National Liberation Wars

From Guerrilla Girls to Zainabs: Reassessing the Figure of the “Militant Woman” in the Iranian Revolution

Citation:

Gordan, Arielle. 2021. "From Guerilla Girls to Zainabs: Reassessing the Figure of the "Militant Woman" in the Iranian Revolution." Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 17 (1): 64-95.

Author: Arielle Gordon

Abstract:

Scholars have long accounted for representations of women in the Iranian Revolution by categorically classifying them as “devout mothers” or “heroic sisters,” embodied respectively in the Shiʾi archetypes of Fatima and Zainab. However, a closer look at images of militant women finds them residing within the traditions of their time, as part and parcel of an era of liberation movements in which the idiom of the female fighter featured prominently. This article takes a transnational look at tropes of women’s militancy and traces how they filtered into Iranian revolutionary culture. Finally, it contends that only with the consolidation of Khomeini’s power and the start of the Iran-Iraq War is this figure renamed Zainab and sustained as a central icon of the Islamic Republic.

Keywords: visual culture, revolution, transnationalism, representation, 'gender'

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarism, Religion Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iran, Iraq

Year: 2021

Women's War: Gender Activism in the Vietnam War and in the Wars for Kurdish Autonomy

Citation:

Chaguri, Mariana Miggiolaro, and Flávia X. M. Paniz. 2019. "Women's War: Gender Activism in the Vietnam War and in the Wars for Kurdish Autonomy." Sociologia & Antropologia 9 (3): 895-918.

Authors: Mariana Miggiolaro Chaguri, Flávia X. M. Paniz

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
This paper debates women’s activism in two events: the Vietnam War (1954-1975) and the historical Kurdish struggle for autonomy (known as “Kurdish question”). We hypothesize that the reorganization of gender roles during the conflicts marks the meanings of wars and configures what we call a woman for the times of war, that is, a woman who transits across the spaces of public confrontation, armed conflict and domesticity. The approach outlined here is structured into three parts: the first and the second ones present aspects of both conflicts by pointing to possible convergences and differences between them; we also present the variety of networks of participation and activism of women in both cases. In the third and final part, we discuss the interfaces among the production of gender, war, and ideas, crossing a manifold of narratives, experiences, and stories that reveal different dimensions of wars and nations, and the diversity of the regimes of ideas that attached to them.

PORTUGUESE ABSTRACT:
Este artigo problematiza a participação e debate o ativismo de mulheres em dois eventos: a Guerra do Vietnã (1954-1975) e as guerras pelo Curdistão (1923 em diante). Como hipótese, sustentamos que tais lutas podem ser lidas a partir do esforço comum de tornar inteligível e nomear um conjunto variado de experiências que, reorganizadas a partir ou em função do conflito armado, produzem novas mediações entre gênero e nação. O artigo está dividido em três partes: nas duas primeiras, são apresentados aspectos dos dois conflitos apontando eventuais convergências e diferenças; na sequência, observam-se as variadas formas de participação e de ativismo de mulheres existentes nos dois casos; finalmente, são debatidas as interfaces entre a produção do gênero, da guerra e das ideias, percorrendo uma multiplicidade de narrativas, experiências e relatos que apontam para a dimensão heterogênea das guerras, das nações e, portanto, do regime de ideias que deve acompanhá-las.

Keywords: Gender, war, nation and nationalism, post-colonial feminism, gênero, guerra, nação e nacionalismo, feminismo pós-colonial

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Civil Society, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Nationalism Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, Southeast Asia Countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Vietnam

Year: 2019

Gendered Impact of Zimbabwe's Transitional Justice: Too Little Too Late

Citation:

Chaminuka, Lilian. 2019. "Gendered Impact of Zimbabwe’s Transitional Justice: Too Little Too Late." International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science 3 (3): 94-100.

Author: Lilian Chaminuka

Abstract:

The gendered impact of transitional justice after Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle is similar to early efforts in other countries to try and address massive and systematic human rights violations that are largely gender blind. The paper takes a historical analysis highlighting how government chose not to specifically address sexual violence, nor did they examine how women had been distinctly impacted by the war of liberation. There was a pervasive silence regarding violence against, harm to, and the degradation of women with female ex combatants becoming recipients of piecemeal policies and fragmented efforts to accommodate them. The process and what has been done for the Zimbabwean woman is either too little or has been done too late as the legacy of this violence endures long after independence was achieved in 1980. This is not to say government has done absolutely nothing as some gains have been made in building a gender balanced society that factors in contribution of women. The study which employed the qualitative approach, revealed that women are not particularly happy as they feel more can be done as the realities they face today under study show a continuum in the violence exercised against them, their subordinate role, their oppression, the threats and harassment they endured in the past and present lack of economic resources to live a dignified life. The paper is based from a broad study that was undertaken by the author in her studies at the Africa University in 2014.

