Germany

Gender Dimensions of Sustainable Consumption

Citation:

Weller, Ines. 2017. “Gender Dimensions of Sustainable Consumption.” In Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment, edited by Sherilyn MacGregor, 331–44. London: Routldege.

Author: Ines Weller

Annotation:

Summary:

Sustainable consumption and production patterns have been prominent issues from the very start of the sustainable development debate. In fact, Agenda 21, the plan of action adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro stated that ‘the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized coun-
tries . . .’ (UN 1992:31). Although the urgent need for fundamental changes in consumption and production patterns, which would transform societies and push them in the direction of sustainable development, has been recognized since that time, particularly in the Global North, there are still very few signs that any such transformation is taking place. World energy consumption grows unabated as global carbon emissions continue to rise. The fundamental inequalities between the Global North and South also remain, despite very high rates of growth in the newly industrialized and developing countries of the Global South in particular (IEA 2013). In this context, and especially in the context of sustainable patterns of consumption and production, the attitudes and behaviours of private citizens and consumers, their perceptions of environmental problems, and associated use of resources all play an important role. Hitherto, however, these debates have neglected the significance of gender, gender relations, and gender justice for sustainable consumption.

In this chapter, I will focus on debates and research in Germany/Western Europe. I begin by introducing the definitions, objectives, and areas of responsibility of various actors for sustainable consumption. This compact overview focuses in particular on the relationship between production and consumption as gendered societal spheres. I then move on to consider the tension that exists between the theory of privatized environmental responsibility, on the one hand, which criticizes tendencies to overstate and moralize the power of private consumers to shape change and, on the other, women as change agents for more sustainable consumption. The next part of the chapter is organized around the distinction, which is useful for analyzing the gender aspects of sustainable consumption, between explicit and implicit gender dimensions. With reference to feminist theorist Sandra Harding (1986), I draw together the individual and structural levels of gender as explicit gender dimensions. Both of these are for the most part based on statistical data and empirical findings, particularly concerning gender differences and, in this respect, link to ambivalence between the analysis of gender and gender hierarchies, on the one hand, and the reproduction of traditional gender images and dichotomies on the other. The discussion focuses in particular on the symbolic conceptual level of gender, which I consider in detail in relation to a specific example. The background is the feminist critique of the claim of the natural sciences to objectivity (Orland and Scheich 1995). Drawing on the example of a study on the volume of food waste, I draw attention to several gender-related ‘blank spaces’ and gaps in the data that have been produced in this field. This emerges more clearly from closer consideration of the treatment given to male-coded production and female-coded consumption. (Summary from original source)

Topics: Development, Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Justice Regions: Europe, Western Europe Countries: Germany

Year: 2017

Migration and Mobility in an Enlarged Europe: A Gender Perspective

Citation:

Metz-Göckel, Sigrid, Mirjana Morokvasic-Müller, and A. Senganata Münst, eds. 2008. Migration and Mobility in an Enlarged Europe: A Gender Perspective. Leverkusen, Germany: Verlag Barbara Budrich.

Authors: Sigrid Metz-Göckel, Mirjana Morokvasic-Müller, A. Senganata Münst

Annotation:

Summary:
The book investigates transnational migration and mobility of women from and within Central-Eastern European countries. It looks at women’s practices and experiences mostly in the service sector where they are in demand as substitutes in stereotypically “women’s work.” The book combines different perspectives: sociological and anthropological studies, comparative policy analysis and historical and statistical evidence and provides new insights into current theoretical debates in migration and gender studies. (Summary from Google Books)
 
Table of Contents:
Gendered Mobilities in an Enlarged Europe – Mirjana Morokvasic, A. Senganata Münst, and Sigrid Metz-Gökel
Female Migration from Central-Eastern Europe: Demographic and Sociological Aspects – Krystyna Slany
Migration Policy between Restrictive Purposes and Structural Demand: The Case of the Domestic Sector in Germany and in Italy – Claudia Finotelli
Whose Status Matters? An Analysis of Italian Couples’ Demand for Domestic Workers and Nannies – Ludovica Banfi
Turning Labour into Love: The Employment of Migrant Domestic Workers in Turkey – Ayse Akalin
Commuting between Private Lives – Dobrochna Kałwa
The Boundaries of Monetarizing Domestic Work: Au Pairs and the Moral Economy of Caring – Sabine Hess
Women’s ‘Just-in-Time’ Migration – David Karjanen
Managing a Mobile Life: Changing Attitudes among Illegally Employed Polish Household Workers in Berlin – Norbert Cyrus
Social Capital in Migration Processes of Polish Undocumented Care- and Household Workers – A. Senganata Münst
Circumventing Restrictions on Free Movement of Labour: Evidence from a Dutch-German Border Region – Roos Pijpers
Women at the Cross-Road: Poland and its Emigration and Immigration – Dorota Praszałowicz
Immigrants in Poland: Legal and Socio-Demographic Situation – Krystyna Slany and Magdalena Ślusarczyk

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Economies, Gender, Gender Roles, Women Regions: Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe Countries: Germany, Italy, Poland

Year: 2008

Energy Consumption by Gender in Some European Countries

Citation:

Räty, R., and A. Carlsson-Kanyama. 2010. “Energy Consumption by Gender in Some European Countries.” Energy Policy 38 (1): 646–9. 

