(De)stabilizing Sexual Violence Discourse: Masculinization of Victimhood,Organizational Blame,and Labile Imperialism

Following calls to center nation, we analyze sexual violence discourse in the US Peace Corps. The texts we consider deploy three typical dichotomies—public/private, self/other, and agent/victim—that, in this case, reveal inconsistencies at the intersections of race and gender. We argue that these inconsistencies are evidence of lability, counterintuitive discursive shifts necessary to maintain white heteromasculine dominance. Instead of blaming individual victims of rape and assault, the masculinization of victimhood shifts culpability to the Peace Corps. This organizational blame maintains the moral position of the US and legitimates imperialism. By marking these instabilities, we trace the solidity and vulnerability of sexual violence discourse as it organizes global power.     

Empowerment,Constraint, and the Entrepreneurial Self: A Study of White Women Entrepreneurs

Discourses of entrepreneurship and research on women entrepreneurs have proliferated in the last two decades. This study argues that a particular conception of an entrepreneurial self underlies much literature on women entrepreneurs and their empowerment, and identifies several key assumptions of this entrepreneurial self. The study then assesses the motivations and experiences of several white women entrepreneurs in a northwestern state in the United States, finding that aspects of the entrepreneurial self are most evident in the reasons that women provide about why they became entrepreneurs. However, the experiences the women narrate reveal a more constraints-centered discourse, which features a particular interpretation of the frontier myth of the American West, and bears traces of an emergent, collective notion of empowerment. The authors explain such empowerment from critical and feminist perspectives, offering the concept of bounded empowerment as a lens through which to examine entrepreneurship and gender, and discussing its practical implications.     

The role of organizational membership in overcoming dissonant sport activity identities

Forming a strong identity with a sport or activity is a key variable that informs sustained behaviour of that activity. As identities are informed by social forces, marginalized and underrepresented groups face social barriers to embodying a non-traditional sport or activity. Given the power of organizational identities, it may be possible for sport organizations to facilitate salient identities for groups for whom the sport/activity was previously considered dissonant. In this study, the authors used interviews to explore the identity formation processes for members of a national running group for Black women in the United States. Results indicate that members overcame their dissonance to running through their identification with the organization who they felt facilitated education, support, and the connection to existing members who served as identity models. Through their own negotiation strategies, they were able to form a salient identity around the activity, and contribute to a growing collective running identity for this group as a whole.     

Gender by racial/ethnic intersectionality in the patterns of Adolescents’ math motivation and their math achievement and engagement

Individuals' math motivational beliefs are theorized to shape their STEM achievement and engagement in high school and beyond. Combining situated expectancy-value theory and intersectionality framework, the goals of this study were to (a) identify the unique patterns of U.S. high school students' math motivational beliefs, (b) examine differences in the patterns based on the intersection of gender and race/ethnicity, and (c) test the extent to which these patterns predicted differences in students' math achievement and classroom behavioral engagement for each of the gender by racial/ethnic groups. The current study included 16,120 high schoolers (50% female; 63% White, 17% Latina/o, 11% Black, and 9% Asian Americans; Mage = 14.46 at Grade 9) from the High School Longitudinal Study. There were six unique patterns of students' math motivational beliefs: Overall High, Above Average but not Identified, Identified but Average Value, Average, Low Identity, and Overall Low. Pattern membership at the intersection of gender and race/ethnicity showed nuances that could not be represented by gender or race/ethnicity alone; for example, male and female Asian American adolescents had similar patterns, but many male and female adolescents of other racial/ethnic groups had different patterns. Adolescents' math motivational belief patterns were associated with their Grade 11 math achievement and behavioral engagement even after controlling for prior math achievement and family socioeconomic status, and the associated varied by the gender and racial/ethnic groups.     

Balancing Mystery and Identification: Dolores Huerta's Shifting Transcendent Persona

The present analysis explores Dolores Huerta's use of a shifting transcendent persona to balance the sense of mystery surrounding her accomplishments with a performance of normalcy and audience identification. We find, first, that Huerta leveraged her borderland experiences and ideology as rhetorical resources that functioned to facilitate the amalgamation of personae exemplifying her advocacy, and, second, that her shifting transcendent persona's balance of mystery and identification hinged as much upon the manner in which she positioned audience members to perceive themselves as it did upon the manner in which she positioned them to perceive her own exceptional normalcy.     

Containing Sotomayor: Rhetorics of personal restraint,judicial prudence,and diabetes management

This essay explores how rhetorics of diabetes management informed Sonia Sotomayor’s judicial persona during her ascent to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings were clouded famously by institutional racism and sexism. She was accused repeatedly by congressional Republicans of being intemperate, emotional, and illogical in a judicial sphere that prizes circumspection, deliberateness, and collegiality. As part of a larger strategy to counter such claims, the Obama administration forwarded her lifetime of managing type-one diabetes as proof of personal control, and by extension judicial prudence. This strategic invocation of intersectionality, using a disability to rhetorically “contain” race and gender, helped to successfully resituate universal notions of wisdom and secure Sotomayor a seat on the nation’s highest court.     

