North America

Citation:

Garner, Karen. 2013. Gender and Foreign Policy in the Clinton Administration. Boulder, Colorado: FirstForumPress.

Author: Karen Garner

Annotation:

Though recent US government attention to global women's rights and empowerment is often presented as a new phenomenon, Karen Garner argues that nearly two decades ago the Clinton administration broke barriers to challenge women's unequal status vis-à-vis men around the world and to incorporate their needs into US foreign policy and aid programs. Garner draws on a wide range of primary sources, including interviews with government officials and feminist activists who worked with the administration, present a persuasive account of the emergence, evolution, and legacy of US global gender policy in the 1990s. (Summary from Lynne Rienner Publishers) 

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Women, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2013

Citation:

Tiessen, Rebecca, Heather Smith, and Liam Swiss. 2020. “Canada’s Evolving Feminist Foreign Policy: Lessons Learned from 2017 to 2020.” International Journal 75 (3): 294–97.

Authors: Rebecca Tiessen, Heather Smith, Liam Swiss

Abstract:

This essay introduces a collection of articles on the lessons that can be drawn from Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP) as Canada moves toward a more concrete and deliberate approach to feminist foreign policy. The articles in this collection provide insights into the challenges to be addressed, gaps to be filled, and the critical analyses necessary for expanding and enhancing Canada’s feminist foreign policy. The aim of the collection is to show that lessons learned from the FIAP can inform the design of Canada’s next steps in forging a formalized, comprehensive, and coherent feminist foreign policy. This introductory essay summarizes the five articles in this special section of International Journal on the FIAP and Canada’s feminist foreign policy and highlights their key findings. 

Keywords: feminist foreign policy, Canada, feminist international assistance policy, foreign aid, Canadian foreign policy

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Canada

Year: 2020

Citation:

Rao, Sheila, and Rebecca Tiessen. 2020. “Whose Feminism(s)? Overseas Partner Organizations’ Perceptions of Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy.” International Journal 75 (3): 349–66.

Authors: Sheila Rao, Rebecca Tiessen

Abstract:

Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, introduced in 2017, is an ambitious and forward-thinking policy focussed on gender equality and women’s empowerment. The emphasis on a feminist vision, however, raises questions about how feminism is defined and interpreted by Canada’s partners in the Global South. In this article, we examine the interpretations of feminism(s) and a feminist foreign policy from the perspective of NGO staff members in East and Southern Africa. The research involved interviews with 45 Global South partner country NGO staff members in three countries (Kenya, Uganda, and Malawi). We consider the partner organization reflections on Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy using a transnational feminist lens. Our findings provide insights into future considerations for Canada’s feminist foreign policy priorities, consultations, and programme design. 

Keywords: feminist foreign assistance policy, partnerships, gender equality, Canadian Aid

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, Americas, North America Countries: Canada, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda

Year: 2020

Citation:

McCright, Aaron M., and Riley E. Dunlap. 2013. “Bringing Ideology In: The Conservative White Male Effect on Worry about Environmental Problems in the USA.” Journal of Risk Research 16 (2): 211–26.

Authors: Aaron M. McCright, Riley E. Dunlap

Abstract:

Extending existing scholarship on the white male effect in risk perception, we examine whether conservative white males (CWMs) are less worried about the risks of environmental problems than are other adults in the US general public. We draw theoretical and analytical guidance from the identity-protective cognition thesis explaining the white male effect and from recent political psychology scholarship documenting the heightened system-justification tendencies of political conservatives. We utilize public opinion data from nine Gallup surveys between 2001 and 2010, focusing on both a single-item indicator and a composite measure of worry about environmental problems. We find that CWMs indeed have significantly lower worry about environmental problems than do other Americans. Furthermore, the results of our multivariate regression models reveal that this CWMs effect remains significant when controlling for the direct effects of political ideology, race, and gender and the effects of nine social, demographic, and temporal control variables – as well as the effect of individuals’ generalized (nonenvironmental) risk perceptions. We conclude that the white male effect is due largely to CWMs, and that the latter’s low level of concern with environmental risks is likely driven by their social commitment to prevent new environmental regulations and repeal existing ones.

