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Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Women And The Precarity Of War: Reading Women Militants And Activists In Sharmila Seyyid’S Ummath, Aparna Nandha
Women And The Precarity Of War: Reading Women Militants And Activists In Sharmila Seyyid’S Ummath, Aparna Nandha
Journal of International Women's Studies
Ummath, written by Sharmila Seyyid, navigates the sensitive topic of the precarious lives of three separate women amid the chaos of war-torn Sri Lanka. The stories of main characters Yoga and Theivanai demonstrate women’s challenges in and out of militancy. Their struggles led them to Thawakkul, a Muslim social worker devoted to the cause of rehabilitating disabled and widowed women who once served the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam). Ummath provides a powerful social critique of the conditions that aggravated the separatist conflict, the stigmatization of women who become part of the LTTE, the inexorable violence perpetrated by …
“Am I More Than A Housewife”? An Exploration Of Education, Empowerment, And Gender Preference In Relation To Female Genital Cutting/Mutilation In The Far North Region Of Cameroon, Maurine Ekun Nyok
Journal of International Women's Studies
No abstract provided.
Two Poems, Mohammad Shafiqul Islam
Two Poems, Mohammad Shafiqul Islam
Journal of International Women's Studies
The poems “Other Fish to Fry” and “Lives of Others” reflect on how South Asian women fall victim to social systems and prejudices about gender. The first poem, “Other Fish to Fry,” metaphorically presents a mother bird and its kids, who represent women suffering from discrimination and torture. “Lives of Others” also depicts women who migrate to Middle Eastern countries in order to earn money and bring solvency to their families. But over time, they are victimized by landlords and brokers who regularly torture them. As a result, both poems address violence against South Asian women, including heinous crimes such …
Women In Afghanistan: The Ambivalence Of The Prison In Nadia Hashimi’S A House Without Windows, Tooba Rasheed
Women In Afghanistan: The Ambivalence Of The Prison In Nadia Hashimi’S A House Without Windows, Tooba Rasheed
Journal of International Women's Studies
“A house without windows” literally translates to a prison. Nadia Hashimi’s novel A House without Windows (2016) personifies Afghan women’s lives as prisoners in their own bodies while also dialogically situating their stories inside a prison–Chil Mahtab. This article focuses on the semiotic relationship between the spatial prison of Chil Mahtab and the temporal prison that women live in under the hegemony of men. The violated bodies of characters like “the little girl” carry the burden of patriarchal injustices in Afghanistan. And the horrifying stories of being rejected by male institutions, particularly the law, paint a picture of Afghan society …
Bodies In Transit: Women, War, And Violence In Select Fiction From Nepal, Lakhipriya Gogoi
Bodies In Transit: Women, War, And Violence In Select Fiction From Nepal, Lakhipriya Gogoi
Journal of International Women's Studies
The figures of women in conflict zones have been presented in South Asian literature chiefly as torn and battered bodies/souls, usually carrying an irremediable suffering and sense of loss that they bear as wives, mothers, and daughters while their male compatriots participate in the zone of war. The twentieth century surge in identity movements and political conflicts in South Asia, however, offers us new figures of women as “warriors” or direct participants in the zones of violence. The usurpation of such new bodies, on the one hand, defies the hegemonic feminization of women’s bodies as caregivers, and on the other …
Women And War: (Dis)Illusionment And Disclosure In Niromi De Soyza’S Tamil Tigress, Goutam Karmakar
Women And War: (Dis)Illusionment And Disclosure In Niromi De Soyza’S Tamil Tigress, Goutam Karmakar
Journal of International Women's Studies
Niromi de Soyza’s Tamil Tigress: My Story as a Child Soldier in Sri Lanka’s Bloody Civil War (2011) is a memoir about a year in the author’s and her friend Ajanthi’s lives when they joined the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) and fought as female militants in the second phase of the Sri Lankan civil war. Soyza’s autobiographical account depicts the 1980s when the Tamil Tigers were fighting the Sri Lankan government and the Indian Peace Keeping Forces (IPKF) in the northern and eastern parts of the country. As teenagers, Niromi and Ajanthi were highly inspired by the revolutionary …
On Being Biranganas: Passivity, Agency, And Wartime Rapes In Shaukat Osman’S Nekre Aranya, Madhurima Sen
On Being Biranganas: Passivity, Agency, And Wartime Rapes In Shaukat Osman’S Nekre Aranya, Madhurima Sen
Journal of International Women's Studies
The 1971 War of Bangladesh witnessed one of the worst incidents of gender-based violence in history in which women’s bodies became the site for asserting victory or dominance. The newly formed nation focused on the image of the violated women and was united in its thirst for revenge against Pakistani perpetrators. The nation bequeathed the apparently reverential title of birangana (brave women) to the rape survivors in recognition of their “sacrifice.” However, even though the image of the birangana circulated in the public sphere in various forms, the narrative of the women themselves got suppressed under national legend-building. This article …
