Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Virus, Violence And (In)Visible Women: #Lockdownmeinlockup And Embodied Resistance During Covid-19, Ishani Mukherjee

Journal of International Women's Studies

Drawing on the #LockDownMeinLockUp visual campaign against domestic violence, this paper conceptually leverages embodied resistance, performed connectivity, and (in)visibility politics to explore how gender, body, power, affect, celebrity, performance, and injustice are framed by digital media in the context of an unprecedented global health crisis. The forms, forces, and incidences of domestic violence (DV) are rooted in local power relations and unique cultural practices and so should their interventions and representations be. Since the March 2020 lockdown, the pandemic worsened the conditions of DV victims in India. Many women were forced to cohabit with abusive partners and families. Data on …

Diffusion Of #Niunamenos In Latin America: Social Protests Amid A Pandemic, Adriana Piatti-Crocker

Journal of International Women's Studies

Using archival documentation, digital platforms, and reports, this paper explores the diffusion of #NiUnaMenos [“Not One (woman) Less”] in Latin America, a social movement conceived first in Argentina to protest misogynist violence. To explain diffusion, this paper will explore the role of social media, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, in helping spread messages, strategies, and the goals of the movement with unprecedented speed (Tarrow 2005, Hanson and Piatti-Crocker 2020). Five years after the first protest, the COVID-19 pandemic had two contrasting effects on the #NiUnaMenos movement. On the one hand, when the virus began spreading around the world, it …

Introduction To Journal Of International Women’S Studies Special Issue Covid-19: The Impact On Women And Girls Around The World, Fikresus Fikrejesus Amahazion

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Do Russian Women Have The Right To Self-Defense Against Domestic Violence?, Davtyan Mari Davitovna

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article concerns the analysis of court practices for criminal cases relating to female victims of domestic violence who have been charged with murder or intentional infliction of grievous bodily injuries of their partners. The author directly connects the observance of women's rights in domestic violence self-defense cases with the problem of the lack of legal mechanisms of protection against violence in Russia. Russia remains the last country in the Council of Europe which has yet to create legal mechanisms to protect women against domestic violence. The lack of a law against domestic violence, a mechanism for protection orders, standards …

The Influence Of Gender Stereotypes On The Growth Of Gender Inequality And Domestic Violence In Russia In The Context Of The Covid-19 Pandemic, Pisklakova-Parker Marina, Efanova Olga

Journal of International Women's Studies

The present article is concerned with the influence of gender stereotypes on gender inequality and violence against women in modern Russia as well as the response of government institutions and civil society organisations to domestic violence incidents under lockdown. Conclusions on the role of stereotypes in the growth of inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic are based on findings of the research carried out by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) and the Institute of Socio-Economic Studies of Population of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed profound vulnerabilities …

On The Squares And In The Comments Sections: The Feminist Movement In Russia Between Contentious And Discursive Politics, Vanya Mark Solovey

Journal of International Women's Studies

Academics have overlooked feminist movements in Russia, allowing struggling women’s rights organizations to overshadow the many achievements of Russian feminists. Scholarship has reported on struggling women’s rights organizations, citing Pussy Riot, the Russian feminist protest punk rock group, as an exceptional case and concluding that the overall situation with feminism in Russia is desperate. Even though recent publications acknowledge some feminist mobilizations, they are still judged insufficient. Why is contemporary Russian feminism continuously “not enough” for outside observers? And is it “enough” for its members?

In this paper, I argue that one of the major reasons why feminists outside Russia, …

Women’S Responses To The Conservative Turn In Russia And Russian Social Policy, Ann-Mari Sätre

Journal of International Women's Studies

Russia has experienced a conservative turn in gender policy since the early 2000s, especially since 2012. There have been conservative trends in legislation and policies along with a deterioration of women’s rights in Russia. The conservative trend is also reflected more specifically in developments in social policy. The aim of this article is to highlight how women have experienced and responded to these policy changes. Both resistance and acceptance have been noted: during my field work I have observed four kinds of responses. The article further discusses how the conservative trend might contribute to a social marginalization of women.

