Patriarchy

Citation:

Lanegran, Kim, and Goran Hyden. 1993. “Mapping the Politics of AIDS: Illustrations from East Africa.” Population and Environment 14 (3): 245-63.

Authors: Kim Lanegran, Goran Hyden

Topics: Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Health, HIV/AIDS Regions: Africa, East Africa

Year: 1993

Citation:

Afary, Janet. 2007. “Seeking a Feminist Politics for the Middle East after September 11.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 4 (1): 1–31.

Author: Janet Afary

Topics: Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Gender Equality/Inequality, Governance, Political Participation Regions: MENA, Asia, Middle East

Year: 2007

Citation:

Vopni, Vicki. 2006. “Young Women’s Experiences with Reporting Sexual Assault to Police.” Canadian Woman Studies 25 (1/2): 107–15.

Author: Vicki Vopni

Abstract:

The literature has well documented women's largely negative experiences of reporting to the police. The prosecution of rapists has been termed "the second rape" because the victim is "twice traumatized"-once by the offender, and then again by the authorities. Research in the area substantiates that as "gatekeepers" to the criminal legal process, police officers play a vital role. The police evaluate sexual assault cases using the same societal standards that have established the "real rape" as genuine and true. Changing the nature of cases brought to the criminal justice system would encourage a re-definition of policing away from the traditional crime-fighting model that many feminists (and others) find problematic (Gartner and Macmillan 423). The larger issue is that the entrenched patriarchal values in our society tolerate and accept some degree of male violence against women. Holding only a handful of perpetrators accountable for their actions does little to curb the widespread incidence of woman abuse. As a result, many young women struggle with naming their experience as a sexual assault when they apply the narrow societal standards of the "real rape." The high incidence of sexual assault among women, especially young adolescents, coupled with the fact that it is severely underreported is a cause for serious concern.

Topics: Gender, Women, Gender-Based Violence, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Justice, Security Sector Reform, Sexual Violence, Rape, SV against Women

Year: 2006

Citation:

Yoon, Mi Yung. 2004. “Explaining Women’s Legislative Representation in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 29 (3): 447–68. doi:10.3162/036298004X201258.

Author: Mi Yung Yoon

Abstract:

This study examines the relative impacts of social, economic, cultural, and political determinants on women's legislative representation in sub-Saharan Africa by using an ordinary least squares multiple regression model. Under study are sub-Saharan African countries that held democratic legislative elections between January 1990 and June 30, 2001. Only the latest election in each country is included for analysis. My study finds that patriarchal culture, proportional representation systems, and gender quotas are statistically significant. This study, by focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, fills a gap in the extant literature, which has focused on women's legislative representation in advanced industrialized democracies.

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Governance, Quotas, Elections, Political Participation Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, West Africa

Year: 2004

Citation:

Mason, Christine. 2005. “Women, Violence and Nonviolent Resistance in East Timor.” Journal of Peace Research 42 (6): 737–49.

Author: Christine Mason

Abstract:

A growing literature in peace and conflict studies assesses the relationship between women and nonviolence. Numerous national liberation fronts and academic critiques assess how women participate in nonviolent resistance from Tibet and West Papua to Palestine and Eritrea. However, many liberation struggles that include female nonviolent resistance remain undocumented, and this article aims to delve into one case study in particular. The article examines the nonviolent roles adopted by women in the East Timorese liberation struggle, a national liberation movement in which the participation of female combatants was low but nonviolent participation by women in the resistance movement overall was high. However, the consequences for such women was, and remains, shaped by the overarching patriarchal structures of both the Indonesian occupiers and East Timorese society itself. Female nonviolent resistance was met with highly violent responses from Indonesian troops, especially in the form of rape and sexual exploitation. Yet, this study also found that women acting under religious auspices faced less violent responses overall. Interviews with East Timorese women are used to reveal some of the sexual dynamics of nonviolent action and reprisal. This material is placed in the context of theoretical work on gender, violence and nonviolence.

