Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Now, You Can Breathe: A Qualitative Study Of The Experiences And Resilience Of Egyptian Women Victimized By Narcissistic Relationships, Nayera Mohamed Shousha

Journal of International Women's Studies

Narcissistic relationships manifest as nonreciprocal affiliations that allow no room for genuine partnership or cooperation. The trait of narcissism is more prevalent in men than in women. However, Egypt’s powerful patriarchal culture has prevented adequate scholarly examination of narcissistic relationships. The current study intends to bridge this gap in knowledge by examining two objectives: a) to investigate the nature of experiences of Egyptian women in narcissistic relationships and b) to elucidate how Egyptian women remain resilient in the aftermath of narcissistic relationships. Data were collected via qualitative, semi-structured interviews conducted with 27 literate women aged 24–54 years who had experienced …

Autonomy, Post-Puberty Bacha Posh And Third World Feminism In Selected Afghan Fiction, Asma

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the fictional representation of the ways in which Afghan girls attain autonomy in their post-puberty stage through the tradition of bacha posh despite the traditional constraints to switch back to their gender at birth. This analysis of bacha posh characters in Ukmina Manoori’s I Am a Bacha Posh and Zarghuna Kargar’s Bakhtawara’s Story attempts to demonstrate how the bacha posh tradition develops the potential for transgression in Afghan girls, fostering a resistance to traditional gender roles. In doing so, this paper challenges and rebuts Western feminist views regarding Afghan women, who are stereotyped as incapable, voiceless, and …

Spousal Violence In Karnataka, India: An Analysis Of Nhfs-5 Data, Nabeela Siddiqui, Anwesha Ghosh, Najeed Naved Siddiqui

Journal of International Women's Studies

Spousal violence is a severe public health concern. Despite the expanding scholarship, many concerns remain unresolved about the prevalence of this violence, the risk factors, the repercussions, and how to address the problem. This paper sets out a simple study recognizing the sharp increase of spousal violence in the state of Karnataka, with an overall decrease in the rest of South India. Using India’s National Family Health Survey data, we isolate the effect of spousal violence on female autonomy. The findings have substantial policy implications suggesting that it will take more than an improvement in women’s empowerment options to address …

Islamic Feminism At The Crossroads Between Apologetics And Defending Women: Rajaa Alsanea’S Girls Of Riyadh In Context, Noureddine Bendouma, Salim Kerboua

Journal of International Women's Studies

The concept of Islamic feminism provides a dialectic relationship that suggests that the two very different and seemingly irreconcilable trajectories of Islam and feminism are joining forces to achieve gender equality and social justice. It also evokes the question of which weighs more than the other, and prompts queries and worries about Islam, egalitarianism, and the oppression of Muslim women. This paper examines the Islamic feminism’s order of precedence in the predicament of defending women versus defending Islam. By employing feminist methodologies and the method of textual analysis, this article probes whether the Islamic feminist project is solely about women’s …

Gender Politics And Zimbabwe Universities: Facets, Contexts, And Consequences, Efiritha Chauraya

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study explores the perceptions of female middle managers of academic faculties at three universities in Zimbabwe to ascertain their lived experiences, feelings, opinions, and views regarding gender equality in the discharge of their duties. Open-ended, semi-structured, and in-depth interviews were employed for data collection. This method enabled the female deans to describe and reflect on their experiences. Engagement with the female deans of academic faculties revealed that: a) Promotion of women into deanship positions did not translate into eradication of gender-based discrimination against them; b) A lack of a broader vision of gender equality was observed which limited conscious …

Veiled Figures: Attached Settler Women In Andaman’S Post-Colonial Archive, Raka Banerjee

Journal of International Women's Studies

Dominant discourse on India’s eastern Partition (1947) has constructed settlement as a masculine prerogative and man as the settler prototype. Women were eligible for rehabilitation on account of being “attached” to a male guardian, who would be assigned the head of the household in granting state benefits. In the case of these attached settler women transported by the state to Andaman Islands, a range of marginalities–region, gender, caste, and class–intersect with each other to create a veiled figure. The essay locates the settler women in the island’s post-colonial government archive to bring out the state’s construction of gendered settler subjecthood. …

Deconstructing “The New Indian Woman”: An Analysis Of The Sleuth Heroines Of Indian English Women’S Detective Fiction, Somjeeta Pandey, Somdatta Bhattacharya

Journal of International Women's Studies

Feminist discourses on the “New Indian Woman” focus on the woman's body as a surface upon which modernity is inscribed. Sexual transgression has been the only lens through which the New Woman has been usually studied and analyzed until now, thus offering a superficial definition of modernity by women being defined only by the corporeal. This is problematic not only because it offers a reductionist view of modernity but also “constructs a boundary around the notion of modern womanhood that excludes woman whose bodily autonomy has been compromised, for example through sexual assault” (Daya, “Embodying Modernity” 97). This paper will …

“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.

