Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

"The Personal Is Political Science": Epistemological And Methodological Issues In Feminist Social Science Research On Prostitution, Emily St. Denny

Journal of International Women's Studies

Unlike academic and policy discussions over enduring and pervasive social problems like poverty or ill health, which focus on how they should be tackled, debates concerning individuals in prostitution are divided over how, and to what extent, prostitution even is a problem. This has led to apparently intractable disagreement over the legitimate representation of a subject at the juncture between vulnerable invisibility and liberated agency. Concretely, this raises a paradox whereby feminist researchers, seeking to facilitate emancipation through the illumination of the experiences of a stigmatised and invisible subject, must carefully give voice to the voiceless without speaking on their …

Not All Feminist Ideas Are Equal: Anti-Capitalist Feminism And Female Complicity, Giuliana Monteverde

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper advocates a more explicit feminist discussion of female complicity by demonstrating that existing discourses on women’s participation in patriarchal practices are inadequate. By looking at two contemporary anti-capitalist feminist texts—One Dimensional Woman by Nina Power and Meat Market: Female Flesh under Capitalism by Laurie Penny—I show that these feminists acknowledge the disrupted sex binary, but have not produced texts that reflect this understanding. Whilst these authors admirably concern themselves with structural reasons for inequality—rather than blaming individual women—their treatment of complicit women is wavering. They are scornful of powerful American Republican women and of ‘fun’ feminists, but …

Sexuality, Religion And Nationalism: A Contrapuntal Reading Of The History Of Female Activism And Political Change In Egypt, Jihan Zakarriya

Journal of International Women's Studies

Focusing on the Thomson Reuters Foundation Women Survey in 2013 that found Egypt to be ‘the worst Arab state for women’ (Boros 1), this paper aims at tracing the interaction between sexuality, religion, and politics, in controlling and marginalizing the public roles of Egyptian women throughout the 20th Century, which has reached its climax in post-Mubarak Egypt. I argue that, despite sexual and social abuses, the first decade of the 21th Century has witnessed the emergence of a promising potential of political feminist activism and power in Egypt.

A Rude Awakening: Sleeping Beauty As A Metaphor For The Slumber Of Post-Feminism, Kendra Reynolds

Journal of International Women's Studies

Ann Beattie asserts that “As a culture, we are fairly preoccupied with sleep” (Beattie 2002: 38), yet, this essay contests that, instead of being ‘preoccupied with sleep’, we as a culture are asleep. When Beattie states that “there is a period in one’s life when fortunate children, who do not yet understand the extent of their good fortune, really do sleep in this way” (Beattie 2002: 38), she unconsciously forms the basis of this essay’s contention that women of today certainly do not ‘understand the extent of their good fortune’ (good fortune being the feminist successes hitherto achieved). Thus, I …

You Are What You (M)Eat: Explorations Of Meat-Eating, Masculinity And Masquerade, Amy Calvert

Journal of International Women's Studies

Food consumption is frequently linked to identity and to who we are as individuals, which I explore through the analysis of the US reality television series Man V. Food. Through close readings of various scenes, I look at representations of hegemonic masculine performance, and the sexualisation of women and meat. In light of my analysis, I argue that the show is both post-feminist and part of a wider backlash against feminist action. Man V. Food is analysed in consideration of the wider phenomena of masculine crisis and backlash against various social movements, specifically recent feminist and vegetarian/vegan movements. This …

Cross-Gender Casting As Feminist Interventions In The Staging Of Early Modern Plays, Gemma Miller

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay explores cross-gender casting of Renaissance canonical texts in modern British theatrical institutions as an act of feminist activism. Reversing early modern all-male theatrical practices, female-male re-gendering can not only interrogate the misogyny immanent in the works themselves, but also expose the ideological structures that continue to collude with these values on the contemporary stage and in society more generally. Through a comparative analysis of all-female productions such as Julius Caesar (dir. by Phyllida Lloyd, Donmar Warehouse, 2012-13) and selective cross-gendering, as exemplified in Edward II, (dir. by Joe Hill-Gibbins, The National Theatre, 2013), I argue that cross-gender …

Introduction: "New Directions In Feminist Studies - Emotions, Activisms, Intersectionality", Trishima Mitra-Kahn, Katya Salmi

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Migrant Women Of Johannesburg: Life In An In-Between City, Mandi Maodzwa-Taruvinga, Chiedza R. M. Taruvinga

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Migrant Women of Johannesburg: Life in an in-Between City by Caroline Wanjiku Kihato, Wits University Press, 2013.

