Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Empowerment Beyond Numbers: Substantiating Women’S Political Participation, Bilkis Vissandjee, Alisha Apale, Saskia Wieringa, Shelly Abdool, Sophie Dupéré

Journal of International Women's Studies

From our households and into our communities, from independent States to international governing bodies, gender operates as a construct of evolving aspects of women’s identities and is a medium through which expectations are prescribed, social norms are formed and power relations are negotiated. Gender constructs that impede women’s access to the public spheres of society diminish the possibility for equitable and empowering life conditions. Of particular emphasis in this paper, facilitating women’s entry into political bodies across the world is also compromised by persistent obstacles in women’s opportunities in both political and private spheres of life.

Our research engages female …

Book Review: Canadian And American Women: Moving From Private To Public Experiences In The Atlantic World, Linda J. Quiney

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Canadian and American Women: Moving from Private to Public Experiences in the Atlantic World, edited by Valeria Gennara Lerda and Roberto Maccarini

Macro Promises Of Microcredit: A Case Of A Local Esusu In Rural Ghana, Carolette Norwood

Journal of International Women's Studies

Microcredit’s three big promises are one, to reduce poverty; two, to empower women; and three, to enhance family planning knowledge, attitudes and practices. Using a mixed-method approach, this study examines 204 women members and non-members of local eSusus in rural Ghana. Quantitative chi square analysis indicates no associations between membership in an eSusu and relative wealth; women’s autonomy family planning practices, knowledge or use and reproductive control. Meanwhile, the qualitative data shows that women members believe that eSusu are extremely useful for acquiring working capital to be reinvested in their small market ventures, and are helpful with school fee and …

Gender: Kosova’S Other Challenge, Richard Beilock, Ymer Havolli

Journal of International Women's Studies

The extent of differences in roles between the genders in Kosova is examined. Kosovar men, on average, devote 57 percent of their non-rest time to earned income activities (i.e., agriculture, other self-employed, and hired), and only 4 percent to housekeeping. In very sharp contrast, Kosovar women, on average, devote 14 percent of their time to earned income activities and a staggering 65 percent to housekeeping. There are considerable differences across Kosova’s ethnic groups, with much less rigid gender roles among ethnic Serbians than is true for ethnic Albanians. It is argued that rigidly defined gender roles result in significant inefficiencies …

Influences Of Global Human Trafficking Issues On Nigeria: A Gender Perspective, Chineze J. Onyejekwe

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper focuses on the socio-economic conditions that force women and girls into the human trafficking industry. Poverty is shown to be one of the major root causes of this phenomenon. The relationship between poverty and other socio-economic issues such as crime, corruption, illiteracy and HIV/AIDS are discussed. The government’s efforts at tackling these problems are analyzed, and further preventive measures also discussed.

Extent And Causes Of Gender And Poverty In India: A Case Study Of Rural Hayana, Santosh Nandal

Journal of International Women's Studies

In spite of the enshrining anti-poverty programs and objectives of the poverty eradication programs contained in India’s five year plans, women’s poverty in India, even after 58 years of independence, is glaring. This paper, based on a field survey, addresses the issues of economic constraints and the denial of women’s access to productive assets in the form of land ownership and human capital such as education, skill-training. The article contributes to the overall picture of female poverty at the national level. The author finds an exaggerated emphasis being placed on women laborers and inadequate economic opportunities among them as the …

Oral History, Identity, And The Italian Women’S Movement In The Future Of The Contemporary Past, Wendy Pojmann

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this essay, I reflect on the use of oral history and participant observation as tools for researchers of the contemporary past. I want to argue that these approaches must, as Nietzsche has stated, “serve life” by pushing traditional guidelines and by considering the rich cultural fabrics not recorded in oral or written form. Feminist scholars must experiment with methodologies that allow them to consider identities by continually reflecting on their own. But, they should neither become trapped by the narrow definitions of identity politics nor indulge solely in personal exploration.

I first discuss briefly the relationship of oral history …

Book Review: Gender Studies: Terms And Debates, Meihua Liu

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Gender Studies: Terms and Debates by Ann Cranny-Francis, et al.

Book Review: Beyond The Shadow Of Camptown: Korean Military Brides In America, Mire Koikari

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America by Ji-Yeon Yuh

Book Review: The Science Glass Ceiling: Academic Women Scientists And The Struggle To Succeed, G. Asha

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of The Science Glass Ceiling: Academic Women Scientists and the Struggle to Succeed by Sue V. Rosser

Three Poems, Biljana D. Obradovic

Journal of International Women's Studies

Three Poems by Biljana D. Obradovic

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Prostitution In Bangladesh: An Empirical Profile Of Sex Workers, Akm Ahsan Ullah

Journal of International Women's Studies

The paper explores the profile of the Sex Workers (SW) in Bangladesh; and the ordeals faced by them. 221 randomly selected respondents from three categories of sex workers (Hotel, brothel and floating) were interviewed using both close and open-ended questionnaire. Data show that child prostitution is quite prevalent. A higher percentage of sex workers were married compared with the singles. HSWs (Homosexual Sex Workers), on an average, entertain seven clients and BSWs (Bisexual Sex Workers) 15 clients per day. The highest percentage of child prostitutes was prevalent among the FSWs (Female Sex Workers). Hotel sex working is an emerging direction …