The Heart Is Not Hopeless: Pakistani Television Drama, Patriarchy, And Activism, Neelam Jabeen

Journal of International Women's Studies

A Muslim society that interprets feminism as anti-Islamic may not accept overtly feminist maneuvers to challenge patriarchy. However, there are subtle ways of steering out of the Islam vs. feminism dichotomy. What triggers anti-feminists are phrases like women’s rights, female emancipation, and women’s freedom since all these are interpreted as the agenda of the West and hence are considered anti-Islamic. In this paper, I argue that since feminists are fighting against all forms of oppression and have joined forces with other forms of activism such as child protection, human rights, animal rights, rights of the underclass and minority groups, and …

Dignity, Life-Affirming Advocacy And Compassionate Solidarity, Nyambura J. Njoroge

Journal of International Women's Studies

In “Special Issue: Overcoming Violence against Women and Children” in the Journal of Theology for Southern Africa (No. 114, Nov. 2002), the guest editors Tinyiko Sam Maluleke and Sarojini Nadar wrote:

Given the great cloud and intricate network of witnesses and conspirators who subscribe to the covenant of death, standing up against this covenant of death and violence is costly. It often results in the isolation and rejection of those who dare to speak. Therefore, the voices of those who dare to stand up against the covenant are often like voices in the wilderness (7).

In this essay, I will …

Healing Justice As Intersectional Feminist Praxis: Well-Being Practices For Inclusion And Liberation, Sharon Doetsch-Kidder, Kalia Harris

Journal of International Women's Studies

Since at least the 1830s, Black feminists in the US have spoken of how oppression harms the spirit and have also expressed the need for Black people to respect themselves in the face of anti-Black racism (Guy-Sheftall, 1995). The recognition that oppression negatively impacts well-being continues today. Research in community health and psychology has demonstrated how Black Americans, Native Americans, and Latinx people have been victims of mass incarceration, state-funded and state-sanctioned violence, and systemic discrimination in schools, workplaces, healthcare, and housing. Due to these conditions, racial and ethnic minorities in the US suffer disproportionately from mental and physical illnesses …

Modern Articulations Of Gender Parity: The ‘New Woman’ Debate In The British Victorian Era And The Modern Muslim World, Maha F. Habib

Journal of International Women's Studies

Within the ‘New Woman’ debates within the Victorian era in Britain and the modern Muslim world (the areas of the former Ottoman Empire), one can witness a powerful feminist consciousness and astounding consistencies in the quest for gender equality, despite the difference in religious traditions, contexts, and contingencies. The debates attest to a consistency in feminist goals and challenges across time and space. The challenges include: intimate and long-standing linkages between scriptural traditions and the social order; interpretative legacies on women and their ‘nature’ that solidified cultural understandings of gender; and the relationship of these legacies to structures of power, …

Migrant Academic/Sister Outsider: Feminist Solidarity Unsettled And Intersectional Politics Interrogated, Maria Tsouroufli

Journal of International Women's Studies

Feminist sisterhood has been heavily criticized by Black feminists and others as installing a false sense of equality among women and being overly ambitious in disrupting the models and boundaries of the neo-liberal university. This paper draws on the autobiographical account of a White-other, female European migrant academic in the United Kingdom to consider how intersectional disadvantage and privilege shapes feminist sisterhood with profound implications for academic identities, careers, and belonging in the internationalized university and the wider socio-political British context. I draw on my professional trajectory to demonstrate how othering and violence in the form of verbal abuse, microaggressions, …

Editors' Introduction, Kimberly Chabot Davis, Priyanka Tripathi, Catherine Ndinda

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: Korean “Comfort Women”: Military Brothels, Brutality, And The Redress Movement, Ñusta Carranza Ko

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Comfort Women: A Movement For Justice And Women’S Rights In The United States, Angella Son

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Listen To The Voices Of The Women, Judith Mirkinson

Journal of International Women's Studies

Using survivor testimonies, military records and statements from human rights organizations, this paper lays out the undeniable truth of the “comfort women” system. This truth is recognized by the international community and maintains that the Japanese government and Japanese Imperial Army instituted and maintained the largest system of sexual slavery in the 20th century. These testimonies provide the factual counterpoint to the historical denialism of Harvard Professor J. Mark Ramseyer as well as the Japanese government. The “comfort women” survivors’ experiences, since breaking a 40-year silence in the 1990s, manifest a resilience and sense of purpose in demanding an accounting …