The …

Introduction To The Special Issue: The Status Of Women In Russian Society: Kennan Institute Live Virtual Conference, 21-23 July 2020, Olimpiada Usanova

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Short Story: “Villain’S Suicide”, M. M. Vinodini, Translated By Afsar Mohammed

Journal of International Women's Studies

As B.R. Ambedkar stated in Annihilation of Caste, day laborers only suffer grueling labor on subsistence wages owing to their terror of punishment given to those who question it. This story reminds readers that so-called ritual impurity or untouchability has never stopped non-privileged caste people from being violated through touch and sexual abuse. The agitation over the 2012 Delhi gang rape and the more recent revelations of #MeToo occur amidst a long history of low-income Dalit women and girls routinely facing rape and other forms of repeated sexual assault from powerful landowners whose word can stop or start their wages. …

Short Story: “Block”, M. M. Vinodini, Translated By K. Purushotham, Edited By Bonnie Zare

Journal of International Women's Studies

Despite India’s Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act of 2013 (and with a 2020 Amendment awaiting approval), it is likely that at least one million people work as manual removers of human waste, helping the 60% or more of Indians who do not have access to flush toilets. The story “Block” puts us inside a manual scavenger’s mind as we accompany Jilakaramma on her rounds in Andhra Pradesh. M. M. Vinodini writes about this labor with true empathy. Entering the daily life of someone who carries out this very stigmatized job creates new understanding of the …

Sexual Violence Against Dalit Women: An Analytical Study Of Intersectionality Of Gender, Caste, And Class In India, Ajay Kumar

Journal of International Women's Studies

Dalits belong to the lowest caste in India; they are excluded from the four-fold Varna system of Hinduism, treated as fifth Varna “panchama”, and characterized as “untouchables”, and, consequently, they have historically and culturally suffered caste-based social exclusion from their civil and political rights. There are more than 200 million Dalits in India, and Dalit women constitute half of this population, which is about 16.3% of the total female population of India, and of this population, about three-fourths of women live in rural areas2. Dalit women’s problems are not only related to gender and economic deprivation but also discrimination related …

Dalit-Futurist Feminism: New Alliances Through Dalit Feminism And Indian Science Fiction, Priteegandha Naik

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article analyses the novel Generation 14 by Priya Sarukkai Chabria from a convergent perspective of Dalit Studies (which encapsulates Dalit literature and Dalit feminism) and science fiction. I suggest that Indian science fiction that discusses caste with reference to the emerging technoscientific culture can be termed Dalit-futurism. I define this concept by drawing on the tradition of Dalit literature and science fiction and suggest that the Dalit-futurist texts seek to mutate caste to foreground its arbitrary structure. This paper uses the vocabulary of science-fiction criticism to analyze the mutation of caste in the fictional world and draws parallels with …

Dalit Women In History: Struggles, Voices, And Counterpublics, Tarushikha Sarvesh, Rama Shanker Singh, Tehzeeb Alam

Journal of International Women's Studies

History is a projection of realities from the historian's lens and parameters. The popularity and acceptance of historical accounts depend much on hegemonic structures and knowledge. The Dalit community was marginalized within the Indian economic, social, and political historiography. Gradually, with the rise of Dalit consciousness, men—the better-positioned gender of the community—tried to express their vulnerabilities from a masculinist perspective. The literature written also projected women only as extensions of male protagonists. Though the traumas Dalit women have faced due to intersectional realities are separate from that of men, they could not find a place in early literature as complete …

Who Will Speak For The Pasmandaa Women? —Dalits, Women, Muslims, And The Politics Of Representation, Rafia Kazim

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article questions the deliberate omissions of disadvantaged Dalit Muslim women, also known as Pasmandaa women, from feminist, Dalit, and subaltern discourses. To understand the multiplicative nature of oppression and discrimination that these women are continually subjected to, this article foregrounds the intersectionality framework to get a nuanced picture of intersecting vertices of discrimination. It argues that by excluding these severely disadvantaged women from their respective agenda, feminist and Dalit activists have contributed towards their perpetual marginality. Underlying such unaccounted absence of these women is an insouciant attitude of the Pasmandaa leaders towards them. Their approach towards the non-representation of …

Mother’S Story: The ‘Third Space’ For Emancipation In Dalit Women’S Life Narratives, Parveen Kumari, Anupama Vohra

