visible yet unverifiable. This architectural device instigates in a form of self-surveillance whereby the individual becomes enmeshed in the flows of power and discipline. In other words, the inmate should assume self-discipline and control, even when the surveillant is not there to enforce it. ‘Discipline is no longer simply an art of distributing bodies, of extracting time from them and accumulating it, but of composing forces in order to obtain an efficient machine’ (Foucault, 1991: 164). To apply this theory to the laundries, the penitents were under a system of constant surveillance so subtle it rendered itself almost invisible. This strengthened its normalisation and acceptance by the penitents. Foucault (1991: 136) uses the term ‘docile bodies’, one which is trained, shaped, manipulated, obeys, and responds to describe this act of conforming. Although the Magdalene Laundries were not constructed as physical Panopticons, the principles employed were the same. According to Luddy (2007), surveillance was the principal act in maintaining discipline and control over the penitents of the Magdalene Asylums. It is significant that the Good Shepherd Sisters that worked directly with the women were called ‘surveillantes’ (Angers, 1898 cited in Luddy, 2007: 99). The Good Shepherd Sisters were advised that; in the church, at their work, and especially during the recreation hours and in the dormitory, be watchful over our dear children . . . a lamp should burn all night in their dormitory . . . let your watchfulness extend itself to everyone . . . if you . . . leave them to themselves you may be the cause of the loss of their souls (Mother Mary of Saint Euphrasia, 1907, cited in Luddy, 2007: 99).
Evidence has shown that a Sister was placed in a position of surveillance at all times. The nuns thus metamorphosed into human Panopticons; Tasks and duties were conducted under complete silence with no communication allowed. In the dormitory it was expected that, ‘A Sister’s . . . room should be placed as to command a view of each dormitory’ (Guide for the Religious Called Sisters of Mercy, 1866, cited in Luddy, 2007: 105). The level of surveillance and power the Catholic Church was given over the Irish people by the state created a ‘panoptic’ society in line with Foucauldian theory. This panopticonism led to the collusion of the state and society in discrediting women and girls who breached the perception of the virtuous, pure female (Mercier, 2013: 32). 56
Power in the form of Ritual The Panoptic surveillance within the laundry manifested itself into a system whereby the penitents ultimately supervised themselves. These deliberate practices helped dehumanise the penitent woman. Power in the form of ritual is employed to develop within the penitent a new identity befitting to her diminished status. Ritual practices are the production of power relations and ‘act upon the actions of others’ (Bell, 1992: 204). Thus, the role of ritual becomes the method of purification which floods the overall fabric of the system within the laundries. Those in charge sought to establish hierarchies in the laundries in several ways, therefore creating an environment which brands the penitent with a system of labelling. Upon entering the laundry a women’s head was shaved, she was given a uniform to wear and her name was changed. Each of these acts served to enforce this label. For example, clothing expresses an individual’s self-awareness offering a particular image of the physical body, and one’s social being (Steele, 1985: 45). Juliet Ash concurs with this notion and states that clothing allows for expression of identity, ‘Dress both declares a woman’s femininity . . . and is one measure of her self-esteem’ (2010: 75). Removing one’s personal clothing results in low self-esteem and brands the penitent with perpetual shame. As clothes are connected to our sense of self, removing them detaches our association with ‘selfidentity and self-image’ (De Cunzo, 1995: 88). The practice of replacing one’s personal clothing with a uniform evolved from the prisons obsolete methods of humiliation. The fabric of the uniform is stiff and uncomfortable indicating that punishment of the body is part of the humiliation (Luddy, 2007: 96). Women’s heads were shaved because long hair was considered a sign of vanity. Moreover, having shorn hair was a recognisable sign of outcast status and this discouraged the inmate from leaving (Luddy, 2007: 60). Women were no longer called by their birth names and instead had new names assigned to them. The birth name was the last thread connecting them to their past, thus the ritual of renaming the women without their permission is a form of punishment and disenfranchisement (Makarushka, 2012: 29). Erving Goffman (1961) uses the term ‘total 57
institutions’ to describe a place where large numbers of people are subjected to leading an administered way of life enclosed and cut off from the wider society. He notes that the form of ‘personal defacement’ endured by the Magdalene women is common in such establishments (Goffman, 1961: 11). Irena Makarushka (2012: 8) suggests that the laundries exhibit characteristics of ‘total institutions’ as they both deny the right to an identity, and the opportunity to respond to a culture which deprives them of freedom and choice. This form of punishment results in a form of ‘disculturation’, or the experience of losing one’s ability to interact with others culturally after a long period of incarceration (Goffman, 1961: 13). This ‘process of decoding’ the penitent woman’s appearance dispenses her former life and self (Praetzellis, 1987 cited in De Cunzo, 1995). The penitent woman is subjected to a series of unseen elements controlled by power structures thus society’s perception of the laundry is controlled and accepted. These unseen elements include incarceration, coercion, isolation, and depression. Everything is now decided for the penitent; power controls the space; the clothes that she wears, the food she consumes and the name she must bear. A process of liminality is taking place which includes; Loss of preliminal names; loss of clothes, insignia and other indicators of preliminal identity . . . times of silence, restrictions of speech, and special vocabulary; and sexual continence . . . rendering the ritual participant sexless and anonymous (Turner, 1969: 102-104). This creates a mouldable situation which allows the establishment of new customs and rituals. The penitent’s life becomes repetitive, thus creating the spatiality which becomes her new existence; silence, prayer, laundry washing and obedience. As one survivor recalls, ‘We were robotic in our daily duties . . . not having to think, you just did, you didn’t have to use your brain’ (Yeager, 2014). The daily experiences of the penitent are hidden from the outside world and there evolves a sense of the taken for grantedness of her situation. The laundry is a space of constructed visibility which is never challenged. The penitent is unmarried and therefore unwanted, and society accepts this evidence without question. In contrast, the Sisters symbolise virtue, and are therefore unquestionable in their roles to reform and 58
rehabilitate these women. It would seem that society accepts the power structures as the norm, and never questions the concealed factors such as, who placed the woman in the laundry? Where is her baby? Where is the baby’s father? Where is her mother? What is her diet? What is the state of her health? Is she receiving an education? And when is her due date to get out? The role of ritual enabled the Sisters to reinforce the power structures within the space. Here also, the process of decoding and dehumanising the penitent woman was introduced to demonstrate how conformity was deemed the only way to find salvation.
