GFRN seminar: What makes a respectable Woman? Changing moralities and changing times

The IAS Gender and Feminism Research Network welcomes Professor Mary Evans (Gender Institute, LSE) who will be giving this seminar on the subject of 'What makes a respectable Woman? Changing moralities and changing times'. 

Abstract 

What does it mean in 2017 to be a 'respectable' woman ? In this talk I explore and suggest some of the changes that have occurred in the past hundred years to re-define women's 'respectability' . In particular I am interested in the ways that the pre-dominance of  judgements about the sexual behaviour of women are being replaced - or accompanied by - an increased emphasis on women's participation in paid work. At the same time the emancipatory possibilities of paid work have not been accompanied by any significant shift in the gendered pattern of care.

Bio

Professor Mary Evans is currently a Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics where she is based in the Gender Institute . Her past research has concerned various aspects of feminism, in terms of both its politics and its theory. At present she is starting research on the idea of 'respectability' and the ways in which this changed in the past 150 years, most significantly in terms of women.