Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Conceptualisation Of Honour Codes Amongst Turkish-Kurdish Mothers And Daughters Living In London, Ferya Tas-Cifci

Journal of International Women's Studies

The present study analyses how immigrant women transfer and preserve their traditional honour codes, and whether women from different generations (mothers and their daughters) adhere to the same codes. Focusing particularly on the Turkish-Kurdish community living in London , the study asks, ‘How traditional honour codes are conceptualised and transferred by the women of the Turkish-Kurdish community and whether mothers and daughters share the same opinion about them.’ In a traditional society it is considered to be mothers’ duty to ensure that their culture and traditions, and particularly honour codes, are transferred and taught to their children, especially to their …

Addressing Violence Against Women From Critical Feminist Perspectives: Challenging The Politicization Of Violence Against Women, Gwen Hunnicutt

Journal of International Women's Studies

A major accomplishment of women’s rights scholars and activists has been to make violence against women (VAW) visible. After decades of struggle, in a dramatic turn, VAW has become a highly politicized topic since the mid 1990’s, and even more so after 9/11. An unfortunate side-effect of the increased recognition of harm done to women is that the issue of VAW is sometimes co-opted by the state and used in service of their political projects. In this paper I present the political co-optation of VAW as one of the pressing challenges facing scholars who conduct research on the problem of …

Performance Of Controlling Rape In India: Efficiency Estimates Across States, Shrabanti Maity

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper addresses the performance of Indian states in controlling sexual assault or rapeon the basis of the data published bythe National Crime Record Bureau in Indiaon the rape or sexual assault control performances of 28 major Indian states. The relative efficiencies of the states are evaluated by applying stochastic frontier analysis on two decadal periods, ending in 2001 and 2011. Among the Indian states, although Kerala is recognised as the region where women are very progressive, our findings suggest that, unfortunately, the performance of the state in controlling sexual assault is not impressive. On the contrary, Gujaratseems to be …

The Co-Existence Of Laws Regarding Domestic Violence Case Settlement: Rote Island, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, Ratih Lestarini, Herdis Herdiansyah, Tirtawening Tirtawening, Dianwidhi Michelle Pranoto

Journal of International Women's Studies

Domestic violence has long been an adversity, which many women have to endure and even accept, especially in places where patriarchy reigns. Unlike other forms of violence against women, domestic violence is particularly special because of its private and sensitive nature. In the island of Rote in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, domestic violence is a serious social and cultural issue. People in Rote continue to practice their customary laws despite formal state laws that offer better justice for victims, at least from the perspective of women’s rights and feminism. This article elaborates on customary laws used to settle domestic violence …

History And/Through Oral Narratives: Relocating Women Of The 1971 War Of Bangladesh In Neelima Ibrahim’S A War Heroine, I Speak, Sanjib Kr Biswas, Priyanka Tripathi

Journal of International Women's Studies

In the postmodern era, one of the primary objectives of oral narratives is to tell the untold stories of history. Amidst the allegations that historical representation of war narratives, tend to be gendered and biased, these oral narratives of women offer not only a fresh perspective to the wars like the 1971 war of Bangladesh, the Sri Lankan Civil War (1983 – 2009) and the Kashmir Insurgency (1989 – present), but also become their own version of pain, suffering, prejudice, and plight. In that sense, they become the voice of the voiceless, giving the victims a chance to assert themselves, …

Not Accepting Abuse As The Norm: Local Forms Of Institutional Reform To Improve Reporting On Domestic Violence In Punjab, Maryam Tanwir, Shailaja Fennell, Hafsah Rehman Lak, Salman Sufi

Journal of International Women's Studies

Gendered social norms are difficult to overcome, due to a lack of consensus among legal, religious, and social institutions on the direction that will result in new social norms. In the case of Pakistan, which ranks sixth on the list of the most dangerous countries for women, it is not possible to change gendered social norms regarding domestic violence by only focusing on legal reform since, in its social context, the act of domestic violence is not in itself regarded as a serious offence. This article explores reform in Punjab, where deeply entrenched legal structural obstacles and discriminatory gender norms …

Public Feminism, Female Shame, And Sexual Violence In Modern Egypt, Jihan Zakarriya