Cultural Representation The cultural representation of these narratives adopt an anti-nostalgic stance to the past, thus enacting a form of social and cultural closure in itself. This form of representation has placed the discourse surrounding the incarceration of Irish women in the shadows of Irish cultural memory and fails to present it as a contemporary issue that has yet to be fully resolved. As Fintan O’ Toole (2017) states: ‘there is a way of thinking about the Ireland we inhabit that divides its consciousness into two states: a dark past and a bright future’ (The Irish Times, 2017). According to Emilie Pine (2011), Irish nostalgia forms a huge part of Irish National memory. Pine (2011: 8) argues that Irish nostalgia endeavours to offer us a happy ending in that it performs the past without making any demands on the present. Anti-nostalgia takes this a stage further and occurs when cultural remembrance presents the past to us as a place of pain and trauma closed off from the present. Pine (2011: 14) continues by stating that anti-nostalgia is selective in that it assumes the present is already so much a better place than the past. In consequence, ethical memory becomes ‘the converse of political amnesia’ (Pine, 2011: 15). The ethical issues evident by the existence of this confinement culture raise the question of how nostalgia operates culturally. Joe Cleary notes that the Ireland portrayed in cultural memory is often distant from the Ireland of today, thus it is easy to refer to these days as ‘dark times’ (2000: 108). He contends that this type of cultural representation of Ireland’s past permits present day detachment and a sense of, ‘a lucky escape 59
from all that’ providing a closed and resolved image of past injustices (Cleary, 2000: 108). Pine argues that the term ‘bad old days’ both justifies the past and prevents us from connecting these bad days with present day [traumas] (2011: 43). The anti-nostalgia framing of this section of our history forms a powerful boundary which cordons off the trauma of the past. Subsequent generations are suffering as a result of society’s detachment from this recent era in Irish women’s history. Placing the Magdalene issue in the shadows of Irish cultural memory prevents its association with present day trauma, disconnecting it from the continuing abuse and negative attitudes towards women.
Unresolved Trauma and Ambiguous Loss The trauma experienced by the Magdalene women as a result of the disenfranchisement and personal defacement endured by them results in a longing for a sense of place and a sense of self; These states of being help shape our identity and connect us to our history. Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart refers to historical trauma as the ‘cumulative emotional and psychological wounding across generations, including the lifespan’ (2005: 4). Anti-nostalgic cultural representation fails to address that the long-term physical and psychological effect of this trauma crosses generations. Many women who were unwanted by their families were incarcerated in the laundries having given birth outside of wedlock in Mother and Baby homes. Many of these babies were illegally adopted from these homes by nuns who facilitated this service. Mary, who suffered incarceration in the laundries recalls; I got pregnant when I was sixteen. I had to be hidden. Friends of my parent’s hid me for a short while until my parent’s found a mother and baby home for me. They found a home in Northern Ireland and my daughter was then adopted. I came back to New Ross for a period to The Good Shepherd’s before my parents eventually took me back home. If my parents’ hadn’t taken me out I would still be there because I had nowhere else to go, and unless you had somebody who was willing to take you into their home you couldn’t leave (Interview with Rochford Flynn, October, 2012).
60
A recent article by Marie O Hallroan notes that the UN committee against torture in Geneva criticised the State’s approach to the alleged abuse in Magdalene laundries by stating: ‘Ireland has not thoroughly investigated [these abuses] including the alleged illegal forced adoptions of children born out of wedlock and without the permission of the mothers’(The Irish Times, 2017). Many of these children were adopted by wealthy Catholic families in the United States, allegedly feeding an organised system which resulted in the trafficking of children for profit by nuns who facilitated this service. A conservative estimate is that over 2,000 Irish children were illegally adopted to the United States (The Irish Times, 2018). These children, now adults, are the living memory which connects past with present. Returning as adults they face the same Church/State drip fed system of information as their mothers did while an indifferent society looks on. Currently in Ireland, adopted people do not have an automatic statutory right to their birth certificates or access to information regarding the circumstances of their births (Adoption Rights Alliance, n.d.: para. 1). Access to information is crucial in providing vital clues in the tracing of one’s birth parents. According to Adoptive Rights Alliance (n.d.: para. 3) successive Irish Governments’ have failed to legislate for access to adoption records and have inhibited the tracing process for adopted people by excluding their personal files from the Freedom of Information Act 1997. They contend: Without their adoption files, adopted people are denied information on their natural families, the circumstances surrounding their adoption, their early care and medical records . . . In addition to issues of identity, family history and heritage, the lack of available medical information can have life threatening implications for adopted people, their children, grandchildren and subsequent generations, as well as natural family members (Adoption Rights Alliance, n.d.: para. 3).
The loss endured by Magdalene survivors and their children is challenging to overcome and has become magnified over the years because their loss is linked to a lack of closure. Pauline Boss (2006) uses the term ‘ambiguous loss’ to describe this lack of closure. She notes that finding closure is difficult with any loss, but an experience of ambiguous loss makes finding closure impossible because ‘there is no official recognition of there even being a real loss’ (Boss, 2006: 4). According to Boss (2006: 22), ambiguous loss is ‘inherently traumatic’ because the incapacity to rectify the 61
situation causes distress, pain, confusion, shock and often immobilization. She contends that the trauma experienced by this type of loss can be chronic and that those who suffer it bear a particular and challenging burden. The inconceivable nature of ambiguous loss makes it the most stressful type of loss, thus can weaken one’s emotional resilience and well-being.
Flowers for Magdalenes: Community Healing through Active Commemoration Community healing is necessary to address historical unresolved trauma and its manifestations. Active commemoration provides a means of addressing unresolved trauma by countering cultural forms of forgetfulness, especially those which fail to connect critically with the past. It provides an opportunity to bridge the void which disconnects it from the present. Pine (2013: 6) suggests that this ‘void’ manifests because of a general absence of understanding or knowledge by society, regarding the women’s experiences in the laundry. She adopts the term ‘social agnosia’ or ‘mind blindness’ to understand this void3 (Pine, 2013: 6). Agnosia is a medical term used to describe a cognitive inability to understand or recognise the meaning of what is being seen, as a result of the type of brain damage caused by a stroke. The ensuing problem of perception is not the incapacitation to see, but to construe the meaning of what is seen (Pine, 2013: 6). Flowers for Magdalenes is one such critical practice which plays a pivotal role in responding to forms of nostalgic memory. The first of these non-religious commemorations was celebrated in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin in March 2012. It was established by members of the Justice for Magdalene’s advocacy group, and pays homage to women who lived and died behind convent walls. It is estimated that at least 1,663 former Magdalene women are buried in cemeteries across Ireland, many in unmarked graves (McGettrick, 2016). As Smith highlights: ‘Postindependence Ireland’s fixation on moral and social respectability dictated that [these women] remain as anonymous in death as they were in life’ (2007: 160). In early 2014 during my on-going research
3
This is a concept discussed by Guy Beiner in his lecture, ‘On Jews and Hats: Irish Memory and Invisible Asylum Seekers’ delivered Trinity Dublin, 28 January, 2013. 62