Keywords: white male effect, political ideology, race, gender, environmental problems

Topics: Environment, Gender, Men, Race Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2013

Citation:

Angevine, Sara. 2020. "Aborting Global Women's Rights: The Boundaries of Women's Representation in American Foreign Policy". Politics & Gender. doi:10.1017/S1743923X20000112.

Author: Sara Angevine

Abstract:

American foreign policy has expanded in recent years to address issues that affect women and girls worldwide, global women’s rights, yet there has been minimal investigation into how these representative claims for women worldwide are formed and the substantive U.S. commitment. Is this a reflection of a growing American feminist foreign policy or symbolic rhetoric for domestic audiences? To better understand the representation of global women’s rights in American foreign policy, I analyze the political context behind three widely supported American foreign policy bills focusing on women that were introduced during the 111th Congress (2009–10). Each of these bills failed to become statute. Drawing from qualitative comparative case study analysis, I show how antiabortion politics constrain the legislative success of any American foreign policy legislation that focuses on women, regardless of relevance. This suggests that foreign women’s bodies are a terrain for U.S. legislators to advance abortion policy objectives with minimal electoral constraint. Although advancing women’s rights furthers broader U.S. foreign policy objectives, such as preventing terrorism and growing market economies, domestic abortion politics shape the boundaries of how global women’s rights are represented in American foreign policy.

Keywords: women, foreign policy, global women's rights, Congress, representation, feminist foreign policy, gender, abortion, foreign policy analysis

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Women, Health, Reproductive Health, Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2020

Citation:

Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth, and Katharine K. Wilkinson. 2020. All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. New York: Penguin Random House Publishing.

Authors: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Katharine K. Wilkinson

Annotation:

Summary:
There is a renaissance blooming in the climate movement: leadership that is more characteristically feminine and more faithfully feminist, rooted in compassion, connection, creativity, and collaboration. While it’s clear that women and girls are vital voices and agents of change for this planet, they are too often missing from the proverbial table. More than a problem of bias, it’s a dynamic that sets us up for failure. To change everything, we need everyone.
 
All We Can Save illuminates the expertise and insights of dozens of diverse women leading on climate in the United States—scientists, journalists, farmers, lawyers, teachers, activists, innovators, wonks, and designers, across generations, geographies, and race—and aims to advance a more representative, nuanced, and solution-oriented public conversation on the climate crisis. These women offer a spectrum of ideas and insights for how we can rapidly, radically reshape society. (Summary from Penguin Random House)

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Women Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2020

Citation:

Petrzelka, Peggy, Ann Sorensen, and Jennifer Filipiak. 2018. “Women Agricultural  Landowners—Past Time to Put Them ‘On the Radar.’” Society & Natural Resources 31 (7): 853–64.

Authors: Peggy Petrzelka, Ann Sorensen, Jennifer Filipiak

Abstract:

While women own 25% of the acres rented out for farming, little has been done in terms of federal policy that focuses on these women. In this policy analysis, we detail how (1) lack of data on these women landowners and (2) the invisibility of these women to federal natural resource and agricultural agency staff contribute to women nonoperating landowners (WNOLs) not being on the federal policy radar. We discuss how the persistence of these factors continues to marginalize WNOLs in federal agricultural policy, despite the mandate of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) agencies to be serving underserved populations such as WNOLs. Our study findings clearly illustrate a critical point: federal agricultural/conservation agencies are not fulfilling their mandate to reach WNOLs. Using data from USDA Production Regions in the United States, we detail how WNOLs are marginalized and provide specific policy recommendations to allow for intentional inclusion of these women.

Keywords: agricultural landowners, conservation, federal agricultural policy, gender, nonoperator landowners

Topics: Agriculture, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Tenure Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2018

Citation:

Horst, Megan, and Amy Marion. 2019. “Racial, Ethnic and Gender Inequities in Farmland Ownership and Farming in the U.S.” Agriculture and Human Values 36 (1): 1–16.