Journal of International Women's Studies

In India, Dalit women wrestle not only with gender and economic deprivation, but also discrimination associated with caste and untouchability, which results in the denial of their social, economic, and political rights. Today, Dalit women’s life narratives form an important segment of not only Dalit literature but also world literature. The narration of their sufferings due to gender and caste forms the basis of these narratives. The articulation of the past, which is a "narrative strategy of reminiscence", is the most crucial aspect of Dalit women's life narratives. While narrating the past, Dalit women try to negotiate direction for the …

Insidious Interlocking Of Gender And Caste: Consequences Of Challenging Endogamy, Mayurakshi Mitra

Journal of International Women's Studies

The Caste system in the Indian subcontinent is characterized by hierarchy or gradations according to occupational status. The evaluative standard that places a caste higher than others or lower compared to the rest is rooted in the Hindu Dharmashashtras. The high and the low are opposed to each other because of their associations with notions of purity and impurity in terms of the nature of their occupations. Since each caste is regarded as a closed group, special emphasis is placed on eating, physical contact, and marriage. Out of these three, the institution of marriage plays a significant role in the …

Dissenting Dalit Voices: An Analysis Of Select Oral Songs Of Dalit Women In Kerala, Anne Placid

Journal of International Women's Studies

The caste and gender configurations in literary and socio-historic spheres that misrepresent or eliminate Dalit women’s voices in mainstream chronicles uphold the notion that caste subjugation has been unresponsively endured by Dalit women. This depiction of the gendered caste subaltern in the mainstream narratives is interrogated and countered by the oral songs of Dalit women in Kerala. This paper examines how the songs as the sites of the register of the voices of Dalit women hold cultural and historic significance carrying the bearings of the Dalit feminist standpoint. The oral songs which contain the feminist consciousness of the gendered caste …

Absence In Presence: Dalit Women’S Agency, Channar Lahala, And Kerala Renaissance, Binu K D, Manosh Manoharan

Journal of International Women's Studies

In the patriarchal milieu of Kerala, the woman’s world is overshadowed by male suppression and cowed silence; the Dalit woman, however, seems to never take it lying down. As is evident from the Channar revolt of the 19th century, Dalit women have never been silent victims in history. This is in stark contrast to the upper-caste women who tend to succumb to caste patriarchy in silence. Drawing on the Channar or Shannar women’s historic revolt for the right to cover their breasts, this paper engages with the question of Dalit women's agency in the social reform movements during the period …

“We Are Working For A Caste-Free India”: An Interview With M. M. Vinodini, Bonnie Zare

Journal of International Women's Studies

The present interview with M.M. Vinodini extends the context of her two stories printed in this issue, “Block” and “Villain’s Suicide” and the contemporary context for Telugu Dalit women writers. It enables readers to consider the combination of factors that must align for a woman and therefore, a secondary citizen of a severely stigmatized community to take action and protest through activist organizing and creative storytelling. Discrimination, self-respect, and assertion are repeated themes in Vinodini’s body of work and here she discusses changing views of caste among young people, the reception of her work, the ongoing mistreatment of sanitation workers, …

Casteing Gender: Intersectional Oppression Of Dalit Women, Bhushan Sharma, K. A. Geetha

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: White Feminism: From The Suffragettes To Influencers And Who They Leave Behind, Elizabeth Venell

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: Women Rising: In And Beyond The Arab Spring, Sadia Uddin

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: Feminist City: A Field Guide, Lisa Sharik

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: Misogynoir Transformed: Black Women’S Digital Resistance, Francesca Sobande

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: Gender, Psychology, And Justice: The Mental Health Of Women And Girls In The Legal System, Aditi Peyush, Delaney Marvel-Burns

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: Working Out Desire: Women, Sport, And Self-Making In Istanbul, Melissa Langworthy

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: Educational Strategies For Youth Empowerment In Conflict Zones: Transforming, Not Transmitting, Trauma, Diana J. Fox

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: The Future Of Difference: Beyond The Toxic Entanglement Of Racism, Sexism And Feminism, Hale Demir- Doguoglu

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review Essay: Gender And The Violence(S) Of War And Armed Conflict: More Dangerous To Be A Woman?, Emory Bado

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Lebanese Women At The Crossroads Caught Between Sect And Nation, Manal Al Natour

Journal of International Women's Studies

No abstract provided.