Patriarchy

The Impact of Non-Government Organizations on Women's Mobility in Public Life: An Empirical Study in Rural Bangladesh

Citation:

Nawaz, Faraha. 2020. "The Impact of Non-Government Organizations on Women's Mobility in Public Life: An Empirical Study in Rural Bangladesh." Journal of International Women's Studies 21 (2): 94-113.

Author: Faraha Nawaz

Abstract:

The article aims to analyse the impact of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) on Bangladeshi rural women’s mobility in the public domain, since this is an area that is generally only frequented by men whilst women are confined to their own home and neighbourhood. In other words, the author explored how and to what extent, NGOs have brought changes to women’s freedom of movement in the public sphere. The author was influenced by the existing literature that portrays Bangladesh as a country that is characterized by poverty, patriarchy and inequality, where there is no tradition of rural women participating in the labour force, and where women’s mobility is severely restricted. In this study, the indicators of women’s mobility were explored that include women’s movement in various public places such as market, medical centre, children’s schools, and cinema. By conducting series of in-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), the author collected primary data from rural women and their husbands through purposive network sampling. Secondary data was collected from the contemporary literature regarding women’s freedom of movement globally in general and Bangladesh in particular. By analysing empirical data, the article confirms that rural women’s participation in microfinance program of NGOs have enhanced their mobility in different ways. However, the women who had education and training had more mobility in public life since those women utilized the benefits of NGO programs more effectively. Surprisingly husband’s education, occupation and exposure have no positive impact on women’s mobility. 

Keywords: women, mobility, education, public life, development NGOs, women's mobility, women in Bangladesh

Topics: Economies, Poverty, Education, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households, Livelihoods, NGOs Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Bangladesh

Year: 2020

Rethinking Masculinity in Disaster Situations: Men's Reflections of the 2004 Tsunami in Southern Sri Lanka

Citation:

Dominelli, Lena. 2020. "Rethinking Masculinity in Disaster Situations: Men's Reflections of the 2004 Tsunami in Southern Sri Lanka." International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 48: 1-9. 

Author: Lena Dominelli

Abstract:

The role of men in disasters is rarely discussed in depth and research on this topic is scarce. Yet, masculinity is an important dimension of disasters, whether considering men's active roles in disasters, their position within family relations pre- and post-disasters, or during reconstruction. The research project, International Institutional and Professional Practices conducted in 12 southern Sri Lankan villages sought to understand men's experiences of supporting their families after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. It highlighted the importance of patriarchal relations and men's roles as providers throughout the disaster cycle. However, the picture is complicated. While most humanitarian aid is aimed at the generic person, a man, men do not have their needs as men specifically addressed during the receipt of humanitarian aid. Men who receive nothing post-disaster can become desperate, and misuse substances such as alcohol and drugs. This creates situations where men fight each other and abuse women and children within intimate relationships because the tsunami has destroyed their livelihoods and nothing has replaced these. In this article, I examine the complexities men navigate to understand their position when seeking to re-establish their connections to family and community life. I conclude that their specific needs as men require targeted interventions throughout all stages of the disaster cycle, and especially during the delivery of humanitarian aid if they are to fulfil their provider and protector roles and be steered away from behaviour that is abusive of close members of their families: wives, children, and other men.

Keywords: men, masculinity(ies), breadwinner/provider, protector, humanitarian aid, disasters, differentiated disaster experiences, family relations, domestic violence, abusive relations

Topics: Domestic Violence, Environment, Environmental Disasters, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Households, Humanitarian Assistance, Livelihoods Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Sri Lanka

Year: 2020

Mujeres Reinsertadas: Postconflicto en la Ciudad de Barranquilla

Citation:

Pichón, Leticia Elena Hundek. 2016. "Mujeres Reinsertadas: Postconflicto en la Ciudad de Barranquilla." Advocatus 14 (27): 65-82. 

