Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Surviving Sexual Violence In Eastern Democratic Republic Of Congo, Susan Bartels, Jennifer Scott, Jennifer Leaning, Denis Mukwege, Robert Lipton, Michael Vanrooyen

Journal of International Women's Studies

Since 1996 a deadly conflict has been ongoing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Within this conflict, sexual violence has been inflicted upon women as a strategic weapon of war. Given the challenges of working in this setting, this sexual violence epidemic has not been well studied. The current work is a retrospective chart review of women presenting to Panzi Hospital in 2006 requesting post-sexual violence care. The goals were to describe the demographics of sexual violence survivors and to define the physical and psychosocial consequences of sexual violence in Eastern DRC. A total of 1021 patient medical records …

A Woman’S Nature: Addressing Violence Against Women Through Femininity In Poland, Abby Drwecki

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article is an investigation of women’s self-defense courses in post-communist Poland. I focus on WenDo, a women’s self-defense seminar which is based on feminist principles and which seeks to empower women through changes in body culture: i.e. their physical capabilities, posture, demeanor and vocalizations when in a position of interpersonal threat or danger. Through an ethnographic study of this self-defense method, I show how WenDo’s pedagogy is designed to lead to these changes. In addition, I question whether WenDo can be conceptualized as a form of women’s empowerment which is disconnected from an organized feminist movement and is based …

Book Review: Law In The Service Of Legitimacy: Gender And Politics In Jordan, Stephanie Chaban

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Law in the Service of Legitimacy: Gender and Politics in Jordan by Catherine Warrick

“People Like Us” In Pursuit Of God And Rights: Islamic Feminist Discourse And Sisters In Islam In Malaysia, Yasmin Moll

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper attempts to critically situate the discourse of Islamic feminism and its activist incarnations such as the Malaysian group Sisters in Islam within an analytical framework that seeks to look beyond the all-too-common trope of “multiple modernities.” The paper examines the conditions of possibility enabling such groups and discourses, looking in particular at the modern nation-state, and the imbrications of social discourses of rights and religious discourses of individual belief within this state. I argue that the repertoires of reasoning called forth by Sisters in Islam partake in the objectifying rationalities of the Malaysian state when it comes to …

At The Forefront Of A Post-Patriarchal Islamic Education: Female Teachers In Indonesia, Ann Kull

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article argues that the ongoing introduction of a gender perspective in Indonesian Islamic education is challenging the partially unconscious patriarchal gender regime of these institutions and a means of resisting traditional notions of religious authority. The activities of female teachers, scholars and researchers are instrumental in these endeavors. This study draws on empirical material collected through fieldwork in Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Makassar, Banjarmasin, and Bandung, and includes brochures, books, course literature, research, interviews, and discussions. Data is primarily collected from state institutes for higher Islamic education and especially at their respective Centers for Women Studies. This material constitutes examples of …

Historicizing Garment Manufacturing In Bangladesh: Gender, Generation, And New Regulatory Regimes, Shelley Feldman

Journal of International Women's Studies

The contemporary Bangladesh economy is marked by sustained increases in women’s paid employment, a rise that began in the 1980s with complex and contradictory effects on the lives of women and communities. Today this increase in the numbers of employed women recasts gender relations and the gender and social contract, with wage employment leading to new sources of mobility and social, economic, and political freedoms for women, but also to contestation over rights and security, and, in some cases, to declines in women’s welfare. In this paper, I offer a window on the relationship between macro-economic changes in the Bangladesh …

Book Review: Islam, Women And Violence In Kashmir: Between India And Pakistan, Jaskiran Mathur

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Islam, Women and Violence in Kashmir: Between India and Pakistan by Nyla Ali Khan

Muslim Women Leaders In The Ferghana Valley: Whose Leadership Is It Anyway?, Svetlana Peshkova

