Papers (Gender, Work, Sexual Violence) by Dianna Shandy
SIGNS: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. , 2021
This article describes and analyzes the American Anthropological Association’s adoption of a sexu... more This article describes and analyzes the American Anthropological Association’s adoption of a sexual harassment and sexual assault policy as a part of the groundswell of recognition that sexual violence detrimentally shapes scientific inquiry, a recognition catalyzed by the #MeToo cultural moment. This is a case study of what Marcel Mauss terms “policy as total social phenomena,” which narrates a significant historical pivot in the story of feminism that evidences feminist theorizing in praxis, per a framework developed by bell hooks. We critically situate this transformation within what Marshall Sahlins calls “contingent circumstance,” which enables institutional transformation. We argue that professional associations can set normative expectations and best practice standards to mold cultural change. The article outlines the reframing of sexual violence as professional misconduct to emphasize the element of community while not denying that there are interpersonal harms. The policy recognizes the foundational impact of gender oppression on a discipline’s methods, training practices, and the expected entitlements of professional success. Building on the scholarship and activism that have documented anthropology’s all-too-typical history with sexual violence, we offer a rare insider’s understanding into the unfolding process of designing and adopting norms intended to compel behavioral change. The article concludes with the questions that remain in the exercise of community responsibility for sexual harassment and sexual assault. We suggest that while the intentional reorganization of institutional practices, policies, and training processes can facilitate cultural change that curtails sexual violence, long-term transformations require community action in terms of intentional investments in policy review and educational programming.
Teaching and Learning Anthropology, 2019
This article calls for revisiting how we teach anthropology in light of three mutual... more This article calls for revisiting how we teach anthropology in light of three mutually reinforcing “moments”–the #MeToo Movement, the development of the American Anthropological Association’s first Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault Policy, and shifting student expectations regarding personal safety and wellbeing. By thinking anthropologically about anthropology, against a backdrop of larger questions for the discipline as a whole, we single outthe consequences of the “lone anthropologist”trope as it reproduces idealized notions of fieldwork in ways that limit access to the discipline. We suggest ten practical strategies for changing normative pedagogies as a way to increase benefits and reduce harms as we work to minimize risk for sexual violence while preserving the benefits of immersive fieldwork. We conclude by exploring how the classroom itself is feeding back into transforming cultures and institutional structures
Taking Leadership and Remaking Academic Communities
Educated women's relationship with work today is located at the crosscurrents of some significant... more Educated women's relationship with work today is located at the crosscurrents of some significant demographic and societal shifts. Perhaps the most important of these changes, the stunning educational achievements of women during the past 50 years, opened doors to a wide variety of interesting and wellpaid careers, including academe. Women, and married women in particular, increasingly entered fields that had long been considered male bastions. Given the opportunity to prove themselves academically and professionally, educated women marched headlong into the workforce. After a century of increasing female labor force participation, then, many were surprised when at the turn of the 21st century increases in the labor force participation of women stalled --and in some cases, such as college-educated mothers of infants, declined dramatically.
Practicing Anthropology, 2008
Smart Women, Different Choices: College-Educated Women with Children Negotiating Work and Family. IN Elizabeth Reid Boyd and Gayle Letherby, Stay-at-Home Mothers: Dialogues and Debates. Canada: Demeter Press
Stay-at-home mothers and the ‘mommy wars’ are a continuing phenomenon worldwide. This book is the... more Stay-at-home mothers and the ‘mommy wars’ are a continuing phenomenon worldwide. This book is the first international edited collection exploring debates and issues surrounding mothers returning to/staying at home from a variety of countries and perspectives. Stay-at-home mothering remains a significant social and gender trend in the 21st century. Over the last decades, there have been many books exploring questions, issues and policies surrounding working mothers, but few about stay-at-home mothers. This volume explores the flip side to enable a new discussion: Why are mothers still staying at home? Chapters include: the ‘mommy wars’ between working moms and stay-at-home moms; the idealisation and persistence of mothering at home and what it means; maternity payments and childcare policy; state enabling of mothers staying at home; eco-mommas, radical parenthood, the return of the domestic goddess and the green angel in the house; the mother at home assisted by a nanny; stay at home...
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Papers (Gender, Work, Sexual Violence) by Dianna Shandy
http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2018/05/10/taking-leadership-and-remaking-academic-communities/