Europe

Citation:

Petrova, Saska, and Neil Simcock. 2019. “Gender and Energy: Domestic Inequities Reconsidered.” Social & Cultural Geography. doi:10.1080/14649365.2019.1645200.

Authors: Saska Petrova, Neil Simcock

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
Energy poverty is widely recognized as a problem that affects millions of households globally. Particularly in the ‘Global North’ context, research into this phenomenon has tended to treat households as monolithic units, with little investigation into whether and how energy poverty is differentially experienced within homes. We address this research lacuna by scrutinizing the gender dimensions of domestic energy use and deprivation. Drawing on extensive qualitative research in Poland, Greece and Czechia, we identify two ways in which energy poverty is differentially experienced along gender lines: household practices of responding to and resisting energy poverty, and the emotional labour of living with energy poverty. We also demonstrate how the negotiation of domestic energy deprivation can unveil not only gendered vulnerabilities, but also agency and emancipatory mechanisms. The paper thus provides insights that set an agenda for further research on gendered energy injustices beyond a simplistic, dichotomized victimization discourse.

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
La pobreza energética es ampliamente reconocida como un problema que afecta a millones de hogares en todo el mundo. Particularmente en el contexto del ‘Norte Global’, la investigación sobre este fenómeno ha tendido a tratar a los hogares como unidades monolíticas, con poca investigación sobre cómo la pobreza energética se experimenta de manera diferente dentro de los hogares. Nos dirigimos a ese vacío en la investigación para analizar las dimensiones de género del uso y la privación de energía doméstica. Basándonos en una extensa investigación cualitativa en Polonia, Grecia y la República Checa, identificamos dos formas en que la pobreza energética se experimenta de manera diferente a lo largo del género: las prácticas domésticas de respuesta y resistencia a la pobreza energética, y el trabajo emocional de vivir con la pobreza energética. También demostramos cómo la negociación de la privación de energía doméstica puede revelar no solo vulnerabilidades de género, sino también agencia y mecanismos emancipadores. Por lo tanto, el documento proporciona información que establece una agenda para futuras investigaciones sobre las injusticias energéticas de género más allá de un discurso simplista y dicotomizado de victimización.

FRENCH ABSTRACT:
La pauvreté énergétique est largement reconnue comme un fléau qui impacte des millions de foyers dans le monde. Dans le contexte du ‘Nord global’ en particulier, les recherches sur ce phénomène ont tendance à aborder les foyers comme des unités monolithiques, avec peu d’attention portée aux différentes expériences de la pauvreté énergétique à l’intérieur des foyers. Afin de combler cette lacune, nous examinons ici la dimension du genre au sein de la consommation et de la précarité énergétique domestique. À partir d’études qualitatives approfondies en Pologne, en Grèce et en République Tchèque, nous identifions deux expériences distinctes de la pauvreté énergétique selon le genre : les pratiques domestiques en réponse et en résistance à la pauvreté énergétique, et le travail émotionnel de la vie quotidienne face à la pauvreté énergétique. Nous démontrons également comment la négociation de la précarité énergétique domestique peut certes révéler des vulnérabilités de genre, mais aussi des mécanismes d’action et d’émancipation. Les résultats de cet article ouvrent ainsi un programme de recherche sur les injustices énergétiques de genre par-delà le discours simpliste et dichotomique de la victimisation.

Keywords: Gender, energy poverty, infrastructure, home, inequity, gênero, pobreza energética, infraestructura, hogar, inequidad, genre, pauvreté, énergétique, chez-soi, inégalité

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Households, Infrastructure, Energy Regions: Europe, Central Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Czech Republic, Greece, Poland

Year: 2019

Citation:

Yaka, Özge. 2019. “Gender and Framing: Gender as a Main Determinant of Frame Variation in Turkey’s Anti-Hydropower Movement.” Women’s Studies International Forum 74 (May-June): 154–61.