Journal of International Women's Studies

There are many geographic and historical examples of Muslim women leaders, yet questions about women’s ability to lead and the kinds of leadership women can assume are still a part of scholarly and public debates among Muslims. In this article, based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Ferghana Valley (Uzbekistan), I provide examples of Muslim women’s leadership and argue that in order to fully understand women’s leadership we need to question the assumption that men and women desire the same forms of leadership. A desire for leadership is not intrinsic to women (or humans in general) but is …

Islamic Feminism And Muslim Women’S Rights Activism In India: From Transnational Discourse To Local Movement - Or Vice Versa?, Nadja-Christina Schneider

Journal of International Women's Studies

The very recent phenomenon called Islamic feminism receives quite a lot of attention from academia and media alike. Although it is basically a discourse whose strategy and praxis is primarily script related, there seems to be an overt tendency to equate Islamic feminism with an ideology for a transnational social or political movement. As a perceived singular movement, Islamic feminism is often distinguished from two other supposedly singular movements, namely “Muslim feminism” and “Islamist feminism.” With regard to India, however, these ideal types don’t seem to be very helpful as analytical categories, as the growing influence and reference to Islamic …

Claiming Their Space: Muslim Women-Led Networks And The Women’S Movement In India, Nida Kirmani

Journal of International Women's Studies

The Shah Bano case of the 1980s was a landmark in the discourse on ‘Muslim women’s rights’ in India. At this time, however, few Muslim women actually participated in the debates, which were dominated by male religious leaders and politicians or by ‘secular’ women’s groups, which had scant Muslim representation. Since the 1980s several Muslim-women led organisations have emerged in urban areas across the country, some of which have formed networks to advocate for Muslim women’s rights. This article looks at the emergence of two networks in particular, the Muslim Women’s Rights Network (MWRN) and the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan …

South Asian Muslim American Girl Power: Structures And Symbols Of Control And Self-Expression, Marcia Hermansen, Mahruq F. Khan

Journal of International Women's Studies

South Asian Muslim American (SAMA) girls studied ethnographically in Chicago and more broadly in the United States negotiate these three components (South Asian, Muslim, and American) of identity across the spheres of home, Islamic institutions, and the public “American” realm. Drawing on interviews and fieldwork at an Islamic school and within South Asian families and mosques, the authors illustrate how nascent “girl” power is evidenced in these contexts drawing on media representations, academic sources, and data drawn from participant observation. Sources of SAMA girls’ expressions of confidence and power are selective use of identity markers, increased mastery of Islamic knowledge, …

Visible Under The Veil: Dissimulation, Performance And Agency In An Islamic Public Space, Julie Billaud

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper seeks to characterize new meanings attached to women’s veiling in an Islamic public space, drawing from observations, interviews and field notes collected among various women’s groups in Afghanistan. It is argued that while the chadari – or burqa, as the Western press miscalled it, using the Urdu denomination – has become the ultimate symbol of women’s oppression for Western audiences, it is necessary to take a closer look at its multiple and often contradictory uses and to contextualise the reasons for its maintenance, despite the downfall of the Taliban regime. Ethnographic research demonstrates that women who are attempting …

Book Review: Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds: Storied Lives Of Immigrant Muslim Women, Ghazala Afzal Orakzai

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Racialized Bodies, Disabling Worlds: Storied Lives of Immigrant Muslim Women by Parin Dossa

Film Reviews: Dishonored; They Call Me Muslim: Two Women, Two Choices About The Hijab; Arusi Persian Wedding; And Four Wives – One Man., Lydia Foerster

Journal of International Women's Studies

Film Review of

• Dishonored( Sigrun Norderval and Gard A. Andreassen)
• They Call Me Muslim: Two women, two choices about the hijab (Diana Ferrero)
• ARUSI Persian Wedding (Marjan Tehrani)
• Four Wives – One Man (Nahid Persson)

Polygamy Talk And The Politics Of Feminism: Contestations Over Masculinity In A New Muslim Indonesia, Sonja Van Wichelen