Women’S Role In The German Democratic Republic And The State’S Policy Toward Women, Susanne Kranz

Journal of International Women's Studies

According to the theories of Marx, Engels, Bebel, and the political leaders of the GDR, the emancipation of women would be accomplished when the emancipation of the working class was realized. They further clarify the general view toward women in a socialist society; these ideas characterized the GDR and the general perception of women. The women’s question was incorporated into the social question and the class struggle, and not distinguished as an individual aspect of gender relations. The question is how much equality women in the GDR had achieved and how emancipated the society, truly, was. My main focus is …

“Of Course They Claim They Were Coerced”: On Voluntary Prostitution, Contingent Consent, And The Modified Whore Stigma, Yenwen Peng

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper starts with a reflection on the main tactic adopted during the Taipei prostitutes’ movement, namely, the “poverty as force” rationale, and argues that a campaign strategy that focuses on the justification of prostitutes’ consent to their job does not help them much; instead, it reinforces the stigma on “voluntary” prostitutes. I suggest that sex workers’ activism abandons the now dominant “voluntary vs. forced” division of prostitution and, emphasizes the working conditions of sex workers rather than the reasons that underlie those workers’ consent. This suggestion by no means implies that we neglect the critical moral value of consent. …

Jordanian Working Women’S Perception Of Life Difficulties, Siham D. Abueita

Journal of International Women's Studies

This study is an attempt to identify Jordanian working-women’s perception of their life difficulties. Areas of life’s difficulties include: psychological, social, political and career. Such difficulties were investigated across five variables: age, education, employment, years of experience and civil status. Each variable included subgroups. The sample consisted of 186 subjects living in the Amman district. Subjects responded to a questionnaire about life difficulties. The questionnaire’s internal reliability as well as test-retest reliability ranged from .79 to .92. Statistical analysis of data consisted of ANOVA analysis of variance and the Scheffe test of differences between groups. Results were tested at the …

Refracting Mothertongues: Considering Mobility Through Language, Michaela Fay

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this article I explore the interplay between language and mobility. As the number of debates about mobility and belonging has grown both in the social sciences and in feminist theory, there has been an increasing discussion about the interaction between language and place and I argue here that increased mobility leads to changes in one’s understanding and experience of the languages one dwells in. My argument is that the ways in which language is reflected upon shapes the ways in which subjects experience and define their mobility and further, that when individuals reflect about language, they also reflect, in …

‘By Heaven And Hell’: Re-Evaluating Representations Of Women And The Angel/Whore Dichotomy In Renaissance Revenge Tragedy, Roxanne Grimmett

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay explores the treatment of female characters in Renaissance revenge tragedy: specifically in Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Revenge tragedy is a dramatic sub-genre that conventionally develops an unsettling level of audience sympathy for male characters who are, essentially, murderers. The paper shows how famous male revengers such as Kyd’s Hieronimo and Shakespeare’s Hamlet are characterised in a way that subtly resists their firm categorisation either as righteous or truly immoral figures. By contrast, it suggests, early modern culture displays a pronounced tendency to judge women only in relation to the divisive ideological dichotomy of the angel …

What Sort Of Mental Health Problems Are Experienced By Women In Contemporary British Society? What Do Different Feminist Perspectives Offer As Alleviation?, Penny Halliday

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay argues that by labelling British women’s mental health distress and treatment in terms of a purely medical model, underlying contributory social structures and phenomena such as gendered roles, ethnicity and poverty, have largely been ignored by the (male dominated) psychiatric profession. This labelling is historically rooted in the pathologisation of the feminine condition; therefore, women’s mental ill health is substantially a social construct and a product of a patriarchal society. To fully explore a way through mental health distress - a term used by MIND to emphasise the inorganic origins of many mental health problems - labels need …

Introduction: Winning And Short Listed Essays From The Second Annual Essay Competition Of The Feminist And Women’S Studies Association, Kristin Aune, Karen Throsby

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Tussles Over Gendered Spaces And Assertions Of Female Presence In Anne Le Marquand Hartigan’S Play The Secret Game, Catherine Barron

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper is an extract from the PhD thesis entitled “Self-Imaging/Self-Imagining in the Woman’s Writing (and Painting) of Anne Le Marquand Hartigan”, submitted to University College, Dublin in 2004. The essay discusses Hartigan’s unpublished play, The Secret Game (written in Ireland, circa 1995). In particular, it examines the power-struggling taking place between the sexes in the play over different life spaces, including public / political space, the space of language and the space of the female body. The essay examines how, in order to challenge the spatial disinheritance of women, Hartigan makes use of different strategies to stage statements of …