Book Review: Sheherazade’S Daughters: The Power Of Storytelling In Ecofeminist Change, Neelam Jabeen

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Sheherazade’s Daughters: The Power of Storytelling in Ecofeminist Change by Barbara Bennett; Peter Lang (publisher), 2012.

Book Review: Performing Democracy In Iraq And South Africa: Gender, Media And Resistance, Lindiwe D. Makhunga

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Performing Democracy in Iraq and South Africa: Gender, Media and Resistance by Kimberley Wedeven Segall; Syracuse University Press, 2014.

Book Review: Women And Entrepreneurship: Female Durability, Persistence And Intuition At Work, Caitlin Blaser

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Women and Entrepreneurship: Female Durability, Persistence and Intuition at Work by Mirjana Radović-Marković and Beatrice E. Avolio Alecchi; Gower Publishing, Ltd., 2013.

Women’S Liberation In Turkey Before The 1980s: The Case Of Nezihe Kurtiz, Fatma Fulya Tepe

Journal of International Women's Studies

A favorite argument for explaining the situation of women in Turkey is the one about emancipated but unliberated women published by Binnaz Toprak in 1982. Here, Toprak defended the idea that the legal reforms which were launched with the Westernization movement in 1923 emancipated women but could not liberate even the urban and educated ones. In 2000, this line of thought was extended to include the argument that women became both liberated and emancipated in the 1980s due to their feminist public and collective activism. While the former argument focuses more on the structures restricting women, the latter argument gives …

Wife, Mother, Vampire: The Female Role In The Twilight Series, Lauren Rocha

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores a feminist critique of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series (2005-2008), analyzing the ways in which the series is a symbolic backlash against feminism. Whereas previous vampire works depicted vampires as threats and outsiders to society, the Twilight series depicts the vampire characters as accepted in society, integrating their lives into mainstream society; as such, they highlight modern society’s fascination with female beauty ideals and physical beauty. In this article, I examine the ways in which Meyer’s portrayal of the Cullen vampires is reflective of repressive beauty ideals targeted towards women, arguing that Bella devalues herself because as a …

Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun: A Historical Survey Of A Woman Artist In The Eighteenth Century, Evangelia Karvouni

Journal of International Women's Studies

Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun may be considered one of the most celebrated women artists of eighteenth century France. The elegance of her style and her ability to produce idealized images of her noble sitters made her increasingly popular within royalist circles. She was particularly favoured by the Queen Marie Antoinette whom she painted in a manner that provoked controversy among the critics and the public. Vigee Le Brun’s approach to her royal subject was very sentimental as it can be seen from her statements in her autobiography, the “Memoirs”. After the outbreak of the Revolution, Vigee Le Brun fled …

Dowry In Bangladesh: A Search From An International Perspective For An Effective Legal Approach To Mitigate Women's Experiences, Afroza Begum

Journal of International Women's Studies

For some 40 years, Bangladesh has fought a losing battle against the existence of dowries and their associated abuse with no indication of even a minimal impact as dowry demands inflate and violence increases. In one year alone, dowry related violence claimed the lives of 325 women and contributed to 66.7 per cent of the violent incidents against women. This article aims to investigate the appropriateness and effectiveness of legal approaches to dowry and propose a different standard for redressing women’s disadvantaged situation in the traditional culture of Bangladesh.

Involvement And Labor Efficiency Of Rural Women In Agricultural Sector: A Study In Darrang District Of Assam (India), Ghana Kanta Sarma, Purabi Sarmah Baruah, Pabitra Kr. Bordoloi

Journal of International Women's Studies

Agriculture plays a very important role in the economic development of rural India. It is well known that the contribution of rural women in agricultural sectors is very significant. A study was conducted in the Darrang district of Assam with the objectives to explore the involvement of rural women in decision-making of different agricultural activities and to find out the labor efficiency of rural women in agricultural activities. Purposive sampling technique was used for selection of development blocks and random sampling technique was used for selection of villages in the study. The study revealed that in case of sericulture and …

Gender Difference And Poverty In The City Of Douala, Nanche Billa Robert

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines how gender disparity in terms of education, occupation and a person’s income influences poverty. The main question we asked was: how has Cameroon’s depressing economy for the past twenty-five years affected the present gender gap?