Authors: R. Räty, A. Carlsson-Kanyama

Abstract:

Household total energy use has been estimated in numerous studies in recent decades and differences have mainly been explained by levels of income/expenditure. Studies of gender consumption patterns show that men eat more meat than women and drive longer distances, potentially leading to higher total energy use by men. In this study we calculated the total energy use for male and female consumption patterns in four European countries (Germany, Norway, Greece and Sweden) by studying single households. Significant differences in total energy use were found in two countries, Greece and Sweden. The largest differences found between men and women were for travel and eating out, alcohol and tobacco, where men used much more energy than women. We suggest that these findings are policy relevant for the EU, which aims to mainstream gender issues into all activities and to lower its total energy use.

Keywords: energy, gender, consumption

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Infrastructure, Energy Regions: Europe, Central Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe, Southern Europe Countries: Germany, Greece, Norway, Sweden

Year: 2010

Securing the Nation through the Politics of Sexual Violence: Tracing Resonances between Delhi and Cologne

Citation:

Holzberg, Billy, and Priya Raghavan. 2020. “Securing the Nation through the Politics of Sexual Violence: Tracing Resonances between Delhi and Cologne.” International Affairs 96 (5): 1189–208.

Authors: Billy Holzberg, Priya Raghavan

Abstract:

Postcolonial and black feminist scholars have long cautioned against the dangerous proximity between the politics of sexual violence and the advancement of nationalist and imperial projects. In this article, we uncover what it is in particular about efforts to address sexual violence that makes them so amenable to exclusionary nationalist projects, by attending to the political aftermaths of the rape of Jyoti Singh in Delhi in 2012, and the cases of mass sexual abuse that took place during New Year's Eve in Cologne in 2015. Tracing the nationalist discourses and policies precipitated in their wake, we demonstrate how across both contexts, the response to sexual violence was ultimately to augment the securitizing power and remit of the state—albeit through different mechanisms, and while producing different subjects of/for surveillance, control and regulation. We highlight how in both cases it is through contemporary resonances of a persistent (post)colonial echo—which enmeshes the normative female body with the idea of the nation—that sexual abuse becomes an issue of national security and the politics of sexual violence becomes tethered to exclusionary nationalisms. Revealing the more general, shared, rationalities that bind the nation to the normative female body while attending to the located political reverberations that make this entanglement so affectively potent in the distinct contexts of India and Germany helps distinguish and amplify transnational and intersectional feminist approaches to sexual violence that do not so readily accommodate nationalist ambitions.

Topics: Coloniality/Post-Coloniality, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Intersectionality, Nationalism, Security, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, SV against Women Regions: Asia, South Asia, Europe, Central Europe Countries: Germany, India

Year: 2020

Technology Change = Gender Change? Androcentric Construction of Engineering as Symbolic Resource in the German-Speaking Area of Renewable Energies

Citation:

Prietl, Bianca. 2017. “Technology Change = Gender Change? Androcentric Construction of Engineering as Symbolic Resource in the German-Speaking Area of Renewable Energies.” Engineering Studies 9 (1): 3–23.

Author: Bianca Prietl

Abstract:

This paper is concerned with how engineers working in renewable energies in Germany and Austria position themselves and their professional activity within this relatively new field of engineering occupation by mobilizing a specific androcentric construction of engineering as a symbolic resource. Drawing on qualitative interviews, the argument unfolds in three steps: First, the paper reconstructs how engineers draft an image of their professional activity by symbolically aligning it with established understandings of engineering in traditional areas of engineering occupation and by simultaneously distancing it from allegedly ‘other’ notions of engineering practice that are framed as ‘alternative’. The discursive distinction between professional engineering and its alleged ‘alternative’ counterpart constitutes the former as hard, sincere, structured, and reliable activity based on an instrumental rationality. Second, it is shown how the professional/alternative distinction is gendered with ‘the alternative’ being devaluated and feminized. Consequently, it is argued that there is an implicit association between the discursively constituted idea of professional engineering and masculinity. Third, this discursive construction of engineering is interpreted as a symbolic resource in the engineers’ claim to be recognized as professional actors within renewable energies and, thus, in their struggle for favourable positions within this social field of power.