Authors: Megan Horst, Amy Marion

Abstract:

This paper provides an analysis of U.S. farmland owners, operators, and workers by race, ethnicity, and gender. We first review the intersection between racialized and gendered capitalism and farmland ownership and farming in the United States. Then we analyze data from the 2014 Tenure and Ownership Agricultural Land survey, the 2012 Census of Agriculture, and the 2013–2014 National Agricultural Worker Survey to demonstrate that significant nation-wide disparities in farming by race, ethnicity and gender persist in the U.S. In 2012–2014, White people owned 98% and operated 94% of all farmland. They generated 98% of all farm-related income from land ownership and 97% of income from farm owner-operatorship. Meanwhile, People of Color farmers (African American or Black, Asian American, Native American, Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and Hispanic farmers) were more likely to be tenants rather than owners, owned less land, and generated less farm-related wealth per person than their White counterparts. Hispanic farmers were also disproportionately farm laborers. In addition to racial and ethnic disparities, there were disparities by gender. About 63% of non-operating landowners, 86% of farm operators, and 87% of tenant farmers were male, and female farmers tended to generate less income per farmer than men. This data provides evidence of ongoing racial, ethnic and gender disparities in agriculture in the United States. We conclude with a call to address the structural drivers of the disparities and with recommendations for better data collection.

Keywords: farming, equity, gendered capitalism, food justice, Farmland, agrarian questions

Topics: Agriculture, Ethnicity, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Land Tenure, Race Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2019

Citation:

Gay-Antaki, Miriam. 2020. “Grounding Climate Governance through Women’s Stories in Oaxaca, Mexico.” Gender, Place & Culture. doi:10.1080/0966369X.2020.1789563.

Author: Miriam Gay-Antaki

Abstract:

Constructions of women in the Global South, as poor and rural, portray them as most vulnerable and passive to the effects of environmental degradation. This conception has been informing institutional responses to environmental change that incorporate a gender component. It is in this context that climate change interventions increasingly target women in the Global South, so it is important to evaluate their impact. This paper sets out to question why a gender agenda is being pushed alongside a climate agenda, what these projects look like in the communities and households where they are implemented, and the impacts of these projects on the lives of people that encounter them in Oaxaca, Mexico. Through reflexive storytelling, this paper aims to ground environmental governance around gender and climate change using feminist geography by calling attention to the everyday lives of people in Mexico involved in gender and climate change interventions. Using postcolonial insights and reflexive approaches, this paper highlights the agency of actors and fights against tendencies in climate and development work that homogenize gender, erasing the agency and autonomy of people outside of western spaces. Through reflexive research, I call attention to the ways that concepts operating in global contexts do not merely operate on ‘third world women’ but are imbricated in the performance of their every-day lives as they manage and negotiate global discourses around gender and climate change while transforming them so that they become meaningful to their every-day lives.

Keywords: feminist geography, gender and climate change, mexico, postcolonial perspectives, reflexivity

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Gendered Discourses, Governance Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Mexico

Year: 2020

Citation:

Daniel, Tara, and Mara Dolan. 2020. “Intersectionality and Collective Action: Visioning a Feminist Green New Deal in the US.” Gender & Development 28 (3): 515–33.

Authors: Tara Daniel, Mara Dolan

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
In the wake of the introduction of the Resolution for a Green New Deal to the US House of Representatives in 2019, feminist climate justice activists and organisers initiated and cultivated the Feminist Coalition for a Green New Deal. The Coalition advances an intersectional feminist analysis as part of the national conversation about the Green Deal, which entails elucidating and enacting processes for coalition-formation and creating shared values, principles, and policy positions. This article shares insights from interviews with five Coalition members about the relevance of the Coalition’s creation, operating processes, and key outcomes –namely the principles for a Feminist Green New Deal – for communities, advocates, and policymakers, particularly in this moment of reckoning with a global pandemic. Their reflections illustrate their fervent dedication to the feminist tool of intersectional analysis, their proposals for an alternative economy centred on principles of care and regeneration as the essential scaffolding for a Feminist Green New Deal, and their commitment to the power of collective action as the most effective means of movement building. The responses also demonstrate the interconnectedness of feminist climate advocacy with feminist development critiques, the essentiality of a comprehensive reframing of governments’ general policy processes and aims, and the criticality of movement building that is intentional and responsive.

