North Africa

Citation:

Mougoué, Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta. 2018. "Gender and (Militarized) Secessionist Movements in Africa: An African Feminist's Reflections." Meridians 17 (2): 338-58.

Author: Jacqueline-Bethel Tchouta Mougoué

Abstract:

Utilizing interdisciplinary and multimethodological approaches, this essay explores women’s roles in buttressing the political cohesion of secessionist movements in postcolonial Africa. It argues that African women have supported the actions of male-dominated secessionist movements in order to garner their own social and political power. Using case studies from Anglophone Cameroon, Western Sahara, Cabinda Province (Angola), and Biafra (Nigeria), the essay historicizes and outlines a new analytical framework that explores women’s multifaceted participation in secessionist movements in modern-day Africa.

Keywords: Gender, secessionism, Cameroon, Cabinda, Western Sahara, Biafra

Topics: Armed Conflict, Secessionist Wars, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Political Participation Regions: Africa, Central Africa, North Africa, West Africa Countries: Angola, Cameroon, Nigeria, Western Sahara

Year: 2018

Citation:

Kingsolver, Ann, and Nandini Gunewardena, eds. 2008. The Gender of Globalization: Women Navigating Cultural and Economics Marginalities. Oxford: School for Advanced Research Press.

Authors: Ann Kingsolver, Nandini Gunewardena

Annotation:

Topics: Economies, Globalization, Multi-National Corporations, Privatization Regions: Africa, North Africa, West Africa, Americas, Caribbean countries, North America, South America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Western Europe Countries: Argentina, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Liberia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, United States of America

Year: 2008

Citation:

Kolovich, Lisa, and Sakina Shibuya. 2016. “Middle East and Central Asia: A Survey of Gender Budgeting Efforts.” IMF Working Paper No. 16/151. Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund.

Authors: Lisa Kolovich , Sakina Shibuya

Abstract:

Gender budgeting uses fiscal policies to promote gender equality and women's advancement, but is struggling to take hold in the Middle East and Central Asia. We provide an overview of two gender budgeting efforts in the region--Morocco and Afghanistan. Achievements in these two countries include increasing female primary and secondary education enrollment rates and reducing maternal mortality. But the region not only needs to use fiscal policies for women's advancement, but also reform tax and financial laws, enforce laws that assure women's safety in public, and change laws that prevent women from taking advantage of employment opportunities.

Keywords: gender budgeting, fiscal policy & administration, gender inequality, middle east, Central Asia

Topics: Education, Gender, Women, Gender Budgeting, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Health, Reproductive Health Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Central Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan, Morocco

Year: 2016

Citation:

Hafez, Sherine. 2012. “No Longer a Bargain: Women, Masculinity, and the Egyptian Uprising.” American Ethnologist 39 (1): 37–42.

Author: Sherine Hafez

Abstract:

Although, according to eyewitness accounts, women made up 20 to 50 percent of the protesters in Tahrir Square, the events immediately following the Egyptian uprising revealed that women would not be part of the political deliberations between various contending parties and the Supreme Military Council in charge of the country. In this essay, I take a close look at the sociocultural dynamics behind the inclusion–dis-inclusion of women in the political sphere to question how this contradiction has, in recent years, characterized the nature of gender relations in Arab countries like Egypt. Multilayered, rapidly changing, and challenged patriarchal power lies at the very core of the uprising in Egypt. What the events of this uprising have revealed is that notions of masculinity undermined by a repressive regime have observably shifted the terms of the patriarchal bargain.

Keywords: Egypt's uprising, gender relations in the Middle East, masculinity, patriarchy, patriarchal bargain, state patriarchy, women and revolution

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Egypt

Year: 2012

Citation:

Winegar, Jessica. 2012. “The Privilege of Revolution: Gender, Class, Space, and Affect in Egypt.” American Ethnologist 39 (1): 67–70.

Author: Jessica Winegar

Abstract:

In this commentary, I challenge assumptions about political transformation by contrasting women's experiences at home during the Egyptian revolution with the image of the iconic male revolutionary in Tahrir Square. I call attention to the way that revolution is experienced and undertaken in domestic spaces, through different forms of affect, in ways deeply inflected by gender and class.

Keywords: Egypt, revolution, Gender, class, space, affect, generation

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Wars, Class, Gender, Women, Men, Gender Roles, Households Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Egypt

Year: 2012

Citation:

Treacher, Amal. 2007. “Postcolonial Subjectivity: Masculinity, Shame, and Memory.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (2): 281–99.

Author: Amal Treacher

Abstract:

Egypt in 1952 was poised to overthrow the past and make a fresh and vigorous future. The revolutionary coup instigated and led by a group of Army Officers succeeded in overthrowing the monarchy and severely undermining British rule and influence. The hopes following this dramatic event were not borne out as the early successes did not lead to a more dynamic future. Instead, corruption continued, the economy declined, industry did not flourish, and an adequate welfare system was not put in place. There are various explanations for this state of affairs, and while these are valid and provide answers, they do not adequately address postcolonial subjectivity. Postcolonial masculine subjectivity is fraught, endures and has to be endured. This article will focus on shame and remembering/forgetting as states of mind, and silence as a response, in order to explore how a colonized past led to the wish for a different future while simultaneously inhibiting a different future to be made.