Keywords: renewable energies, discursive struggle for power, implicit masculinity construction, engineering

Topics: Gender, Masculinity/ies, Femininity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Infrastructure, Energy, Livelihoods Regions: Europe, Central Europe, Western Europe Countries: Austria, Germany

Year: 2017

Do Welfare State Taxes and Transfers Reduce Gender Income Inequality? Evidence from Eight European Countries

Citation:

Avraam, Silvia and Daria Popova. 2020. “Do Welfare State Taxes and Transfers Reduce Gender Income Inequality? Evidence from Eight European Countries.” Working Paper EM 09/20, EuroMod at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, Essex.

Authors: Silvia Avraam, Daria Popova

Abstract:

We complement the institutional literature on gender and the welfare state by examining how taxes and transfers affect the incomes of men and women. Using microsimulation and intra-household income splitting rules, we measure the differences in the level and composition of individual disposable incomes of men and women in eight European countries covering various welfare regime types. We quantify the extent to which taxes and transfers are able to close the gender gap in earnings, as well as which policy instruments contribute most to reducing the gap. We find that with the exception of old- age pensions, taxes and transfers – both contributory and means-tested – significantly reduce gender income inequality but cannot compensate for high gender earnings gaps. The equalizing effect of benefits is higher than that of taxes but varies significantly not only across countries but also across groups with different demographic characteristics. 

Keywords: gender inequality, income distribution, welfare state, social policy, Europe

Topics: Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Households Regions: Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Nordic states, Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe Countries: Belgium, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Romania, Spain, United Kingdom

Year: 2020

Gender Matters: Women, Renewable Energy, and Citizen Participation in Germany

Citation:

Fraune, Cornelia. 2015. “Gender Matters: Women, Renewable Energy, and Citizen Participation in Germany.” Energy Research & Social Science 7: 55–65.

Author: Cornelia Fraune

Abstract:

This study investigates how the larger social, cultural, and political context fosters and constrains citizens’ agency to take part in citizen participation schemes in renewable electricity production (RES-E). Based on a comprehensive review of research on gender and energy, hypotheses about gender differences in involvement in citizen participation schemes in RES-E are derived. These are tested statistically on the basis of data gathered in the context of a pilot study. The results reveal differences between women and men in the average ownership rate of citizen participation schemes, the average investment sum and decision-making bodies. In contrast, findings on gender differences in the amount of capital assets invested per capita are inconclusive. This study gives an indication that beyond individual preferences and investment attitudes, cultural, social and political factors also influence an individual’s agency to participate in RES-E operated by citizens’ associations.

Keywords: energy transformation, citizen participation schemes, renewable energy, production, gender, social context

Topics: Gender, Governance, Households, Infrastructure, Energy Regions: Europe, Central Europe Countries: Germany

Year: 2015

Engendering Cities: Designing Sustainable Urban Spaces for All

Citation:

Sánchez de Madariaga, Inés, and Michael Neuman, eds. 2020. Engendering Cities: Designing Sustainable Urban Spaces for All. New York: Routledge.

Authors: Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, Michael Neuman

Annotation:

Summary: 
Engendering Cities examines the contemporary research, policy, and practice of designing for gender in urban spaces. Gender matters in city design, yet despite legislative mandates across the globe to provide equal access to services for men and women alike, these issues are still often overlooked or inadequately addressed. This book looks at critical aspects of contemporary cities regarding gender, including topics such as transport, housing, public health, education, caring, infrastructure, as well as issues which are rarely addressed in planning, design, and policy, such as the importance of toilets for education and clothes washers for freeing-up time. In the first section, a number of chapters in the book assess past, current, and projected conditions in cities vis-à-vis gender issues and needs. In the second section, the book assesses existing policy, planning, and design efforts to improve women’s and men’s concerns in urban living. Finally, the book proposes changes to existing policies and practices in urban planning and design, including its thinking (theory) and norms (ethics).
 
