Gender and Sexualities

The Gender and Sexualities Research Centre

Welcome to the Gender and Sexualities Research Centre

About

Based in the School of Policy and Global Affairs, the GSRC analyses how gender and sexuality intersect with other social divisions and identities in a rapidly changing world, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, collaboration and research.

The GSRC is premised upon ideals of knowledge exchange, partnership and inclusion. It acts a hub, drawing together the wide-ranging research existing across the university on gender and sexualities, providing an intellectual base and fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, collaboration and research within City and beyond.

The Centre is critical, inclusive and outward-looking, offering a space for engagement with key contemporary issues. These range from current news headlines (#MeToo, the gender pay gap, LGBTQI rights) to enduring questions about the dynamics of power and in/equality.

Read about our progress-to-date in our Centre report 

Contact us

Follow us on Twitter @GSRC_City

Stay updated via our blog https://blogs.city.ac.uk/gsrc/

Get in touch and sign up to our mailing list by emailing gsrc@city.ac.uk

People

GSRC Directors

  • Professor Jo Littler (Director)
  • Professor Rosalind Gill (Director)

Organising Committee

Honorary Visiting Professor

Advisory Committee/ Affiliated Members

Membership

The group is open to new members for anyone with interest in the study of gender and sexualities.

Members of the centre are drawn from across the university and include the following staff and PhD students:

Staff

PhD Students

Events

The GSRC (including its earlier incarnation as the GSRF, the Gender and Sexualities Research Forum) has put on a wide range of public talks, seminars, graduate workshops and conferences on subjects including gender and social media, feminism and childcare, feminism and neoliberalism, digital masculinities and care and inequality.

We have hosted speakers from a wide range of international universities and public organisations such as The Daycare Trust, The Women’s Budget Group and Rights of Women, and have collaborated with many external partners including the BSA, the FWSA and the Women’s Media Studies Network, as well as teachers and students at local schools.

If you have an idea for potential collaboration please get in touch with us at gsrc@city.ac.uk

GSRC  Spring term 2023 events

On the other side – Threats to sexual orientation and gender identity rights around the world. Talk and panel discussion. 

Wednesday 15th March 2023 5-7pm, in-person City, University of London 

Please register in advance here.

Speaker: Philip Ayoub (Professor in the Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy at UCL). Chair: Timo Koch (City, University of London. PanellistsVioletta Zentai (online) (Associate Professor in the Department of Public Policy at Central European University Budapest). Felipe Gonzalez Santos (online) (Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sociology, City, University of London)

In recent years, gender and sexual diversity politics have become contentious issues around the globe. Resistance to these politics has assembled a burgeoning group of organizations that identify rights based on sexual orientation and gender identity as a threat, ranging from populist radical right parties, social movements, NGOs, think tanks and foundations. Bringing together a variety of scholars working on anti-gender and far-right politics, the event investigates the collaboration among right-wing groups to contribute to broader discussion on international politics and explains how gender and sexuality shape global politics today.

Feminist Publishing: Practices, Processes, and Contemporary Challenges 

Friday 10th March 1-6pm, in-person City University of London

Half Day Conference –  please register in advance here.

“You are what you publish” is an imperative and injunction often characterising scholarly life in today’s neoliberal university. Pressurising ‘publish or perish’ perspectives can work to discourage early-career researchers who are often unfamiliar with the practices and processes. This event aims to address this blind spot. With a focus on feminist and gender and/sexualities research, this half-day conference looks to demystify academic publishing processes in a supportive, non-competitive environment. Drawing from industry and academic expertise across the areas of book publishing, journals, open access, and grassroots feminist publishing, workshops will cover: book formats and proposal submissions; industry models; peer review processes; alternative models; and different ways to get involved with publishing.

Speakers: Professor Catherine Rottenberg (Nottingham), Dr Asiya Islam (Leeds), Dr Kyoung Kim (SOAS), Dr Kavita Maya (Royal Holloway), Professor Sarah Kember (Goldsmiths), Dr Edna Bonhomme(Silver Press), Shannon Kneis (Manchester University Press), Dr Emily Cousens (LSE), Neda Tehrani(Pluto Press), Rebekka Kiesewetter (Coventry). Keynote talk: Professor Lynne Segal (Birkbeck)

Co-organised by The Gender and Sexualities Research Centre (GSRC) at City and Manchester University Press

GSRC Autumn term 2022 events

Queer Data Lecture by Dr Kevin Guyan

4-5.30pm Thursday 27th October

A talk by Dr. Kevin Guyan about his new book “Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action” (Bloomsbury Academic). This important book looks at queer data – defined as data relating to gender, sex, sexual orientation and trans identity/history. Dr. Guyan shows us how current data practices reflect an incomplete account of LGBTQ lives and helps us understand how data biases are used to delegitimise the everyday experiences of queer people. Dr. Guyan demonstrates why it is important to understand, collect and analyse queer data, the benefits and challenges involved in doing so, and how we might better use queer data in our work. The book shows how greater knowledge about queer identities is instrumental in informing decisions about resource allocation, changes to legislation, access to services, representation and visibility.  Event Discussant: Dr Elinor Carmi (Sociology and Criminology).
Registration here.

Digital Apps Workshop: New Methodological Approaches to Researching Intimacy Online

Thursday 13th October 2022 10am-12pm Online

This online event seeks to understand new approaches to studying apps and intimacy. It draws from the expertise and practical knowledge of scholars looking at the meaning of intimacy in the digital realm. The event aims to benefit and inspire fellow researchers through exchanging notes and experience on methodologies, methods, analysis, and Digital Sociology. The session will be split between 15-minute speaker presentations and audience Q&A.

Speakers: Professor Deborah Lupton (UNSW Sydney),  Professor Ben Light (Salford), Dr. Michael Dieter (Warwick),  Jason Chao (Siegen). Register here.