We use the relative method to measure poverty. We discovered the psychological and social essentials for ordinary living patterns in Douala which we used to construct our questionnaire. It was self-administered using the systematic sampling method.

The following results were obtained: 25.74 percent and 7.5 percent of men and women respectively earn above the poverty-line: 177,000frs CFA. Men earn an average salary …

Safety In The Urban Outdoors: Women Negotiating Fear Of Crime In The City Of Kolkata, Piyali Sur

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines women’s negotiation of potential risks in public spaces in the urban city of Kolkata. The deliberate focus on the public is to demonstrate that the city has different meanings for women than men in terms of risk so that fear of rape in the city becomes a virtual threat in the lives of women. The fear may not be linked to the actual violence but to the potential for harm that is experienced by individual women. Feminist scholars have pointed out that narratives of crime and violence have always constructed the city as the space of danger …

Evolving Role Of Women In Terror Groups: Progression Or Regression?, S. V. Raghavan, V. Balasubramaniyan

Journal of International Women's Studies

Historically, women have been victims to a much greater degree than perpetrators of violence. However, the 1970s witnessed the emergence of women as important protagonists in the conflicts across the world. Recent years have witnessed suicide attacks perpetrated by women suicide bombers. This growing trend of women bombers has the general public and counterterrorism specialists concerned because of its implication that women will be key players in future terrorist attacks.

Women’s role in terrorist organisations have also transformed since 1970s.Women across the ideological spectrum played different roles at different times. The use of women for “soft tasks” like logistics and …

On 'Sisterhood': What Iraqi Kurdish Women Migrants Have To Say About Women And The Commonalities They Share, Toni Wright

Journal of International Women's Studies

Based on a research study this paper is concerned with the migration experiences of Iraqi Kurdish Muslim women. Commonalities among women was one of the main themes emerging from the research data, with much of that data related to what some of the Kurdish women conceptualise as a ‘sisterhood’ of women, suggesting that for at least half of the Kurdish women, experiences of inequality, domestic abuse, and patriarchal oppression provide a significant point of commonality among women.

More complete approaches to women’s experiences of relationships of power do not negate the relationships of power, inequality, and experiences of domestic abuse …

Battle Of Books! Diverse Trends In Muslim Thought On Women's Issues, Zeenath Kausar

Journal of International Women's Studies

It can be hardly disputed that woman’s status and rights in Islam in family and society is one of the most controversial topics in Islam. One of the important reasons behind this controversy seems to be the diverse interpretations of the Islamic texts which Muslim scholars offer on various issues of woman. This article deals with this issue. It is argued in the article that Muslim scholars often present diverse and sometimes even conflicting interpretations of the relevant verses of the Qur’an and the relevant Prophetic traditions on various issues of women. This has given rise to diverse trends of …

Gender Neutrality And The Pakistani Bureaucracy, Maryam Tanwir

Journal of International Women's Studies

Pakistan inherited the British Weberian model at its birth in 1947 (Braibanti, 1966). The Weberian framework is the basis of the professional code of the Pakistani bureaucracy. The Framework highlights the importance of gender neutrality towards ensuring impartiality, promotion of merit and efficiency in organizations. The Pakistani bureaucracy has been categorized as being Weberian by recent research, and hence should be gender neutral. This paper examines if the Pakistani bureaucracy is indeed gender neutral. It inspects the gender norms prevalent in the context of the macro sociocultural environment in Pakistan and finds that these norms are reflected in women’s position …

The Earning Power Of Mothers And Children's Time Allocation In Lao Pdr, Sevinc Rende

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper I explore the relationship between a mother’s contribution to household income and her children’s work and school outcomes. Using household data from Lao PDR, I find that as a mother’s share of total household earnings increases, her children shift time away from school and wage work to work under parental control. The findings demonstrate that a mother’s short-term needs and interests may not always align with her children’s long-term interests, and work may become a contested terrain between mothers and children.