Author: Leticia Elena Hundek Pichón

Abstract:

SPANISH ABSTRACT:
La mayoría de las mujeres reinsertadas ingresaron al grupo armado durante la adolescencia, motivadas por factores tanto ideológicos como personales, atraídas por la búsqueda de un nuevo “proyecto de vida”. Si la reinserción a la vida civil fue un proceso traumático para los combatientes en general, para la mujer reinsertada lo fue mucho más si se reconoce la prevalencia de un contexto socio-cultural que mantiene la inequidad de las relaciones de género. Desarmada y desprovista de su rol revolucionario, tiene que competir ahora en un nuevo terreno al parecer menos favorable para su participación política. Las mujeres reinsertadas se ven ahora enfrentadas a un mundo que les sigue siendo hostil, desprovistas de las armas que en el pasado le dieron una dimensión diferente a su rol tradicional y envueltas ahora en la complicada trama de recomponer su vida afectiva, familiar y laboral. Las mujeres reinsertadas dejaron las actividades propias de la insurgencia, para asumir el retorno a una sociedad que aún se nutre de patrimonios culturales ancestrales, patriarcales, discriminatorios y represivos que generalmente limitan a la mujer al desempeño de roles domésticos, sexuales y reproductivos.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
Most of the reinserted women entered the armed group during adolescence, motivated by both ideological and personal factors, attracted by the search for a new “life project”. If reintegration into civilian life was a traumatic process for the combatants in general, it was much more so for the reinserted woman if the prevalence of a socio-cultural context that maintains the inequality of gender relations was recognized. Disarmed and devoid of its revolutionary role, it has now to compete in a new terrain apparently less favorable to its political participation. Reinserted women now face a world that is still hostile to them, deprived of the weapons that in the past gave them a different dimension to their traditional role and are now involved in the complicated plot of recomposing their affective, family and work life. The reinserted women left the activities of the insurgency, to assume the return to a society that still feeds on ancestral, patriarchal, discriminatory and repressive cultural patrimonies that limit women to the performance of domestic, sexual and reproductive roles.

Keywords: mujeres reinsertadas, postconflicto, roles politicos-económicos, relaciones de género, reinserted women, postconflict, political-economic roles, gender relations

Topics: Age, Combatants, Female Combatants, DDR, Economies, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Equality/Inequality, Livelihoods, Post-Conflict, Political Participation Regions: Americas, South America Countries: Colombia

Year: 2016

Reconsidering Nationalism and Feminism: the Kurdish Political Movement in Turkey

Citation:

Al‐Ali, Nadje, and Latif Tas. 2018. "Reconsidering Nationalism and Feminism: The Kurdish Political Movement in Turkey." Nations and Nationalism 24 (2): 453-73.

Authors: Nadje Al-Ali, Latif Tas

Abstract:

Feminist scholars have documented with reference to multiple empirical contexts that feminist claims within nationalist movements are often side-lined, constructed as ‘inauthentic’ and frequently discredited for imitating supposedly western notions of gender-based equality. Despite these historical precedents, some feminist scholars have pointed to the positive aspects of nationalist movements, which frequently open up spaces for gender-based claims. Our research is based on the recognition that we cannot discuss and evaluate the fraught relationship in the abstract but that we need to look at the specific historical and empirical contexts and articulations of nationalism and feminism. The specific case study we draw from is the relationship between the Kurdish women’s movement and the wider Kurdish political movement in Turkey. We are exploring the ways that the Kurdish movement in Turkey has politicised Kurdish women’s rights activists and examine how Kurdish women activists have reacted to patriarchal tendencies within the Kurdish movement.

Keywords: ethnic nationalism, feminism, Kurdish women's movement, middle east, PKK, Turkey

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Nationalism Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East, Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Turkey

Year: 2018

Gender Relations among Neighbors: a Study of Humanitarian Practices Addressing Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

Citation:

Christiansen, Connie Carøe. 2018. "Gender Relations among Neighbors: A Study of Humanitarian Practices Addressing Syrian Refugees in Lebanon." Paper presented at Pluralism in Emergenc(i)es: Movement, Space and Religious Difference, Amman, December 6-8. 