into the plight of the Magdalene women, I stumbled across a social media post promoting the Glasnevin Flowers for Magdalenes commemoration. Intrigued by this idea, I contacted the Justice for Magdalenes Research4 (JFMR) advocacy group to suggest organising a similar event at the graveside of the women who were incarcerated in the New Ross laundry. As noted by Ian McBride, ‘commemorative ceremonies have become historical forces in their own right’ (2001: 2). As a result of this liaison, the first Flowers for Magdalenes commemoration was celebrated at the mass Magdalene grave in St. Stephen’s Cemetery, New Ross, on March 2 nd 2014. In December of the following year, St. Aidan’s Industrial school which formed part of the laundry complex in New Ross was demolished. This ‘architecture of containment’ (Smith, 2007) was the last remaining physical evidence of the laundry complex. The communal grave in St. Stephen’s Cemetery is now the only remaining symbol of a legacy that a Magdalene Laundry existed in New Ross and provides the only focal point for survivors and their families. Academically speaking, the significance of this type of commemorative process is twofold. Firstly, unlike most other academic studies which are theory driven, Flowers for Magdalenes New Ross is unique in that it relates to the ‘act of doing’, so it is guided by a strong intersection of practice to theory as opposed to the norm of theory to practice. Secondly, as Pine (2013: 9) suggests, it results in an active commemorative community, which creates a ‘renewed social agency through active spectatorship’. The ‘act of doing’ aims to eliminate ‘social agnosia’ and jolt society to become active spectators, thus eradicating the passiveness and ‘pools of unknowing’ which lead to a ‘failure of spectatorship’ (Pine, 2013: 6). The integration of practice to theory contributes new knowledge to the field of academia. Furthermore, it utilises active commemoration as a way of communicating the lived experiences of the Magdalene women to a larger audience. Flowers for Magdalenes has become an annual nationwide event which is now celebrated in six locations where there is a Magdalene grave. It takes place on the first Sunday in March to mark
4
From here on Justice for Magdalenes research will be referred to as JFMR. 63
International Women’s Day. On this day, members of the public are invited to visit Magdalene graves around Ireland and place a flower in honour of those who did not live to receive reparation. This memorial to the most marginalised of Irish women reflects on the lived experience of nameless women incarcerated in Magdalene Asylums. It gives voice to their daily struggles and evokes their presence through reflection, poetry, song and the laying of flowers. Moreover, it makes a poignant and respectful statement which gives presence to their memory. Flowers for Magdalenes New Ross, has become both an interdisciplinary and an intergenerational gathering which unites the community of New Ross through activism, history and cultural remembrance. Furthermore, it encourages community involvement and participation with increasing offers every year from people who wish to be involved and contribute to the commemoration. Sixty-two known women are buried in the mass grave at St. Stephen’s cemetery. The ceremony includes a recital of these names. As each name is read out, a young girl simultaneously places one carnation flower for each name as it is called. We are left with a line of flowers in memory of the women which provides a powerful visual representation of unity and strength. Snowdrops are placed on the graveside signifying hope and better things to come, together with paper flowers made by the junior infants from our local Educate Together National School. Members of the community then lay flowers together with flowers donated by local businesses. Colourful bunting made by older women who lived through these dark times is draped around the graveside. These elderly women travel a one hour journey by bus to attend this commemoration. Bunting is traditionally used to mark a celebration or the signalling of a group. This gesture by this group of older women thus relates strongly to the act of commemoration. As noted by Joep Leerssen ‘traditionary renewal, self-repetition, and re-enactment’ are elements of community remembrance rituals which are especially pertinent in relation to the collective will ‘not to forget’ (2001: 215). Arts and Culture Minister Heather Humphreys (2016) stated that the 1916 Centenary celebrations helped strengthened Irish national identity. These events included an 64
acknowledgement of the important roles women played in society in the past 100 years. In remembering we must remember all women and I felt compelled to include the Magdalene’s as part of these celebrations. As Mary Robinson declared in her inaugural address in December 1990 ‘as a woman I want the women who have felt themselves outside history to be written back into history5’ (Robinson, 1990). The expression ‘keeping the flag flying’ is often used in reference to acting or speaking on behalf of the group that a flag represents. This inspired me to design a flag to acknowledge the women that laboured and died in the Magdalene Laundry in New Ross. The snowdrop was subsequently used as an emblem of hope in the design. This flag was raised by a member of the Magdalene community marking the women’s final resting place. As Mary Robinson (1996) suggests, the act of [Raising this flag in what is] an historical and public location adds significance [to this gesture] (Robinson, 1996, citied in Smith, 2007 p. 162). Kevin Whelan (2003, p.94) describes this type of gesture as a ‘rememorative’ version of history, or the effort to write in that which has been omitted or erased. The occasion was marked with a special musical tribute, composed and performed by a local musician, titled The Emasculated Magdalenes Innocence. We are left with the visual representation of the flowers, an after-effect which lingers as a formidable reminder, that the silence and secrecy of their lives no longer exists. Raising a flag is a significant gesture which brings something to notice, so much so that it inspired the same local musician to compose an anthem which he titled Flag of Flowers. This anthem was rehearsed over a number of weeks by a group of local women who performed it as a closing tribute at the 2017 commemoration; Flag of Flowers show the way/ May we never see the day/ when our story is all lost/ from our country at great cost. Flag of Flowers flying free/ make us stronger you and me/ help us overcome the wrongs/ by our meetings, poems, and songs (Fottrell, 2017).
5
Address by the President, Mary Robinson, on the Occasion of her Inauguration as President of Ireland, Para 10 65
Flowers for Magdalenes, 2017 2017 marked the 50th anniversary since the closure of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd’s Magdalene Laundry in New Ross, Co. Wexford. The 2017 Flowers for Magdalenes commemoration coincided with the announcement from the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes that, ‘significant’ quantities of human remains had been found buried under the site of a former institution for unmarried mothers run by the Sisters of the Bon Secours in Tuam, County Galway. The Commission of Investigation was established after Galway based historian Catherine Corless ‘published research that revealed death certificates for 796 children at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home with no indication of their burial places (The Irish Times, 2017). This news sparked widespread revulsion and national
humiliation. As a nation we were outraged by the
dumping of the bodies of substantial quantities of babies and children aged from about 35 foetal weeks to two to three years (The Irish Times, 2017). Society empathised with the loss and suffering of innocents. This gruesome and harrowing discovery grasped the media’s attention and they latched on to the horror. The influx of local and national media attention for the Flowers for Magdalenes commemoration in New Ross which ensued was no coincidence. Suddenly Flowers for Magdalenes began to gain momentum. The media’s light turned towards the Magdalene commemoration and incarcerated women who have long been lost in society’s amnesia. As Smith (2007: xvii) reminds us; cultural representation through popular media exploits and sensationalises the circumstances behind such revelations for its ‘shock value’. Does it take such horror for us to realise that this empathy must be extended to the mothers of these same children, some of whom experienced discipline and punishment within the laundries? Deemed as fallen, deviant and a menace to society; these perceptions shape our cultural memory and assumptions regarding these women at that time. The Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee (2013) to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalene Laundries states that approximately 10,000 women nationally are known to have entered a Magdalene Laundry from the foundation of the State in 1922 until the 66
closure of the last laundry in 1996 (McAleese, 2013). In December 2009 the Department of Justice stated at a meeting with Justice for Magdalenes (JFM)6 that ‘there was no legal basis supporting the courts use of these institutions to confine women’ (JFM, 2013: 100). JFM report, that had proper legislation been enacted, ‘lawful incarceration in the Laundries would have been for a limited period’ (JFM, 2013: 100). Furthermore, proper legislation would have meant that the laundries would have come under State supervision (JFMR, 2012: 101-102). This meant that women incarcerated in the laundries were confined and controlled, with no recourse to appeal or determine their alleged offence or committal circumstances. They therefore had no opportunity to challenge the poor treatment they received from the state run institutions. When the laundries finally began to close many of the remaining women dreaded the prospect of leaving the system which had institutionalised them. JFMR report that from ‘June 2013, at least 115 women were still living in the care of the religious orders responsible for the Laundries’7 (JFMR, 2017: 7). Rejected by a society which viewed sex as a sin they continued their penance long after such views were discarded. Demoralised, controlled and kept ignorant of changing attitudes which excluded them from the sexual revolution (Finnegan, 2011: 4-5).