The book applies the current scholarship on theory and practice related to gender in a planning context, elaborating on some critical community-focused reflections on gender and design. It will be key reading for scholars and students of planning, architecture, design, gender studies, sociology, anthropology, geography, and political science. It will also be of interest to practitioners and policy makers, providing discussion of emerging topics in the field. (Summary from Routledge)

Table of Contents:
1.Planning the Gendered City
Inés Sánchez de Madariaga and Michael Neuman

2.A Gendered View of Mobility and Transport: Next Steps and Future Directions
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris

3.Gendered Mobility Patterns of Carers in Austria
Bente Knoll and Teresa Schwaninge

4.Violence Against Women in Moving Transportation in Indian Cities: Reconceptualising Gendered Transport Policy
Yamini Narayanan

5.Planning Mobility in Portugal with a Gender Perspective
Margarida Queirós and Nuno Marques da Costa

6.Implementation of Gender and Diversity Perspectives in Transport Development Plans in Germany
Elena von den Driesch, Linda Steuer, Tobias Berg, and Carmen Leicht-Scholten

7.Why Low-Income Women in the U.S. Need Automobiles
Evelyn Blumenberg

8.Public Toilets: The Missing Component in Designing Sustainable Urban Spaces for Women
Clara Greed

9.Are Safe Cities Just Cities? A Perspective from France
Lucile Biarrotte and Claire Hancock

10.Everyday Life Experiences of Afghan Immigrant Women as Representation of their Place of Belonging in Auckland
Roja Tafaroji

11.Gender Mainstreaming in the Regional Discourse over the Future of the Ruhr Metropolitan Area: Implementation of Gender Mainstreaming in Planning Processes
Jeanette Sebrantke, Mechtild Stiewe, Sibylle Kelp-Siekmann, and Gudrun Kemmler-Lehr

12.An Analysis of EU Urban Policy from the Perspective of Gender
Sonia De Gregorio Hurtado

13.Gender Mainstreaming Urban Planning and Design Processes in Greece
Charis Christodoulou

14.Gendering the Design of Cities in Aotearoa New Zealand: Are We There Yet?
Dory Reeves, Julie Fairey, Jade Kake, Emma McInnes, and Eva Zombori

15.Gender Impact Assessments, a Tool for the Implementation of the New Urban Agenda: The Case of Madrid Nuevo Norte
Ines Novella Abril

16.Gender and the Urban in the 21st Century: Paving Way to ‘Another’ Gender Mainstreaming
Camilla Perrone

17.Epilogue: Unifying Difference and Equality Concepts to Buttress Policy
Inés Sánchez de Madariaga

Topics: Displacement & Migration, Migration, Urban Displacement, Development, Economies, Care Economies, Economic Inequality, Gender, Gender-Based Violence, Gender Mainstreaming, Health, Infrastructure, Transportation, Urban Planning, Water & Sanitation Regions: Americas, North America, Asia, South Asia, Europe, Central Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe, Oceania Countries: Austria, Germany, Greece, India, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, United States of America

Year: 2020

Take Back the Future: Global Feminisms and the Coming Crisis of the Beijing Settlement

Citation:

Ergas, Yasmine. 2019. "Take Back the Future: Global Feminisms and the Coming Crisis of the Beijing Settlement." Journal of International Affairs 72 (2): 19-36

Author: Yasmine Ergas

Annotation:

Summary:
"In April 2019, the United States threatened to use its veto in the UN Security Council (UNSC). That was not an unusual move: the Permanent Five members of the UNSC often exercise their right to block a United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR). But what was striking in this case was the content of the resolution against which the US felt both compelled and legitimated to invoke what is, in effect, the Council’s “nuclear option.” Did the draft Resolution introduced by Germany—a US ally—threaten U.S. national security? Did it undermine a friendly nation? In fact, Germany proposed to do neither. Rather, it sought to establish a working group within the UNSC on sexual violence in conflict, and generally strengthen the Council’s monitoring of related processes. Why, then, did the US object? As importantly, why did feminist groups also voice concern about the German initiative? While further research is needed to answer these questions, this essay views the U.S. position on Germany’s draft resolution as an expression of the stance taken by the U.S. administration and other states toward what one could term the “Beijing Settlement,” the general, albeit always contested, consensus rhetorically encapsulated in the slogan that “women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights,” which emerged from the fourth world conference on women in 1995. The U.S. administration’s stance is reflective of a broad backlash against gender-related rights, including both women’s rights generally and all persons’ rights related to sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, and sexual characteristics" (Ergas 2019, 19).

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, International Organizations, Rights, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Sexual Violence, Sexuality, UN Security Council Resolutions on WPS Regions: Americas, North America, Europe, Central Europe Countries: Germany, United States of America

Year: 2019

Syrian Refugees in Germany: Gendered Narratives of Border Crossings

Isis Nusair

September 27, 2018

Campus Center, Room 3550B, UMass Boston

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This event is being cosponsored by the UMass Boston CLA Dean's Office; Department of Anthropology; Department of Conflict Resolution, Human Security and Global Governance; Department of History; Department of Political Science; Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Honors College; the Sociology Club; the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies; and the William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences.

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