Author: Connie Carøe Christiansen

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to study the perceptions of gender relations among Syrian refugees as presented by employees of selected local NGOs in Lebanon. These NGOs form part of a civil society undergoing changes since the refugee crisis of the Syrian war, and now collaborating with Syrian NGOs, and engaging Syrian refugees in humanitarian projects. Their participation in humanitarian response occurs in Lebanon in several contexts, ranging from handicraft workshops to neighborhood committees, civil society activism and business initiation. Gender relations among Syrians are presented by such NGOs as more patriarchal and harmful for women, but Syrian activists in Lebanon contest this indictment. Nevertheless, these conceptions become a pretext for the approach that refugee women are more vulnerable not only due to the war, but also due to their relations to Syrian men. The paper forms part of a study, which asks what consequences the engagement of Syrian refugees in humanitarian work may have for citizenship transformation– with particular urgency and value for women who are denied equal citizenship with men.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Civil Society, Displacement & Migration, Refugees, Conflict, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Humanitarian Assistance, NGOs Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Syria

Year: 2018

The Jihad Feminist Dynamics of Terrorism and Subordination of Women in the ISIS

Citation:

Makanda, Joseph. 2019. "The Jihad Feminist Dynamics of Terrorism and Subordination of Women in the ISIS." Multidisciplinary Journal of Gender Studies 8 (2): 135-59. 

Author: Joseph Makanda

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
The increasing embeddedness of the jihad feminist within the Islamic State’s (ISIS) operations is eliciting works on the role of women in terrorism. However, there is yet to be a more constructive analysis that adequately accounts for the luring of Muslim women into the ISIS as a justification of the patriarchal beliefs and oppressive social systems. This paper is among the first attempts to draw on the Jihad Feminism Theory (JFT) to develop a conceptual discourse that explains the causal relationship between jihad feminist fighters and promotion of patriarchal practices and beliefs within the ISIS. Far from standing against any forms of Western feminization- as espoused by the ISIS, the paper argues that jihad feminism has further subverted Muslim women to sedentary roles within the ISIS as a way of sustaining the organisations’ operations and existence.
 
SPANISH ABSTRACT:
La creciente integración de la yihad feminista en las operaciones del Estado Islámico de Irak y Siria (ISIS) está provocando investigaciones sobre el papel de la mujer en el terrorismo. Sin embargo, aún no se ha realizado un análisis más constructivo que responda adecuadamente a la interfaz entre el feminismo yihadista y la subyugación femenina dentro de las operaciones del ISIS. Este documento es uno de los primeros intentos de utilizar la Teoría del feminismo yihad (JFT) para desarrollar un discurso conceptual que explique la relación entre las luchadoras feministas yihad y la promoción de prácticas y creencias patriarcales dentro del grupo ISIS. Lejos de oponerse a cualquier forma de feminización occidental, como defienden las feministas yihad, el artículo sostiene que el feminismo yihad ha subvertido aún más a las mujeres musulmanas a roles sedentarios dentro del ISIS como una forma de sostener las operaciones y la existencia de las organizaciones. Este es un documento cualitativo que se basa en un análisis de escritorio de fuentes secundarias de datos. 

Keywords: feminism, Islam, ISIS, Jihad feminism, terrorism, feminsmo, Feminismo Jihad, terrorismo

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Conflict, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Non-State Armed Groups Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East

Year: 2019

"Without Women, the War Could Never Have Happened": Representations of Women’s Military Contributions in Non-State Armed Groups

Citation:

Gilmartin, Niall. 2017. “‘Without Women, the War Could Never Have Happened’: Representations of Women’s Military Contributions in Non-State Armed Groups.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (4): 456–70.

Author: Niall Gilmartin

Abstract:

Feminist international relations theory argues that male consolidation of power in the aftermath of armed conflict often occurs as men gain the status of heroes in the post-war appraisals. Explorations of republican commemoration in the North of Ireland have uncovered the dominance of the male protagonist with a notable relative absence of militant republican women. Militarized masculine narratives and patriarchal understandings of what is deemed a combatant role, and therefore deemed worthy of commemorating, consistently fail to value or recognize women’s multiple and vital wartime contributions. This article argues that conventional definitions of military contributions and combatant roles are imprecise, highly gendered and ultimately function as a mechanism to denigrate and exclude women’s wartime labor. Based on in-depth interviews with former combatants, the article critically explores the ways in which republican women themselves conceptualize their contributions to armed struggle. Emerging from this is a theoretically rich narrative of women’s multiple and diverse military roles which firmly challenge the limited definition of “a person with a weapon.” It is suggested that by paying careful attention to the lives of combatant women, feminist scholars can use their experiences, narratives and meanings to challenge existing frameworks and discourses, and redefine combatant roles and wartime contributions.