The Quest for Equality and Justice On May 22nd 2015 Ireland became the first country to approve same-sex marriage. This amendment to the Irish Constitution (1937) highlights the transition that is occurring within Irish society in relation to equality and gender. Though much has changed and despite the decline in
6
Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) was established in 2003. Its aim was to bring about an official apology from the Irish State, and to establish a compensation scheme for all Magdalene survivors. JFM exited the political arena in May 2013 having achieved its aims. At this point Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) was established. The main aim of JFMR is to provide for the advancement of education of the general public by researching the Magdalene Laundries and similar institutions and by providing information and support to the women who spent time in the Magdalene Laundries and their families. (JFM Research, n.d.). 7 The original source of this finding can be found within Magdalene Commission Report, para 4.10 67
their influence, the Catholic Church is still historically intertwined with the State. The current placement of women and children asylum seekers in Direct Provision hostels indicates a continued societal indifference to equality. The Reception and Integration Agency (2017: para. 1) advise that direct provision in Ireland provides the basic needs of shelter and food for asylum seekers while their claims for refugee status are being processed. Asylum seekers receive full board accommodation and personal allowances of €21.60 per week from the State. According to Liam Thornton (2015: 4), the recommendations on direct provision accommodation which emerged from the McMahon Report (2015)8 ‘embeds institutionalised living for protection seekers in Ireland’. He contends that the McMahon report justifies separation, exclusion, and distancing of protection seekers from Irish society by placing them in the direct provision system (Thornton, 2015: 31). Una Mullally (2017) suggests that as with the Magdalene Laundries which were hidden from view for years, ‘Direct Provision centres hide more successfully in our communities making their presence even more insidious’ (The Irish Times, 2017). This process of unjustly hiding people away can be referred to as a modern day form of ‘Magdalenism’. Elements of our society also maintain a conservative opinion on matters relating to women’s health. Orla O’Connor, Director of National Womens’ Council of Ireland (NWCI, 2017) recently commented regarding the case of a young pregnant girl and her treatment by the State in her attempts to secure an abortion. She stated; . . . reports that a young girl was sectioned after requesting an abortion . . . highlights the very distressing and damaging impact of Ireland’s abortion laws. Women and girls must be supported in all decisions they make in pregnancy, whether they decide to continue a pregnancy [or not]. This must involve the removal of all criminal sanctions on women and the introduction of healthcare legislation that mandates compassionate professional services as required (O’ Connor, 2017, NWCI).
8
Working Group to Report to Government on Improvements to the Protection Process, including Direct Provision and Supports to Asylum Seekers. Final Report June 2015. 68
Conclusion The oppression suffered by women incarcerated in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries has been well highlighted. However, there are some in Irish society who still do not identify with the fact that Ireland’s past treatment of these women is an issue which has yet to be fully resolved. Although many of the physical structures of the laundries no longer exist, and those that remain are derelict or have been transformed into institutes of education, the system of patriarchy still continues to control women’s sexuality, and the hiding of crimes against women has not disappeared. As Glynn (2009: 32) notes, ‘women [continue to be] punished by inaction, misnaming, and by a phenomenal failure to hold perpetrators responsible for crimes against women’. In order to learn from the past we need to analyse how we frame it, not purely to identify what went wrong but to consider ‘how much of that destructive inheritance still informs our public and private lives today’ (Dunne, 2002: 82). As Pine (2013: 7) reminds us, active commemoration practices must reflect this understanding, to avoid misreading the Magdalene history to the extent that it becomes another form of ‘agnosia’. Paul Ricoeur (2004: 9) concurs with this view by stating that the duty to remember involves not just having a concern for the past but in communicating the meaning of the past to future generations. In ensuring that our history has a continual impact on our actions and decision-making processes, we can never allow the past to be laid to rest. Smith (2007: 183) suggests that we have an obligation to move beyond amnesia and avoidance towards action on behalf of Magdalene survivors; action by way of affecting social change, and action which acknowledges past injustices. Such practices are pivotal in countering cultural forms of forgetfulness. It is vital to our cultural heritage that the memory of these women is preserved. The emergence of survivor testimony through cultural representation has benefited survivors and allowed them to finally have their experiences heard and believed. Active commemoration such as Flowers for Magdalenes that are shared among all of us, create a space for collective healing and are the only way of marking these women’s lives as significant. Correct representation of the Magdalene women is central to providing accurate cultural memory and historical narrative for 69
future generations. If the quest for equality and justice is to result in transformation and change the problem of societal disconnect which surrounds the legacy of Irelands Magdalene women must be addressed. Choosing to forget Ireland’s past treatment of the most vulnerable in our society will result in negative consequences for generations of young women to come.
Nancy Rochford - Flynn Independent Researcher nancyrochfordflynn@gmail.com
Reference List Adoption Right Alliance, [online], available: http://www.adoptionrightsalliance.com/inforecords.htm [accessed 05 July, 2017]. Ash, J. (2010) Dress Behind Bars: Prison Clothing as Criminality, New York: I.B. Tauris & Co. Ltd. Beaumont, C. (1997) Women, Citizenship and Catholicism in the Irish Free State 1922-1948, Women’s History Review, 6 (4) pp. 563-585 [online], available: http://www.academia.edu/964139/_1997_Women_Citizenship_and_Catholicism_in_the_Ir ish_Free_State_1922-1948 [accessed 13 December, 2017]. Bell, C. (1992) Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, New York: Oxford University Press. Bentham, J. (1843) The Works of Jeremy Bentham. Vol IV. Published under the Superintendence of his Executor, Bowring, J. (1838-1843) Edinburgh: William Tate. Boland, R. (2018) The Irish Babies Adopted to the US, Now Adults in a Legal Limbo, The Irish Times, [online], January 20, available: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/the-irishbabies-adopted-to-the-us-now-adults-in-a-legal-limbo-1.3360195 [accessed 10 February, 2018]. Boss, P. (2006) Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss, New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Brave Heart, M. (2005) From Intergenerational Trauma to Intergenerational Healing, Wellbriety White Bison’s online magazine, April 2005 p. 4. [online], available: http://www.sjsu.edu/people/marcos.pizarro/maestros/BraveHeart.pdf [accessed 5 December, 2017]. Carver, T. & Chamber, S. eds. (2011) Carole Pateman, Democracy, Feminism, Welfare, Oxon: Routledge. Clarke, G. (1997) The Photograph, New York: Oxford University Press. 70
Cleary, J. (2000) Modernization and Aesthetic Ideology in Contemporary Irish Culture, In: Ryan, R., ed. (2000) Writing in the Irish Republic: Literature, culture, politics 1949-1999. London: Macmillian. Conrad, K. (2004) Locked in the family cell: Gender, sexuality and political agency in Irish national discourse, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Condren, M. (2002) The Serpent and the Goddess, Dublin 14: New Island Books. Downing, J. (2016) Centenary Celebrations Hailed a Success for 'Helping to Heal Country's Divisions', The Irish Times, [online], November 17, available: https://www.independent.ie/irishnews/1916/centenary-celebrations-hailed-a-success-for-helping-to-heal-countrys-divisions35331740.html [accessed 10 December, 2017]. De Cunzo, L.A. (1995) Reform, Respite, Ritual: An Archaeology of Institutions, The Magdalene society of Philadelphia, 1800-1850. Journal of the historical archaeology, [online], 29 (93), available: JSTOR [accessed 14 June, 2017]. Dunne, T. (2002-3) Penitents, The Dublin Review [online], https://thedublinreview.com/number-9/ [accessed 17 May, 2017].