GSRC  Spring term 2022 events

Revisiting Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies out of Place
Thursday July 21st 2pm – 3:30pm, online

This afternoon event will revisit Space Invaders in a contemporary context marked by renewed activist work and institutional attention to ‘inclusion’, alongside the optics and capitalisation of diversity and the rise of new aggressive forms of inequality. In the process, it will ask: what has the book enabled? How are people positioned as ‘space invaders’ today? What are the changing cultural contours?

Speakers:Manuela Galetto and Chiara Martucci (Sconvegno feminist collective), Agata Lisiak and Florian Duijsens (Bard, Berlin), Roshi Naidoo (Museums Association), Nirmal Puwar (Goldsmiths), Shirin Rai (Warwick), Gillian Rose (Oxford), Shela Sheikh (Goldsmiths), Melissa Strauss (Space Invaders collective). Chairs: Jo Littler (City) and Anamik Saha (Goldsmiths)

Register here.

GSRC In-person GSRC Writing Retreat

Tuesday 5th July at City University 10.30-3pm and led by City Staff members
To register, email gsrc@city.ac.uk

GSRC Online Writing Retreats

13th and 14th June, 9:30-2pm and led by City Staff members
To register, email gsrc@city.ac.uk

GSRC Research Seminar – Women’s Football as Precarious Work

Wednesday 11th May 5-6.30pm
Dr Alex Culvin (UCLAN), chaired by Dr Rachel Cohen (City)

This seminar reveals the gendered precarity that increased professionalisation of women’s football has brought and highlights the role played by players’ collective organisations in fighting for change.

Joint GSRC seminar with the British Sociological Association: Work, Employment and Economic Life Study Group @basweel. More details and event registration here.

Rebel Dykes Screening and Discussion – GSRC & City LGBTQ+ Staff Network Joint Event

Thursday 5th May 4pm
ELGO3, Drysdale Building, City University/Online Livestream

The screening will be followed by a discussion led by Raf Benato (Health Sciences)
About the Documentary:
REBEL DYKES is a full-length documentary about the explosion that happened when punk met feminism, told through the lives of a gang of lesbians in the riotous London of the 1980s. It follows a close-knit group of friends who met at the Greenham Common peace camp and later became artists, performers, music-makers and activists in London, eventually laying the groundwork for today’s LGBTIQ community with their sex-positive rebellion.

More details and registration here.

New Directions in Feminism and Media

PhD & ECR Conference, Monday 9th & Tuesday 10th May 2022, online
Day 1: 2.30pm-6.30pm GMT (UK) / 9:30am-1.30pm EST (US) / 6:30am-10.30am PDT
Day 2: 2.30pm-6pm GMT (UK) / 9:30am-1pm EST (US) / 6:30am-10am PDT. Including online drinks

This event is the third iteration of the New Directions in Feminist Thought conference which took place in January 2022, and November 2020. The event organised on a consortium basis by City, University of London, Coventry, LSE and Annenberg (UPenn & USC) will consist of several panel sessions scheduled across 2 days. Each panel with have 4/5 presentations lasting 10 minutes with time for questions on a range of topics from contemporary feminist research.

The event is to be a work-in-progress showcase for doctoral and recent post-doctoral students with the aim of creating lively debate amongst the community of feminist cultural studies, media studies and sociology scholars across our institutions, and to encourage inter-university debate and collaboration. Participants from all areas of research within the field of feminist and gender studies will present work on a range of subjects connected to gender and research in times of crisis and change. Panels include: Popular Feminist Media and Sexual Violence; Feminist Icons and Media; Athletic culture and Feminism; Feminism and Media/Creative Industries; TikTok and Feminism; Feminism and Technology; Home, Family, Feminism; and Poetry, Portraiture, Plays.

PhD students from any institution are very welcome to attend (NB the deadline for speakers has now passed). To register, email gsrc@city.ac.uk

Feminist research approaches: methods in practice

Wednesday 6th April 4-5.30pm
A ‘PhD centered’ event aiming to offer a space to share experiences/resources around feminist methods & methodologies.

Reflecting on the critical intervention of researchers and feminist activists, this event brings together five City, University of London PhD students across from the fields of sociology, media and cultural studies, and international politics to discuss how feminist methodologies inform their approaches and fieldwork. Fostering a platform for debate and exchange of ideas, this event invites the wider community of students and ECRs to discuss the challenges of researching gender and sexuality in the 21st century. Speakers include: Timo Koch, Xintong Jia, Clare Bowen, Peggy Nakou, and Hannah Curran-Troop.

More details and registration here

Book launch: Confidence Culture

Wednesday 23 March 2022, 6.00-7.30pm, LSE Media + Communications & GSRC event

Speakers: Professor Shani Orgad, Professor Rosalind Gill.
Discussants: Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola and Dr Katherine Angel.
Chair: Dr Rachel O’Neill
To celebrate the publication of their new book Confidence Culture (Duke University Press, 2022), Professor Shani Orgad and Professor Rosalind Gill discus how imperatives directed at women to “love your body” and “believe in yourself” imply that psychological blocks hold women back rather than entrenched social injustices. Interrogating the prominence of confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and international development, Orgad and Gill demonstrate how “confidence culture” demands of women near-constant introspection and vigilance in the service of self-improvement. They argue that while confidence messaging may feel good, it does not address structural and systemic oppression. Rather, confidence culture suggests that women—along with people of colour, the disabled, and other marginalized groups—are responsible for their own conditions. Rejecting confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative.

Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola and Dr Katherine Angel respond to the argument of Confidence Culture, in connection to their own work on gender, violence and desire.

More details and sign up here.

The Politics of Motherhood

Wednesday 23rd February 4pm-5.15pm
Speakers: Dr Pragya Agarwal (Loughborough) and Dr Maud Perrier Bristol
Respondent: Professor Lynne Segal (Birkbeck/City)
Chair: Jo Littler City, University of London
In this session, Pragya Agarwal and Maud Perrier introduce their respective new books, (M)otherhood: On the choices of being a woman and Childcare Struggles, Maternal Workers and Social Reproduction, both of which are concerned with the complex lived realities, challenges and political climate of motherhood today.