Foregrounding intersectionality in rural youth’s schooling experiences in China: a queer re-reading

This article uses a queer lens in an intersectional analysis of students’ schooling experiences in rural China. I argue that a queer perspective has been largely neglected and issues related to sexuality have not been carefully investigated in Chinese educational contexts. Drawing on queer theory and an intersectional framework, I re-interpret one of my earlier qualitative studies ‘queerly’ and examine the different ways that the discourses of sexuality and gender shape rural Chinese students’ schooling lives. Findings reveal that these discourses marginalize both effeminate boys who demonstrate ‘too little’ masculinity and male ‘troublemakers’ who perform ‘too much’ masculinity. This queer route of rereading also disrupts other constructions of normalcy associated with class- and place-based identities, such as students’ ‘half-rural identity.’ The analysis shows the importance of foregrounding the intersectional dimensions of inequalities and embracing a queer theoretical framework in understanding rural education in China.     

Muslim girls' experiences in physical education in Norway: What role does religiosity play?

Recent years have seen an increase in scholarly attention to minority pupils and their experience of physical education (PE). UK research identifies specific challenges related to Muslim pupils' participation in PE. In Norway, little research has been undertaken on Muslim pupils' experiences in PE, something this paper hopes to redress in part. In particular, it addresses the role and significance of religiosity to their experience of PE. The work is positioned within third-wave feminism; as such it aims to be sensitive to issues of cultural and religious diversity. The study is based on life-history interviews with 21 Muslim girls aged between 16 and 25. All the girls had attended PE lessons at school, mostly in mixed-gender classes, but with some gender-segregated PE as well. In terms of religious affiliation, the girls describe themselves as Muslim, though their degree of religiosity varies. Five wear the hijab. The general picture drawn by the data shows that the Muslim girls enjoy their PE lessons and the majority preferred gender-mixed PE. Religiosity seems to have little influence on Muslim girls' experience of PE, with the exception of swimming lessons and showering facilities. We can understand the objections of some of the girls to gender-mixed PE by looking at the dominance of the male gender, and, as such, their experiences are similar to those of non-Muslim girls. However, objections to gender-mixed swimming classes are best explained by the girls' gendered religious identities and embodied faith. In term of intersectionality, the study shows that different categories dominate in different PE contexts. As such, what Muslim girls make of PE is not always dictated by religiosity.     

Empowerment, Constraint, and the Entrepreneurial Self: A Study of White Women Entrepreneurs

Discourses of entrepreneurship and research on women entrepreneurs have proliferated in the last two decades. This study argues that a particular conception of an entrepreneurial self underlies much literature on women entrepreneurs and their empowerment, and identifies several key assumptions of this entrepreneurial self. The study then assesses the motivations and experiences of several white women entrepreneurs in a northwestern state in the United States, finding that aspects of the entrepreneurial self are most evident in the reasons that women provide about why they became entrepreneurs. However, the experiences the women narrate reveal a more constraints-centered discourse, which features a particular interpretation of the frontier myth of the American West, and bears traces of an emergent, collective notion of empowerment. The authors explain such empowerment from critical and feminist perspectives, offering the concept of bounded empowerment as a lens through which to examine entrepreneurship and gender, and discussing its practical implications.     

"It isn't that we're prostitutes": Child protection and sexual exploitation of adolescent girls within and beyond refugee camps in Rwanda

BackgroundWhile refugee camps can protect children from harm, they can also introduce new risks and vulnerabilities. Research suggests that adolescent girls are at particular risk for gender-based violence and sexual exploitation.ObjectiveThis study aimed to identify existing social and economic vulnerabilities of female adolescents in refugee camps in Rwanda.Participants and settingResearch was carried out in two Congolese refugee camps in Rwanda.MethodsTen focus group discussions (FGDs) were held with 87 boys and 79 girls aged 12–17 years Six FGDs were held with a total of 36 parents and caregivers in the two camps. Key informant interviews were held with nine local and national level stakeholders.ResultsStudy findings centered upon intersectionality. Camps designed for security and containment introduced new forms of vulnerability and threats. Economic stressors threatened the viability of families. Girls had material needs but few options to meet those needs within the camps. Their families expected them to do domestic work at home. Participants reported that the convergence of material deprivation, lack of economic opportunity, and vulnerability led to transactional sex and exploitation within and around the camps. The study concludes that vulnerabilities and threats associated with gender and generation must be examined concurrently with the conditions associated with being a refugee in a setting of protracted displacement.