Author: Özge Yaka

Abstract:

Framing literature has so far failed to construct gender as an analytical category that shapes the ways in which we perceive, identify and act upon grievances. This article builds on the insights of feminist theory and employs the conceptual vocabulary of the social movement framing perspective in maintaining gender as a main parameter of framing processes. Drawing on ethnographic research on local community struggles against hydropower plants in the Eastern Black Sea Region of Turkey, this article maintains the centrality of gender to framing processes. It analyzes the gendered difference between men’s macro-framings and women’s cultural and socio-ecological framings, which is rooted in their differing relationships with their immediate environment, as well as with the state and its institutions. The article maintains that the framings of women, which represent the immediacy of the environment, are more effective in gaining public support and shaping movement outcomes. In this sense, constructing gender as an important determinant of “frame variation” is essential not only to reveal women’s frames that are largely silenced through and within the mechanisms of social movement organization, but also to stress their centrality in shaping repertoires of contention, public reception and movement outcomes.

Keywords: Gender, social movements, framing, Turkey, hydropower

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Infrastructure, Energy Regions: MENA, Asia, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2019

Citation:

Lieu, Jenny, Alevgul H. Sorman, Oliver W. Johnson, Luis D. Virla, and Bernadette P. Resurrección. 2020. “Three Sides to Every Story: Gender Perspectives in Energy Transition Pathways in Canada, Kenya and Spain.” Energy Research & Social Science 68. doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101550

Authors: Jenny Lieu, Alevgul H. Sorman, Oliver W. Johnson, Luis D. Virla, Bernadette P. Resurrección

Abstract:

Transitions toward a low-carbon future are not only technical and economical, but also deeply social and gendered. The gendered nature of energy transitions is often implicit and unexplored. As a corrective, this paper explores energy pathways by applying concepts from innovations and gender studies. We examine gender perspectives and niche energy innovations which could disrupt the regime. The regime represents the mainstream pathway that includes the dominant gender perspective and energy system. We explore different gender perspectives of energy transition pathways by applying an Alternative Pathways framework that includes: (1)  on-stream pathways that exist within the mainstream pathway to promote equal opportunities for women and men, as well as niches for energy innovations without challenging the high-carbon energy regime; (2) off-stream pathways that depart from the mainstream and promote differences across different genders while creating niches outside the energy regime; and (3) transformative pathways that are fundamentally different from the previous mainstream and includes all gender perspectives in a new energy regime. Applying this framing, in Canada, we explored Indigenous perspectives in the oil sands sector; in Kenya, we studied largescale renewable energy impacting Indigneous communities; in Spain, we evaluate the movement away from fossil fuels and towards renewable technologies. The framework helped to identify that mainstream pathways represented the dominant male perspective while woman's perspective were largely left out. Such absence generate energy pathways that are disconnected from local realities, lack public buy-in and slow-down a sustainable energy transition.

Keywords: energy transition pathways, renewable energy, gender, women, intersectionality, Indigenous people

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Indigenous, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Infrastructure, Energy Regions: Africa, East Africa, Americas, North America, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Canada, Kenya, Spain

Year: 2020

Citation:

Prietl, Bianca. 2017. “Technology Change = Gender Change? Androcentric Construction of Engineering as Symbolic Resource in the German-Speaking Area of Renewable Energies.” Engineering Studies 9 (1): 3–23.

Author: Bianca Prietl

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with how engineers working in renewable energies in Germany and Austria position themselves and their professional activity within this relatively new field of engineering occupation by mobilizing a specific androcentric construction of engineering as a symbolic resource. Drawing on qualitative interviews, the argument unfolds in three steps: First, the paper reconstructs how engineers draft an image of their professional activity by symbolically aligning it with established understandings of engineering in traditional areas of engineering occupation and by simultaneously distancing it from allegedly ‘other’ notions of engineering practice that are framed as ‘alternative’. The discursive distinction between professional engineering and its alleged ‘alternative’ counterpart constitutes the former as hard, sincere, structured, and reliable activity based on an instrumental rationality. Second, it is shown how the professional/alternative distinction is gendered with ‘the alternative’ being devaluated and feminized. Consequently, it is argued that there is an implicit association between the discursively constituted idea of professional engineering and masculinity. Third, this discursive construction of engineering is interpreted as a symbolic resource in the engineers’ claim to be recognized as professional actors within renewable energies and, thus, in their struggle for favourable positions within this social field of power.

Keywords: renewable energies, discursive struggle for power, implicit masculinity construction, engineering

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Infrastructure, Energy, Livelihoods Regions: Europe, Central Europe, Western Europe Countries: Austria, Germany

Year: 2017

Citation:

Avraam, Silvia and Daria Popova. 2020. “Do Welfare State Taxes and Transfers Reduce Gender Income Inequality? Evidence from Eight European Countries.” Working Paper EM 09/20, EuroMod at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Essex.