More details and sign up here.

New Directions in Feminist Thought PhD & ECR Conference
Wednesday 26th & Thursday 27th Jan 2022, online
Day 1: 2.15pm-6.30pm GMT (UK) / 9:15am-1.30pm EST (US) / 6:15am-10.30am PDT Includes keynote panel discussion with Dr Chantelle Lewis (Oxford) Dr Julia Ticona (Annenberg) and Dr Melanie Kennedy (Leicester).

Day 2: 2.15pm-6pm GMT (UK) / 9:15am-1pm EST (US) / 6:15am-10am PDT. Including online drinks
Building on a successful event last year, this day event organised on a consortium basis by City, University of London, Coventry, LSE and Annenberg (UPenn & USC) will consist of several panel sessions scheduled across 2 days. Each panel with have 4/5 presentations lasting 10 minutes with time for questions on a range of topics from contemporary feminist research.
More details & event registration here.

GSRC Online Writing Retreats

20th & 21st January, all 9:30-2pm and led by City Staff members
To register, email gsrc@city.ac.uk

GSRC  Autumn term 2021 events

Wednesday 1 December, 1-2pm  Feminist critique to digital consent  Dr Elinor Carmi (Sociology).  A joint GSRC & Sociology seminar. More details and sign up here

Monday 25th October 9am-1pm Feminism in Spain: Challenges and debates today (Feminismo en España: Retos y debates actuales)
A half-day online conference exploring key challenges for and debates within feminism in contemporary Spain. Speakers include Ana de Miguel, Beatriz Ranea-Triviño, Emma Gómez Nicolau, María José Gámez Fuentes, Sonia Núñez Puente and Diana Fernández Romero, speaking on topics including The Feminist Movement in Contemporary Spain, Youth and Gender, and Media and Violence. More details and sign-up here.

Friday 15th October 2-4pm Feminist Collaging Workshop with Asma Istwani
Collage, paint and mixed-media artist, Asma Istwani will lead an online 2-hour collaging workshop. In this workshop, attendees will learn about different types of collage, be guided through tips and techniques, as well as participate in discussions of how it can be used to express ideas about gender. Limited places, to register, email gsrc@city.ac.uk

GSRC Research-in-progress seminars

Thursday 4th November 1-2pm, Dr Arienne Yong A gendered EU Settlement Scheme: women as vulnerable in a post-Brexit Britain, Chair: Hannah Manzur. Joint GSRC and CLS seminar

Wednesday 13th October 1-2pm, Dr Sarah Burton, Leverhulme Fellow, Sociology, Writing with the canon: locating gender and sexuality in our everyday canonical engagements. Chair: Professor Simon Susen

Wednesday 6th October 12-1pm, Cassandra Yuill (Health Sciences), A critical feminist discourse analysis of induction of labour policy and guidance Chair: Christine McCourt (Health)

GSRC Online Writing Retreats

4th & 5th October
11th & 12th November
6th & 7th December

All 9:30-2pm and led by City Staff members
To register, email gsrc@city.ac.uk

GSRC Pride Event

Wednesday June 20th 4-5pm Revisiting the Politics of Pride in a Post-Covid world? Queer Liberation, (de-)commercialisation, and re-claiming public space

Dr Francesca Romana Ammaturo (Roehampton), Dr Olimpia Burchiellaro (Westminster), Dr Koen Slootmaeckers (City)

Over the last half a century, Pride as an event has not only become a commonplace within LGBT activism but has also transformed tremendously over time. In this event, the panel will reflect on the politics of Pride parades in the post-covid world. How does queer liberation fit within contemporary pride events? How do we as a queer community engage with the commercialisation of our identities and the corporate sponsorship of Pride parades? How do we recover from the impacts of COVID on queer lives and reclaim public space and visibility of queer lives? More details and sign up here.

GSRC series - Advanced feminist research methods and skills

Tuesday 5 - Wednesday 7 July GSRC Online Writing Retreat with Professor Pat Thomson

This writing retreat, which takes place online over 2 short days between 9:30-2pm, will involve both free writing and structured writing to targets alongside time for discussion and planning. It will offer a supportive and non-competitive environment in which to develop your writing, together with tips on publishing and writing skills and technique The online retreat is led by Professor Pat Thomson (University of Nottingham). More details and sign up here.

Thursday 20 May, 1pm – 2:30pmText-in-action: a research workshop with Professor Helen Wood (Lancaster)

‘Text in action’ is an audience research methodology pioneered by Helen Wood in her work on television reception to interrogate dynamic relationships between texts and social contexts. In this workshop, Helen Wood will discuss text-in-action research: explain how it evolved, how it works, its problems and possibilities. The workshop will include time for questions and discussion.

Booking essential. Priority given to PhDs and ECRs. More details and registration here.

Thursday 29 April, 11-2pm, Gender and quantitative methodologies

11-12pm Dr Rachel Cohen ‘What might a critical feminist engagement with quantitative methods involve?

1-2pm European Social Survey staff, ‘Using ESS for research on gender and sexuality’

How might we use quantitative methods in gender research? How might the European Social Survey (ESS) be used for research into gender and sexuality? Find out at these two talks (with Q&A).

All welcome. Register here.

Dr Rachel Cohen is Reader in Sociology and has written on statistical literacy, gender and employment. She was founding co-ordinator of City Q-Step Centre.

Eric Harrison, Stefan Swift, Eva Aizpurua, Elissa Sibley and Jennifer McGuiness all work at ESS headquarters at City.