Journal of International Women's Studies

The political downfall of the Suharto administration in 1998 marked the end of the “New Order,” which was characterized by a 32-year period of authoritarian rule. Opening the way for democracy, it included the unlocking of Indonesian politics for the influence and participation of political Islam, which the New Order discouraged or banned. This shift led to a proliferation of Islamic issues in the public and political sphere. Many of them concerned issues of gender and have triggered profound debates about women’s rights and gender equality. This article examines one of these public concerns over “Islam and gender,” namely polygamy. …

Stealing Women, Stealing Men: Co-Creating Cultures Of Polygamy In A Pesantren Community In Eastern Indonesia, Bianca J. Smith

Journal of International Women's Studies

The article examines how particular elements of Sasak society structurally facilitate a culture of polygamy in a pesantren (Islamic boarding school) which is managed by male Muslim teachers and preachers (Tuan Guru) who maintain a paradoxical position in society that implicates women in the co-creation of polygamy. By culturally situating Muslim women’s experiences in wider Indonesian and local Sasak discursive contexts, and based on anthropological field research techniques, the article elucidates how Muslim women draw on a range of magical forces and prayers that they learn from their Muslim teachers in the pesantren in response to customary marriage …

Gendering The Internally Displaced: Problem Bodies, Fluid Boundaries And Politics Of Civil Society Participation In Sri Lanka, Sandya Hewamanne

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this paper I argue that the internally displaced Muslim women’s experience of displacement and their perception of new developments since the last round of peace initiative between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE are significantly different from their male counterparts in that the women find these experiences as empowering in some respects. The paper also evidence that this empowerment is differently experienced by women belonging to different social classes. Women have been identified as a problem body within the Muslim community and restrictions on Muslim women have been justified through discourses on family honor and frivolous women. The …

Faith-Based Politics, Enlightened Moderation And The Pakistani Women’S Movement, Afiya Shehrbano Zia

Journal of International Women's Studies

Soon after his coup in October 1999, General Pervez Musharraf reassured the Pakistani people that his was not an obscurantist religious agenda. Instead, he referred to the Ata Turk model as his inspiration in his mission to rescue Pakistanis from corrupt democratic governments that had dominated the 1990s. A photo release of him holding two Pekinese dogs in his arms (commonly considered na-paak or unclean by Muslims) and surrounded by his short-haired wife, elderly mother and artist daughter, earned him a seal of approval from progressive upper-classes at home and the international community at large. Unlike the previous dictator, Gen …

Flowers, Queens, And Goons: Unruly Women In Rural Pakistan, Lubna N. Chaudhry

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article focuses on girls and women perceived as deviant, difficult, or different by their communities in rural Punjab, even as it pluralizes and historicizes performances of rebellious, unruly selves. Specifically, the paper uses fieldwork interactions with girls who enjoyed wanderings in out-of-bound spaces, women who claimed a position of authority as headmistresses in village schools, and women who troubled the social imaginary through their acts of intimidation and involvement in local politics in order to examine defiance of gendered norms within the context of material, structural, and discursive realities framing individual lives. The analysis illustrates how regional differences among …

Book Review: Living Our Religions: Hindu And Muslim South Asian American Women Narrate Their Experiences, Simarjeet Sahota

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Living Our Religions: Hindu and Muslim South Asian American Women Narrate Their Experiences, by Anjana Narayan and Bandana Purkayastha

Introduction: Gender And Islam In Asia, Huma Ahmed-Ghosh

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

‘Breaking The Silence’: The Religious Muslim Women’S Movement In Turkey, Hilal Ozcetin

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores the emergence of the religious Muslim women’s movement in the 1990s in Turkey, and its relation with the broader women’s movement, including the exclusion of religious Muslim women from the women’s movement. My analysis is based on interviews I conducted in April and May 2006 with religious Muslim women who work in non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and participate in joint projects with other women’s NGOs in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey. I argue that because of a modernist perspective which views both the headscarf and religious Muslim women as ‘backward,’ as opposed to the ‘ideal female citizen’ as secular …

