School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemSoma-masculinities: centring the body within studies of masculinities( 2018)Whilst feminist and queer scholarship have paid generous attention to bodies and embodiment in their attempts to better understand gender and sexuality, studies of masculinities have tended to lag behind. In this thesis, I attend to the theoretical strains within studies of masculinities to demonstrate that these studies are at an impasse, a point at which scholars remain reluctant or unable to push beyond current frameworks into new and, as I argue, productive territory. In particular, these studies have most readily employed social constructionist approaches in their analyses, typified by Connell's concept of hegemonic masculinity, however such frameworks have been unable to adequately describe and account for the complexities, contradictions and possibilities of masculinities and male subjectivities. I suggest that bodies are central to this understanding and must be brought into the frame in a more significant manner. Throughout this thesis I draw attention to the blind spot within these studies and attend to bodies more closely through an examination of contemporary masculinities. In particular I consider three specific sites of the body: the phallic, the hegemonic and the homosexual body. I interrogate these through a number of case studies, including pornography, Australian rules football and online dating sites, all of which continue to arouse interest and debate within academic and public spheres. It is here that I draw attention to some of the limitations of current studies and attempt to produce a richer account of the key questions and problems within these debates. In doing this, I introduce a new framework I call soma-masculinities which I employ to address masculinities in a more profound manner, and make some original contributions to the scholarship. In particular, this framework places a greater emphasis on the material body and its fleshy components; it aims to bring the flesh into bodies and questions of masculinity. Soma-masculinities is not one specific theory or concept but rather a mode of enquiry. Thus, it utilises a broad toolkit that incorporates conceptual models that are already available and engaged, particularly within feminist and queer theory. I demonstrate how this framework might offer a more capacious account of contemporary masculinities and the complex ways in which they are embodied and lived.
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ItemFrom knowledge to resistance: emerging themes, developments, strategies and agendas for religious Jewish women in Israel today( 2016)This study examines three areas in which religious Jewish women are challenging and changing gender-based inequality in Israel. Israeli women effectively live in two realities. The first is a liberal democracy that has championed legislative policies to advance the status of women and has pushed for gender-based equality from its formation. The second is a nation in which religious law and culturally evolving traditions of Orthodox Jewish practice are not restricted to the private sphere. Instead, such laws and behaviors hold significant power and sway in public space and everyday life. Within this reality, some view the exclusion and subordination of women as a basic tenet of religious Jewish norms. Women are removed, segregated and discriminated again. In the past thirty years, religious Jewish women in Israel have been engaged in an education revolution, gaining access to sacred knowledge and texts previously barred to women and integrating themselves into positions of religious leadership. Their demand for equality, however, has also prompted groups of these women to confront instances of gender-based discrimination on a national level; using legal appeals, public demonstrations, civil disobedience and pluralistic alliances to generate change. Such groups are working to expand ritual, social and civil rights for women in Israel. This study acts to illuminate groups of these women; their engagement with feminism and faith, their confrontation of spaces of inequality and their demand for respect as both Jewish women and Israeli citizens. Little time has been spent examining religious Jewish feminist groups in Israel. There has also been limited academic engagement with the challenges faced by these women as they relate to the Israeli landscape. To this effect, there have been significant gaps in the critical literature regarding women in Israel. Such gaps diminish academic understandings of both the place and position held by women in this country and the strains that evolving religious cultural norms have placed on Israel’s national identity. Situated from a constructionist framework and informed by the academic discipline of Jewish studies, this study utilizes a variety of resources. Previous scholarship, Israeli-based English language newspapers, group-generated publications, United Nations’ reports, NGO reports, legal petitions and rulings, interviews and presentations at a prominent transnational Orthodox feminist conference were all used to illuminate emerging themes, strategies and developments for groups of religious Jewish women in Israel. This is a new methodological approach in a small field and thus offers new perspectives on an underrepresented area of study. Doing so adds to our critical understandings of women’s rights in Israel, Jewish feminism, Orthodoxy in Israel and Israeli national identity.