Monday 22 March 4pm-5.15pm. Voice and Voices: Feminist interviews and the ‘Sisterhood and After’ project
Professor Margaretta Jolly (Sussex) & Dr Polly Russell (British Library)

In this seminar, Margaretta Jolly and Polly Russell will reflect on their work using oral histories of the Women’s Liberation Movement and the different ways they have put them to use. They discuss the Sisterhood and After project, its conception and methods. Margaretta Jolly discusses her interpretation of these oral histories in her book Sisterhood and After. Polly Russell will talk about the use voices and interviews on the British Library website and the Unfinished Business exhibition. Together they will reflect on the use of oral histories as feminist method.
More details and registration here.

Monday 25th January, 11am-12.30pm, Feminist Digital Ethnography – a roundtable with Francesca Sobande, Ingrid Brudvig, and Zoë Glatt discussing the theoretical, practical, and ethical implications of conducting feminist digital ethnographic research.
Limited places, prioritising City PhDs and ECR, sign up by emailing gsrc@city.ac.uk.

Friday 15th January 10am-12pm, Difficult Conversations – A feminism and methodology workshop with Róisín Ryan-Flood (Essex). Limited places, prioritising City PhDs and ECR, sign up here

Monday 22nd March 4pm-5.15pm Voice and Voices: Feminist interviews and the ‘Sisterhood and After’ project, Professor Margaretta Jolly (Sussex) & Dr Polly Russell (British Library)

In this seminar, Margaretta Jolly and Polly Russell will reflect on their work using oral histories of the Women’s Liberation Movement and the different ways they have put them to use. They discuss the Sisterhood and After project, its conception and methods. Margaretta Jolly discusses her interpretation of these oral histories in her book Sisterhood and After. Polly Russell will talk about the use voices and interviews on the British Library website and the Unfinished Business exhibition. Together they will reflect on the use of oral histories as feminist method.

GSRC Research-in-progress seminars

Monday 14th June 4-5.30pm Is the British Armed Services having a #MeToo moment? with Dr Julie Wheelwright

While the British military opened all combat roles to women in 2018, did this equality on paper correspond to equality ‘on the ground’ for serving women? The military chiefs have been keen to emphasise improving diversity but many women in the armed forces are reporting lack of inclusion- and ongoing sexism. In this presentation Dr. Julie Wheelwright, author of Sisters in Arms: Female Warriors from Antiquity to the New Millennium, will discuss Lt Colonel (rtd) Diane Allen's campaign to have Military Sexual Trauma recognised. She will speak about the testimony from serving women’s experiences that Allen presented before the House of Commons Defence Select Committee Women in the Armed Force (2021). Dr Wheelwright will provide context for women’s active participation in the military, making links between the contemporary issues women face, and their historic roots, supporting Allen’s comments on what needs to change, and why.

More details and sign up here.

Tuesday 25th May 12-1pm (postponed til Autumn) Writing with the canon: locating gender and sexuality in our everyday canonical engagements. Dr Sarah Burton

Register here.

My monograph-in-progress, Writing with the Canon: Reflections on Intellectuals, Power and the Making of Knowledge, examines the ways the canon and its values are sedimented in daily academic life and value judgements, conceptions of the self as an intellectual, or expert, and institutional inequalities of racism, sexism, and classism. Rather than positioning the canon as stable, fixed, or knowable Writing with the Canon suggests an interpretation of the canon-as-object wherein it is lively, animated, and vital. Beginning by acknowledging perspectives of the canon as ‘male, pale, and stale’, the book looks to move away from these conventional analyses to provide richly detailed ethnographic testimony on the affect, influence, and power the canon in the everyday writing lives of contemporary intellectuals. In this work-in-progress seminar I hope to do two things: i) to share the ethnography underpinning the book and discuss these ideas of ‘sticky’ or ‘lively’ canons in our new context of post/pandemic intellectual life; ii) to dig deeper into the more subtle appearances of issues of gender and sexuality in the canon – movements and machinations that go beyond the notion that the canon is simply a collection of dead white men. Here I hope to examine the more complicated and often-fleeting ways that the canon is gendered, queered, or intersects unexpectedly with power and privilege connected to gender and sexuality.

Friday 12th Feb 2021 11am-12pm, COVID-19 Highlighting Inequalities in Access to Health in England: A Case Study of Ethnic Minority and Migrant Women, Dr Sabrina Germain and Dr Adrienne Yong, City Law School

The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified existing barriers to healthcare in England for ethnic minority and migrant women. We expose how the pandemic has affected the allocation of healthcare resources leading to the prioritisation of COVID-19 patients and suspending the equal access to healthcare services approach. We argue that we must look beyond this disruption in provision by examining existing barriers to access that have been amplified by the pandemic in order to understand the poorer health outcomes for women in ethnic minority and migrant communities.

For Zoom details email gsrc@city.ac.uk

GSRC & Sociology seminar

Wednesday 24 March 2021 1pm-2pm

The police response to domestic abuse during - and after - Covid-19, Dr Katrin Hohl (City) and Dr Kelly Johnson (Durham

This webinar presents preliminary findings from an ongoing ESRC-funded research project on domestic abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic as it comes to police attention, and police officers perspectives on the challenges of responding to domestic abuse during the pandemic.

More details here.

Past events

The GSRC (including its earlier incarnation as the GSRF, the Gender and Sexualities Research Forum) has put on a wide range of public talks, seminars, graduate workshops and conferences on subjects including gender and social media, feminism and childcare, feminism and neoliberalism, digital masculinities and care and inequality.

We have hosted speakers from a wide range of international universities and public organisations such as The Daycare Trust, The Women’s Budget Group and Rights of Women, and have collaborated with many external partners including the BSA, the FWSA and the Women’s Media Studies Network, as well as teachers and students at local schools.