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Nonviolence, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Regions: Oceania Countries: Timor-Leste

Year: 2005

Citation:

Razack, Sherene. 2005. “How Is White Supremacy Embodied? Sexualized Racial Violence at Abu Ghraib.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 17 (2): 341–63.

Author: Sherene Razack

Abstract:

The violence inflicted on Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, by both male and female American and British soldiers, was very clearly sexualized. A pyramid of naked male prisoners forced to simulate sodomy conveyed graphically that the project of empire, the West's domination of the non-West, requires strong infusions of a violent heterosexuality and patriarchy. This article explores what we can learn from Abu Ghraib about how empire is embodied and how it comes into existence through multiple systems of domination. In the first part, I discuss the role of visual practices and the making of racial hierarchies a consideration made necessary by the 1,800 photos of torture. In the second part, I consider the violence as a ritual that enables white men to achieve a sense of mastery over the racial other, at the same time that it provides a sexualized intimacy forbidden in white supremacy and patriarchy. In the third part of this article, I consider the role of white women at Abu Ghraib, arguing that it is as members of their race that we can best grasp white women's participation in the violence—a participation that facilitates the same mastery and gendered intimacy afforded to white men who engage in racial violence. In the conclusion, I consider the regime of racial terror in evidence at Abu Ghraib and other places, focusing on terror as a "trade in mythologies" that organizes the way that bodies come to express the racial arrangements of empire.

Keywords: political prisoners, prisons, race, heterosexuality, patriarchy, Torture, sexual violence

Topics: Combatants, Gender, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries, Race, Sexual Violence, Female Perpetrators, Male Perpetrators, Sexual Exploitation and Abuse, SV against Men, SV against Women, Sexuality Regions: MENA, Americas, North America, Asia, Middle East Countries: Iraq, United States of America

Year: 2005

Citation:

Milojevic, Ivana. 2003. “Gender and the 1999 War in and Around Kosovo.” Social Alternatives 22 (2): 28-36.

Author: Ivana Milojevic

Abstract:

No war has taken place without being influenced by society's gender politics. In turn, each war has, as well, influenced gender relationships. But even with all the development of feminist theory, gender is rarely seen as a factor influencing the shape, meaning and prosecution of wars. The 1999 war in and around Kosovo, Serbia was no exception to this. Political and military leaders all claimed to be leading politics in the interest of their people, irrespective of gender. The 1999 war in Kosovo was, in general, seen as gender irrelevant, except, for propaganda purposes where each side stressed out the  suffering of women. This article challenges the gender neutrality of this particular war. It also discusses how gender relationships and masculinities defined by patriarchy influenced this conflict. And lastly, the article concludes by arguing that long-term changes in gender relationships and abandonment of dominant worldview are crucial in building a more peaceful world. To move towards societies that promote more lasting peace it is needed to move both beyond social hierarchical arrangements as well as from international politics that legitimizes violence. Neither is possible without abandoning patriarchy.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Ethnic/Communal Wars, Gender, Women, Masculinity/ies, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Kosovo

Year: 2003

Citation:

Sekhon, Joti. 2006. “Engendering Grassroots Democracy: Research, Training, and Networking for Women in Local Self-Governance in India.” NWSA Journal 18 (2): 101–22. doi:10.1353/nwsa.2006.0041.

Author: Joti Sekhon

Abstract:

The author discusses efforts to promote women's effective participation in electoral politics in rural India as an illustration of feminist politics and participatory democracy. She argues that feminist rethinking of politics and democracy can catalyze women's effective participation and challenge the structures of patriarchy that limit political action and social mobility. The opportunity for women's widespread participation in local elections came as a result of the 73rd Amendment to the Indian Constitution in 1993, reserving 33 percent of elected seats in village councils for female candidates. That alone, however, is not enough, as women are limited by a variety of social, cultural, economic, and political factors, such as traditional gendered expectations of the role and position of women in the family and community, caste and class inequalities, lack of education, and lack of knowledge of the laws. In this article, the author analyzes the role of social movement organizations engaged in participatory action research, training, advocacy, and networking with and for women at the grassroots level. Detailed exposition of the work of Aalochana, a feminist organization in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, provides insight into the possibilities and challenges of feminist politics to engender grassroots democracy.