Ramseyer, The Japanese Right-Wing And The “History Wars”, Tomomi Yamaguchi

Journal of International Women's Studies

J. Mark Ramseyer’s publications on the topics of wartime “comfort women” and Japan’s minorities have become the focus of intense controversy. His article on “comfort women” in the International Review of Law and Economics gained global scrutiny following its coverage in Japan’s right-wing newspaper, Sankei Shimbun, and its English-language publication, Japan Forward. Ramseyer claims that “comfort women” willingly entered into sex-work contracts, denying responsibility by Japan’s military and government for the “comfort station” system. He also insists that naming this system “sexual slavery” is “pure fiction” – a stance shared by Japanese history denialists in Japan. Since the controversy over …

Ramseyer’S History Denialism And The Efforts To “Save Ramseyer”: Focusing On Critique Of “A Response To My Critics” (2022), Sung Hyun Kang

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article focuses on Ramseyer’s “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War: A Response to My Critics.” Ramseyer did not accept critiques that evaluated his claims, logic, and empirical methods for denialism in document analysis as lacking academic integrity and research sincerity. His response is mostly limited to the issue of “contractual structure at the wartime ‘comfort stations,’” and addressing the idea that women were never “forcibly conscripted at gunpoint or hauled away against their will.” He continues to argue that women were not “forcibly conscripted” because they agreed on “indentured servitude” contracts based on “credible commitments,” which represent “choices” …

My Response To Ramseyer’S Effort To Deny The History Of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery, Pyong Gap Min

Journal of International Women's Studies

The main objective of this paper is to critically evaluate as many of Ramseyer’s arguments as possible included in his 2022 paper. It consists of three sections in addition to the introduction and concluding remarks. The first section summarizes the expanded literature that interpreted the “comfort women” system as sexual slavery, judgments, and recommendations to the Japanese government given by scholars, international human rights organizations and the legislative branches of four Western countries. Since Ramseyer published his article denying the “comfort women” system as sexual slavery without introducing this literature, we cannot consider his article as an academic work. The …

Introduction: A Critical Evaluation Of Mark Ramseyer’S Arguments For “Comfort Women” As Voluntary Prostitutes With Labor Contracts, Pyong Gap Min

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Women, Bodies, And Medicine: The Tradition Of Drinking Jamu (Herbal Medicine) Among Indonesian Transmigrant Women, Theresia Pratiwi Elingsetyo Sanubari, Rosiana Eva Rayanti, Priskilla Sindi Arindita

Journal of International Women's Studies

Jamu (traditional herbal medicine of Indonesia) emerges from Javanese culture that is passed down through generations. The tradition was brought by Javanese transmigrants in Lampung, Indonesia. Social interaction between transmigrants and locals led to the cultural assimilation of Javanese culture within local culture. The combination of two cultures brings a different meaning to Jamu consumption among the transmigrants. This study aims to explore the significance of traditional medical practices in transmigrant communities. This research uses a descriptive, qualitative method with an ethnographic approach. Participants were three first-generation transmigrant, elderly women, who consume herbal medicine and live in Dwi Mulyo Village, …

Survival Strategies Of Indonesian Women From Low-Income Families During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Emy Susanti, Siti Kusujiarti, Siti Mas’Udah, Tuti Budirahayu, Sudarso

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study analyzes the survival strategies of Indonesian women from low-income families with different social and geographical backgrounds. The participants of this study are married women with children from poor families who live in the provinces of East Java and West Sumatra, Indonesia. This research uses the survey method; researchers received questionnaire responses from 857 respondents (457 respondents in East Java, and 400 respondents in West Sumatra). The results of this study indicate that the survival strategy of low-income families during the COVID-19 pandemic is based on the strength of their existing social capital, especially with the support of their …

Tabligh As A Form Of Information Sharing For Women: ‘Aisyiyah During The Covid-19 Pandemic In East Java, Tri Susantari, Yunus Abdul Halim, Adam Syarief Thamrin

Journal of International Women's Studies

The COVID-19 pandemic has made everyone adapt in order to survive. The pandemic has an impact on all sectors of society, including religion, economy, health, and education. 'Aisyiyah is an organized women's Muslim group that helps the community in dealing with COVID-19. 'Aisyiyah uses tabligh as a form of information sharing to educate their cadres and the public regarding community problems in dealing with COVID-19. Through qualitative research methods, this study describes in detail how the model and impact of tabligh activities have been carried out by 'Aisyiyah during the pandemic. The results of the study show that tabligh regarding …