If you have an idea for potential collaboration please get in touch with us at gsrc@city.ac.uk

Events in 2020

GSRC series - Advanced feminist research methods and skills

Friday 18 December, 11am-12pmProducing Feminist Research: Dilemmas of doing Feminist Ethnography and Research with our own Communities
Dr Maria do Mar Pereira (Warwick) in conversation with Dr Laura Favaro (City). Interview followed by questions and discussion with attendees. Limited places, prioritising City PhDs and ECR, sign up here here

Friday 13 November 9:30am-1pm ‘Writing Qualitative Research’ with Professor Karen O’Reilly (via Zoom)
This half-day advanced course covers the transition from interpretive thematic analysis to writing up qualitative findings. To register, email gsrc@city.ac.uk

City PhD Reading Group

A monthly PhD reading group for PhD's interested in gender and/or sexuality. Please contact Hannah.Curran-Troop.2@city.ac.uk if you want to participate. All books/texts will be chosen by PhD participants.

11 & 25 Nov, 3-5pm, online via Zoom - reading and discussing bell hooks, Ain't I a woman

25 Sept, 9 Oct, 23 Oct, 3-5pm, online via Zoom – reading and discussing Alison Phipps Me not you: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism

10 July & 24 July, 2-4pm, online via Zoom – reading and discussing Lola Olufemi’s Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power

12 June & 26 June, 2-4pm, online via Zoom – reading and discussing Angela McRobbie’s Feminism and the Politics of Resilience

1, 8, 15, 22, & 29 May online via Zoom – reading various articles and resources relating to gender and sexuality in times of Covid-19. Please get in touch to access this reading list – gsrc@city.ac.uk or hannah.curran-troop.2@city.ac.uk

26 Feb 4-6pm, in AG05 - reading bell hooks' Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representations

31st March, 10-7pm, LSE: PhD Day Event: New Directions in Feminist Thought: In Times of Urgency, Anger and Activism

Now postponed until Autumn term

This day event hosted at LSE and organised on a consortium basis by LSE, Goldsmiths and GSRC at City, University of London will comprise 4 panel sessions scheduled across the day, concluding with a plenary talk by Dr Amy Hasinoff (author of Sexting panic: Rethinking criminalization, privacy, and consent). Each panel will have 4/5 presentations lasting 15 minutes with time for questions on a range of topics from contemporary feminist research. To register please email gsrc@city.ac.uk with your name and institution. Limited spaces available.

GSRC Autumn term online Research-in-progress seminars

Thurs 8 Oct, 1-2pm – Dr Vanessa Gash, ‘The partner pay gap – how normative values of male breadwinning sustain within partner pay inequalities’. In association with CROWS.
Chair: Jo Littler.

Wed 21 Oct, 1-2pm – Dr Jessica Simpson, ‘Poles apart? A comparative analysis of female university students and graduates working in the UK stripping and hospitality industries’
Chair: Rachel Cohen.

Wed 4 Nov, 1-2pm – Cassandra Wiener, ‘Domestic abuse and coercive control’. In association with the Violence and Society Centre.
Chair: Merili Pullerits.

Thurs 19 Nov, 1-2pm – Dr Hetta Howes, ‘Welling up and spilling over: gendered language of excess in medieval literature’.
Chair: Jo Littler.

Wed 25 Nov, 1-2pm – Dr Carolina Matos, ‘“Is it all about abortion?”: NGOs, advocacy communications and women’s reproductive bodies in the digital age’
Chair: Laura Favaro

Fri 4 Dec, 1-2pm – Dr Sahra Taylor, Visiting Lecturer in International, Political, and Social Theory.
Title TBC
(Postponed to 2021)

Wed 9th Dec, 1-2pm – Dr Laura Favaro ‘Gender wars: Interviewing feminist academics’.
Chair: Ros Gill
(Postponed to 2021)

GSRC Spring term Research-in-progress seminars

21st April, 1:30-3pm, D427 (Rhind) Ginnie Braun (University of Auckland) ‘… what happens next? Story completion as a method to explore meaning-making around sex, gender and gendered bodies’ and Kellie Burns (University of Sydney) ‘Mediating Sexual Subjectivities’.  Chair:  Ros Gill (postponed due to Covid-19)

11th March 12-1pm, DLG08 (Rhind) Julie Wheelwright, 'From Mata Hari to #MeToo: Reflections on Seduction, Harassment and Sexual Shame'. Chair: Jess Simpson. (Postponed due to Covid-19)

12th Feb 12- 1pm, D111 (Rhind) Lis Howell, ‘Expert Women' . Chair: Suzanne Franks

5th Feb 2-3pm, D104 (Rhind) Peter Grant (CASS), ‘Confrontation vs Subversion: Fourth Wave Feminism and the work of Amanda Palmer and Annie Clark’. Chair: Or Rosenboim. This talk is in conjunction with the Centre for Modern History at City

22nd Jan 12-1pm, D111 (Rhind) Carolina Are,'The Law of Meta-Shade in Crossover Facebook Group Fire WERK With Me' and Michael Hunklinger, ‘Claiming public space – Queer-political graffiti in Vienna'. Chair: Koen Slootmaeckers

LGBT History month film screenings. Organised by the LGBTQI+ staff network at City in association with GRSC

8th Feb, 6pm in ELG02 But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) & discussion with staff from the LGBTQI+ Staff Network

11th Feb, 6pm in C308 Moonlight (2016) & by Q&A with Dr Clive Nwonka, LSE Fellow in Film

19th Feb, 6pm in C300 Lasting Marks (2018) & by Q&A with director, Charlie Shackleton

28th Feb, 5.30pm in A130 A Fantastic Woman (2017) & discussion

Events in 2019

5 December, 6-8pm, C309 Book launch: Work that Body: Male Bodies in Digital Culture, Jamie Hakim (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019)

A joint event with UEA School of Art, Media and American Studies.

Work That Body explores how the male body has been represented by, constructed in, and experienced through digital media during the age of austerity. Analysing examples including muscular bodies on social media, the mediation of chemsex and celebrity nudity, it finds that on the one hand digital media has enabled men to transform their bodies into tools of value-creation in an economic context when their traditional breadwinning capacities have been diminished. On the other, it has allowed them to use their bodies to form intimate collective bonds during a moment when competitive individualism continues to be insisted on as the privileged mode of being in the world.