Keywords: feminist politics, grassroots democracy, participatory democracy, women in politics, women's community-based activism, women and political participation in India, women in panchayati raj or local self-governance in India, feminist networks, gender and grassroots politics

Topics: Caste, Class, Democracy / Democratization, Education, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Governance, Elections, Political Participation Regions: Asia, South Asia Countries: India

Year: 2006

Citation:

Munn, Jamie. 2007. “The Hegemonic Male and Kosovar Nationalism, 2000-2005.” Men and Masculinities 10 (4): 440–56. doi:10.1177/1097184X07306744.

Author: Jamie Munn

Abstract:

The article addresses the link between manhood and nationhood in post-conflict Kosova. Albanian Kosovars, like many “traditionally” patriarchal societies, have constructed identities of the patriotic man and the exalted childbearing woman as icons of national survival. These designated identities often negate the realities of war-affected communities. The gendered places of man and woman in political reality are marred by the traumatic events of conflict and post-conflict life. By thinking about the masculine microcultures of nation building (daily life), especially the construction of over-sexed and under-sexed individuals (i.e., the soldier) and the promiscuous enemies within (i.e., the female rape victim), there develops a connection between monoracial and heterosexual preserves and the need for this society to hold onto the traditional vision of man, at least until there is the political union of nation and state.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Patriarchy, Nationalism, Post-Conflict, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Race, Sexual Violence, Rape, Sexuality Regions: Europe, Balkans, Eastern Europe Countries: Kosovo

Year: 2007

Citation:

Kumar, Deepa. 2004. “War Propaganda and the (Ab)uses of Women: Media Constructions of the Jessica Lynch Story.” Feminist Media Studies 4 (3): 297-313.

Author: Deepa Kumar

Abstract:

The "rescue" of Private Jessica Lynch was one of the most extensively covered events of the 2003 US-led war on Iraq. In the 14 days after her rescue, Lynch drew 919 references in major newspapers. In contrast, General Tommy Franks, who ran the war, got 639 references, and Dick Cheney got 549 (Christopher Hanson 2003). The coverage of the Lynch story continued well into the year and far outstripped that devoted to any other captured or rescued prisoners of war (POWs), making Lynch a household name. This article studies how the Jessica Lynch story was constructed. I examine the conditions under which women in the military become visible and how their stories are told, both by the media and the military. The military, a quintessential patriarchal institution, relies on the construction of a soldier in specifically masculinist terms. While women have always been a part of the military, their presence has been systematically marginalized. Their role has typically been as "camp followers," i.e., service and maintenance workers, rather than those involved in active combat. Lynch stands out as one among a handful of women who have come to symbolize the presence of women in the US army. Yet, this is not a step fonward for women. Instead, the Lynch rescue narrative, I argue, served to forward the aims of war propaganda. The story of the "dramatic" rescue of a young, vulnerable woman, at a time when the war was not going well for the US, acted as the means by which a controversial war could be talked about in emotional rather than rational terms. Furthermore, constructed as hero. Lynch became a symbol of the West's "enlightened" attitude towards women, justifying the argument that the US was "liberating" the people of Iraq. In short, the Lynch story, far from putting forward an image of women's strength and autonomy, reveals yet another mechanism by which they are strategically used to win support for war.

Topics: Armed Conflict, Combatants, Female Combatants, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy, Masculinism, Media, Military Forces & Armed Groups, Militaries Regions: Americas, North America Countries: United States of America

Year: 2004