VI
(9),
available:
Éire. (1937) Bunreacht na hÉireann/The Constitution, Dublin: Stationary Office. Finnegan, F. (2001) Do Penance or Perish, New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. Fottrell, M. (2017) Flag of Flowers, [Music composition] New Ross, Co. Wexford: Ireland. Foucault, M. (1984). Of other spaces, In: Mirzoeff, N. ed. (2002) The Visual culture reader, 2nd ed, London: Routledge. --- (1991). Discipline and Punish, Translated from French by Éditions Gallimard. London: Penguin Books. Gialanella Valliulis, M. ed. (2009) Gender and Power in Irish History, Dublin and Oregon, U.S.A.: Irish Academic Press. Glynn, E. (2009) Left Holding the Baby: Remembering and Forgetting the Magdalen Laundry, Limerick, Ireland: Limerick School of Art and Design. Goffman, E. (1961) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situations of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, New York: Anchor Books. Gray, B. (2007) Breaking the Silence: Emigration, Gender and the Making of Irish Cultural Memory, In: Hart, L. (2007) (ed.) Modern Irish autobiography: Self, nation and society, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillian. Ingles, T. (1998) Moral Monopoly: The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Dublin: University College Dublin Press. Inglis, T. (1998) Irish Lessons in Sexuality, Dublin: University Press.
71
JFM Research. (n.d.) [online], available: http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/ [accessed 10 February, 2018]. Justice for Magdalene’s. (2013) JFM’s Principal Submissions to the Inter-Departmental Committee to Establish the Facts of State Involvement with the Magdalene Laundries, [online], available: https://www.magdalenelaundries.com/State_Involvement_in_the_Magdalene_Laundries_p ublic.pdf [accessed 29 November, 2017]. Justice for Magdalene’s Research. (2017) NGO Submission to the UN Committee Against Torture in Respect of IRELAND, [online], available: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CAT/Shared%20Documents/IRL/INT_CAT_CSS_I RL_27974_E.pdf [accessed 29 November, 2017]. Leerssen, J. (2001) Monument and Trauma: Varieties of Remembrance, In: McBride, I. (ed.) History and memory in modern Ireland, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Luddy, M. (2007) Prostitution and Irish Society 1800-1940, New York: Cambridge University Press. Makarushka, I. (2012) The Magdalene Sisters: How to Solve the Problem of ‘Bad’ Girls, Journal of Religion & Film [online], 16 (2), available: http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol16/iss2/1 [accessed 22 September, 2017]. McAleese, M. (2013) Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to Establish the Facts of State Involvement with the Magdalen Laundries, Dublin: Stationary Office. Department of Justice and Equality. McMahon, B. (2015) Working Group to Report to Government on Improvements to the Protection Process, including Direct Provision and Supports to Asylum Seekers, Dublin: Stationary Office. Department of Justice and Equality. McBride, I. (2001) Introduction: Memory and national identity in modern Ireland, In: Malcolm, E. and Jones, G. eds. Medicine, disease and the State in Ireland, 1650-1940, Cork: Cork University Press. McGettrick, C. (2016) Remembering the Magdalene Women on International Womens’ day, Human Rights in Ireland http://humanrights.ie/uncategorized/remembering-the-magdalene-women-oninternational-womens-day/ [accessed June 15, 2017]. Mercier, S. (2013) The Irish Magdalene Laundries: Establishing State and Social Responsibility in the Disciplinary Society, Daonnacht 31, [online], 1 (1), available: http://www.academia.edu/7767848/The_Irish_Magdalene_Laundries_Establishing_State_a nd_Social_Responsibility_in_the_Disciplinary_Society_ [accessed 12 June, 2017]. Mullally, U. (2017) Time to Stand Up for People in Direct Provision, The Irish Times, November 17 [online], available: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/time-to-stand-up-for-people-indirect-provision-1.3295790 [accessed 10 December, 2017]. National Women’s Council of Ireland. (2017) Sectioning of a young girl described as “concerning” by National Women’s Council of Ireland, [online], available: http://www.nwci.ie/index.php?/learn/article/sectioning_of_a_young_girl_described_as_co ncerning_by_national_womens_counc [assessed July 15, 2017].
72
O’Donnell, K. (2011) Justice for Magdalene’s, Irish Human Rights Commission and Law Society of Ireland 9th Annual Human Rights Conference, Dublin 2011, [online], available: https://www.ihrec.ie/download/pdf/dr_katherine_odonnell_justice_for_the_ma gdalenes.pdf [accessed 10 July, 2017]. O’ Hallroan, M. (2017) State ‘Walking Back’ from Apology to Magdalene Survivors says UN, The Irish Times, [online], July 27, available: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/statewalking-back-from-apology-to-magdalene-survivors-says-un-1.3168714 [accessed 27 July, 2017]. O’ Toole, F. (2017) Ireland is Still Defined by the Church’s Mindset, The Irish Times, [online], March 14, available: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-ireland-is-still-defined-bythe-church-s-mindset-1.3008295 [assessed 30 May, 2017]. Pine, E. (2011) The Politics of Irish Memory. Performing Remembrance in Contemporary Irish Culture, Hampshire U.K: Palgrave Macmillan. Pine, E. (2013) Commemorating Abuse: Gender Politics and Making Space, UCD scholarcast, The Irish Memory Studies Research Network, [online], Lectures 8, available: http://www.ucd.ie/scholarcast/scholarcast34.html [accessed 14 December, 2017]. Praetzellis, A. (1987) Artifacts as Symbols of Identity, In: De Cunzo, L.A. (1995) Reform, respite, ritual: An Archaeology of Institutions, The Magdalene Society of Philadelphia, 1800-1850. Journal of the Historical Archaeology, [online], 29 (93), available: JSTOR [accessed 14 May, 2017]. Raftery, M. & O'Sullivan, E. (1999) Suffer the Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools, Dublin: New Island. Reception and Integration Agency, [online], available: http://www.ria.gov.ie/en/RIA/Pages/Direct_Provision_FAQs [accessed 10 July, 2017]. Richardson, D. (2000) Re-thinking Sexuality, London: Sage Publications. Ricoeur, P. (2004) Memory and Forgetting, [online], available: (https://www.mun.ca/philosophy/Ricoeur,_P._-_Memory_and_Forgetting.pdf [accessed 10 December, 2017]. Robinson, M. (1990) Address by the President, Mary Robinson, on the Occasion of her Inauguration as President of Ireland 03 December, [online], available: http://www.president.ie/en/medialibrary/speeches/address-by-the-president-mary-robinson-on-the-occasion-of-herinauguration [accessed 10th December, 2017]. --- (1996) In: Smith, J. (2007) Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment, Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press. Rochford Flynn, N. (2012) Interview with Mary, 03 October, 2012. [Audio Visual recording in author’s possession]. Smith, J. (2007) Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment, Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University Press.
