Rights

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:

du Plessis, Gretchen Erika. 2019. “Gendered Human (In)Security in South Africa: What Can Ubuntu Feminism Offer?” Acta Academica 51 (2): 41–63.

Author: Gretchen Erika du Plessis

Abstract:

Gendered human security as a focus for protracted violence against women in a society in transition calls for urgent attention, especially in South Africa. The author summarises some tenets of ubuntu feminism and juxtaposes them with state-centric and people-centric discourses of human security and their link to development, gendered well-being and interpersonal violence. Inadequate attention paid to human interdependency as seen through an ubuntu feminist lens is linked to poor responses in addressing interpersonal and gender violence. The argument is made that an individualised, human-rights based approach is inadequate as a frame to find sustainable solutions to intractable gendered human insecurity. Looking at human insecurity and violence against women in South Africa, this article offers three arguments in favour of ubuntu feminism for renewed efforts to analyse the issue and locate adequate responses.

Keywords: South Africa, African feminism, violence

Topics: Development, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Rights, Human Rights, Security, Human Security, Violence Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2019

Citation:

Marshall, Catherine. 1999. “Researching the Margins: Feminist Critical Policy Analysis.” Educational Policy 13 (1): 59–76.  

Author: Catherine Marshall

Abstract:

The powerful define the mainstream policy problems and determine the appropriate concerns for research in education. Those in power have operated for years from a male-normed paradigm. As a result, the needs and contributions of women have been marginalized. This article uses frameworks from the politics of knowledge and discourse to analyze ways in which gender research has been controlled and depoliticized. It identifies ignored feminist research and then poses challenges to researchers. 

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Gender Analysis, Women, Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 1999

Citation:

Goetz, Anne Marie. 2021. “Feminist Principles in Global Affairs: Undiplomatic Practice”. In The Future of Global Affairs, edited by C. Ankersen, and W.P.S. Sidhu, 149-173. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Author: Anne Marie Goetz

Abstract:

Feminist analysis of international relations has been a significant disruptor, revealing that the defense of ‘national sovereignty’ has allowed states to protect patriarchal preferences, not only blocking women’s rights but contributing to some of the most destructive features of national and international decision-making such as conflict-propensity. Efforts to institutionalize gender equality domestically and internationally have been troubled by the need to work with patriarchal states to build capacities to challenge male dominance. The recent emergence of feminist foreign policy (FFP) shows it may be possible to institutionalize feminist principles in international relations in ways that challenge the use of ‘national sovereignty’ as an excuse for discrimination against women. But for FFP to deliver a significant course correction in international affairs, its practitioners must accept that ending diplomatic silence on abuses of women has costs. It can bring diplomatic isolation or trigger domestic protest since it may make transnational business arrangements, including arms deals, contingent on respect for women’s rights. 

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Patriarchy, Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2021

Citation:

Yolanda Br. Ginting Manik, Junita, and Satwika Paramasatya. 2020. "Diplomasi Digital Midwives4all Sebagai Kebijakan Luar Negeri Feminis Swedia di Uganda." Journal of International Relations 6 (4): 498-509.

Authors: Junita Yolanda Br. Ginting Manik, Satwika Paramasatya

Abstract:

ENGLISH ABSTRACT:

The existence of digitalization has influenced all aspects of life, including international relations, the internet revolution requires a country to race against the times by working actively outside the field of traditional diplomacy. The increasing use of online platforms as well as the wider, fast and efficient reach generated by the transformation of the internet has produced new concepts in the field of diplomacy, namely digital diplomacy.  In connection with the feminist foreign policy ideas adopted by Sweden, the Midwives4all Campaign launched in 2015 is one of the initiatives taken by Sweden to mobilize support for gender equality and fulfillment of women’s human rights in Uganda.  This digital campaign enables the Swedish government to project Swedish values and reach various communities in Uganda through various media both online and offline as well as through champions embraced by the Swedish government to build awareness of the important role of midwives in increasing fulfillment of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) which is one of the six external objectives of Swedish feminist foreign policy.  This study intends to explain how the Midwives4all Campaign influences efforts to fulfill women's rights in Uganda. This study will be using qualitative research methods with process-tracing data analysis methods and uses the concept of feminist foreign policy and liberal feminism as the basis for analysis in this paper. 