Cedaw And Afghanistan, Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper considers the relevance and applicability of CEDAW in Afghanistan and uses personal interviews with key Afghan and international actors to reflect on the context and framework for understanding the challenges and opportunities that exist for the implementation of CEDAW in contemporary Afghanistan. Starting with an introduction to CEDAW, it traces the Convention’s history in Afghanistan leading to its ratification without reservations in 2003 in order to argue that the application of CEDAW in Afghanistan is threatened by conservative forces who perceive it as an element of international efforts to ‘westernize’ Afghanistan and undermine its unique cultural and religious …

Engendering The Nation: Women, Islam, And Poetry In Pakistan, Anita Anantharam

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this essay I offer some examples of reading feminist agency in Pakistan through an analysis of the poems of two of Pakistan’s preeminent feminist poets, Fahmida Riaz (b.1946) and Kishwar Naheed (b.1940). Rather than gesture to their poetry in a strategy of recuperation I contend that their powerful narratives compel us to reevaluate the parameters of contemporary feminist historiography and discourses of nationalism in South Asia. The poems of Fahmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed are informed by a different set of paradigms about self and community (Islam) and at the same time reflect an archive (poetry) as crucial to …

The Ready-Made Garments Industry In Bangladesh: A Means To Reducing Gender-Based Social Exclusion Of Women?, Nidhi Khosla

Journal of International Women's Studies

Women in Bangladesh have traditionally been excluded from taking part in social, political and economic activities by means of institutions such as the purdah (veil). However, the rise of the ready-made garments industry in Bangladesh since the 1970s has provided women with opportunities to work outside the home for wages. This change coincided with changes such as a decline in the rural sector, increased emphasis on girls’ education and campaigns to improve women’s health and reduce fertility. As a result of these changes, the social exclusion of women has reduced considerably. This paper analyses existing literature on women’s employment in …

Book Review: Velvet Jihad: Muslim Women’S Quiet Resistance To Islamic Fundamentalism, Stephanie Chaban

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Velvet Jihad: Muslim Women’s Quiet Resistance to Islamic Fundamentalism by Faegheh Shirazi

A Study On The Empowerment Of Women Construction Workers As Masons In Tamil Nadu, India, Annette Barnabas, D. Joseph Anbarasu, Paul S. Clifford

Journal of International Women's Studies

The construction sector has the largest number of unorganised labourers in India next only to agricultural sector. Women form half the workforce and by choice or by design they are not allowed to acquire specific skills that may enable them to become masons. Women join as unskilled workers and remain unskilled till the end of their working life span. However, men get training and systematically upgrade their construction skills to graduate as masons, supervisors and contractors. A study was conducted on the career progress of 440 men construction workers and 440 women construction workers and 51 building contractors to find …

Changing The Canon: Chinua Achebe’S Women, The Public Sphere And The Politics Of Inclusion, Uzoechi Nwagbara

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the subjugation of Nigerian women with regard to how their political marginalisation constricts the public sphere, the resource centre of public opinion, which strengthens the ideals of democracy and good governance. The political marginalisation of women in Nigeria is a rectilinear upshot of their low participation in government and politics necessitated by patriarchy. This patriarchal practice has animated the urgency of expanded public sphere as well as feminism, an ideological, aesthetic and cultural movement, steeped in agitating for the rights of women and expanding the frontiers of their participation in the political process. In the political novel …

Women And Politics In Kuwait, Muhamad S. Olimat

Journal of International Women's Studies

On May 17, 2008, Kuwait conducted its Twelfth election of its National Assembly. The most remarkable aspect of the election was the active participation of women, who gained their right to vote in May 2005. This paper argues that the main impediment for women’s inability to win any seat in the 11th and 12th Assemblies is their failure to work with each other and support their political rights. The objective of this article is to examine the Kuwaiti women’s struggle for political rights, their participation in the last two elections and investigate their inability to win any seats, in spite …

Book Review: Enchanted Lives, Enchanted Objects: American Women Collectors And The Making Of Culture 1800-1940, Beth Muellner

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Enchanted Lives, Enchanted Objects: American Women Collectors and the Making of Culture 1800-1940 by Dianne Sachko Macleod