Gender Differences In Aspirations For Career And Marriage Among Japanese Young Adults: Evidence From A Large National University In Japan, Yukiko Inoue-Smith

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study examined the ways in which Japanese young people think about their future careers, focusing on their occupational aspirations and attitudes toward marriage. The data were collected using a questionnaire that consisted of short essay items providing information derived from undergraduate students (510 men; 433 women) at a large national university in Japan. The results indicated that men concern themselves more with work life, whereas women concern themselves more with marriage life. Although one’s college days are important times for developing one’s future career, many lacked clear initial occupational aspirations. The results especially indicated a need to educate both …

Trivializing The Female Body: A Cross-Cultural Analysis Of The Representation Of Women In Sports Journalism, Diane Ponterotto

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper addresses the question of the representation of female athleticism in the press. By means of a corpus-assisted analysis of sports reporting of the tennis athlete Maria Sharapova in both the English and Italian press, it offers a cross-linguistic description of the stereotyped language reserved for women in sports settings. The study reveals the presence in the corpus of a discursive frame which tends to trivialize the body of female athletes. This frame emerges from two basic discourse strategies, a thematic strategy, which eroticizes the female body, and a metaphorical strategy, which conceptualizes the female athlete as child-like. The …

Colonial Policies And The Rise Of Transactional Sex In Kenya, Felix M. Muchomba

Journal of International Women's Studies

The literature on the role of policy on prostitution has focused on criminal law, largely ignoring economic and urban policies. This article examines the emergence and development of prostitution in Kibera—an informal urban settlement in Nairobi, Kenya—and the role played by government policy. Records show that a rapid growth in prostitution accompanied Kibera’s transition from a military exercise ground to an informal settlement. Drawing on primary and secondary historical sources, this paper argues that colonial government policies of land alienation, taxation, and inequitable urban housing created a social context that promoted the migration of women into Nairobi and into Kibera, …

Gender Responsive Budgeting And The Aid Effectiveness Agenda: Experiences From Mozambique, Nathalie Holvoet, Liesbeth Inberg

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines how gender-equality objectives have been addressed within the context of the Paris Declaration and related aid-reform processes. The focus of the article is on gender-responsive budgeting (GRB), an approach that is being increasingly advanced to increase the gender sensitivity of changing aid modalities, but which has thus far remained understudied. With our case study of Mozambique, we aim to fill this gap. It highlights the contribution of GRB towards increasing the gender sensitivity of national policy documents and budget processes with which donors increasingly (intend to) align, within the context of changing aid processes. Additionally, our study …

Faux Feminism: France's Veil Ban As Orientalism, Emily Crosby

Journal of International Women's Studies

In the early months of 2010, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Parliament that the burqa is “not welcome” in France, citing this as a step to defend France against extremists. Employing Edward Said’s theoretical notion of “Orientalism” as means of discussing the “Other,” I argue for a more critical look at France’s role in limiting religious freedom and denying notions of female agency. More specifically, I urge a more diversified view of feminism and female identity outside of the Western paradigm. By viewing the veil as a rhetorically universal symbol of oppression, Western feminists and political figures are missing …

Fragmented Histories, Fragmented Selves: Body Weight Preoccupation Among Women In Post-Communist Romania, Boróka Bó

Journal of International Women's Studies

The emergence of body weight preoccupation in developing countries previously characterized by food insecurity has received limited sociological attention. This paper reflects on the lived experiences of minority women in post-communist Romania, as they navigate the rapid economic, political and social transformations taking place in the country. This is especially relevant, as Romania has experienced a rapid emergence of eating disorders shortly after the fall of communism. In examining the blurring of the boundaries between the individual and political bodies along with the loss of self that accompanies culture change, I argue that body weight preoccupation can serve as a …

Tunisian Women's Activism After The January 14 Revolution: Looking Within And Towards The Other Side Of The Mediterranean, Giulia Daniele

Journal of International Women's Studies

Tunisia is widely considered to be the country in which the current round of major upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East began. This paper explores the most prominent instances of women’s activism which have taken place in Tunisia in the time which has followed the revolution of 2011. Through analysis of the principal literature related to the subject and the information gathered as a result of fieldwork conducted in the capital city of Tunis in February 2013, the paper examines the most significant transformations which have arisen from the active participation of women in the uprising. The involvement …