FRENCH ABSTRACT:
Au lendemain de l’introduction de la Résolution pour une Nouvelle donne verte auprès de la Chambre des représentants des États-Unis en 2019, les activistes et organisateurs féministes de la justice climatique aux États-Unis ont initié et cultivé la Coalition féministe pour une Nouvelle donne verte (Feminist Coalititon for a Green New Deal). Cette coalition met en avant une analyse féministe intersectionnelle comme élément de cette conversation nationale, qui suppose l’éclaircissement et la promulgation de processus de formation de coalitions et la création de valeurs, principes et positions de politiques communs. Cet article propose des aperçus tirés d’entretiens avec cinq membres de la coalition sur la pertinence de la création, des processus d’opération et des résultats clés de la coalition - c’est-à-dire les principes d’une Nouvelle donne verte féministe - pour les communautés, les défenseurs et les décideurs, a fortiori alors même que nous sommes confrontés à une pandémie mondiale. Leurs réflexions illustrent leur fervent dévouement envers l’outil féministe de l’analyse intersectionnelle, leurs propositions concernant une économie alternative axée sur les principes des soins et de la régénération comme échafaudage essentiel pour une Nouvelle donne verte féministe, et leur engagement en faveur du pouvoir de l’action collective comme moyen le plus efficace de bâtir un mouvement. Les réponses démontrent également l’interconnectivité des activités de plaidoyer féministes en matière de climat et des critiques féministes du développement, le caractère essentiel d’une reformulation
complète des processus et objectifs de politique générale des gouvernements, et l’importance critique d’une construction de mouvements intentionnelle et réactive.

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
Una vez que la Resolución para un Nuevo Trato Verde fue introducida en la Cámara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos en 2019, activistas y organizadoras feministas en torno a la justicia climática de este país dieron inicio y cultivaron la Coalición Feminista para un Nuevo Trato Verde. Como parte de esta conversación nacional, dicha Coalición realizó un análisis feminista intersectorial, cuyo propósito apuntaba a elucidar y promulgar procesos para la formación de coaliciones, así como a crear valores, principios y propiciar posiciones políticas compartidos. En el presente artículo se examinan ideas surgidas de entrevistas realizadas con cinco miembros de la coalición respecto a la relevancia que asignan a su creación, sus procesos operativos y sus resultados clave —es decir, los principios para un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde Feminista— orientados a comunidades, defensores y responsables encargados de la formulación de políticas, sobre todo en un momento en que, debido a la pandemia mundial, se experimenta una nueva realidad. Sus reflexiones dan cuenta del uso que hacen de la herramienta feminista llamada análisis interseccional y de su ferviente dedicación a impulsar sus propuestas en pos de una economía alternativa centrada en los principios de cuidado y regeneración. Estos elementos resultan esenciales para construir el andamiaje básico de un Nuevo Acuerdo Verde Feminista, a lo que se suma su compromiso de impulsar el poder de la acción colectiva como el medio más eficaz para fortalecer el movimiento. Asimismo, las respuestas suscitadas en las entrevistas revelan la interconexión existente entre la incidencia feminista en torno al clima y las críticas feministas del desarrollo, la necesidad de un replanteamiento integral de los procesos y los objetivos de política general de los gobiernos, y la importancia crítica implícita en el hecho de que la construcción de movimientos sea intencional y responda a las necesidades de este periodo crítico.

Keywords: gender equality, feminism, feminist analysis, intersectionality, movement building, collective action, climate change, Green New Deal

Topics: Economies, Care Economies, Feminist Economics, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Intersectionality, Political Participation Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2020