Keywords: Egypt, memory, postcolonial masculine subjectivity, shame, silence

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Nationalism Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Egypt

Year: 2007

Citation:

Cassola, Adèle, Amy Raub, Danielle Foley, and Jody Heymann. 2014. “Where Do Women Stand? New Evidence on the Presence and Absence of Gender Equality in the World’s Constitutions.” Politics & Gender 10 (02): 200–35.

Authors: Adèle Cassola, Amy Raub, Danielle Foley, Jody Heymann

Abstract:

In countries around the world, constitutional protections of women's rights have provided a legal foundation to combat discriminatory laws, customs, and actions and a catalyst for advances in gender equality. This article draws on newly available data from 191 countries to analyze women's constitutional rights across the spheres of general equality and nondiscrimination, political participation, social and economic rights, family life, and customary and religious law. We examined how gender-specific and universal protections differed according to a constitution's year of adoption and last amendment, and identified regional patterns that persisted across all decades. Women were explicitly guaranteed general equality or nondiscrimination in 81% of constitutions, some aspect of political equality in 32%, marital equality in 27%, some aspect of work equality in 26%, and equal educational rights in 9% of constitutions. Protection of women's rights increased substantially between 1980 and 2011. As of June 2011, however, no constitution in the Middle East and North Africa guaranteed gender-specific protection in education, work, or marriage, and there were no guarantees of marital equality in South Asian constitutions. Of the constitutions that protected some aspect of gender equality, 5% stated that customary or religious laws could prevail over constitutional provisions.

Topics: Gender Equality/Inequality, Constitutions, Post-Conflict Governance, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, North Africa, Asia, Middle East, South Asia

Year: 2014

Citation:

Kawar, Amal. 1996. Daughters of Palestine: Leading Women of the Palestinian National Movement. New York: SUNY Press.

Author: Amal Kawar

Annotation:

SUMMARY

"Based on interviews of the PLO's top women leaders in the Palestinian diaspora and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Daughters of Palestine provides the first examination of the full history of women's involvement in the Palestinian National Movement from the revolution in the mid-1960s to the Palestinian-Israeli peace process in the early 1990s. Going beyond media imagery, Amal Kawar reviews the women's social and political backgrounds to explain how they overcame the traditional gender roles pervasive in Arab societies and became involved in politics. She then focuses on particular periods in the history of the Palestinian movement, as it moved from Jordan to Lebanon, Tunisia, and the Occupied Territories. Issues covered include women's nationalist activities, their relationship to the male leadership, the impact of crises, and the upsurge of the Islamist movement. A consistent theme of this investigation is how conflicts and crises, inside and outside the Palestinian arena, challenge and frame the success of women's nationalist work. Daughters of Palestine highlights the dilemma of national liberation struggles that both promote and co-opt women's liberation aspirations" (WorldCat). 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figures

Prologue

Acknowledgments

1. Three Generations of Women Leaders

2. AMMAN Early Years of Revolutionary Struggle

3. BEIRUT National Mobilization and Civil War

4. TUNIS Decline of Mobilization in the Palestinian Diaspora

5. JERUSALEM Women's Committees in the Occupied Territories

Epilogue

Appendix: Interview List

Notes

References

Index

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Occupation, Gender, Women, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Nationalism, Peace Processes Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa, Asia, Middle East Countries: Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories, Tunisia

Year: 1996

Citation:

Cherifati-Merabtine, D. 1994. “Algeria at a Crossroads: National Liberation, Islamization and Women.” in Gender and National Identity, 192. London: Zed Books. 

Author: Doria Cherifati-Merabtine

Abstract:

"Gender politics exist inevitably in all Islamist movements that expect women to assume the burden of a largely male-defined tradition. Even in secular political movements in the Muslim world - notably those anti-colonial national liberation movements where women were actively involved- women have experiences since independence a general reversal of the gains made. This collection written by women from the countries concerned explores the gender dynamics of a variety of political movements with very different trajectories to reveal how nationalism, revolution and Islamization are all gendered processes. The authors explore women's experiences in the Algerian national liberation movement and more recently the fundamentalist FIS; similarly their involvement in the struggle to construct a Bengali national identity and independent Bangladeshi state; the events leading to the overthrow of the Shah and subsequent Islamization of Iran; revolution and civil war in Afghanistan; and the Palestinian Intifada. This book argues that in periods of rapid political change, women in Muslim societies are in reality central to efforts to construct a national identity" (University of Chicago Press). 

Annotation:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

Glossary Note on Transliteration

Preface and Acknowledgements

1. Introduction and overview - Valentine M Moghadam

2. Feminine Militancy: Moudjahidates during and after the Algerian War - Cherifa Bouatta

3. Algeria at a crossroads: national liberation, Islamization and women - Doria Cherifati - Merabtine

4. National identity, fundamentalism and the women's movement in Bangladesh - Salma Sobhan

5. Reform, revolution and reaction: the trajectory of the 'Woman Question' in Afghanistan - Valentine M Moghadam

6. Modernity, Islamization, and women in Iran - Nayereh Tohidi

7. Nationalism and feminism: Palestinian women and the Intifada - No Going Back? - Nahla Abdo

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Women, Nationalism, Political Participation Regions: Africa, MENA, North Africa Countries: Algeria

Year: 1994