Strengthening Adolescent Reproductive Health As A Strategy To Diminish Maternal Mortality: A Case Study In Malang, Keppi Sukesi

Journal of International Women's Studies

The aims of this study are: (1) describing adolescent knowledge and understanding of reproductive health, (2) describing gender issues related to adolescent reproductive health, (3) describing delayed medical assistance due to socio-cultural aspects resulting in the death of the mother, and (4) strengthening adolescent awareness of reproductive health as a strategy to decrease maternal mortality. Based on a qualitative approach with a case study design, the research was conducted at Malang Regency using the snowball method, and a survey on adolescent understanding of reproduction was conducted in Singosari and Pujon. Results demonstrated that adolescent knowledge of reproductive health is relatively …

Sacred Sex Or Purely Prostitution? Women’S Health During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Roro Kembang Sore Tomb, Tulungagung, East Java, Indonesia, Diah Ariani Arimbi, Gesang Manggala Nugraha Putra, Nurul Fitri Hapsari

Journal of International Women's Studies

The practice of seeking pesugihan (a Javanese term for fortune or wealth, usually achieved by visiting a sacred burial ground of a historic prominent figure or mythical beings) through free-sex rituals is one of the factors that has increased the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, especially in the Tulungagung region of East Java, Indonesia. Often under the guise of tradition, this practice is maintained without proper supervision from governing agencies. To assess this problem, this study focuses on mapping the origin and distribution of free-sex myths in the pesugihan ritual, especially at the burial site of Nyi Roro Kembang Sore, …

The Social Resilience Of Women In Coastal Villages Of East Java During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Emy Susanti, Tri Soesantari, Sutinah, Henny Rosalinda

Journal of International Women's Studies

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the living conditions of rural women in coastal areas of East Java became increasingly difficult. The aim of this study is to reveal the important roles of women and their social resilience to survive during the pandemic. This research was conducted in poor coastal villages in the province of East Java, namely: 1) Surabaya City with multicultural characteristics; 2) Situbondo Regency with Javanese–Madurese mixed cultural characteristics and 3) Tuban Regency with Javanese cultural characteristics. The subjects of this study were married women who have children. Data collection was conducted for 2 months (June-July 2021) using a …

Patali Gumbira Empowerment Strategy As An Effort To Build Women's Resilience In Responding To The Social Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elly Malihah, Siti Komariah, Wilodati, Lingga Utami, Arindini Ayu Kisvi Rizkia, Yazid Taqiyuddin Ahmad, Rengga Akbar Munggaran

Journal of International Women's Studies

Responding to the increase in women’s burdens as a result of COVID-19 has become the focus for the Patali Gumbira empowerment program. The focus of this study is to identify strategies to build women's resilience in response to COVID-19 based on their social capital of knowledge, experience, and aspirations. This study uses a Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) approach, which explores how women are often central in maintaining the lives of their families and communities. The findings in this study indicate that the empowerment of Patali Gumbira is a means for building women's social resilience through the framework of the …

Local Government Efforts In The Protection Of Women And Children During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Yanti Shantini, Elly Malihah, Siti Nurbayani

Journal of International Women's Studies

The COVID-19 pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 has changed most routines for the global population. Central and regional governments need to synergize policies to prevent further spread. Therefore, government and other agencies as well as other elements of the community are important factors in the implementation of working programs for disaster management. This study investigates the efforts of the local government and society in protecting women and children during the COVID-19 pandemic in West Java Province. In this case, the units involved include Development Planning Agency at Sub-National Level, Women's Empowerment, Child Protection and Family Planning Office, and …

Jogo Tonggo And Pager Mangkok: Synergy Of Government And Public Participation In The Face Of Covid-19, Setyasih Harini, Caroline Paskarina, Junita Budi Rachman, Ida Widianingsih

Journal of International Women's Studies

The purpose of this study is to describe the Regent's mitigation program of increasing Sragen community participation through the excavation of local wisdom and communal values. This is known as “social solidarity,” and this article locates social solidarity in pager mangkok, a mitigation program for facing the COVID-19 pandemic, and the jogo tonggo program, a product of the Central Java Provincial government. Approaches to women's political leadership, public policy, and implementation are all parts of the theory used to support the concept of social solidarity. Data was collected through observation methods, documentation, and library research. The results show that the …