Join the author Jamie Hakim and respondents Helen Wood (Lancaster), Stephen Maddison (Brighton) and Catherine Rottenberg (Nottingham) as they discuss masculinity and digital media in the age of austerity.

  • Dr Jamie Hakim worked at Attitude magazine from 2003 before becoming an academic, and is now Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is Principal Investigator of the ESRC-funded project 'Digital Intimacies: how gay and bisexual men use their smartphones to negotiate their cultures of intimacy' which is partnered with the Terrance Higgins Trust.
  • Stephen Maddison is Professor and Head of the School of Humanities at the University of Brighton and the author of Fags, Hags and Queer Sisters: Gender Dissent and Heterosocial Bonds in Gay Culture (Macmillan).
  • Catherine Rottenberg is Associate Professor in American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottingham. Her book The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism was published by Oxford University Press in 2018.
  • Helen Wood is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Lancaster University. Her work on gender, class and inequality includes the book Talking with Television (Illinois) and the recent article ‘The Malaguf Girl: a public sex scandal and the digital class relations of social contagion’.

25 November, 6-8pm, ELG01 #MeToo: Past and Present

** This event is postponed due to UCU Strike Action **

Our panel will discuss #MeToo in long historical perspective, from Mata Hari to contemporary media.

Karen Boyle: On silence breaking

In December 2017, Time magazine named the “Silence Breakers” – the women, and some men, speaking out about sexual harassment – their “person” of the year. This paper re-considers mediatized silence breaking in relation to a longer history of feminist speak outs, and critically examines the way in which feminism (and feminists) featured both in the 2017 stories and in Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s subsequent account of breaking the Weinstein story in She Said.

Julie Wheelwright, From Mata Hari to #MeToo: Reflections on Seduction, Harassment and Sexual Shame

A few months before the New York Times broke the story about Harvey Weinstein paying off his accusers for decades in 2017, a new publication of Mata Hari’s letters provided a historic perspective on the sexual harassment of female performers. Coinciding with the centenary of Margaretha Zelle MacLeod’s execution on espionage charges by the French on 15 October 1917, this presentation explores the contemporary relevance of her rejection of victimhood and sexual shame.

About the speakers

Karen Boyle is Professor of Feminist Media Studies at the University of Strathclyde. She is author of Media and Violence: Gendering the Debates (Sage) and Everyday Pornography (Routledge). Her new book #MeToo, Weinstein and Feminism is out soon with Palgrave.

Julie Wheelwright is Director of the Creative Writing MA at City and author of The Fatal Lover: Mata Hari and the Myth of Women in Espionage (Harper Collins) and Amazons and Military Maids: Women Who Dressed as Men in Pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness (Pandora).

Sarah Banet-Weiser is Professor and Head of the Dept of Media and Communications at LSE. Her most recent book is Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular Misogyny (Duke) and the article ‘From Pick-Up Artists to Incels: Con(fidence) Games, Networked Misogyny and the Failure of Neoliberalism’ with Jack Bratich

Jack Bratich is Associate Professor of Journalism & Media Studies at Rutgers. His work on social media and social theory includes the book Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular Culture (SUNY).

22 November, 2pm-6.30pm, AG09,  New Research in Gender and Music

A joint symposium presented by the Centre for Gender and Sexualities Research and the Music Department at City

Session 1: 2.15pm-3.40pm. Gender and music research at City. Chair: Professor Laudan Nooshin

  • Gabrielle Messeder, Performing samba in Beirut: citizenship, precarity and the Lebanese state
  • Kathryn Levell, The Serious Need for All-Female Bands: A Comparative Study of Female Musicians' Experiences in London Jazz venues and Corporate Settings
  • Tanja Goldberg, Pioneer Violin Virtuose: Transcending Limitations

Session 2: 4-5.30pm. Book launch: ‘Class, control, and classical music’ – Anna Bull (Oxford University Press, 2019) Followed by wine reception

This book draws on an ethnographic study of young people playing in classical music ensembles in the south of England to explore class and gender identities and inequalities.

Speakers: Dr Anna Bull (University of Portsmouth), Professor Geoff Baker (Royal Holloway, University of London), Dr Christina Scharff (King’s College London), Francesca Christmas (Trinity College London), Dr Anamik Saha (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Chair: Professor Anahid Kassabian

13th November 1-2pm, C307 - GSRC Research-in-progress seminar

An informal research-in-progress seminar. Prof Rosalind Gill (Sociology) and Dr Koen Slootmaeckers (Politics) will both be discussing their current research:

  • Ros will talk about her work on the psychic life of neoliberalism focussing on the promotion of confidence, resilience and positive mental attitude looking at adverts, apps and wider policies.
  • Koen will talk about his work on how sexuality is used to construct and maintain symbolic boundaries and hierarchies in international politics.

Rosalind Gill is Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis at City. Her books include Gender and the Media (Polity) and Mediated Intimacy: Sex Advice in Media Culture with Meg-John Barker and Laura Harvey (Wiley).

Koen Slootmaeckers is Lecturer in International Politics at City and co-editor of EU Enlargement and Gay Politics (Palgrave).

16 October, 1:30 - 6:30pm: Feminist dilemmas, feminist hope? 30 years of the Feminist and Women Studies Association and launch of the GSRC at City, University of London.

Speakers include: Heidi Safia Mirza, Jo Grady, Francesca Sobande, Lynne Segal, Sylvia Walby, Lola Olufemi, Rosalind Gill, Jess Butler, the Res-Sisters, Rights of Women and, the Women’s Budget Group.

Location: Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre, followed by drinks reception.