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper examines the interconnections between public sexual violence, female shame, and public feminism in modern Egypt. It connects aspects of public sexual violence against women generally and politicized sexual violence in 21st-century Egypt in particular, arguing that successive political regimes in Egypt produce and maintain a spatial culture of humiliation and inferiorization as a political tool of silencing, and oppressing women and opposition. This culture of humiliation and inferiorization is premised upon media-oriented female shame ideas that relate and condemn female sexuality and public participation, establishing the public space as militarized, dangerous and exclusive. This paper attempts to assess …

Community Radio, Women And Family Development Issues In South Africa: An Experiential Study, Choja Oduaran, Okorie Nelson

Journal of International Women's Studies

In South Africa, community radio outlets have adopted the use of indigenous languages to address local issues affecting women and familydevelopment. This study examined how community radio give attention to the perspectives of women on family development issues in South Africa. Furthermore, this study examined the types and direction of radio frames, in the area of indigenous language usage and community radio broadcasting. This study was anchored in framing theory to understand how community radio promotes women’s rights and family development issues. The method adopted for this study was content analysis, which examined the manifest content of radio messages on …

Prosecuting Violence Against Women In South African Courts: A Reflection Of The Legal Culture From An Afrocentric Perspective, Ramadimetja S. Mogale, Solina Richter

Journal of International Women's Studies

Introduction: The first author participated in a course related to critical feminist schools of thought while pursuing her doctoral program. Engaging with a scholarly community of feminist researchers, she gained multi-layered understandings and deeper insights on ways of knowing through the perspectives of the critical feminist schools of thought in the feminist movement. Unlike other feminist schools of thought, Afrocentric feminism is about the pluralism that captures the dynamism and fluidity of different cultural imperatives, historical forces and localized realities in the lives of African women. This feminist methodology assisted the author’s ability to link the ‘word to the world’ …

Two Tier Development: Women In Africa, Masreka Khan, Hayriye Atik

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this article, we identify African countries with a similar development level based on selected women’s development indicators. To assess the development levels, we used the following indicators: i) economic participation and opportunity, ii) leadership, iii) educational attainment, iv) health and survival, v) rights and norms related indicators, vi) childbearing, vii) childcare, and viii) political empowerment. The methodologies applied in this study include principal components analysis and cluster analysis. We test two hypotheses concerning the relative development of women throughout the continent of Africa. The first hypothesis tests that whether African countries could be divided into core and periphery groups …

Women Of The South Coast Of Java In Politics And Rural Development, Sofa Marwah

Journal of International Women's Studies

The discussion of women and politics in Indonesia has been mostly confined to the national and regional levels since a law requiring a minimum of 30% female candidates in legislative elections took effect. There are, however, only a few studies of women and politics at the village level, examining women’s contributions to village development. This study aims to explain the gap between the lack of representation of coastal women in rural politics and the extensive contributions of women to rural economic development. This is a qualitative study that involves informants in village administration, women managing business groups, an empowerment program …

Media Empowers Brave Girls To Be Global Activists, Gayle Kimball

Journal of International Women's Studies

A surprising way to silence young women globally, in addition to overly protective families, is by scholars of youth studies and development professionals. Ageism against youth is rarely discussed, so this article reveals this academic bias that ignores or discounts youth voices—especially young women. However, in the safe space of their bedrooms, the Internet and the cell phone enable young women to express their voices, even to organize uprisings. They can get around family restrictions and desires to protect them by speaking publicly from a private space. Some media provide empowering images for young women activists and informative networks of …

Gender Is A Human Rights Issue: The Case Of Women’S Entrepreneurship Development In The Small And Medium Enterprise Sector Of Bangladesh, Chowdhury Dilruba Shoma

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores the significant gender gap that currently exists in regard to power relations in the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector in Bangladesh. Particularly, the focus is on the discrepancy between the economic and social opportunities available to women as compared to men. The problem is treated in the context of the research theme “gender is a human rights issue”. It is argued that this gender gap impacts negatively not just on women but also on the performance of the national economy as a whole. Taking a broad international comparative approach informed by a liberal-feminist perspective (articulated most …

Scientific Consensus On Whether Lgbtq Parents Are More Likely (Or Not) To Have Lgbtq Children: An Analysis Of 72 Social Science Reviews Of The Literature Published Between 2001 And 2017, Walter Schumm, Duane Crawford