Hasina’S Sisters Are Machine Women: Women’S Violated Bodies And/In Bangladeshi Garments Factories, Umme Al-Wazedi
Hasina’S Sisters Are Machine Women: Women’S Violated Bodies And/In Bangladeshi Garments Factories, Umme Al-Wazedi
Journal of International Women's Studies
Hasina and Shimu are garment factory workers; Hasina’s life is portrayed in Monica Ali’s 2003 debut novel, Brick Lane. Shimu is the main character of Rubaiyat Hossain’s 2020 film Made in Bangladesh. Hasina and Shimu suffer from violence enacted on their bodies by both male garment factory workers and their husbands. They suffer from male hegemonic masculinity, patriarchal norms, and discriminatory economic structures. Furthermore, the dominant image of a female garment factory worker as sexually promiscuous enables more violence against them. In addition, economic violence is used to control and limit women’s bodies. Their bodies become a site of control …
Cultural Violence, Violent Gendering, And Abjection: Discourses On Sites Of Violence Through Trans Women’S Narratives From India, Tanupriya, Dhishna Pannikot
Cultural Violence, Violent Gendering, And Abjection: Discourses On Sites Of Violence Through Trans Women’S Narratives From India, Tanupriya, Dhishna Pannikot
Journal of International Women's Studies
The conventional cultural construct of gender and sexuality embedded in the dichotomous paradigm makes it challenging for people with queer and trans identities to fit into an assigned social role. Violent gendering takes place where women are seen as second-order beings, disciplined and controlled by men, the first-order beings. The process of feminization and femininity is linked to women, which fixates on the idea that “one is born a woman” rather than “one becomes a woman.” This violent process of acculturation to these set norms comes with a lot of vulnerability for trans people in the form of abiding by …
Recollecting The Body: Violence And Resistance In The Writings Of A Theatre Actress In Colonial Bengal, Anannya Mitra
Recollecting The Body: Violence And Resistance In The Writings Of A Theatre Actress In Colonial Bengal, Anannya Mitra
Journal of International Women's Studies
Critical interventions by black, third world, and/or postcolonial feminists against the homogenizing tendencies of majoritarian narratives of women have led to the emergence of intersectional feminist scholarship and its endeavour to postulate women’s stories along the interfaces of race, class, caste, and gender hierarchies. Historicizing social and material bodies has been a constant engagement here, resulting in the analysis of symbiotic processes of subject formation and otherization, thereby entailing a confrontation with the heterogeneous nature of violence and its functioning in such processes. Using such scholarship, this article seeks to comprehend the interplay of various forms of violence in the …
Labour As Violence In Dalit Households: Reading Autobiographical Narratives By Dalit Women, Pratibha
Labour As Violence In Dalit Households: Reading Autobiographical Narratives By Dalit Women, Pratibha
Journal of International Women's Studies
The everyday concerns of Dalit women are frequently overlooked in discourses about the emancipation of Dalits from Brahminical hegemony in favor of issues deemed weightier, such as reform ideology, caste conflicts, and political power struggles. The micro-politics of the sexual division of labour in Dalit households, with its corrosive effects on the well-being and self-perception of Dalit women, has remained side-lined. Even when discussed with reference to caste and gender intersectionality, the labour consigned to Dalit women is spoken of in additive terms to explicate their “double oppression” or victimisation through sexual exploitation at the hands of upper caste men. …
After Violence: Dalit Women’S Narratives And The Possibilities Of Resistance, Anandita Pan
After Violence: Dalit Women’S Narratives And The Possibilities Of Resistance, Anandita Pan
Journal of International Women's Studies
The history of feminist criticism has undergone a long trajectory where it gets written in terms of difference and sameness. Such anxieties get written in the Indian scenario with reference to the “caste” question. The predominant constructions of “woman” and “Dalit” give prominence to savarna women and Dalit men. As such, the mutuality of caste and gender is unaddressed. The intersectional identity of Dalit women, simultaneously affected by caste and patriarchy, has challenged this homogeneity claimed by mainstream Indian feminism and Dalit politics. Dalit feminism provides a critique of Brahmanism implicit in mainstream feminism, and the reproduction of patriarchal norms …
Socio-Cultural Determinants Of Women’S Homelessness: A Study Of Dar-Ul-Aman, Multan, Mahwish Rasheed, Tayyaba Batool Tahir, Zahid Zulfiqar