Authors: Silvia Avraam, Daria Popova

Abstract:

We complement the institutional literature on gender and the welfare state by examining how taxes and transfers affect the incomes of men and women. Using microsimulation and intra-household income splitting rules, we measure the differences in the level and composition of individual disposable incomes of men and women in eight European countries covering various welfare regime types. We quantify the extent to which taxes and transfers are able to close the gender gap in earnings, as well as which policy instruments contribute most to reducing the gap. We find that with the exception of old- age pensions, taxes and transfers – both contributory and means-tested – significantly reduce gender income inequality but cannot compensate for high gender earnings gaps. The equalizing effect of benefits is higher than that of taxes but varies significantly not only across countries but also across groups with different demographic characteristics. 

Keywords: gender inequality, income distribution, welfare state, social policy, Europe

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households Regions: Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe Countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom

Year: 2020

Citation:

Scicchitano, Dominic. 2019. “The "Real" Chechen Man: Conceptions of Religion, Nature, and Gender and the Persecution of Sexual Minorities in Postwar Chechnya.” Journal of Homosexuality. doi:10.1080/00918369.2019.1701336.

Author: Dominic Scicchitano

Abstract:

In March of 2017, the Russian LGBT Network received their first reports of police violence against individuals in Chechnya because of their perceived sexual orientation. In the following months, news spread of a campaign of forced disappearances and torture specifically targeting suspected homosexual men. Between December, 2018 and February, 2019, police carried out another wave of unlawful detentions of men on the basis of their sexual orientation. The reports of unlawful detentions and extrajudicial killings of queer men may seem surreal in a world that has slowly grown more progressive with regard to LGBT rights issues. And yet, this violence is the reality faced by gay and bisexual men in Chechnya under Ramzan Kadyrov, the hypermasculine Chechen leader. This paper explores the ways in which religious practice, imaginations of nature, and conceptions of gender have influenced Chechnya’s current anti-LGBT climate.

Keywords: Chechnya, caucasus, LGBTQ+, antigay violence, unlawful detentions, religious fundamentalism, masculinities, gendered nature

Topics: Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, LGBTQ, Male Victims, Post-Conflict, Religion, Sexuality, Violence Regions: Asia, Europe Countries: Russian Federation

Year: 2019

Citation:

Stotsky, Janet G. 1996. “Gender Bias in Tax Systems.” IMF (International Monetary Fund) Working Paper 96/99, IMF.

Author: Janet G. Stotsky

Abstract:

This paper examines the nature of gender bias in tax systems. Gender bias takes both explicit and implicit forms. Explicit gender bias is found in many personal income tax systems. Several countries especially those in Western Europe, have undertaken to eliminate explicit gender bias in recent years. It is more difficult to identify implicit gender bias, since this depends in large part on the value judgements as to desirable social and economic behavior. Implicit gender bias has also been a target for reform of tax systems in recent years. 

Topics: Economies, Public Finance, Gender Regions: Europe, Western Europe

Year: 1996

Citation:

Bilić, Bojan, and Marija Radoman, eds. 2019. Lesbian Activism in the (Post-)Yugoslav Space: Sisterhood and Unity. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Authors: Bojan Bilić, Marija Radoman

Annotation:

Summary:
This book intertwines academic and activist voices to engage with more than three decades of lesbian activism in the Yugoslav space. The empirically rich contributions uncover a range of lesbian initiatives and the fundamental, but rarely acknowledged, role that lesbian alliances have played in articulating a feminist response to the upsurge of nationalism, widespread violence against women, and high levels of lesbophobia and homophobia in all of the post-Yugoslav states. By offering a distinctly intergenerational and transnational perspective, this collection does not only shed new light on a severely marginalised group of people, but constitutes a pioneering effort in accounting for the intricacies – solidarities, joys, and tensions – of lesbian activist organising in a post-conflict and post-socialist environment. With a plethora of authorial standpoints and innovative methodological approaches, the volume challenges the systematic absence of (post-)Yugoslav lesbian activist enterprises from recent social science scholarship. (Summary from Palgrave Macmillian)