Keywords: female combatants, conflict transition, combatant roles, commemoration, Republican women

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militarization, Post-Conflict Regions: Europe, Western Europe Countries: United Kingdom

Year: 2017

Beyond Hybridity: A Feminist Political Economy of Timor-Leste’s Problematic Post-Conflict Peacebuilding

Citation:

Johnston, Melissa Frances. 2017. “Beyond Hybridity: A Feminist Political Economy of Timor-Leste’s Problematic Post-Conflict Peacebuilding.” Paper presented at International Studies Association Annual Convention 2017, Baltimore, February 22-25.

Author: Melissa Frances Johnston

Abstract:

Hybrid theories of peacebuilding explain the problematic outcomes of intervention as a result of a hybrid between the aims and norms of ‘liberal’ internationals and ‘non-liberal’ locals. This paper critiques such theories via a case study of East Timor post-conflict peacebuilding. Using a feminist political economy approach, and drawing on extensive primary data, the paper argues that there are no discrete groups of ‘liberal’ interveners and ‘local’ subjects, or any hybrids thereof. Problematic results cannot be located in hybrid peacebuilding. Rather, it explains how an elite class coalition has risen to dominate the post-conflict East Timorese state relying on a highly gendered allocation of the country’s petroleum fund resources. This gendered access to resources has allowed the elite coalition to shore up materially exploitative patriarchal relations, strongest among the rural base, and to consolidate a fragile, yet historically resilient, socio-political coalition crucial to its rule.

Topics: Class, Feminisms, Feminist Political Economy, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Peacebuilding, Post-Conflict Regions: Oceania Countries: Timor-Leste

Year: 2017

Negotiating Contextually Contingent Agency: Situated Feminist Peacebuilding Strategies in Kenya

Citation:

Collier, Mary Jane, Brandi Lawless, and Karambu Ringera. 2016. “Negotiating Contextually Contingent Agency: Situated Feminist Peacebuilding Strategies in Kenya.” Women’s Studies in Communication 39 (4): 399–421.

Authors: Mary Jane Collier, Brandi Lawless, Karambu Ringera

Abstract:

This study identifies an emergent framework for situated feminist peacebuilding based on interviews with representatives of community-based organizations in Kenya. We offer situated examples and firsthand accounts of how these women navigate different challenging spaces, wrestle with the relationships between macro-, meso-, and microcontextual factors, and negotiate agency- and systems-level change within patriarchal and politically changing contexts. We also demonstrate the necessity for international collaborators to apply critical reflexivity throughout all phases of research praxis. Our analysis has important implications for studying feminist peacebuilding situated in Kenya in particular, as well as for analyzing agency, structural and systemic change, patriarchy, the navigation of intersectional cultural differences, and intercultural relations more generally.
 

Keywords: agency, Kenya, peacebuilding, situated feminism

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Intersectionality, Peacebuilding Regions: Africa, East Africa Countries: Kenya

Year: 2016

The (In)Security of Gender in Afghanistan’s Peacebuilding Project: Hybridity and Affect

Citation:

Partis-Jennings, Hannah. 2017. “The (In)Security of Gender in Afghanistan’s Peacebuilding Project: Hybridity and Affect.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 19 (4): 411–25.

Author: Hannah Partis-Jennings

Abstract:

In this article I draw on a feminist approach to hybridity to explore interview data and observations from my field research in Afghanistan. I argue that there is a logic of masculinist protection influencing the affective environment of the peacebuilding project there. The combination of a perceived patriarchal context in Afghanistan and security routines protecting civilian internationals (and Afghan elites), which rely on hypermasculine signifiers, help to create and perpetuate the conditions in which the female (for both internationals and Afghans) is marked with insecurity. I point to hybridity between the foreign and female experience, as well as resistance and reflexivity within my research. Throughout I explore fragments of power hierarchies that cut through the meaning of gender, rendering the female state a disempowering one, always referenced in some uncertain, hybrid way as protected or in need of protection.
 

Keywords: peacebuilding, Afghanistan, hybridity, masculinist protection, affect

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Masculinism, Peacebuilding, Security Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: Afghanistan

Year: 2017

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