Socio-Cultural Determinants Of Women’S Homelessness: A Study Of Dar-Ul-Aman, Multan, Mahwish Rasheed, Tayyaba Batool Tahir, Zahid Zulfiqar
Journal of International Women's Studies
Home is an integral element of the Pakistani family system, and the idea of home is deeply embedded in Pakistani women’s consciousness. The prime objective of this study is to explore the socio-cultural factors responsible for women’s homelessness. This study highlights various determinants that lead women to leave their homes. The issue of women fleeing from their homes is a matter of disregard in Pakistan’s culture, such an action is considered as an issue of family’s self-image, respect, and honour. In the present study, Marxist and feminist lenses have been used to indicate women’s secondary status that is responsible for …
Mothers And Daughters: Reclaiming The Besieged Body Of Woman In Ashapurna Debi’S Trilogy, Subhadeep Ray, Goutam Karmakar
Mothers And Daughters: Reclaiming The Besieged Body Of Woman In Ashapurna Debi’S Trilogy, Subhadeep Ray, Goutam Karmakar
Journal of International Women's Studies
This paper offers a close reading of the intergenerational trilogy by Ashapurna Debi, one of the first-canonized women-novelists of post-independence India: Pratham Pratisruti (The First Promise), 1965, Subarnalata, 1967, and Bakul Katha (Bakul’s Story), 1974. Reconstituting a history of almost two centuries and countering the colonial/postcolonial grand narratives, these novels act as a saga of Bengali Hindu lower and middle-class women’s plight under and resistance against a patriarchal social order operating at the most intimate levels of domestic relationships. Ashapurna Debi’s treatment of the intricacies of gender inequality and a woman’s response to the violence …
Naturalization And Romanticization Of Violence In Indonesian Teen Lit Jingga Series By Esti Kinasih, Aquarini Priyatna, Sri Rijati Wardiani
Naturalization And Romanticization Of Violence In Indonesian Teen Lit Jingga Series By Esti Kinasih, Aquarini Priyatna, Sri Rijati Wardiani
Journal of International Women's Studies
Esti Kinasih is an Indonesian woman writer who writes in the teen lit genre and has a wide readership. This study discusses and problematizes her novels named Jingga Series, a trilogy of novels comprising Jingga dan Senja, Jingga dalam Elegi, and Jingga untuk Matahari. With teenage romance as a backdrop, this series leaves an impression of intense violence towards the female protagonist perpetrated by her male partner, but also by other male and female characters. We find that the novels not only naturalize male aggressiveness, but also normalizes teenage girls as victims of violence. By applying the …
Affirming The Traditional Teaching Of Imbusa As A Tool Against Gender-Based Violence, Sylvia Mukuka
Affirming The Traditional Teaching Of Imbusa As A Tool Against Gender-Based Violence, Sylvia Mukuka
Journal of International Women's Studies
The main objective of this paper is to provide light on the traditional teaching of Imbusa, which is utilized to combat the problem of gender-based violence. Violence against women has increased to incredible rates in modern societies, to the point where many women continue to perpetuate anguish in the form of physical abuse, assaults, and molestation, and all these social evils have left women badly devastated, scared, disoriented, and defenceless. Violence entails the use of physical force, such as sexual assault, to injure, mutilate, or kill humans, and occasionally to ruin an individual's life. This paper examines several forms of …
Looking At The Nation Through A Lover’S Eye: N. Padmakumar’S Film, A Billion Colour Story, Shreerekha Pillai Subramanian
Looking At The Nation Through A Lover’S Eye: N. Padmakumar’S Film, A Billion Colour Story, Shreerekha Pillai Subramanian
Journal of International Women's Studies
Cinematic response in India to social justice movements, even when aimed at rectifying communal violence and tensions, reifies entrenched orders separating Hindu from Muslim, citizen from the ‘Other,’ native from the diasporic. To the polyphony of films focused on interfaith love, a recent indie film adds a new ‘look’. Narasimhamurthy Padmakumar’s, A Billion Colour Story (2016) focalizes on a child’s point of view in a black and white filmic narration to dismantle old hatreds and re-ignite love of culture and nation for the very diversity that has become pixelated, walled, entombed and reactionary. More like Nollywood in its reliance on …
Understanding Women’S English Writings As A Paradigm Of Resistance, Mudassir Ali Shah, Humaira Riaz
Understanding Women’S English Writings As A Paradigm Of Resistance, Mudassir Ali Shah, Humaira Riaz
Journal of International Women's Studies
Women face numerous political, economic, cultural, and religious barriers in the world. To remove the barriers, fight for survival, and pave their way for development, women show resistance in politics, legislation, literature, theatre, songs, marches, art, sports, movies, and seminars. The previous studies have explored patriarchy as the best reason for women's resistance to fight against male-domination, ideological divisions, policies, traditions and cultures, and religion to claim their individual identity and equality. The present study demonstrates the role of literature in awakening society and explores how writing helps in resistance and maintains the struggle of liberation for the vulnerable section …