Journal of International Women's Studies

Until the 1950’s, it was widely assumed that homosexuality was a pathological condition. Even after leading social science organizations rejected that assumption in the early 1970’s, many believed that LGBTQ parents would not be able to parent as well as heterosexual parents. Further social science research has generally rejected the latter assumption as well. Using a complex citation network method of assessing scientific consensus, Adams and Light (2015) concluded that consensus on same-sex or LGBTQ parenting had been achieved by the late 1990’s and that the consensus formed was that children’s outcomes were no different than for children of heterosexual …

Plastic Bodies: Sex Hormones And Menstrual Suppression In Brazil, Erica Lorraine Williams

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Women's Place In The Andes: Engaging Decolonial Feminist Anthropology, Mary E. Wilhoit

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Laura Méndez De Cuenca: Mexican Feminist, 1835-1928, Stephanie Mitchell

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Demanding Justice And Security: Indigenous Women And Legal Pluralities In Latin America, David Carey Jr.

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

La Descolonización Del Discurso Feminista Latinoamericano En (E)Stereotipas, Nancy Gómez, Maria Lozano

Journal of International Women's Studies

En este ensayo examinamos el discurso feminista del colectivo latinoamericano (e)stereotipas. Nuestra reflexión se sitúa desde una perspectiva decolonial que busca explorar los retos y posibilidades que enfrentan las jóvenes feministas latinoamericanas en la deconstrucción de los feminismos hegemónicos occidentales. Para ello, revisamos el contenido de 10 vídeos de (e)stereotipas disponibles en YouTube. La revisión de los productos audiovisuales nos permitió determinar la forma en que el colectivo contribuye a la búsqueda de una identidad propia del movimiento feminista en América Latina. Reconocemos el potencial que encuentra (e)stereotipas en YouTube para generar contenidos a partir del contexto cultural e histórico …

Hacia Una Mirada Feminista Del Rol De La Mujer En El Posconflicto Colombiano, Angélica María Anicharico González, Héctor Martinez Ortega, Claudia Cristina Cerón Ruiz, Katherine Rengifo Agudelo

Journal of International Women's Studies

El debate sobre los diferentes roles que las mujeres han sido forzadas a asumir en el Conflicto Armado Colombiano ha generado que, en el último proceso de Justicia Transicional, se haya reconocido la necesidad de rupturar el arquetipo histórico de las mujeres visibilizado en categorías rígidas y desiguales. Este artículo, basado en 50 entrevistas a mujeres víctimas del conflicto armado registradas en la Fiscalía General de la Nación de la República de Colombia (FIS), devela que son pocos los avances en investigación sociojurídica sobre la forma en que las mujeres podrían transformar su rol en una época de posconflicto, para …

Comadre Work: Grassroots Feminism In A Kaqchikel Maya Town, Joyce Bennett

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay analyzes indigenous women’s collective action that improves indigenous women’s lives and increases their agency in a Kaqchikel Maya town. The women whose work I consider come together under the structures of a patriarchal organization, the Principe de Paz evangelical church. I extend Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of motherwork and Nancy Naples’ concept of activist mothering to what I call comadre work, or care work that women enact for each other through creative kin networks. Women practice comadre work as they pool physical and financial resources, teach each other to read and write in Spanish, and speak for themselves …

The Diffusion Of Gender Policy In Latin America: From Quotas To Parity, Adriana Piatti-Crocker

Journal of International Women's Studies

Diffusion may be seen logically as both an external and internal processes. In the first case, external factors influence the domestic affairs of a state. In the second it is a subfield of linkage politics, where both internal and external events interact within a state (True and Mintrom, 2001; Piatti-Crocker, 2011). Thus, an appropriate explanation of diffusion should be given in terms both of the unit of analysis (e.g. states, individuals, or groups of individuals) and the social structures in which these units are embedded (e.g. world or regional systems). This research claims that since the 1990s two policy waves …

Feminisms, The Environment And Capitalism: On The Necessary Ecological Dimension Of A Critical Latin American Feminism, Verónica Schild

