Department of Women's Studies Speakers' Series
The Advisory Committee on Speakers, Department of Women's Studies, organizes public talks by local and visiting speakers on topics of interest to the university and St. John's communities.
The series runs in the Fall and Winter semesters of each academic year.
WINTER SEMESTER 2012
All lectures are open to the public and unless otherwise noted are held in the Sally Davis Seminar Room, SN 4087.
The following speakers are confirmed for the Fall 2011 Department of Women's Studies Speakers' Series.
Friday, 27 January, 1:00 p.m. - Dr. Liam Swiss, Department of Sociology, Memorial University
"Entrepreneurs and Guerrillas: Bureaucratic Activism and Gender Equality in Foreign Aid Donor Agencies"
This presentation examines why approaches to gender and development within development assistance donor agencies appear quite uniform internationally, despite diverse donor country contexts. Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interview data demonstrates how common social processes of globalization at work in the development assistance sector of three case study counties (Canada, Sweden, and the United States) yield a common aim to address gender inequality through development assistance. I argue that the extent to which a policy priority like gender is expressed by a donor is a function of the donor's relationship with civil society, intergovernmental organisations, and the role of bureaucrat activism within donor agencies. Particular attention will be paid to the different forms of bureaucratic activism and how they play a key role in establishing and maintaining gender equality as a focus of major bilateral aid agencies globally
Tuesday, 7 February, 12:00 p.m. - Dr. Ross Klein, School of Social Work, Memorial University
"Sex at Sea: Sexual Assault on Cruise Ships"
The rate of sexual assaults on cruise ships is astonishing: more than 50% higher than on land in Canada. Victims range in age from 3 years of age to women in their 60s; as many as 30% of victims are girls under the age of eighteen. Perpetrators are most frequently crewmembers, the majority being room stewards, dining room waiters, and bartenders, but there have been high profile cases involving ship captains. This presentation will provide a snapshot of the risks taken by women (and men) when embarking on a sea cruise, holidays that are generally marketed as the "vacation of a lifetime" on what is claimed by the cruise industry as "the safest mode of transportation." In addition to discussing factors associated with why sexual assaults occur, and where they most commonly occur (virtually no place is truly safe), the presentation will give the surreal-like reality of sexual assaults that is best understood through victim accounts. The presentation will also provide a history of efforts to deal with the problem, including legislation, and the industry's many attempts to circumvent legal requirements, its advertising, and public announcements and commitments.
Thursday, 8 March, 1:00 p.m. - Dr. Siphiwe Dube, Department of Women's Studies, Memorial University
"Toys R Us: Toy Story 2 as the Re-inscription of Normative American Masculinity"
Drawing from Judith Newton's (2005) idea of "male romance" as it appears in the Men's Movement in America, I analyse the representations of masculinit(y)ies in the movie Toy Story 2 in this presentation. In tracing how Toy Story 2 deals with traits identified by Newton as constituting "male romance," I raise questions regarding the role of popular media in both reinforcing and challenging the idea of "normative" masculine gender performativity in American culture. As I argue, such scrutiny is especially significant in light of the target audience of this movie series, namely, children. To that end, I highlight further how "simple" children's stories mask "greater" ideological narratives about gender identity-formation, and how the consumption of such narratives can be problematic for the broader contemporary context of the social imagination of gender, race, and sexuality.
Thursday, 29 March, 1:00 p.m. - Nikola Leendertse, Master of Women's Studies Candidate, Memorial University
"Sex on the Go: The Lived Experiences of Mobile Women Sex Workers in Canada"
The employment related mobility of sex workers is a topic that tends to be neglected in migration and sex work literature. Most scholarly work on migration within the sex industry focuses on the trafficking of sex slaves while generally omitting the experiences of migrant persons who actively choose to sell sexual services. In this presentation I will challenge the notion that sex workers who travel between Canadian provinces are victims, while exploring the unique, and often overlooked, lived experiences of sex workers who choose to migrate for their work.