Keywords: feminist foreign policy, Midwives4all Campaign, digital diplomacy, public diplomacy, sweden, Uganda

Topics: Feminisms, Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender, Women, Health, Reproductive Health, Rights, Reproductive Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, Europe, Northern Europe Countries: Sweden, Uganda

Year: 2020

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:

Ali, Nada Mustafa. 2018. “Women, Gender, and Human Rights.” In Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human Rights: History, Politics, Practice, edited by Rajini Srikanth and Elora Halim Chowdhury. Abingdon: Routledge.

Author: Nada Mustafa Ali

Abstract:

This chapter serves three functions. First, it informs readers and invites them to think critically about the relevance of international human rights treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to local struggles to achieve gender equality and women’s human rights settings. The chapter also engages a question I have been grappling with for over two decades: How do we research, write, study, and/or advocate on women’s human rights and gender equality, especially in Global South settings, without reproducing “single story” and “victim-savage-savior” narratives? Without othering women and communities facing human rights abuses, social exclusion, and gender inequality? How do we avoid the trap of ethnocentricism? While such questions are relevant to research and activism on a broad range of issues, including gender-based violence, rape in war, economic marginalization, and political exclusion, I will draw on discussions around female genital mutilation (FGC/M). Focusing on Sudan, I turn to the work of scholars and writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chandra T. Mohanty, and Makau Mutua; and on my research, pedagogy, and activism in engaging this and other questions. I argue that international treaties like CEDAW may constitute important starting points and frameworks that women’s organizations and activists in countries like Sudan may draw upon when advocating for women’s social, economic, and political rights. However, it is important to recognize the limitations inherent in such frameworks. It is crucial that our research and advocacy do not contribute to reinforcing negative stereotypes about women and communities. It is also important to learn from experiences elsewhere, and to avoid the pitfalls associated with transnational feminist organizing.

Topics: Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights

Year: 2018

Citation:

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2003. Feminism without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.

Author: Chandra Talpade Mohanty

Annotation:

Summary:
Bringing together classic and new writings of the trailblazing feminist theorist Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Feminism without Borders addresses some of the most pressing and complex issues facing contemporary feminism. Forging vital links between daily life and collective action and between theory and pedagogy, Mohanty has been at the vanguard of Third World and international feminist thought and activism for nearly two decades. This collection highlights the concerns running throughout her pioneering work: the politics of difference and solidarity, decolonizing and democratizing feminist practice, the crossing of borders, and the relation of feminist knowledge and scholarship to organizing and social movements. Mohanty offers here a sustained critique of globalization and urges a reorientation of transnational feminist practice toward anticapitalist struggles.

Feminism without Borders opens with Mohanty's influential critique of western feminism ("Under Western Eyes") and closes with a reconsideration of that piece based on her latest thinking regarding the ways that gender matters in the racial, class, and national formations of globalization. In between these essays, Mohanty meditates on the lives of women workers at different ends of the global assembly line (in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States); feminist writing on experience, identity, and community; dominant conceptions of multiculturalism and citizenship; and the corporatization of the North American academy. She considers the evolution of interdisciplinary programs like Women's Studies and Race and Ethnic Studies; pedagogies of accommodation and dissent; and transnational women's movements for grassroots ecological solutions and consumer, health, and reproductive rights. Mohanty's probing and provocative analyses of key concepts in feminist thought—"home," "sisterhood," "experience," "community"—lead the way toward a feminism without borders, a feminism fully engaged with the realities of a transnational world. (Summary from Duke University Press)

Topics: Citizenship, Class, Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Race, Rights

Year: 2003

Citation:

Amanor-Wilks, Dede-Esi. 2009. “Land, Labour and Gendered Livelihoods in a 'Peasant' and a 'Settler' Economy”. Feminist Africa 12: 31-50.