Journal of International Women's Studies

Latin American women are on the move today, taking their demands to the streets throughout the region in unprecedented numbers. What these demands reveal is a growing frustration and anger among women with the distance between official democratic promises and protections and the limited gains in basic rights, even the reversal of minimal achievements in places like Central America and Brazil. Feminists are weaving together different struggles into an intersectional movement explicitly linking gender demands to the end of a neoliberal capitalist model of development and its devastating social, economic and ecological effects on Latin America’s overwhelming majority. A critical …

Flora Tristan, Precursor Lecture By Magda Portal, Kathleen Weaver

Journal of International Women's Studies

A major figure in Latin American struggles for women's rights and social justice, Magda Portal (1900-1989) co-founded the revolutionary nationalist APRA Party of Peru and was the principal women's leader of that party. In her Chilean exile Portal discovered the nineteenth century writer and social reformer, Flora Tristan. In 1944 Portal offered her first lecture on Tristan (1803-1844)—a brilliant diarist and journalist as well as a seminal social theorist, labor organizer, champion of women's rights, and a significant precursor—arguably co-founder—of socialist internationalism. Expanding and revising her initial account, Portal continued into her later years to lecture on Tristan, whom she …

Introduction: Women’S Movements And The Shape Of Feminist Theory And Praxis In Latin America, Erin E. O'Connor, M. Gabriela Torres

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Exploring Pronatalism And Assisted Reproduction In Uk Medicine, Alexa Warnes

Journal of International Women's Studies

Globally, procreation is highly valued, and motherhood has long been seen as the normative role for women. Production of a biologically-related family in keeping with social norms is a key driver of the growing demand for assisted reproductive technologies as a ‘cure’ for infertility, which includes the provision of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

In this paper I argue that pronatalism – a social bias in favour of biological motherhood – entrenches harmful social norms for women as a group. I will question whether assisted reproductive technologies in the form of IVF bring radical …

Scripting Resistance: Rape And The Avenging Woman In Hindi Cinema, Isha Karki

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article considers how contemporary Hindi cinema engages with traditional cinematic representations of rape and the extent to which it inscribes resistance by rewriting dominant cultural scripts. It analyses Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses (2015) and Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s Pink (2016) by locating them within the tradition of the avenging woman genre in 1980s Hindi popular cinema. It argues that the historical avenging woman genre was unable to successfully dismantle dominant rape scripts, and that these contemporary films, by subverting the genre, offer alternatives to the problems inherent in the visualisation of rape. It explores issues of eroticisation and spectacle …

‘Red Amazons’? Gendering Violence And Revolution In The Long First World War, 1914-23, Matthew Kovac

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article seeks to position gender theory as critical to making sense of one of the First World War’s largest remaining historical problems: the persistence of mass violence after November 1918. While Robert Gerwarth and John Horne’s pathbreaking work on veteran violence has challenged the standard 1914-18 periodisation of the war, their focus on military defeat and revolution obscures the centrality of gender relations to the continuation of violence after the formal end of hostilities. By putting their work into conversation with that of feminist theorists, I argue that countries which experienced more extreme gender dislocation or ‘gender trouble’ witnessed …

Using Technologies To Commemorate International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers In The North East Of England, Angelika Strohmayer

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article explores the use of digital technologies at the commemoration of International Day To End Violence Against Sex Workers in the North East of England in 2016 and 2017. Learning from sex work research and Human-Computer Interaction literatures, this feminist exploration of the day provides opportunities for more nuanced and contextualised discussions of digital technologies that are used with, and for sex workers and sex work support services. In the paper, I provide an overview of how this day is commemorated internationally before providing a detailed overview of a hyper-localised day organised by Changing Lives, a charity supporting sex …

Walking Out Of Dualisms: Material Ecofeminism In Olivia Laing’S To The River (2011), Sarah France

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article positions Olivia Laing’s novel To The River (2011) as a feminist alternative to the patriarchally-coded concepts of psychogeography and flânerie, which, I argue, do not allow for female inclusion. By demonstrating how the text displays theories of material ecofeminism, I establish how To The River works to determine commonly accepted ontological binary divisions as, in fact, permeable. That is, instead of rejecting her female connection to the body and to nature, Laing fully embraces it, walking into nature and writing her lived experience. By walking into nature specifically, Laing is able to walk out of phallogocentric urban space, …