Violence Against Media Personas: A Comparative Study Of Women Journalists In Pakistan And England, Iqra Iqbal
Violence Against Media Personas: A Comparative Study Of Women Journalists In Pakistan And England, Iqra Iqbal
Journal of International Women's Studies
Gender is a critical tool for studying power dynamics within various organisations. The primary objective of this study is to examine how gender-targeted assault against females has increased in the profession of journalism. Below is a comprehensive picture of the extent of dangerous situations to which many women working in news media of England and Pakistan were subjected to. This research presents the insidious coercion endured by female journalists and considers how these incidents affect their ability to conduct their work on a professional level in the media industries of each country. It is important to note that the objective …
Dalit Women: Narratives Of Vulnerability, Violence, And A Culture Of Impunity, Bhushan Sharma
Dalit Women: Narratives Of Vulnerability, Violence, And A Culture Of Impunity, Bhushan Sharma
Journal of International Women's Studies
No abstract provided.
Women’S Sexual Health Rights In Egypt, Mira Ayman
Women’S Sexual Health Rights In Egypt, Mira Ayman
Journal of International Women's Studies
The Egyptian youth makes up 60% of the Egyptian population. Accessing proper reproductive health information still continues to be one of the main issues that the youth in Egypt faces, especially the unmarried fragment. This situation is largely due to religious conservatism. Because this issue remains a taboo, information on STI’s, FGM, contraception, sexual consent and other sexual health-related issues remain very limited. Private hospitals and clinics in Egypt do not offer youth-friendly services and only focuses on activities that would generate income (antenatal care and delivery). The lack of knowledge leads curious young adults to refer to online sources …
Covid-19 And Domestic Violence In Pakistan: An Analysis Of The Media Perspective, Rabia Ali, Asma Khalid
Covid-19 And Domestic Violence In Pakistan: An Analysis Of The Media Perspective, Rabia Ali, Asma Khalid
Journal of International Women's Studies
There has been an alarming increase in domestic violence (DV) cases in different parts of the world amidst COVID-19 related lockdowns in 2020-2021. This paper aims to understand the prevalence of DV in Pakistan through the analysis of online media sources published during the lockdown period. The objectives of this research include the questions (1) how was the issue of DV presented in the Pakistani media during the lockdown period? and (2) what messages were conveyed by the media discourses? A summative qualitative content analysis was used as a method for data collection and analysis. Three national newspapers were selected …
Security, Dividedness And Green Activism In Egypt, Jihan Zakarriya
Security, Dividedness And Green Activism In Egypt, Jihan Zakarriya
Journal of International Women's Studies
This paper attempts to trace green trends in contemporary political activism in Egypt. Taking into consideration the long, deep-rooted history of military rule in the country, it examines the interconnection between the concepts of security and resistance. The paper specifically focuses on post-2011 grassroots, civil and opposition movements in Egypt, arguing that they share and adopt green concerns with nonviolent, comprehensive activism that relate and politicize different forms of environmental, gender, socio-economic, and political violence. In this sense, to fight patriarchy and the militarization and securitization of public spaces and daily activities in Egypt, post-revolutionary activists, feminists, and opposition movements …
Masculinity And Challenges For Women In Indian Culture, I. Sivakumar, K. Manimekalai
Masculinity And Challenges For Women In Indian Culture, I. Sivakumar, K. Manimekalai
Journal of International Women's Studies
Construction of masculinity in India has been approached and studied from a variety of feminist perspectives. The feminist perspective focused on the discourse and gained much greater momentum during the pre-colonial and colonial periods. During the pre-independence era, the status of women in the areas of productive, reproductive, sexual health, mobility, and economic resources deteriorated to great extent owing to intense patriarchal oppression. Now in the post-colonial period sex-determination tests leading to the massacre of female fetuses, declining sex-ratio are unfavourable to women. Rapidly changing sex-ratios and increasing evidence of violence against women are the strong pointers that have justified …
Effects Of Violence Against Women On Higher Education In Mizoram, India, Lokanath Mishra
Effects Of Violence Against Women On Higher Education In Mizoram, India, Lokanath Mishra
Journal of International Women's Studies
