Suchergebnisse

As contemporary feminist discourse continues to utilize online and digital media and technologies as platforms and tools for debate and information sharing, the reality of who -and what - has access and makes contributions to this discourse is changing. The perception of online and digital communication and debate as accessible, intersectional and democratizing forces has also meant that the conceived relationship between theoretical discourse and feminist praxis in a global forum has been made more mutable, and the distinctions between what is theory and what is praxis have become more blurred. Whether we regard digital media as trans or post-human, disembodied or decentralized, it does at least represent a form of conversation that blurs the boundaries of how we communicate, who (and what) is considered to have subjectivity, the impact of geographical location and embodiment and corporeality. These have also underpinned feminist animal rights and feminist vegetarian/vegan discourse, especially around our feminist understanding of what it means to be human. This paper references feminist vegetarian, feminist-vegan and ecofeminist theory alongside theoretical work from animal studies across a range of disciplines to analyze feminist intersections with animal rights and veganism. In doing this I hope to offer an introduction to how online context influences feminist animal rights discourse. By considering this topic through a lens of ecofeminist and vegetarian/vegan feminist theory, what we think about when we think about 'the animal', and an examination of the role and function of digital media in feminist discourse, this paper offers some reflections on the online contribution being made to feminist animal rights and vegan discourse, and how digital media are shaping and influencing this discourse and its wider impact.

Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Dedication -- Prologue: Fire Alarm! -- 1 The Stairwell -- 2 Room 208 -- 3 Room 207: The Cheese Box -- 4 Room 210 -- 5 Room 209 -- 6 Room 211 -- 7 Room 212 -- 8 The Annex -- 9 The Rest of the Building -- 10 Out of the Ashes -- 11 Starting over -- Epilogue: Aftermath -- Acknowledgments -- What to Do in Case of Fire -- Learn More -- Notes -- People Interviewed for this Book -- Image Credits

AbstractGayle Rubin's now classic concept of the 'charmed circle' has been much used by scholars of sexuality to discuss the ways in which some types of sex are privileged over others. In this paper, I apply the concept of the charmed circle to a new topic—later life—in order both to add to theory about later life sex and to add an older-age lens to thinking about sex hierarchies. Traditional discursive resources around older people's sexual activities, which treat older people's sex as inherently beyond the charmed circle, now coexist with new imperatives for older people to remain sexually active as part of a wider project of 'successful' or 'active' ageing. Drawing on the now-substantial academic literature about later life sex, I discuss some of the ways in which redrawing the charmed circle to include some older people's sex may paradoxically entail the use of technologies beyond the charmed circle of 'good, normal, natural, blessed' sex. Sex in later life also generates some noteworthy inversions in which types of sex are privileged and which treated as less desirable, in relation to marriage and procreation. Ageing may, furthermore, make available new possibilities to redefine what constitutes 'good' sex and to refuse compulsory sexuality altogether, without encountering stigma.

This paper discusses narratives created during interviews with 23 older women (aged 61–90) about their experiences of sex and intimate relationships in later life. For analytic purposes, the paper understands narratives to be neither pre-existing nor a simple reflection of experience, but to be made moment-by-moment in the interaction between parties drawing on available cultural resources. Attention to the interactional situation in which the narrative is produced helps to explain the ways in which speakers perpetuate or resist dominant cultural storylines. Older women's accounts of sexual relationships provide a particularly rich site for this analysis because a dominant cultural storyline of 'asexual older people' is often evident in popular culture. This storyline provides an important cultural resource which older women who are talking about sex can both draw on and resist in order to produce their own accounts. This paper uses a discourse analytic approach to discuss some of the moments in which speakers explicitly produce counter-narratives. These moments are visible to the analyst by the participants' own orientations to telling a counter-narrative. The paper also considers parts of the accounts which the analyst identifies as counter-narratives, although the speakers do not orient to this. The analyst's own position is thus implicated in the analysis and is reflexively considered.