Keywords: Gender, human rights, women ex-combatants, reintegration, transitional justice

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Justice, Transitional Justice, Rights, Human Rights, Sexual Violence, Violence Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Zimbabwe

Year: 2019

The Role of Female Combatants in the Nicaraguan Revolution and Counter Revolutionary War

Citation:

García, Martín Meráz, Martha L. Cottam, and Bruno M. Baltodano. 2019. The Role of Female Combatants in the Nicaraguan Revolution and Counter Revolutionary War. New York: Routledge. 

Authors: Martín Meráz García, Martha L. Cottam, Bruno M. Baltodano

Annotation:

Summary:
The revolution in Nicaragua was unique in that a large percentage of the combatants were women. The Role of Female Combatants in the Nicaraguan Revolution and Counter Revolutionary War is a study of these women and those who fought in the Contra counter revolution on the Atlantic Coast.
 
This book is a qualitative study based on 85 interviews with female ex-combatants in the revolution and counter revolution from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, as well as field observations in Nicaragua and the autonomous regions of the Atlantic Coast. It explores the reasons why women fought, the sacrifices they made, their treatment by male combatants, and their insights into the impact of the revolution and counter-revolution on today’s Nicaragua. The analytical approach draws from political psychology, social identity dynamics such as nationalism and indigenous identities, and the role of liberation theology in the willingness of the female revolutionaries to risk their lives.
 
Researchers and students of Gender Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, and Political History will find this an illuminating account of the Nicaraguan Revolution and counter revolution, which until now has been rarely shared. (Summary from Routledge)
 
Table of Contents:
1. Women as Combatants in Revolution
 
2. Historical Overview of the Nicaraguan Revolution and FSLN Women
 
3. Women in the FSLN
 
4. The Contra War
 
5. Women in the Contra Revolutionary War
 
6. Conclusion

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Male Combatants, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Indigenous, Nationalism, Religion Regions: Americas, Central America Countries: Nicaragua

Year: 2019

Women's Lived Landscapes of War and Liberation in Mozambique

Citation:

Katto, Jonna. 2020. Women’s Lived Landscapes of War and Liberation in Mozambique. New York: Routledge. 

Author: Jonna Katto

Annotation:

Summary:
This book tells the history of the changing gendered landscapes of northern Mozambique from the perspective of women who fought in the armed struggle for national independence, diverting from the often-told narrative of women in nationalist wars that emphasizes a linear plot of liberation. 
 
Taking a novel approach in focusing on the body, senses, and landscape, Jonna Katto, through a study of the women ex-combatants’ lived landscapes, shows how their life trajectories unfold as nonlinear spatial histories. This brings into focus the women’s shifting and multilayered negotiations for personal space and belonging. This book explores the life memories of the now aging female ex-combatants in the province of Niassa in northern Mozambique, looking at how the female ex-combatants’ experiences of living in these northern landscapes have shaped their sense of socio-spatial belonging and attachment. It builds on the premise that individual embodied memory cannot be separated from social memory; personal lives are culturally shaped. Thus, the book does not only tell the history of a small and rather unique group of women but also speaks about wider cultural histories of body-landscape relations in northern Mozambique and especially changes in those relations. 
 
Enriching our understanding of the gendered history of the liberation struggle in Mozambique and informing broader discussions on gender and nationalism, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of African history, especially the colonial and postcolonial history of Lusophone Africa, as well as gender/women’s history and peace and conflict studies. (Summary from Amazon)
 
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Gendered Bodies, Moving Landscapes, and Spatial Histories
 
1. FRELIMO Nationalism, Female Bodies, and the Language of Gender
 
2. Female Combatants and Gendered Styles of Being
 
3. Guerilla Life and the Haptics of the “Bush"
 
4. Body Feelings and Violent Memories
 
5. Living Landscape
 
6. Rhythmic Beauty
 
7. Home, (Be)longing, and the Beautiful
 
Epilogue: Spatial Movements, Relations, and Representations

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Women, Gendered Discourses, Nationalism Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: Mozambique

Year: 2020

Gender, Resistance and Transnational Memories of Violent Conflicts

Citation:

