Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Winning And Short-Listed Entries From The 2010 Feminist And Women’S Studies Association Annual Student Essay Competition, Nadine Muller, Srila Roy

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Chess Queen, Etta James (1938-2012), Olusanya Osha

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Luci Xi: Prostitution And Venereal Disease In Colonial Hanoi, Sanya Osha

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Luci Xi: Prostitution and Venereal Disease in Colonial Hanoi by Vu Trong Phung.

Book Review: Displaced At Home: Ethnicity And Gender Among Palestinians In Israel, Elmé Vivier

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of “Displaced at Home: Ethnicity and Gender among Palestinians in Israel” edited by Rhoda Ann Kanaaneh & Isis Nusair.

Book Review: Population Policy And Reproduction In Singapore: Making Future Citizens, Monde Makiwane

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Population Policy and Reproduction in Singapore: Making Future citizens by Pop Shirley Hsiao-Li Sun.

Book Review: “Neoliberalization” As Betrayal: State, Feminism, And A Women’S Education Program In India, Haigen Huang

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of “Neoliberalization” as Betrayal: State, Feminism, and a Women’s Education Program in India by Shubhra Sharma.

Book Review: Professional Men, Professional Women: The European Professions From The 19th Century Until Today, Sharonrose Sefora

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Professional Men, Professional Women: The European Professions from the 19th Century until Today by Maria Malatesta.

Why George Eliot Was Not A Political Activist, June Skye Szirotny

Journal of International Women's Studies

It is often thought that George Eliot’s refusal to campaign actively for feminist goals indicates that she was no feminist. But there were several reasons that make the charge mute. She disliked dealing with practical matters, especially legislative ones. Proselytizing was particularly repugnant to her because she knew that her scandalous liaison with Lewes could only make her discussion of controversial matters a liability. Furthermore, she thought that the factors facilitating success were so complicated that one could say little that would be helpful to the aspiring woman. Actually, she thought of herself as an activist, “teaching the world through …

Reintegrating Self: Theorizing Women’S Self-Transformations In Cross-Cultural Contexts, Dongxiao Qin

Journal of International Women's Studies

A grounded theory is developed to explore the processes of Chinese immigrant women’s self-transformations in cross-cultural contexts. A series of psychological processes, “integrating self,” “fragmenting self,” and “reintegrating self” are identified from interviews with ten Chines women who immigrated to the United States in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Women’s senses of self-transformations are interpreted from phenomenological, cultural, anthropological, and critical feminist perspectives. The implications of this research are theoretical and practical. It contributes to critical feminist theories of women’s self-transformation within the context of cultural mobility from their culture of origin to the host culture. It …

Imagined Subjects: Polygamy, Gender And Nation In Nia Dinata’S Love For Share, Grace V. S. Chin

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper, I explore polygamy in Nia Dinata’s Indonesian film, Love for Share, and how it can be used as a key signifier to analyze the construction of gendered subjects, identities and relations in the phallocentric discourses of family and nation. In Indonesia, the family structure is inherently patriarchal and hierarchical in nature, one which exhorts wives to stay at home while husbands are seen as breadwinners and whose roles are non-domestic. However, women are doubly marginalized in Indonesia as their subordinate status in the domestic space is reified at the national level through the state ideology of the …

Economic Status, Education And Risky Sexual Behavior For Urban Botswana Women, Kakanyo Fani Dintwa

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study investigated the relationship between economic status, education and risky sexual behavior for urban Botswana women. The data used are a nationally representative sample from the Botswana AIDS Impact Survey conducted in 2004. An un-weighted sample of 2215 women aged 15-49, who have had sexual intercourse was considered for analysis. Both bivariate and multivariate analyses are used to gain insights into the potential linkages between economic status, education and risky sexual behavior. The bivariate analysis shows that there is a significant relationship between dependent variable (number of sexual partners) and economic status. However, with the introduction of controls the …

“We All Like To Think We’Ve Saved Somebody:” Sex Trafficking In Literature, Donna M. Bickford

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay considers the potential impact of sex trafficking narratives and their relationship to public perception and social change efforts. It fuses literary criticism and cultural analysis to discuss multiple genres of texts, including mainstream news media reports and two categories of novels about sex trafficking. Finally, it argues for the power of narrative to catalyze and influence actions designed to eradicate sex trafficking.

Occupational Health And Safety In Small Scale Mining: Focus On Women Workers In The Philippines, Jinky Leilanie Lu

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study highlights women’s participation in small scale mining, and their occupational safety and health conditions. Small scale mining is a significant source of income in many developing countries such as the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Bolivia, Colombia, Indonesia, Mali, and Zimbabwe. In the Philippines, small-scale mining has been the leading occupational group among all mineral industries. However, data show that women face many issues in mining such as double burden of work-home responsibilities, chemical exposure to either cyanide or mercury used in extracting gold, dust from manganese and other minerals, and respiratory and systemic diseases from toxic chemical exposures. …

Dilma Rousseff And The Challenge Of Fighting Patriarchy Through Political Representation In Brazil, Sabrina Fernandes

Journal of International Women's Studies

Dilma Rousseff is the first woman elected head of state of Brazil. Although her election carries symbolism for Brazilian women, claims of women's emancipation through representation must be questioned through an analysis of the Brazilian patriarchal state. This paper examines the claim that Rousseff’s election opens doors for all Brazilian women. The research involves analysis of electoral statistics, media frames, and government documents, which show that, in spite of a woman president, women's representation in Brazilian government is still low in numbers and in the state agenda. The literature suggests that masculine gender hegemony and the presence of a patriarchal …

‘You’D Stand In Line To Buy Potato Peelings’: German Women's Memories Of World War Ii, Gail Hickey

Journal of International Women's Studies

How do U.S. women immigrants remember their experiences of World War II? In what ways do these women choose to transmit their memories to the next generation? These are the questions explored in this study.