Read the GSRC joint statement with the Feminist and Women's Studies Association (FWSA) on the event

4 October 4-6:30pm: Research symposium on Sex Robots

Technological advancements in robotics have fundamentally changed the way we shop, drive cars and undergo surgery but what happens when robots enter our bedrooms – as intimate partners? The launch of the world’s first commercially available sex robot ‘Harmony’ – a hyperrealistic sex doll with AI-capabilities – has inspired popular, scholarly and media debate about the impact of technology on our interpersonal relationships.

Some of that debate is avowedly ‘speculative’ (Danaher and McArthur 2017: 4) because the technology is new, the sex robot market niche and, because most of us have never even seen a sex robot much less had sex with one, we rely on science fiction tropes generated in film and TV shows (Sharkey, Wynsberghe, Robbins and Hancock, 2017: 2).

So, does the rise of the sex machine herald a ‘Brave Nude World’ of human sexual experience as one news headline claimed, or will these glamorous cyborgs destroy human relationships altogether? What are the legal and ethical implications of robotic sexual companions?

Join Dr Kate Devlin (author of Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots),), Dr Rebecca Saunders (author of Bodies of Work: The Labour of Sex in the Digital Age) and Dr Belinda Middleweek (author of Real Sex Films: The New Intimacy and Risk in Cinema) for a discussion about the impact of sex robots on our most intimate sphere – the realm of sex, love and intimacy.

Publications

Books

Gill, R and Orgad, S. (2020) Confidence Culture, Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming.

Littler, J, Chatzidakis, A., Rottenberg, C and Segal, L. (2020) The Care Manifesto. Verso, forthcoming.

Lonsdale, S. (2020) Rebel Women Between the Wars: Fearless Writers and Adventurers. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Walby, Sylvia. (2020) Theorising Violence, Cambridge: Polity Press.

Wheelwright, J. (2020) Sisters in Arms: Female Warriors from Antiquity to the New Millennium' Oxford: Osprey Publishing.

Journal Articles

Ayers, S., Radoš, S.N., Matijaš, M., Anđelinović, M., and Čartolovni, A. (2020). The role of posttraumatic stress and depression symptoms in mother-infant bonding. Journal of Affective Disorders, 268, pp. 134–140.

Ayers, S. Lee, S., Holden, D., and Webb, R. (2019). Pregnancy related risk perception in pregnant women, midwives & doctors: a cross-sectional survey. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 19(1).

Ayers, S., Crawley, R., Webb, R., Button, S., Thornton, A., Smith, H. … Gyte, G. (2019). What are women stressed about after birth? Birth, 46(4).

Birkett, G. (2019). Transforming women’s rehabilitation? An early assessment of gender-specific provision in three Community Rehabilitation Companies. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 19(1), pp. 98–114.

Blumell, L.E. (2020). Bro, foe, or ally? Measuring ambivalent sexism in political online reporters. Feminist Media Studies, 20(1), pp. 53–69.

Blumell, L.E. and Rodriguez, N.S. (2020). Ambivalent Sexism and Gay Men in the US and UK. Sexuality and Culture,24(1), pp. 209–229.

Birkett, G. (2019). Solving Her Problems? Beyond the Seductive Appeal of Specialist Problem-Solving Courts for Women Offenders in England and Wales. Journal of Social Policy. 

Blumell, L.E. and Cooper, G. (2019). Measuring Gender in News Representations of Refugees and Asylum Seekers.International Journal of Communication, 13, pp. 4444–4464.

Blumell, L.E. Huemmer, J., McLaughlin, B. and (2019). Leaving the Past (Self) Behind: Non-Reporting Rape Survivors’ Narratives of Self and Action. Sociology, 53(3), pp. 435–450.

Blumell, L.E., Huemmer, J. and Sternadori, M. (2019). Protecting the Ladies: Benevolent Sexism, Heteronormativity, and Partisanship in Online Discussions of Gender-Neutral Bathrooms. Mass Communication and Society, 22(3), pp. 365–388.

Blumell, L.E. and Huemmer, J. (2019). Reassessing balance: News coverage of Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood scandal before and during #metoo. Journalism.

Chatzidakis, A, Hakim, J. Littler, J, Rottenberg, C, Segal, L (2020) forthcoming 'From carewashing to radical care: The discursive explosions of care during Covid-19' Feminist Media Studies.

Favaro, L. (2020) ‘Hey, here’s the new way’: Young women’s magazines in times of the Web 3.0. In Women's Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1940s-2000s. The Postwar and Contemporary Period, edited by L. Forster and J. Hollows. Edinburgh University Press.

Gash, V., Mertens, A. and Romeu Gordo, L. and Dieckhoff, M.,(2020). Partnered women's contribution to household labor income: Persistent inequalities among couples and their determinants. Social Science Research, 85, pp. 102348–102348.

Hohl, K and Myhill, A. (2019). The “Golden Thread”: Coercive Control and Risk Assessment for Domestic Violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 34(21-22), pp. 4477–4497.

Litosseliti, L. and Georgiadou, I. (2019). Taiwanese speech–language therapists’ awareness and experiences of service provision to transgender clients. International Journal of Transgenderism, 20(1), pp. 87–97.

Litosseliti, L., Gill, R. and Favaro, L.G. (2019). Postfeminism as a critical tool for gender and language study. Gender and Language, 13(1).

Littler, J. (2019). Mothers behaving badly: chaotic hedonism and the crisis of neoliberal social reproduction, Cultural Studies, 1-22.

Littler, J. (2020). 'Fortunes of feminism: act four’. Part of Fortunes of Feminism: A Roundtable on and with Nancy Fraser. Discussants: Jo Littler, Eric Fassin, Barbara Poggio, Nancy Fraser. Rassegna italiana di sociologia, (4), pp. 845–849.

Lucas, G., Olander, E.K., Ayers, S. and Salmon, D. (2019). No straight lines - Young women's perceptions of their mental health and wellbeing during and after pregnancy: A systematic review and meta-ethnography. BMC Women's Health,19(1).

