Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Ecofeminism And Natural Disasters: Sri Lankan Women Post-Tsunami, Alyssa Banford, Cameron Kiely Froude

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women experience a host of negative consequences during and after a natural disaster. A variety of feminist theories have been used to explore this phenomenon. The aim of this paper is to posit the need for an ecofeminist perspective on analyzing women’s vulnerabilities post-natural disaster. The authors will discuss the history and branches of ecofeminism, highlighting their utility in exploring the intersection of race, class, and gender in the aftermath of disaster. An ecofeminist analysis of Sri Lankan women’s vulnerability in the wake of the 2004 tsunami will be used to illustrate the utility of the theory. Implications of using …

Gender Mainstreaming In Sector Budget Support: The Case Of The European Commission's Sector Support To Rwanda's Agriculture Sector, Nathalie Holvoet, Liesbeth Inberg

Journal of International Women's Studies

Donors face difficulties when handling gender concerns in the context of ongoing changes in aid modalities. Against this background, the European Union (EU) Member States and the European Commission (EC) adopted the EU Plan of Action on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Development (2010-2015) and launched, in collaboration with the UN Women and the International Training Center of the International Labour Organisation, the ‘Increasing Accountability in Financing for Gender Equality’ programme. Within the framework of this programme, the EU delegation in Rwanda has elaborated a Gender Mainstreaming Strategy for the EC sector budget support to the Agriculture Sector in …

"Frauen Fur Den Frieden - Oppositional Group Or Bored Troublemakers?", Susanne Kranz

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper explores the autonomous women’s group Frauen für den Frieden (Women for Peace) that was founded in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1982. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons behind the foundation of the group as well as its functioning and its rather quick decline and dissolution. A crucial reason for the establishment of an autonomous, yet illegal, women’s group was the ratification of a new military law that specified drafting women into the military service in case of a national emergency. Additionally, women challenged the existing Friedenspolitik (policy of peace) of the socialist …

In Search Of A Lost Identity: Iranian Women And Their Identity Issues, Mahsa Izadinia

Journal of International Women's Studies

Using the data from the lives of two Iranian women, I focus on how context and self impact the process of identity formation. My aim of the present study is to empower and emancipate women by highlighting the significance of knowing who they are and holding on to their dreams, values, and choices especially when the social and family contexts are limiting and oppressive. Elaborating on the concept of identity and its significance for human development, I discuss the life stories of the two Iranian women and their major challenges. I explain how they gradually dissociated from who they were …

Veiling And Blogging: Social Media As Sites Of Identity Negotiation And Expression Among Saudi Women, Hala Guta, Magdalena Karolak

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper aims at assessing how Saudi Arab young women use social media for negotiating and expressing their identity. Through in-depth interviews with a sample of seven Saudi females aged 20-26, the research revealed that the internet, with its protection of individual privacy, provided the participants a space to negotiate the boundaries imposed on them by cultural and societal rules. Participants employed several tactics of negotiation such as using nicknames, concealing their personal images and using first names only in order not to be identified by their family names. Using multiple accounts is also popular among participants. Without gatekeepers, the …

Rethinking Patriarchy, Culture And Masculinity: Transnational Narratives Of Gender Violence And Human Rights Advocacy, Elora Halim Chowdhury

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper, I argue that to truly understand the complexity and “high prevalence” of acid violence against women in Bangladesh, we must pay attention to the confluence of political, economic and historical forces that make certain social groups more vulnerable to such extreme violence and suffering. By tracing the life history narratives of survivors of gender-based violence, I hope to shed light that acid throwing—a form of gendered violence—has to be understood beyond a “culturalist” framework, which explains this phenomenon as a product of harmful patriarchal cultural practices, seemingly more prevalent in certain South Asian cultures. Rather, I argue, …

Judging By Appearances: Perceived Discrimination Among South Asian Muslim Women In The Us And The Uae, Nausheen Pasha-Zaidi

Journal of International Women's Studies

The current study addresses perceived discrimination among South Asian Muslim women living in the United States (US) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). US participants reported greater perceptions of discrimination than UAE participants. In both countries, perceived discrimination mainly took the form of subtle nuances rather than direct harassment. Although participants reported the greatest intensity of perceived discrimination at work, hijabis (women who wear the Islamic headscarf) felt this more than non-hijabis. Conversely, non-hijabis felt greater intensity of discrimination in social spaces within Muslim contexts than hijabis. Despite feeling most comfortable socializing with either Muslims or South Asians, participants felt …

Gender In The Midst Of Change: Examining The Rights Of Muslim Women In Predominately Muslim Countries, Saidat Ilo, Richard Seltzer

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study aims at contributing to the debate on whether countries with large Muslim populations will embrace gender equality. The role of women in Islamic societies remains a highly charged political and cultural issue. Women’s issues are vital in the shaping of modern debates on democracy in predominantly Muslim countries.

This study utilized the 2012 Pew Global Attitudes Survey. The seven Islamic countries polled by the Pew Global Attitudes Project were Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey. In the survey, nine questions were asked of a sample size of roughly 7,000 respondents. We examined attitudes towards women’s equality …

The Meaning Of Hijab: Voices Of Muslim Women In Egypt And Yemen, Kenneth E. Jackson, Elizabeth Monk-Turner

Journal of International Women's Studies

This work explores how Muslim women in Egypt and Yemen understand the hijab, or head scarf. Based on data (N = 100) from a self-administered questionnaire written in Arabic, differences about the meaning of hijab are examined from the perspective of women who wear or are expected to wear the head scarf. When asked what the hijab means, Egyptian women focus on religious reasons and Yemeni women emphasize a cultural (or modesty) understanding. When probed further about their understanding of hijab, Egyptian women split between religious and gendered explanations. Significant numbers of women in our Egyptian sample report …

Veil Bans In Western Europe: Interpreting Policy Diffusion, Adriana Piatti-Crocker, Laman Tasch

Journal of International Women's Studies

Veil Bans in Western Europe: Interpreting Policy Diffusion examines the diffusion of Muslim veil-ban laws in four Western European countries within the last decade; France, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands. Nationwide bans on full-face Muslim veiling are rooted in several systemic, normative, and political accounts and advocated by contrasting political ideologies. Methodologically, this paper employs an integrative perspective to explain the process of diffusion in some countries but not in others, by exploring both external and internal factors that led to policy innovation. Overall, full-face Muslim veil bans in Western Europe have been intended to accelerate cultural integration of minorities …

A Socio-Historical And Political Discourse On The Rights Of Muslim Women: Concerns For Women’S Rights Or Community Identity: (Special Reference To 1937 And 1939 Acts), Sabiha Hussain

Journal of International Women's Studies

The present paper deals with the discourse of the rights of Muslim women in the pre- independence period with particular reference to the Shariat Act 1937 and the Muslim Marriage Dissolution Act 1939 and the socio- historical and political background in the enactment of these Acts. The role of women’s organizations and the women’s movement, community leaders and political parties has been taken into account in dealing with the discourse. Whether the discourse was more to show political strength of the Muslim community or to protect the rights of women? Why was a need for these enactments felt by women’s …

"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 …