This study is an empirical research aimed at identifying the causes of violence against women in graduate schools in Mizoram, and its effect on higher education. The researcher adopted a mixed approach and used quantitative and qualitative methodologies to analyze the context, dynamics and practices implemented in Mizoram Graduate Schools to minimize violence against women. Four forms of abuse, namely physical, verbal, sexual and psychological violence against women, have been seen in various Mizoram degree colleges. Youth fashion, hostile family environment, pressure of examination, peer group, disabilities of women, influence of drugs and alcohol and computer gadgets are main causes …
Violence Against Women And Girls In Harare, Zimbabwe, Maybe Zengenene, Emy Susanti
Violence Against Women And Girls In Harare, Zimbabwe, Maybe Zengenene, Emy Susanti
Journal of International Women's Studies
This article explores the phenomenon of violence against women and girls in Harare, Zimbabwe. Section 25 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe stipulates that the State and all agencies of the government at every level must protect and foster the institutions to adopt measures for the prevention of violence. Regardless of such recognition, there have been rampant incidences of politically motivated and domestic violence against women and girls in the country. Domestic violence against women and girls is a violation of the Constitution of Zimbabwe and all of the treaties, conventions, charters and optional protocols on the rights of women. Owing …
Violence As A Site Of Women’S Agency In War: The Representation Of Female Militants In Sri Lanka’S Post-War Literature, T. N. K. Meegaswatta
Violence As A Site Of Women’S Agency In War: The Representation Of Female Militants In Sri Lanka’S Post-War Literature, T. N. K. Meegaswatta
Journal of International Women's Studies
The increasing visibility of armed women in violent conflicts in the modern world has unsettled conventional beliefs of inferiority, weakness, innocence, and the resultant fragility and victimhood of women. Although in theory it is possible to conceptualize armed woman and violence as empowerment, in practice, the temporal realities that inevitably haunt any discussion of ‘terrorism’ and ‘terrorists’ in conflict ridden polarized societies severely curtail the terminology available to frame militancy in general and the ‘terror’ it generates as ‘liberatory’. However, fictional and non-fictional literary work that were published in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s war (1983-2009) between the state forces …
"Growing Scar Tissue Around The Memory Of That Day": Sites Of Gendered Violence And Suffering In Contemporary South African Literature, Kate Every
Journal of International Women's Studies
In the words of renowned criminologist Antony Altbeker, South Africa is suffering from a “crisis of crime.” The outworking of tensions from the perceived inadequacies of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission have seen an explosion of violent crime, which has little improved in the two decades since the end of the Apartheid-state. Contemporary South African literature has spoken to this violent reality in myriad ways, from the violence of South Africa’s most written about novel, J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace, to the more recent trends in crime fiction and true-crime genres. The novels considered here, Disgrace and Margie Orford’s Like …
Syrian And Palestinian Syrian Refugees In Lebanon: The Plight Of Women And Children, Lorraine Charles, Kate Denman
Syrian And Palestinian Syrian Refugees In Lebanon: The Plight Of Women And Children, Lorraine Charles, Kate Denman
Journal of International Women's Studies
The humanitarian crisis resulting from the Syrian conflict is estimated to be the worst so far of this century. The recent influx of refugees has now reached a point where they are equal to one quarter of Lebanon’s population, causing evident strains on its fragile economy and social structure. Syrians in Lebanon have fled from their home to seek safety, however their vulnerability is now in question as women’s and children’s rights continue to be under threat. This paper investigates the plight of Syrian and Palestinian Syrian refugees in Lebanon with an emphasis on women and children. While there are …
Jordanian Social Norms And The Risk Of Intimate Partner Violence And Limited Reproductive Agency, Jennifer Mccleary-Sills
Jordanian Social Norms And The Risk Of Intimate Partner Violence And Limited Reproductive Agency, Jennifer Mccleary-Sills
Journal of International Women's Studies
Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pervasive global problem that violates the rights of millions of women each year and has been linked with a multitude of adverse physical, mental, and reproductive health outcomes. In Jordan, socio-cultural constructs of masculinity and female sexuality legitimize control exerted on and violence perpetrated against women. These include the gendered social norms that keep women in disempowered positions and limit their ability make fundamental reproductive decisions such as whether and when to become pregnant. This paper explores some of the mechanisms by which low levels of gender equity increase Jordanian women’s risk of violence …