73
Steele, V. (1985) Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Age to the Jazz Age, New York: Oxford University Press. The Irish Times. (2017). The Tuam Babies and Children Who Died: How the Human Remains Were Discovered in Co Galway and What Will Happen Next, [online], March 6, available: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/q-a-the-tuam-babies-and-children-whodied-1.2998787 [accessed 1 July, 2017]. Thornton, L. (2015) A Preliminary Human Rights Analysis of the Working Group Report and Recommendations on Direct Provision, [online], available: https://www.academia.edu/13446243/A_Preliminary_Human_Rights_Analysis_of_the_Wo rking_Group_Report_and_Recommendations_on_Direct_Provision [accessed 10 December, 2017]. Turner, V. (1969) The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Chicago, Illinois: Aldine. Whelan, Y. (2003) Reinventing Modern Dublin: Streetscape, Iconography, and the Politics of Identity, Dublin: University College Dublin Press. Yeager, J. (2014) Interview with Elizabeth Coppin, 29 October, 2014. [Audio Visual recording in author’s possession].
74
Arpita Chakraborty Book Review: Beatty, Aidan, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884– 1938, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016. Aidan’s Beatty’s work is an important and timely addition to the recently growing body of work on masculinity studies from a postcolonial perspective. The book uses archival materials available from the late nineteenth, early twentieth century to convincingly portray the parallel rise of militant masculinity influenced by nationalist ideas in the Irish and Jewish communities. In doing so, it holds ground from previous works in this genre by the likes of Sikata Banerjee and Mrinalini Sinha, by locating how the racially influenced ideas of masculinity were not limited to territorial postcolonial imaginations, but had transnational commonalities, as in the case of the Jewish community. The previous readings of postcolonial masculinity as ‘Irish’, ‘Indian’ and other national constructions can be put to renewed examination in light of Beatty’s work. This work is also crucial for Irish gender studies, which has focussed mostly on ‘femininity’ as its object of examination. Beatty’s work comes at a time when internationally, there is an increasing recognition in the discipline of Gender Studies of the need to include the study of the ‘masculine’. Spread across eight chapters, this book explores the rise of similar ideas of masculinity among the Irish and Jewish communities, their comparable manifestations, and the reasons for such expressions. The impressionistic history of Irish politics provided in Chapter 2 begged some clarification, especially for international readers who might not be acquainted with the minute details of Irish and Jewish historical references which are to follow in the coming chapters. The third chapter analyses the importance of sports in Irish and Jewish nationalism, and compares muskeljudentum or muscle Judaism with muscular nationalism in the GAA, Irish volunteers and Gardaí in Ireland. This provides an excellent ideological connection between not only Irish and Jewish but also Indian nationalism, in terms of the symbolic importance of sports.
75
Chapter 4, ‘The Genders of Nationalist Space’ deals with the racial and gender identity of the popular nationalist imaginations. Through the use of myths and popular cultural artefacts, Beatty shows how ‘creating an absolute space’ where the Irish and Jewish would be in control was a central aspiration of both the communities. Here, the author provides the example of the Gaelic League – ‘There was a spatialized notion of memory at work here and, for the Gaelic League, what was at stake was the belief that the memory of Ireland’s ancient manly heroism was embedded in certain spaces of Ireland. Reconnecting to these spaces was a means of reconnecting to these embedded memories and would thus ultimately allow for a reconnection with this ancient heroic masculinity’ (p. 97). Territorial control was linked to political sovereignty, but also to achieving racial equality in European society for both peoples. The attempts to recover racial equality and Europeanness along with independence are manifest in the gendered practices mentioned. This is an important connection to make, since the racial implication of being a colonised space have led to complex gendered negotiations in Irish and Jewish history. The author did not venture to explore the ramifications of these racial aspirations on Irish and Jewish connections with other colonised nations, and this is a lacuna strongly felt. The next chapter discusses the racial anxieties in some more detail, but from a linguistic perspective. It discusses the formation of the Gaelic League and the revival of the Hebrew language, establishing a crucial point of linguistic purity as a manifestation of racial purity. The section on clothing in this chapter also puts forth the distinction of Irish nationalism from other postcolonialisms in terms of its focus on men’s clothing as a site of nationalist assertion, and more detailed work on this would be welcome in future. Chapter 6 deals with the economic implications of dependence on British market forces, some of which are lingering concerns in the present era of Brexit. The predominance of agricultural concerns also finds similarities with the Jewish motivation of economic independence and agricultural advancement. The final chapter deals with the ideal masculine and feminine expectations in the Free Irish State post 1922. Beatty shows how
76
the implications of gendered ideals from colonial times continues to influence the gendering of the Irish population. The author has used extensive transnational, multilingual archival sources in Israel and Ireland for his work. The richness of the archive is reflected in the print and visual materials in the form of books, newspapers and caricatures that he has used, and they serve to convincingly establish the broad social influence of the ideas discussed in his book. The use of popular songs, myths and legends in Hebrew and Irish lend the author’s research a strong sense of the popular notions of nineteenth century Irish and Jewish social realities. Gender and sexuality are intricately connected in their imaginings as well as their historical manifestations. It is thus of some surprise that the discourses around sexuality find only brief mentions in Beatty’s work, especially when there are ample evidences of political discussions around homosexuality in the early nineteenth century. The cases of Sir Roger Casement or Patrick Pearse are ample proof to understand why homosexuality was intricately connected to the Irish imagination of masculinity. Sexuality and manifestation of sexual identity constituted an important part of the gender discourse in the nineteenth century – whether in silence or its public role as in the case of Oscar Wilde. It is this discussion that is sorely missed in Beatty’s book, and invites attention from future researchers. In falling for the trope of the gender binary, what perhaps remains unexplored is the existence of alternative ideas of masculinity in the Irish and Jewish sociopolitical spaces. However, despite this, Beatty’s work is crucial for anyone interested in understanding the role of masculinity in Irish and Jewish communities, the effect of colonisation on contemporary gender practices and how despite all technological advancements, gendered understanding continues to play a decisive shape of our everyday life. Our understanding of the effect of masculinity on as varied aspects of life as agriculture, dress codes, finances and linguistic practices is all the richer with Beatty’s contribution.