Women immigrants have been treated as if they were insignificant actors in history and socialization (Kelson & DeLaet, 1999). Feminist scholarship challenges this portrait of women as insignificant actors, arguing against gender-biased perspectives on the immigration experience. Yet scholarly sources provide little information about the “real life problems” of women immigrants (Barber, 2005).

Immigration research historically has tended toward historical and demographical data compilations, resulting …

Doing Science Within A Culture Of Machismo And Marianismo, Karen Englander, Carmen Yáñez, Xochitl Barney

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women have been joining the ranks of professional scientists in increasing numbers although international statistics indicate that women‘s participation varies substantially in different regions. Variation in rates of participation can be explained in part by cultural contexts, and in Mexico, dominant cultural ideologies of machismo and marianismo prevail. To understand the impact, if any, of these ideologies on the lives of women scientists in their professional interactions, a case study was conducted at one research institute. The results indicate that the women scientists report different interactions with men and with other women, and interactions vary with the status of the …

Between Global Fears And Local Bodies: Toward A Transnational Feminist Analysis Of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, Susan Dewey, Tonia St. Germain

Journal of International Women's Studies

Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) knows no borders. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have witnessed historically unprecedented levels of violence against non-combatants as well as a concomitant rise in international and local efforts to assist survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. Yet the diversity of cultural contexts in which SGBV occurs challenges us to ask a timely question: what might a transnational feminist analysis of conflict-related sexual violence look like? This is particularly salient because feminist scholar-activists increasingly help shape policy designed to both address sexual violence as a weapon or by-product of war and services to assist its survivors. This …

A South African Perspective On The Clash Between Culture And Human Rights, With Particular Reference To Gender-Related Cultural Practices And Traditions, John Cantius Mubangizi

Journal of International Women's Studies

South Africa is infamous for its history of disenfranchising most of its population under the dehumanizing policy of apartheid. A country of almost 50 million people, South Africa has a diverse array of languages, races, religions and ethnic communities, and has faced significant challenges - political, cultural and socio-economic – since the advent of democracy in 1994. The writers of the 1996 Constitution faced the unenviable task of accommodating the diverse viewpoints that inevitably derived from South Africa’s fractured history and society. The Constitution is one of the most progressive in the world, and notably includes a Bill of Rights, …

Unveiling The Veil Ban Dilemma: Turkey And Beyond, Adriana Piatti-Crocker, Laman Tasch

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines Turkey’s veil ban policy, which has been in place since the 1980s. The dilemma is whether Muslim-veil bans impinge on the rights of expression and religion at both national and international levels or, whether states may legally justify a ban on the basis of secularism and women’s rights. Even though the idea of freedom “from religion” in Turkey has been closely linked to the European notion of secularism during most of Turkey’s republican history, more recently, secularism and veil bans in Turkey and in the West have been construed quite distinctly. This shows an increasing gap between …

Changing Aid Policies Through A Gender Lens: An International Perspective And The Case Of The Dutch Development Cooperation, Nathalie Holvoet, Liesbeth Inberg

Journal of International Women's Studies

Since the turn of the century changes in aid policies and modalities have been proposed with the aim to promote aid effectiveness. This article is a study on the ongoing reform processes within partner and donor countries as seen through a gender lens. It explores more closely how changing aid policies unfold opportunities and challenges for gender mainstreaming policies and gender equality objective. The article analyses in particular how donors are handling gender concerns in the realm of the ongoing changes and zooms into the case of Dutch Development Cooperation, one of change champions. Such a gendered analysis of aid …

The Role Of Temporal Comparisons In Judgments Of Gender Equality, Meghan Sullivan, Zeely Sylvia

Undergraduate Review

While women have achieved great advancements in social status in the past century, sexism remains a widespread issue. Perceptions of sexism today could be affected by comparisons to the past, when sexism was much worse. The current study investigated the effect of using different temporal reference points to make judgments about the state of gender equality today. Based on temporal comparison theory, a process of making judgments of the present based on an individual’s view of the past, it was expected that those considering the past would see gender inequality as less of an issue currently than those considering the …

The Consumption Of Children In A Capitalistic Society, Jessica Melendy

Undergraduate Review

Audre Lorde’s, “Now that I Am Forever with Child”, and Sharon Olds’, “The Moment the Two Worlds Meet,” juxtapose the natural aspects of childbirth with late capital methods of consumption and reproduction. In “Now that I Am Forever with Child”, Audre Lorde describes her fetus as a budding flower but feels detached from it during and after delivery. Sharon Olds also uses the metaphor of an opening flower to demonstrate the climax of delivery in “The Moment the Two Worlds Meet.” In both poems, the birth of the child is anticlimactic and disappointing for the mother who …