Author: Dede-Esi Amanor-Wilks

Annotation:

“Africa historically has been land-abundant and labour-scarce. The situation in Africa contrasts with that in Asia, which has historically been labour-abundant and land-scarce. And it means that until relatively recently, land scarcity was not a major problem for African producers. In spite of this, we can surmise that access to land for women, or more crucially control over land, has been an issue for as long as patriarchy has existed. This is because labour applied to land creates capital; therefore land is a crucial source of power, whereas patriarchy is essentially the monopolisation of power by men. Yet there exists a perception that women in West Africa have more secure land rights than do women in East and Southern Africa. This article seeks explanations for this perception, from a framework of the peasant-settler dichotomy in Africa. While there is a growing literature on women’s land rights in Africa that makes no distinction between the former “peasant” and “settler” colonies, in African historiography generally, a major distinction has been drawn between them. We thus have separate literatures on “peasant” and “settler” economies of Africa that rarely speak to each other, and comparative African studies rarely cross the peasant-settler divide (Amanor-Wilks, 2006 and forthcoming). The main difference between “peasant” (or “peasant export”) and “settler” colonies is that in the former, land remained in the hands of African producers, who dominated local and export agricultural production. In the settler colonies by contrast, prime lands were expropriated to European settlers, who competed directly with Africans in both food and export production. Alongside the question of differential gender access to land across the peasant-settler divide, this article considers two sets of questions on which there is division in the literature on land tenure and gender justice. Is customary law harmful to women’s land rights or should it be codified to protect women’s land rights? Is access to land for women “negotiated”, or are access and control products more of social conflict? The hypothesis of this article is that the assumption that access is negotiated works best in conditions of relative land abundance and that in conditions of scarcity, it is social conflict that produces change.” (Amanor-Wilks 2009, 31-2).

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Land Tenure, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa

Year: 2009

Citation:

Nyahunda, Louis, Jabulani Calvin Makhubele, Vincent Mabvurira, and Frans Koketso Matlakala. 2020. “Vulnerabilities and Inequalities Experienced by Women in the Climate Change Discourse in South Africa’s Rural Communities: Implications for Social Work.” The British Journal of Social Work. doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcaa118.

Authors: Louis Nyahunda, Jabulani Calvin Makhubele, Vincent Mabvurira, Frans Koketso Matlakala

Abstract:

Women’s vulnerability to climate-induced shocks hinges on a high dependence on climate-sensitive livelihoods and a natural resource base aggravated by the acute inequalities that they experience due to patriarchal dominance. This article’s purpose is to unpack the vulnerabilities and inequalities that rural women experience in the climate change terrain which necessitates the involvement of the social work profession. This study adopted a qualitative methodology guided by a multi-case study design. A sample of twenty-five participants, including community members and social workers, participated in the study. These participants were selected through simple purposive and convenient sampling techniques. Data were collected using focus group discussions and individual interviews. The thematic content analysis was followed to analyse the findings. The study established that rural women are impacted by various vulnerabilities and inequalities in the climate change discourse, which serve as barriers to their effective adaptation. The vulnerabilities and inequalities manifest through lack of land and property rights, discrimination from decision-making processes, poverty and lack of adequate knowledge about climate change mitigation and adaptation. Social work involvement to address these catastrophes is scant in the Vhembe district in Limpopo province, South Africa. The study recommends that all climate change interventions should put an end to inequalities women experience in order for them to be effective and social workers should be at the frontline of such initiative.

Keywords: climate change, Inequalities, rural women, social work, Vhembe district, vulnerabilities

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights, Property Rights Regions: Africa, Southern Africa Countries: South Africa

Year: 2020