Blog

Blog content

Women gathered in the village temple to pray.

When the Body Speaks: Caste, Possession, and the Gendered Politics of Ritual Authority

This blog explores how caste and gender shape ritual authority in the Indian Himalayas, through the lens of deity possession. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it reveals how sacred spaces mirror social hierarchies, even as they promise healing.

Eisenhans, or Iron John in the cage, by Gordon Browne (1894) Iron John is the eponymous character of the novel by the Grimm brothers. Bly proposes a retelling of this fairytale (1990) to highlight men’s struggle and the need for initiation in the U.S at the time. Throughout Bly’s work, Iron John embodies the archetype of the Wild Man.

“I want to let the Wild Man out!”: Mythopoetic Men’s Movement and crisis in masculinity

More from our ECR Spotlight series: here, on the presupposed crisis in masculinity, Justine Chemin critiques Robert Bly’s mythopoetic mission for its symbolic revision of masculinity as a solution against an assumed masculine unease. Justine asks how the mythopoetic narrative redefines masculinity according to “new” standards.
Image of a side of a home painted blue, with a pink and gold door. Trees and bushes overlap with the home in this image.

Being a Mehmaan: Ethnographic Fieldwork and Belonging

In our ECR Spotlight series: What does it mean to conduct ethnographic fieldwork and live closely with people who share some identities, while negotiating space for other identities? Mano Mandal reflects on ‘belonging’ through ambiguous linguistic categories, while doing ethnographic fieldwork as a transgender researcher, working with cisgender people.

Image includes a collage of different coloured and patterned pieces of art.

Who gets to belong, and who gets to be seen? Rethinking gendered engagement in research with forcibly displaced lone parents

Continuing the ECR Spotlight series, Bryony Nisbet discusses her research with forcibly displaced lone parents and considers how gender impacts invitations to support and research.
An image of two houses taken during fieldwork in Delhi, with trees, bicycles and containers outside the homes.

Rethinking the Language of Menstrual “Hygiene”

Continuing our ECR Spotlight series, Prerna Singh's blog challenges the dominance of “hygiene” in menstrual health discourse, showing how it erases lived realities and imposes one-size-fits-all solutions. Prerna highlights women’s agency and the need for context-driven approaches over technical fixes. 
Tricolor Polyamory Pride Flag

Non-Monogamy: Examining the Politics of Consent, Ethics, and Power

In association with Valentine’s Day and inaugurating our ECR Spotlight series, Abby McCutcheon delves into the debates surrounding ‘ethics’ and ‘consent’ in non-monogamous relationships, calling for a more nuanced examination of how social, political, and power dynamics shape intimacy, and for deeper reflection on relational justice, privilege, and fairness.
A woman's arm with a silver and red bracelet, poised against a mirror

Love Is Not a Language: Gendered Emotional Labour, Epistemic Injustice, and the Political Economy of Intimacy

As we approach Valentine's day, Zeynep Temel draws on feminist political economy to critique the “love languages” framework for obscuring gendered emotional labor and structural inequality, and reframing intimacy as a site where care, power, and economic precarity are quietly governed.
The words LGBTQ History Month in write, on a purple background

Visibilising Edinburgh's Erased Queer History: Drumsheugh School

Delving into Edinburgh’s queer history, we discover the story of two school teachers, accused by their pupil of having 'inordinate affection' for each other. Poppy Watson paints a picture of the socio-cultural goings on in our city in the early 19th Century, highlighting complexities of class, race and queerness.
The words LGBTQ History Month in write, on a purple background

Investigating How Young People Learnt About Queer Identity in Postwar Britain

At the start of LGBTQ History Month, in this blog Alexandra Wallace summarises her undergraduate research, which explored how young people first learnt about queer identity in postwar Britain, and the implications of her findings for how we think about identity.
The singer Chapell Roan in a red silk dress, gesturing exuberantly at the Hollywood Palladium in 2022.

Queering Femininity One Camp Gesture at a Time

Irene Neophytou's blog, adapted from her essay which won first prize in the 2025 Queer Futures competition, analyses how artists queer gender by appropriating its coded gestures, amplifying them to the point of rupture, and thereby generate a liminal, defiant space.
An art installation at the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Centre, NYC.

Mother? I Hardly Know Her!: Manipulating Gendered Language and ‘Mothering’ in the LGBTQ+ Community

In this runner-up Queer Futures Prize-winning essay, Lucy Wilson offers a historical analysis of current social media use of the term ‘mother’, arguing how LGBTQ+ subcultures manipulate gendered language to subvert conventional understandings of family and create community.
Portrait of a young woman said to be Sappho

The Erotic Reception of Sappho

In this blog - adapted from an essay which won an honourable mention for the 2025 Queer Futures prize - Elisha Sellick explores how Sappho’s voice reaches across millennia to challenge our modern habits of seeing and performing, offering instead a lyric of presence, tenderness, and reciprocity.

Tags

List blog tags content

Stay up to date

Join our mailing list to receive email updates on GENDER.ED news and events, and the latest from our blog.

Join our mailing list 

This website uses Google Analytics to gather usage statistics. Please accept or reject. See our privacy policy.