Challenging Bosnian Women’S Identity As Rape Victims, As Unending Victims: The ‘Other’ Sex In Times Of War, Olivera Simić

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper I reflect on my attendance of the Women’s Worlds 2011 congress held in Ottawa, Canada. I analyze responses of the international feminist audience to the paper I presented during the congress. The paper offered an analysis of the empirical data collected during my fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) in 2008 and was concerned with Bosnian women and their sexual relationships with peacekeepers during the war and in post conflict BiH. I argue that because of an almost exclusive focus on mass rapes endured by Bosnian women during the war and a vast feminist literature focused on …

Gender And Conflict Transformation In Israel/Palestine, Simona Sharoni

Journal of International Women's Studies

A careful examination of women’s involvement in peacebuilding and conflict transformation in Israel and Palestine provides a unique perspective on key turning points in the history of the conflict in the past two and one-half decades, since the first Palestinian uprising, knows as the Intifada. The article analyzes the changes in modes of organizing, as well as in the broader vision and key strategies of women’s organizing, mostly at the grassroots level, on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli divide. By exposing the gendered dimensions of the conflict, women activists have began to transform the cultures of their respective collectivities, …

Unexpected Consequences Of Everyday Life During The Maoist Insurgency In Nepal, Judith Pettigrew

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines gendered aspects of women’s lives in a hill village in central Nepal during the decade-long civil war (1996-2006). The predominantly middle aged and elderly women discussed in the paper were not directly influenced by Maoist equality agendas, nor have they been – as yet – significantly empowered by the recent post-conflict gender reservations. Rather, the paper argues that it was via the unintended consequences of the conflict – their unexpected leadership of a village development project – that these women forged an alternative path towards gender transformation.

“Subjects Of Change”: Feminist Geopolitics And Gendered Truth-Telling In Guatemala, Rebecca Patterson-Markowitz, Elizabeth Oglesby, Sallie Marston

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper explores the often-undervalued role of gender in transitional justice mechanisms and the importance of women’s struggles and agency in that regard. We focus on the efforts of the women’s movement in Guatemala to address questions of justice and healing for survivors of gendered violence during Guatemala’s 36-year internal armed conflict. We discuss how the initial transitional justice measures of documenting gendered war crimes in the context of a genocide were subsequently taken up by the women’s movement and how their endeavors to further expose sexual violence have resulted in notable interventions. Interviews with key organizational activists as well …

‘For My Torturer’: An African Woman’S Transformative Art Of Truth, Justice And Peace-Making During Colonialism, Priya Narismulu

Journal of International Women's Studies

Against a range of injustices African women have made powerful challenges to structural, gender and repressive violence through their interventions in questions of justice, dialogue, creativity and transformation. This article addresses an activist’s interventions against colonial oppression by examining gender as the central variable in the relationship between justice and activism in African women’s creative literature. The poem “For my Torturer, Lieutenant D…” was written in prison by the Algerian activist Leila Djabali who navigated the silences and challenges of gender, age and national identity (postcolonial). It challenges the violence of colonial and patriarchal silencing to expose torture and rape …

The Struggle Over Boundary And Memory: Nation, Borders, And Gender In Jewish Israel, Tamar Mayer

Journal of International Women's Studies

The attachment of a nation to its ancestral homeland is indisputable. Yet, when the nation does not have a clear idea of the geographical parameters of its territory, the boundaries often get defined by others and through war. In the case of Israel, however, especially since 1967, the Jewish homeland has been defined and shaped not simply by war but by government policies that support the Settlement Project in the occupied territories of the West Bank. While Jewish men and women historically have had different roles in defining Israel’s boundaries – men as defenders of borders and women as enablers …

Our Mothers Have Spoken: Synthesizing Old And New Forms Of Women’S Political Authority In Liberia, Mary Moran

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper argues that the 2005 election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to the Liberian presidency is best understood in the historical and cultural context of pre-war authority-bearing positions available to women, rather than as an outcome of the Liberian civil war itself. Against a literature that tends to view “traditional” African societies as hostile to both democracy and women’s rights, I contend that gender, conflict, and democracy are inter-twined in more complex relationships. Post-conflict societies such as Liberia are interesting not only as sites of intervention by international organizations seeking to capitalize on the “window of opportunity” available to re-make …

The Way Forward For Girls’ Education In Afghanistan, Carolyn Kissane

Journal of International Women's Studies

Lack of rights and access to education are problems that have challenged Afghan women throughout the history of their country. True political reform in Afghanistan is contingent upon the solving of these problems, as women’s education is essential not only for the development of a more stable government, but also for raising living standards. Women’s lack of access to education in Afghanistan is reinforced by beliefs rooted in the religious and familial tradition of community. Although Islamic ideologies have often been distorted and manipulated by leaders to control and subjugate the lives of women, Islam cannot be ignored in the …