77
Beatty, Aidan, Masculinity and Power in Irish Nationalism, 1884–1938, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2016, ISBN: 978-1-137-44099-0, 266+xv, ∈85.59.
Arpita Chakraborty Dublin City University Arpita.chakraborty3@mail.dcu.ie
78
Muireann O’Dwyer Book Review: Máiréad Enright, Julie McCandless and Aoife O’Donoghue, Northern/Irish Feminist Judgements: Judges’ Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity, Bloomsbury, 2017 Northern/Irish Feminist Judgements is an impressive and inspiring book. A collection of revised judgements from the courts of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which covers a wide range of topics and reflects the significant collaboration and innovative thinking that went into its production. It re-judges cases from a feminist perspective, highlighting the implicit, or often even explicit, discriminatory logics of the original judgements. As part of a wider global project of feminist judgement writing, the book offers not just a version that focuses on Ireland and Northern Ireland, but also brings significant innovations through this focus. In particular, the editors introduce the additional dimension of national identity, pointing a path towards a feminist legal approach that incorporates multiple and intersecting identities. The judgements reimagined include the famous X case, which considered the right of a suicidal girl to an abortion. It will become, if it is not already, a valuable and central resource for students of the law in these jurisdictions, offering a new approach to analysing cases and the historic development of jurisprudence. The collection also has key insights to offer feminists outside of legal scholarship, including activists and those working in other academic disciplines. For me, reading this book evoked several tensions, or ‘troubles’ in the language of the book’s sub-title. These are not troubling in a purely negative sense, rather they are potentially highly fruitful problems to explore, and in this review I reflect on some of them. The first of these dynamics reflects a tension of feminist legal activism discussed in the book, in the commentary on the Zappone and Gilligan v The Revenue Commissioners, Ireland and the Attorney General. This case revolves around the claim of two women, married in British Columbia but resident in Ireland, to have their marriage recognised by the Irish government, in particular the Irish tax authorities. In the commentary on this case, the feminist concern with the norms of 79
marriage is discussed, and in their introduction Siobhán Wills and Máiréad Enright highlight the potential for feminists seeking access to the rights of marriage to trouble, rather than mimic, such norms. The same challenge exists for the entire feminist judgements project. Aware of the maledominated judiciary, some feminist judgements are written in something of a ‘drag’ persona – with female authors rewriting a judgement that was originally written before the arrival of female judges. The new judgements are written within the context of the existing ruling – that is, they cannot recreate a legal context more welcoming to feminist decisions. This is a productive limiting as it highlights the level of discretion inherent in judge rulings. It also highlights the need for feminist revisions in other areas of law-making. More profoundly, however, there is a disconnect between form and function through this whole project. The new rulings are deeply feminist, they bring women’s voices, experiences and concerns to the centre and they displace sexist norms and expectations. Some of the writing found in this book is the type of energetic feminist analysis that makes the reader nod vehemently, underlining every word and almost wishing to be able to applaud. Simultaneously, the form of the book follows the procedures and technical structures of the system which produced the original problematic rulings. The role of judge and the practice of judgement is for the most part unproblematised throughout the collection. The signals of authority are replicated. In one way, this empowers the project, showing the potential for feminist change within the existing system, but it also inspires a motivation for the next step, for the next troubling and revising, and evokes a hopeful inquisitiveness about just how transformative such feminist argument could be, were it to infiltrate the existing system. The feminist methodology I mention above, that act of taking women’s voices and experiences seriously, is impressive and effective. It ‘unmasks’ the patriarchal norms and ideas running underneath Northern/Irish jurisprudence and it sits comfortably within the history of feminist activism on the island of Ireland. The women (and men) who fought against the patriarchy and discrimination that is so troubled by these judgements were themselves often at the edges of 80
the law. Whether through activism that tested the bounds of legality, or simply by an existence that the state chose to punish, or not recognise, this history of being both subject to the law and in another way outside of it, mirrors the position of this book. However, while the book will hopefully become a core text for students of law, it will not be replacing the existing corpus. It remains a project of critique, depicting a system of legal ruling that is so easily imaginable thanks to the judgements and commentary of the book, yet which continues to remain just out of reach. Northern/Irish Feminist Judgements offers an additional contribution to contemporary feminist project. In a time when history is being brought into public discussion, due to a procession of commemorations, anniversaries and centenaries, it highlights a particular darkness within both Ireland and Northern Ireland’s legal history. As a project of revising historical judgements however, it never succumbs to the temptation to view that darkness as consigned to the past. In pushing up against the existing legal frameworks, several of the re-imagined judgements point towards an agenda for feminist activism, and for more feminist ‘troubling’.The book also reflects contemporary discussions over the role of intersectionality in feminist analysis. Intersectionality, which seeks to understand how multiplicities of experiences and positions can influence privilege and oppression, remains challenging for many feminists. This book seeks to incorporate questions of citizenship and sexuality as well as gender, and so it may point a way forward to thinking about these questions. Reading this book cannot but draw the reader’s attention to existing injustices in both jurisdictions. The book speaks to battles for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, the right to marry, rights of citizenship and non-discrimination, debates over sexual violence and the very real and ever present questions about the biases and limitations of the judiciary and legal system as a whole. As such, the book will be a valuable resource, not just for law students, but for feminist activists, and one hopes it will also be read widely by legal practitioners – least of all members of the judiciary. Reading this book leaves one in no doubt for the necessity of feminists, and many different feminists, to trouble the judgements at the centre of these debates, and hoping for the inclusion of more feminist judgement overall. 81
Máiréad Enright, Julie McCandless and Aoife O’Donoghue, Northern/Irish Feminist Judgements: Judges’ Troubles and the Gendered Politics of Identity, Bloomsbury, 2017, ISBN: 978-1-84946574-8, 655, Price £50
Muireann O’Dwyer University of Warwick M.O-Dwyer@warwick.ac.uk
82