Lucas, G., Olander, E.K. and Salmon, D. (2019). Healthcare professionals’ views on supporting young mothers with eating and moving during and after pregnancy: An interview study using the COM-B framework. Health and Social Care in the Community.

Matos, C. (2019). Feminist media studies across borders: Re-visiting studies within the Brazilian national context.Journal of International Women's Studies, 20(2), pp. 11–25.

McCourt, C. Rayment, J., Rance, S., and Sandall CBE RM, J. (2019). Barriers to women's access to alongside midwifery units in England. Midwifery, 77, pp. 78–85.

Orgad, S. and Gill, R. (2019). Safety valves for mediated female rage in the #MeToo era. Feminist Media Studies, 19(4), pp. 596–603.

Slootmaeckers, K. (2019). Constructing European Union Identity through LGBT Equality Promotion: Crises and Shifting Othering Processes in the European Union Enlargement. Political Studies Review.

Slootmaeckers, K. (2019). Nationalism as competing masculinities: Homophobia as a technology of othering for hetero- and homonationalism. Theory and Society, 48(2), pp. 239–265.

Simpson, J., & Smith, C. (2020). Students, sex work and negotiations of stigma in the UK and Australia. Sexualities.

Slootmaeckers, K. (2020). LGBTI Rights in Turkey: Sexuality and the State in the Middle East. By Fait Muedini. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 274p. $105.00 cloth, $27.99 paper. Perspectives on Politics, 18(1), pp. 302–304.

Walby, S. (2020). Gender, violence and Brexit. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 70(1), pp. 17–33.

Wiener, C (2019) ‘Grooming and Coercive Control‘ Safe: The Domestic Abuse Quarterly 23 (67).

Chapters

Ehrstein, Y., Gill, R. and Littler, J. (2020). The Affective Life of Neoliberalism: Constructing (Un)reasonableness on Mumsnet. In: S. Dawes and M. Lenormand (eds.) Neoliberalism in Context: Governance, Subjectivity and Knowledge. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 195-213.

Favaro, L. and Gill, R. (2019). Pump Up the Positivity’: Neoliberalism, affective entrepreneurship and the victimhood/agency debate. In Gómez Nicolau, E., Gámez Fuentes, M.J. and Núñez Puente, S. (Eds.), Re-writing Women as Victims: From Theory to Practice Routledge.

Franks, S. and Howell, L. (2019). Seeking women's expertise in the UK broadcast news media. In carter, C., steiner, L. and Allan, S. (Eds.), Journalism, Gender and Power (pp. 49–62). Routledge.

Gill, R.C., Ehrstein, Y. and Littler, J. (2019). The Affective Life of Neoliberalism: Constructing (Un)Reasonableness on Mumsnet. In Dawes, S. and Lenormand, M. (Eds.), Neoliberalism in context: governance, subjectivity, knowledge Palgrave.

Gill, R. and Kanai, A. (2019). Affirmative advertising and the mediated feeling rules of neoliberalism. In Meyers, M. (Ed.), Neoliberalism and the Media New York: Routledge.

Gill, R.C. and Toms, K. (2019). Trending now: feminism, sexism, misogyny and postfeminism in British journalism. Journalism, Gender and Power (pp. 97–112). London: Routledge.

Gill, R.C. and Virani, T. (2019). Hip Hub? Class, race and gender in creative hubs. Creative Hubs in Question: Place, Space and Work in the Creative Economy (pp. 131–154). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Wiener, C. (2020) ‘From Social Construct to Legal Paradigm: the New Offence of Coercive or Controlling Behaviour in England and Wales’ in Marilyn McMahon and Paul McGorrery, (eds) Criminalising Non-Physical Family Violence: Coercive Control and Autonomy Crimes, Springer International.

Interviews, reviews and other publications 

Banet-Weiser, S., Gill, R. and Rottenberg, C. (2020). Postfeminism, popular feminism and neoliberal feminism? Sarah Banet-Weiser, Rosalind Gill and Catherine Rottenberg in conversation. Feminist Theory, 21(1), pp. 3–24.

Bowen, C. and Littler, J. (2020). Tracey Jensen (2018). Parenting the Crisis: The Cultural Politics of Parent-Blame.Bristol: Policy Press. Studies in the Maternal, 11(1), p.12.

Chatzidakis, A, Hakim, J. Littler, J, Rottenberg, C, Segal, L. (2020) Covid-19 Pandemic: A crisis of Care https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4617-covid-19-pandemic-a-crisis-of-care

Ehrstein, Y. (2020). Review Essay on The Rise of Neoliberal Feminism by Catherine Rottenberg. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ehrstein, Y. (2019). Book Review of Heading Home: Motherhood, Work and the Failed Promise of Equality by Shani Orgad. New York, Chichester: Columbia University Press, (2019), LSE Review of Books.

Grant, P. (2020). Female Philanthropy in the Interwar World: Between Self and Other (Book review). American Historical Review, 125(2).

Littler, J and Wainwright, H. (2020). Municipalism and feminism then and now. Soundings, 74, pp. 10–25.

Littler, J. and Ware, V. (Forthcoming) 'Gender, race, class, ecology and peace: Vron Ware talks to Jo Littler. Soundings 7.

Littler, J and L. Segal. (2020, forthcoming) ‘Repairing Care’, Fabian Review.

Lonsdale, S. (2019). Book review Carolyn M Edy The woman war correspondent, the U.S. military, and the press: 1846–1947. Journalism, 20(5), pp. 688-689.

Matos, C. (2019). Book review The Technoscientific witness of rape - contentious histories of law, feminism and forensic science. American Journal of Sociology, 125(March 2020 no 5).

Stark, E and Wiener, C. (2019) ‘Coercive Control, the Offense and Men: A Response to Bates and Taylor’ 25(2) Domestic Violence Report 31.

Wiener, C. (2019) 'The New Law on Controlling or Coercive Behaviour in England and Wales: Progress But Not (Yet) A Solution?'Human Rights Defender 11 28(3).