The Silencing Of Women: The Irish Abortion Laws And Religion, Rachael Wright

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay attempts to look at the unfortunate circumstances that surround women in Ireland in regards to abortion. Rather than looking at the pro- and anti-life arguments which are commonly discussed when approaching abortion issues, I have chosen to concentrate on the legal and ethical matters in Ireland that seem to have control over Irish women’s bodies and consequently their personhood. Through the investigation of the changing Irish laws brought about by the Grogan and X cases, it is possible to understand how religious and patriarchal sentiment has continued to suppress women’s personal choice in regards to abortion. By looking …

Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott: Rapping On The Frontiers Of Female Identity, Eliza Sellen

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper provides an analysis of Missy Elliott as a contemporary icon, using the innovation and creativity of two of her music videos (One Minute Man and She’s A Bitch), as media texts that both illuminate and disrupt feminist frameworks of identity. This paper begins with a discussion of the ways in which Elliott subverts and revises cultural signifiers; particular attention is paid to female embodiment and sexuality, blackness and power. The paper moves to discuss the visual landscape created through this cultural play, and explores this terrain through the theoretical frameworks of science fiction and technology.

This …

The Royal Abbey Of Fontevrault: Religious Women & The Shaping Of Gendered Space, Gabrielle Esperdy

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines the religious and architectural history of the Royal Abbey of Fontevrault, in the French province of Anjou, investigating the active and deliberate role women played in shaping the physical and symbolic space of this female monastic community. Founded in the early 12th century and active until the French Revolution, the abbey was a rare institution in which administrative power was in the hands of women, enabling them to exert almost complete control over the built environment. The nature and impact of this control is examined by tracing the development of the abbey from an initial settlement of …

Book Review: Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place And Irish Women (Gender, Racism, Ethnicity), Helen Thompson

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Outsiders Inside: Whiteness, Place and Irish Women (Gender, Racism, Ethnicity) by Bronwen Walter

The Communal Apartment In The Works Of Irina Grekova And Nina Sadur, Erin Collopy

Journal of International Women's Studies

While a good deal of recent scholarly attention has been paid to the Soviet communal apartment, the current literature has not specifically addressed how women are affected by living in such a space. Russian women have a complicated relationship to the domestic sphere. While the domestic sphere is the center and source of women’s power, cultural and social demands require that women bear almost the entire burden of domestic responsibilities. The present work provides a brief history of the Soviet communal apartment and Russian women’s relationship to the domestic space. The focus then turns to the literary representation of women’s …

Researching Female Public Toilets: Gendered Spaces, Disciplinary Limits, Barbara Penner

Journal of International Women's Studies

I have always been drawn to study intimate yet public spaces – most notably Victorian ladies’ public lavatories and American honeymoon suites. Such research raises larger questions concerning the legitimacy of certain objects of inquiry and of feminist and interdisciplinary work in general. This paper aims to go behind the curtain of academic research and to think about the challenges one faces “back-stage” when investigating spaces or objects connected intimately to sexuality and the gendered body.

Dirty Spaces: Communication And Contamination In Men’S Public Toilets, Ruth Barcan

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the spatiality of men’s public toilets in Australia. It considers public toilets as cultural sites whose work involves not only the literal elimination of waste but also a form of cultural purification. Men’s public toilets are read as sites where heteronormative masculinity is defined, tested and policed. The essay draws on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s concept of homosociality and on Mary Douglas’s conception of dirt as a destabilizing category. It treats the “dirtiness” of public toilets as a submerged metaphor within struggles over masculinity. The essay considers a range of data sources, including interviews, pop culture, the Internet …

The Political Economy Of Desire: Geographies Of Female Sex Work In Havana, Cuba, Cynthia Pope

Journal of International Women's Studies

The global political economy of desire influences the construction of gendered spaces in Cuba. One of the results of increasing global linkages has been the rise in sex tourism throughout the world. This is particularly salient in Havana where girls and women are increasingly being drawn to commercial sex work as a means for economic survival and access to dollars-only places, such as restaurants, hotels, nightclubs, and stores. Despite forty years of gender equity laws and a highly-educated population, sex work in Cuba has come full circle, and the nation is quickly gaining the reputation, “the Thailand of the Caribbean.” …

Book Review: Shopping For Pleasure: Women In The Making Of London’S West End, Yasemin Besen

Journal of International Women's Studies

Review of Shopping for Pleasure: Women in the Making of London’s West End by Erika Diane Rappaport

Absent Homosexuality: The Mediated Discourses Of Masculinity On The Design And Construction Of The Sydney Opera House, Greg Young

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the controversy surrounding the construction of the Sydney Opera House at mid-century, and the role of “absent” homosexuality in shaping the new ideals of the country as a modern nation. Australian popular culture--in this instance, the Opera House--is an example of “feminine” culture being incorporated into what had hitherto been a masculinist Australian civic identity. The public discourse surrounding the opera house reveals clear anxieties regarding gender and sexuality in Australia in the 1950s, and the inherently unstable narratives of gender and sexuality under Australian patriarchy from the 19th century onwards. Henning Bech’s notion of “absent homosexuality” …