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Recent debates about the Bluestockings have focused on the lives, writings and political opinions of the Bluestockings themselves. This article argues that the significance of the Bluestockings, however, lies in the ways in which they were figured in public representations. It examines the tradition of satires of the Bluestockings, showing how this tradition both continued earlier traditions of satire against the learned lady and invented the comic figure of the literary hostess. The satires' crude attacks on intellectual women ultimately raised the profile of the learned lady, a figure whose incipient feminism bore no necessary relation to the historical Bluestockings themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on how the social, political, and cultural changes after the fall of the Berlin Wall have affected the presentation and role of female politicians in Bulgaria, and, in general, in Eastern Europe. Textual analysis of Trud, the highest-circulation daily in Bulgaria, was used to examine how female politicians were portrayed during the 2005 parliamentary elections. The analysis unequivocally indicated that press coverage of female politicians was refracted through the prism of gender stereotypes, which, in turn, exemplified the current trend of the post-communist masculinization of democracy. The findings of this study also supported the gendered mediation thesis, which argues that politics is treated by the media as a male-oriented realm, where female politicians are either treated as novelty or framed within typical stereotypes of femininity. The overall conclusion is that gendered media portrayals of female politicians lead to the creation of a social climate tolerant towards sexism, which might translate in other aspects of life as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research builds upon and updates Montoya's 1996 study of the Latina/o gender gap through the use of the 1999 Harvard Kennedy School/Kaiser Family Foundation/Washington Post Latino Survey. Not only do we find a gender gap across six questions related to the use of force, social compassion, and women's social roles, we also find that the size and significance of the gap varies across Mexican, Puerto Rican, and Cuban origin respondents. Our findings challenge past research that found limited evidence Of a gender gap in public opinion among Latinos and Latinas nationally, and suggest that more research is needed in order to understand how gendered experiences help to frame public opinion within different racial/ethnic groups in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having to act within a traditional patriarchal society has made women's efforts to influence public policy in Palestine especially hard. Palestinian women have had and still have to act against their discrimination as women in Palestinian society and as Palestinians against Israeli occupation. This dual struggle has clashed sometimes and created tensions between women and other social movements, especially the Islamic movement. The lack of attention to women's problems in the regular Palestinian media mirrors women's limited influence on decision making in Palestinian politics. This reality has made the interaction between feminist media discourses very marginal. In this article, feminist media discourse and the predicament of politics in Palestine is examined.

The article focuses on the women health matters and the relative social work in the U.S. The Women's Health Equity Act, a package of twenty-two separate bills designed to improve women's health status, has been introduced by the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues in 1990, which signals new possibilities that the full spectrum of women's health concerns will be heard. Accordingly, the legislative and policy initiatives draw strength from the groundswell of public opinion on the necessity to reform a health care system that costs too much for what it delivers.

This article focuses on the state anti-labor legislation in Texas. During the progressive periods of the early twentieth century, Texas experienced a broad based spirit of change. Among the various areas of reform, labor managed to make strong gains, although most of the legislation it backed reflected a cognizance of the laboring class itself rather than of unions. In 1899 labor organizations and the right to strike were legalized, and by 1918 progress had been made on workman's compensation, child labor, collection of wages, and maximum hours for women. Not only labor's harmonious relationship with the executive and legislative branches of government, but the entire progressive movement in Texas virtually disappeared in 1917 with the impeachment and removal of rural-oriented Governor James E. Ferguson, a staunch union supporter. From this time on urban anti-union forces fought an uphill struggle against labor, and finally succeeded in raising public opinion to such a crescendo that in 1947 Representative Isom P. Hydrick of Marshall facetiously offered an amendment to a labor bill that all labor unions are hereby abolished, and their assets turned over to the Texas Manufacturer's Association, and all members lined up against a rock wall and executed by firing squad and their families sent to concentration camps.

This article introduces the topics featured in the July 2004 issue of "Feminist Media Studies." The issue begins with two articles that in very different ways examine how the media have been used, firstly in sub-Saharan Africa and secondly in Palestine, in order to promote progressive-feminist political agenda. Both papers argue for the importance of small-scale, alternative to the mainstream, grassroots media as being best suited to ensuring that their messages reach particular audiences.

The article presents information on the 1980 Virginia Slims American Women's Opinion Poll. The study states that more and more women are leaving traditional roles and are pursuing full-time careers. The study mentions that women perceive traditional sex bias as the main obstacle in improving women status. It talks about working women with respect to sex discrimination and motherhood being no longer synonymous with marriage. It also discusses breakdown of sex roles and women support for equal rights amendments.

This article examines public opinion of women field workers during 19th-century England. In 1843 women's field work was mainly seen as physically healthy and economically necessary. The women's apparent immoral behaviour in the fields was effectively put down to the need for a better upbringing, as if they were children doing wrong, but not to be blamed because they did not know better, unlike their middle-class counterparts. By the mid-1860s it was assumed that the women doing agricultural work were only those who had forfeited their chance to better employment, or whose habits are coarse and irregular. They were also described in masculine terms as independent and strangely bold in look and manner. By the early 1900s it was argued that they all but disappeared, which was supposed to reveal the improved condition of the farm labourer and his family.