Amy Finlay-Jeffrey Book Review: Amy Lamé. From Prejudice to Pride: A History of the LGBTQ+ Movement. London: Wayland, 2017 Amy Lamé is better known as the pioneer of drag show ‘Duckie’ and more recently as the exotically titled ‘London night Tsar’ than as an author of children’s literature. However, her recent venture into the world of children’s books is a both a bold and successful undertaking. From Prejudice to Pride: A History of the LGBTQ+ Movement is the first book of its kind, a book which provides the often untold and forgotten history of the LGBTQ+ to children from age eleven onwards. Whilst the glossary of the book acknowledges a book entitled ‘Gay and Lesbian History for Kids’, prior to Lamé’s publication there was no book in existence for children that discusses the other identities belonging to the LGBTQ+ acronym. This book is therefore a revolution in its all-encompassing nature and is keen to point out both the differences and points of affinity that exist within the LGBTQ+ community. Lamé’s book is sophisticatedly written and handles the subject matter with both sensitivity and an awareness that not everyone who picks up this book will have a sound knowledge of the terminology associated with LGBTQ+. As such, this book clearly provides a working definition of what terms such as ‘cisgender’ and ‘genderfluid’ mean, all the while remaining committed to the impetus of the term ‘queer’ which has historically resisted attempts at definition. The book therefore offers a concise introduction for anyone attempting to deepen their understanding of gender and sexuality identity. I had the opportunity to hear the author discuss her work at a book launch at No Alibis bookshop in Belfast as part of Pride 2017. The theme for Pride 2017 was ‘Demand Change’. The publication of this book adheres to this theme, in that the impetus of this book is to demand that the reader changes the way we consider traditional narratives of history that have excluded gay history. As Lamé astutely observes, ‘sometimes historians have chosen to ignore or misinterpret evidence of LGBTQ+ history. We need to change the way we think about history and consider what has been left out and by whom’ (2017: 7). Indeed, this holds particular resonance as this year 83
marks fifty years since homosexuality was decriminalised in the United Kingdom. Such an awareness of this queer past is of vital importance to the queer future, as Lamé perceptively acknowledges, ‘knowing more about the past can help us understand what it means to be LGBTQ+ in the present, and what it might mean in the future’ (2017: 7). This book is aware that the painful stories of those that have faced prejudice and even death in the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights need to be told and recognised. What queer theorist Heather Love termed ‘queer damage’ is rightly acknowledged. LGBTQ+ people who were spat at, reviled by the press, demonised, persecuted by the law, incarcerated, chemically castrated and driven to suicide are all mentioned throughout this book, as their stories are vital to the history of the LGBTQ+ movement. What is also impressive about Lamé’s book is that it is global in scope, including history well beyond the anglo-sphere. There is a section entitled ‘LGBTQ+ around the world which details the current status of gay rights in countries such as Germany, Poland, Zambia and India. Lamé’s book considers the current debates in the LGBTQ+ community such as equal marriage and the right to adopt, as well as how LGBTQ+ people have been portrayed in the media. Significant historical events such as the Stonewall riots, the formation of Gay Pride and the decriminalisation of homosexuality, amongst others, are discussed in an accessible way. As a researcher of lesbianism in literature, I was also glad to read that Lamé makes a clear distinction between lesbianism and male homosexuality when discussing the historical context of decriminalisation. Lesbian women were omitted in the discourse of decriminalisation. In this sense, lesbianism has never technically been illegal in most countries, although it has been socially abhorred. Lamé acknowledges that ‘sexual acts between women have never been specifically outlawed in the USA and UK. Gay and bisexual men, however, have been prosecuted under laws limiting their activity’ (2017: 10). As a book that includes so many facets of LGBTQ+ life it was disappointing that Lamé omitted a section on religion. At the book launch Lamé explained the reason for doing so was due to the fact that there is often a distinction between doctrinal belief and what believers of a certain 84
faith personally believe regarding LGBTQ+ rights. In this sense, it is disingenuous to argue that Catholics or Muslims do not accept homosexuality when there are many practising people who belong to each faith that identify as LGBTQ+ plus. For example, whilst the Catholic church may officially condemn homosexuality at an institutional level, there are many queer people who have found acceptance in the Catholic church within individual parishes. Whilst I understand Lamé’s argument I think that it is important to acknowledge how certain religious institutions have both condemned and embraced LGBTQ+ people. The exclusion of LGBTQ+ people from institutional religion has been a major source of pain for many people, it is important that this fact be acknowledged. Simultaneously there are many pro-LGBTQ+ supporters within religions that have been traditionally hostile to religion, such as Islam and Christianity. A discussion of these groups would have made for compelling reading, certainly as religion has played a major role in the societal treatment of LGBTQ+ people. However, this is a small criticism in a diligently researched, historically accurate and sensitive work. Lamé said she wished she had a book like this growing up in an age where LGBTQ+ stories were difficult and illegal to find. Undoubtedly this book will bring reassurance to many LGBTQ+ people as proof that their stories do matter, that their achievements are important and that they have been not been forgotten by history. Every school should own a copy of this book.
Amy Lamé. From Prejudice to Pride: A History of the LGBTQ+ Movement. London: Wayland, 2017, pp64. ISBN 9781526301901
Amy Finlay - Jeffrey Queen’s University Belfast afinlayjeffrey01@qub.ac.uk
85
Call for Papers Art of Resistance: Interdependencies and Co-Becoming, Sibéal Journal, Issue 4 Following on from the success of our 2017 conference we are looking for submissions for our next journal. Papers are invited to engage with the theme of the conference, ‘Art of Resistance: Interdependencies and Co-Becoming’. We are also accepting feminist or gender studies book reviews. The books must have been published since November 2017. Themes might include but need not be limited to the following: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
The Art of Resistance Memory and Trauma Co-becoming: Philosophical Reflections Embodiment: Gender and Emotion Gender Performativity Transforming Genders Decolonising Spaces Intersectionality and Resistance Spirit and Sustenance Migration and Gender Medical identities, medicalized bodies LGBTQIA Gender and Work Feminism(s) Masculinities Gender and Sexuality Literatures of Resistance Hi(stories) of resistance
Articles will be double peer reviewed and should be submitted by 31st August 2017. Articles should be 5,500 - 7,000 words and use Harvard Referencing Style. Email articles and bio to theartofresistance2017@gmail.com
86
Annual Conference Call for Papers Theme: ‘Voices and Choices: Intersecting Global Feminisms’ 16 - 17 November 2018, Ulster University, Belfast
In a year which marks the centenary of partial women’s suffrage, the 20 year anniversary of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement, and our historic stride towards reproductive justice across the island of Ireland ‘Voices and Choices; intersecting global feminisms’ asks how can feminist and gender studies academics explore the positions of marginalised groups in relation to representation and autonomy not only locally but globally?
This conference seeks to make space for the discussion of the local, the global, and the intersecting layers. Themes spanning from low levels of representation of women and marginalised groups in decision-making positions to the restriction of reproductive justice, to the many forgotten feminist Herstories, experienced in Ireland North and South and paralleled in countless localities the world over will be considered through various feminist lenses.
Taking an intersectional approach this Sibéal 2018 conference invites proposals on a range of themes pertaining to the intersections of activism, academia, and identities around the world. Suggested themes include:
• • • • • • •
#representationmatters: women in politics Reproductive Justice Forgotten Feminist Herstories Feminist Herstories of Ireland Gender and the media Feminist theories and Literature Exploring masculinities 87
• • • • • • • •
Global South Feminisms Indigenous and Decolonial Feminisms Transfeminisms Feminist law and judgments Beyond cis-heteronormativity:; queer feminist theory Intersectional Feminisms and Sex Work Postcolonial Feminisms Art as Intersectional Feminist Practice
We particularly invite abstracts from those identifying as from marginalised groups including but not limited to, people of colour, LGB and queer individuals, trans and non-binary people, refugees and asylum seekers, and members of the Traveller Community.
Please submit an author biography of 100 words maximum and an abstract of not more than 250 words, paper title, and suggested keywords, for a 20 minutes paper presentation to voicesandchoices2018@gmail.com by 15 July 2018
88
89