Table of Contents:
1.Introduction: Recovering/Rethinking (Post-)Yugoslav Lesbian Activisms
Bojan Bilić

2.Yearning for Space, Pleasure, and Knowledge: Autonomous Lesbian and Queer Feminist Organising in Ljubljana
Teja Oblak and Maja Pan

3.Cartographies of Fear and Freedom: Lesbian Activists in the First Belgrade and Zagreb Pride Parades
Sanja Kajinić

4.Sisterhood Beyond Borders: Transnational Aspects of Post-Yugoslav Lesbian Activism
Irene Dioli

5.Breaking the Silence: Lesbian Activism in Macedonia
Irena Cvetkovic

6.Searching for a Lesbian Voice: Non-Heterosexual Women’s Activism in Montenegro
Marina Vuković and Paula Petričević

7.(In)Visible Presences: PitchWise Festival as a Space of Lesbian Belonging in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Adelita Selmić and Bojan Bilić

8.Conclusion: Discovering the Lesbian in Us—On Our Ongoing, Never-Ending Struggles
Marija Radoman

9.Epilogue: Collecting Fragments—Towards (Post-)Yugoslav Activist Archives
Bojan Bilić

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Governance, LGBTQ, Nationalism, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights Regions: Europe, Balkans, Central Europe, Eastern Europe Countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia, Yugoslavia (former)

Year: 2019

Citation:

Gabbard, Sonnet D’Amour. 2017. “Old Ties and New Binds: LGBT Rights, Homonationalisms, Europeanization and Post-War Legacies in Serbia.” PhD diss., The Ohio State University.

Author: Sonnet D’Amour Gabbard

Abstract:

My dissertation examines the historic links between the anti-war activists in Serbia with the current efforts and work for LGBT justice and rights. As an interdisciplinary scholar, my work integrates a variety of epistemologies across disciplines by putting anti-war and LGBT activists' experience in Serbia into conversation with one another to address unique vulnerabilities. Drawing from transnational feminist and queer critiques of governance, (homo)nationalism, and transnational sexuality studies, I consider how new nonheterosexual identity politics—with roots in anti-war activism—have surfaced in Serbia since the Kosovo War. I argue that it is at the intersection of anti-war and LGBT organizing that new and conflicting identity politics have emerged, in part as a reaction to a pro-war hyper-nationalism and neoliberal globalization.

Keywords: LGBT, Balkans, sexuality studies, feminism, transnational, global studies, international relations, development, Serbia, Yugoslavia, post-conflict, Transgender, lesbian, gay, pride parade, gentrification, Slavic studies, queer

Topics: Civil Society, Feminisms, Governance, Globalization, Justice, LGBTQ, Nationalism, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Rights, Sexuality Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Serbia

Year: 2017

Citation:

Mumford, Ann. 2005. “V.A.T., Taxation and Prostitution: Feminist Perspectives on Polok.” Feminist Legal Studies 13 (2): 163-80. 

Author: Ann Mumford

Abstract:

Debates concerning the taxation of prostitution have occurred in taxation law and in feminist literature. This article will integrate the case of Polok v. C.E.C. [2002] E.W.H.C, 156; [2002] S.T.C. 361, within the feminist legal canon. The case is discussed in the context of the argument of the European doctrine of fiscal neutrality, which dictates that, regardless of legality as amongst member states, if an activity is levied to V.A.T. in one-member state, V.A.T. should be levied on it in all member states. The doctrine of sovereignty accepts the possibility that the integrity of the V.A.T. system may be compromised by the levying of tax on illegal activities, in terms of the cooperation between tax and other aspects of the U.K.’s legal system. European law, feminist law, commodification and the marketplace are all considered within the context of these principles. The article also considers the place of Polok within standard feminist texts on prostitution. Different paradigms of prostitution define different aspects of prostitution as ‘problems’, and the article considers the implications within a feminist reconstruction of Polok of this. The article suggests that the challenge for a feminist analysis of Polok is to remain within the realm of European tax and competition law, and to render the perspective of the employees of the Polok taxpayers part of the substance of the deliberations of the case. 

Keywords: European competition law, European tax law, feminism, gender taxation, neutrality, V.A.T.

Topics: Economies, Public Finance, Feminisms, Gender, Women Regions: Europe

Year: 2005