scholarly journals Limitation, Subversion, and Agency: Gendered Spaces in the Works of Margaret Mahy, Cynthia Voigt, and Diana Wynne Jones

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ann Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Gendered Spaces ◽  
Margaret Mahy

Margaret Mahy: An Adlerian Reading

2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-199
Author(s):  
KATHRYN WALLS
Keyword(s):  
Young Female ◽  
The Other ◽  
Individual Psychology ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Alfred Adler ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Magical Power ◽  
Margaret Mahy ◽  
The Individual

According to the ‘Individual Psychology’ of Alfred Adler (1870–1937), Freud's contemporary and rival, everyone seeks superiority. But only those who can adapt their aspirations to meet the needs of others find fulfilment. Children who are rejected or pampered are so desperate for superiority that they fail to develop social feeling, and endanger themselves and society. This article argues that Mahy's realistic novels invite Adlerian interpretation. It examines the character of Hero, the elective mute who is the narrator-protagonist of The Other Side of Silence (1995) , in terms of her experience of rejection. The novel as a whole, it is suggested, stresses the destructiveness of the neurotically driven quest for superiority. Turning to Mahy's supernatural romances, the article considers novels that might seem to resist the Adlerian template. Focusing, in particular, on the young female protagonists of The Haunting (1982) and The Changeover (1984), it points to the ways in which their magical power is utilised for the sake of others. It concludes with the suggestion that the triumph of Mahy's protagonists lies not so much in their generally celebrated ‘empowerment’, as in their transcendence of the goal of superiority for its own sake.

A New Generation of Girls

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-127
Author(s):  
Lucy D. Curzon
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
New York University ◽  
Gendered Spaces ◽  
Transgender Children ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Gender Revolution

BOOK REVIEWAnn Travers. 2018. The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and Their Parents) Are Creating a Gender Revolution. New York: New York University Press.Ann Travers’s new book, The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and Their Parents) Are Creating a Gender Revolution (hereafter The Trans Generation) is a highly persuasive investigation that sheds much-needed scholarly light on a grossly marginalized, precarious community. Travers interviewed 36 transgender children, and many of their parents, to reveal the challenges they face in everyday use of bathrooms, locker rooms, and other rigidly gendered spaces, as well as in interactions with friends, parents, and siblings, as well as schools, and local and state or provincial governments. Apart from the scope of this study, what is remarkable about The Trans Generation is its accessibility. Instead of presenting a quantitative analysis, which can be alienating to readers outside academia, Travers offers an exhaustive qualitative study parsed in highly thoughtful, eloquent, and open terms—one that prizes the individuality, indeed the knowableness, of each child interviewed. And, although The Trans Generation is not explicitly dedicated to discussions of girlhood, the focus of this journal, it nonetheless offers, I argue, valuable new paradigms or strategies for thinking about girls’ lives and identities.

scholarly journals Women’s travel writing in the cyber-world – ecofeminist and difference feminist approaches in travel blogs

Feminismo/s ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
Mirja Riggert
Keyword(s):  
Travel Writing ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Symbolic Order ◽  
Gendered Spaces ◽  
Female Role ◽  
Mother Nature ◽  
Female Authority ◽  
Travel Discourse ◽  
Women's Travel

This paper intends to track the development of traditional feminist ideas through the analysis of three contemporary travel blogs. These traditional feminist concepts are to be seen in the construction of a collective female identity that enables transnational and transgenerational solidarity: by receiving and transmitting inspiration, shelter and encouragement among female travellers, the narrators in the blogs create a system of female authority. Within this system, female role models as well as maternal figures become points of reference that help to revalue female attributes. This concept shows allusions to the theory of difference feminism as it is presented in the «symbolic order of the mother» by Luisa Muraro. A similar approach of revaluating femininity happens through the orientation towards ‘Mother Nature’. By staging women’s ability to give birth, cultural ecofeminists like Susan Griffin intend to affirm a close bond between women and nature. This representation of an emphasised femininity becomes a central marker in the narratives of the blogs. While this agenda might be designed to counter gendered spaces and the traditional alienation of women within travel discourse, it is problematised by exclusionary and essentialist definitions of femininity that harden engendered binaries like masculinity/femininity or nature/culture.

scholarly journals Constructing the emotions of childhood: an analysis of Margaret Mahy’s use of emotion in her literary contribution to the School Journal

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Gemma Amy Helleur Hiscock
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
School Librarians ◽  
Reader Responses ◽  
Analysis Methodology ◽  
The Social ◽  
School Journal ◽  
Margaret Mahy

<p>This qualitative content analysis research study examines how Margaret Mahy used emotion in the School Journal to form insights into reader appeal, reader response and the social construction of childhood. This research study examines Mahy’s contribution to the School Journal. The study explores this body of work in terms of how its author uses emotion to captivate readers by evoking the feelings associated with childhood. The underlying objective of the study was to provide insights into why Mahy’s work is so treasured and memorable; to explain how she uses emotion to captivate readers, and how this contributes to the social construction of childhood. The prose and poetry Mahy contributed to the School Journal prove to be a significant, rich and uncharted resource for the purposes of this research investigation. Analysis of this body of work has allowed for greater insights and understanding into Mahy’s contribution to children’s literature. It has also allowed for a greater appreciation of how Mahy’s use of emotion contributes to the social construction of childhood. This type of content analysis research study proves to be invaluable in the development of reader’s advisory services to young people. The employment of a content analysis methodology, underpinned by a discourse analysis approach, enabled the emotional narratives of Mahy’s text to be explained and understood. The study’s findings, that lightness and aliveness are the most prevalent and persuasive emotions operating within Mahy’s text, was substantiated through analysis of actual reader responses. This investigation is most applicable to school librarians, children’s librarians and educators. The study has broader implications for the improvement of client interaction and collection development in youth library services</p>

Building the ‘House of Industry’: Factory Citizenship and Gendered Spaces at Cadbury’s and Rowntree’s1

2020 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-252
Author(s):  
Timo Luks
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Gender Bias ◽  
Personnel Management ◽  
Social Engineering ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Industrial Democracy ◽  
Gendered Spaces ◽  
Middle Range

This article examines the case studies of Cadbury’s and Rowntree’s to show how two particular factories have been transformed into what could be called middle-range experimental spaces. It demonstrates how one particular setting of industrial ‘governmentality’ was established, based on cooperation, ‘mutual understanding’, and ‘empowerment’ in order to overcome confrontational approaches in personnel management as well as outdated modes of ‘benevolent paternalism’. Cadbury- and Rowntree-style social engineering, the article argues, redefined its task to create what one could call ‘factory citizenship’. Within this context, it was the metaphor of building a house that made it possible to foster workers’ ‘responsibility’ without making too many concessions to a more radical version of industrial democracy. Since these concepts had a strong gender bias, the article interprets this particular kind of social engineering as an effort to turn factories into ‘gendered spaces’.

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