Stoltz, Pauline. 2020. Gender, Resistance and Transnational Memories of Violent Conflicts. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Author: Pauline Stoltz

Keywords: memory, transitional justice, resistance, Gender, transnationalism, conflict

Annotation:

Summary: 
This book investigates the importance of gender and resistance to silences and denials concerning human rights abuses and historical injustices in narratives on transnational memories of three violent conflicts in Indonesia. Transnational memories of violent conflicts travel abroad with politicians, postcolonial migrants and refugees. Starting with the Japanese occupation of Indonesia (1942–1945), the war of independence (1945–1949) and the genocide of 1965, the volume analyses narratives in Dutch and Indonesian novels in relation to social and political narratives (1942–2015). By focusing on gender and resistance from both Indonesian and Dutch, transnational and global perspectives, the author provides new perspectives on memories of the conflicts that are relevant to research on transitional justice and memory politics. (Summary from Palgrave Macmillan)

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Occupation, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Displacement & Migration, Migration, Refugees, Conflict, Gender, Genocide, Justice, Transitional Justice, Rights, Human Rights, Violence Regions: Asia, Southeast Asia Countries: Indonesia

Year: 2020

Post-Conflict Ruptures and the Space for Women's Empowerment in Bangladesh

Citation:

Hossain, Naomi. 2018. “Post-Conflict Ruptures and the Space for Women's Empowerment in Bangladesh.” Women's Studies International Forum 68: 104–12.

Author: Naomi Hossain

Abstract:

Bangladesh is widely deemed to have made rapid progress on gender equality and women's empowerment. How to understand the apparent advances of women in a poor, populous, Muslim-majority country in the belt of classic patriarchy? This paper locates the origins of these changes in the immediate aftermath of Bangladesh's struggle for independence in 1971, when a series of visible ruptures to the patriarchal bargain dramatized the ongoing crisis of social reproduction. This drew elite attention to the conditions of landless rural women, creating space for their programmatic inclusion in the political settlement, within a newly biopolitical project of national development. The paper argues that it is possible to make sense of the gains women have made as well as old and new obstacles to gender justice - including women's continuing responsibility for care - in this critical juncture in the political history of gender relations in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Bangladesh, women's empowerment, biopower, patriarchal bargains, post-conflict gender relations

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Bangladesh

Year: 2018

Djamilah

"Egyptian historical film about one of the most important figures in the history of Algeria, Djamila Bouhired. This film is regarded as not only highlighting the story of an important female revolutionary, but also showing the struggle of the Algerian people against the French occupation."

Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051539/

Women, Violence, and Social Change in Northern Ireland and Chiapas: Societies Between Tradition and Transition

Citation:

Hoewer, Melanie. 2013. “Women, Violence, and Social Change in Northern Ireland and Chiapas: Societies Between Tradition and Transition.” International Journal of Conflict and Violence 7 (2): 216–31.

Author: Melanie Hoewer

Abstract:

Violence against women occurs in peacetime, intensifies during wartime, and continues in the aftermath of armed conflict. Women sometimes make gains during conflict and their efforts to break the pattern of violence have led to a greater awareness of gender-based violence. However, a lack of acknowledgement of transformations in gender identity at the macro-level during peace processes may create conflict in intimate partnerships. This study brings to light the complexity of changes occurring during peace processes in a multi-level analysis of women’s perceptions and positioning towards the state, their community, and their intimate partnership. This comparative analysis of fifty-seven female activists’ narratives from Chiapas and Northern Ireland demonstrates how a one-dimensional peace process (Northern Ireland) can limit the space for addressing women’s concerns, while peace processes that transcend the ethno- national dimension of conflict (Chiapas) can open a dialogue on issues of contention in male-female relationships.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, National Liberation Wars, Combatants, Domestic Violence, Ethnicity, Gender, Women, Men, Gender Roles, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Hierarchies, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Post-Conflict Governance, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Paramilitaries, Non-State Armed Groups, Peacebuilding, Peace Processes, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Violence Regions: Americas, North America, Europe, Northern Europe Countries: Mexico, United Kingdom

Year: 2013

Between Complicity and Subversion: Body Politics in Palestinian National Narrative

Citation:

Amireh, Amal. 2003. “Between Complicity and Subversion: Body Politics in Palestinian National Narrative.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 102 (4): 747-72.

Author: Amal Amireh

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Gender, Women, Men, Masculinity/ies, Gender Roles, Nationalism Regions: Africa, MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories

Year: 2003

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