Critical Feminist Approach Research Articles

Credentialing care: COVID‐19 and the bureaucratization of doulas

AbstractDoulas in the United States offer embodied, informational, and continuous one‐on‐one care to birthing people. Doulas have historically sought certification to gain knowledge through training and to gain legitimacy for healthcare providers and clients. During the COVID‐19 pandemic, hospitals required doulas to provide proof of certification. The COVID‐19 pandemic, and the proliferation of state‐sponsored doula programs, has sparked a shift in how doulas are viewed and regulated, enabling new forms of bureaucratic oversight and control. Based on participant observation, surveys, and semi‐structured interviews, we examine the connection between certification and care including motivations doulas have for certification, the perceived value of certification, certification as a form of gatekeeping, and increased bureaucratization of doulas. Using a critical feminist approach, we argue that increased bureaucratization and surveillance of doulas has not improved standards of care or led to more equitable access. Indeed, doulas provide a window into the negative impact of bureaucratization on care. While some of these negative impacts are byproducts of policies intended to increase oversight and access to doula care, we argue that increased bureaucratization and surveillance of doulas is also intended to act as a gatekeeping mechanism demonstrating how policies contribute to uneven reproduction.

With a Little Help from Our Friends: Applying a Critical Friends Orientation to Critical Literature Reviews

ABSTRACTThis paper describes how we developed and applied an exploratory critical friends orientation to a critical literature review that explores how feminist theories and approaches have been used in archival studies literature and reports on insights generated by this method. A critical friend is a trusted ally and critic who both values our ideas and can push them forward. Our “critical friends” critical literature review includes two parts; using traditional critical review methods we identify and synthesize how critical feminist approaches have been employed in archival studies literature. Atypically, and in part two, we also pay attention to those scholarly articles that discussed relevant or related concepts but were ultimately excluded from our final literature review corpus during the appraisal process. These peripheral articles act as critical friends to the research area under review. We describe how this approach identifies disciplinary boundaries and traditions and explores areas of overlap across intersecting and adjacent fields. A critical friends approach allows us to generously interpret and analyze the complex concepts of “feminisms” and “archives” across disciplinary fields in order to identify, learn from, and engage across fields that have much in common as well as fundamental differences.

Examining the legacy of the ‘old boys club’ in high performance coaching

ABSTRACT Sport is a breeding ground for exclusionary gendered discourses and this trend is evident within the coaching cultures of numerous national sports organisations in New Zealand. Drawing on an organisational case study of a New Zealand national sports organisation (NSO) data were collected through thirteen semi-structured interviews and observations with coaches and staff in the NSO. Engaging in a critical feminist approach, this paper explores the various ways in which women’s exclusion from high-performance coaching roles was maintained, reflecting critically on the extent to which hegemonic masculinity was reproduced within the organisation’s coaching history and culture. Specifically, we illustrate the ‘felt’ dimensions of gender exclusion, highlighting how women’s absence from coaching is not through choice but is reflective of the gendered power dynamics of coaching. Together, the analysis demonstrates the institutionalisation of hegemonic masculinity and the mechanisms through which this is maintained, solidified and undermined. This study, while focusing on a particular NSO, offers insights that extend to male-dominated sporting systems across New Zealand, bringing to light the challenges encountered by women coaches within high-performance sport.

Uncovering Right-Wing Digital Enclaves and Reactionary Politics: A Feminist Multi-Method Examination of a Transplatform Campaign

ABSTRACT In October 2021, an advertisement for a fairness cream by the Indian company Dabur ignited a fierce controversy, unveiling deeply ingrained ideologies of lesbophobia, misogyny, colorism, casteism, and Hindu victimhood. The ad, featuring a lesbian couple performing the Hindu ritual of Karwa Chauth after using the skin whitening cream, sparked criticism for its attempt to integrate same-sex couples into mainstream Hindu society through skin tone modification and heteronormative religious rituals. This paper highlights a critical feminist approach to the use of data analytics tools. The data we examined closely in this manner helped us uncover transplatform strategies employed in the production of homophilous affective right-wing digital enclaves. The data from Twitter provided us an entry point. This work reveals a transplatform campaign supporting right-wing reactionary politics, uncovering networks spreading misogyny, lesbophobia, casteism, colorism, and a sense of Hindu victimhood.

Investigating Ofsted’s inclusion of cultural capital in early years inspections

In 2019 Ofsted introduced cultural capital (CC) into the Early Years Inspection Handbook and defined it as ‘essential knowledge’ related to ‘educated citizenship’. This paper investigates Ofsted’s use of CC to critically examine the potential implications for early years work. Due to the feminised nature of early years work, a critical feminist approach is engaged to explore the potential impact of introducing CC into the regulation of the sector. This paper examines the differences between Ofsted’s use of CC, CC’s theoretical origins, and analyses sector responses. Our contention is that how Ofsted have employed CC may represent ‘symbolic violence’ against the working-class women working in the early years, by further devaluing their habitus and sustaining the stratification of society through forms of capital. This paper is the first to interrogate CC in Ofsted’s early years documentation, and will have an international impact for any countries following UK education practices.

Reading-through be-longing: Towards a methodology for political sciences otherwise

ABSTRACT Inspired by critical feminist, decolonial, and narrative approaches, this paper invites political sciences scholars to engage in different forms of knowledges (unlearning Western-centrism by centering Asia), (collective) methodology, and data collection (centering stories). We offer a pathway to political sciences otherwise, i.e., “as if people matter” and propose reading-through as a methodology for open-ended sensemaking at the service of pluriversal co-existence, prioritizing life in/and dignity over mastery or singular truths and fact-finding. Reading-through encompasses diverse practices of meeting, co-reading, and co-writing, including exchanging thoughts on fictional/scientific stories in a “live” epistolary process paper. To articulate the substantive purchase of reading-through, we engage a selection of novels—Szabo’s The Door, Faye’s Small Country, Thúy’s Ru, and, especially Lee’s Pachinko, a woman-centered multigenerational story on the Korean and wider (north)East Asian colonial/diasporic experience in the twentieth century—and revisit the political sciences theme of belonging as be-longing otherwise. Rather than offering a definitive blueprint for Political Sciences otherwise, this paper seeks a deeper understanding of how method and methodology are an integral, co-constitutive part of our capacity to fundamentally rethink learned disciplinary conventions towards scholarship “as if people matter.”

Women’s Experiences of Perinatal Anxiety: A Critical Feminist Approach

OBJECTIVE:Perinatal anxiety is a prevalent mental health issue with implications for the well-being of women and their children. There is a scarcity of research that considers perinatal anxiety as a standalone mental health issue or explores the lived experiences of women with perinatal anxiety.METHODS:In-depth interviews were carried out with nine mothers who had a lived experience of perinatal anxiety. The women were recruited from South East Queensland, Australia, and were either pregnant and/or parenting a child under the age of five. Data from the interviews were analyzed through a process of thematic analysis to identify key themes in the lived experiences of anxious mothers. Critical feminist theory informed all the aspects of the study.RESULTS:Analysis of the data revealed four key themes: Good Motherhood, Warning Signs, Mental Health Literacy, and Strengths and Support, and seven subthemes: The Birthing Experience, Irritable Infants, Sleep, Breastfeeding, Social Isolation, Barriers to Help Seeking, and Social Roles. Anxiety was found to complicate the experience of motherhood, with the pressure to present as a “good mother” resulting in a reluctance to seek help. Experiences such as birthing, feeding, and sleeping were risk factors for triggering or exacerbating anxiety. Experiences of perinatal anxiety were further complicated by poor mental health literacy and inconsistencies in the care provided by health professionals. Anxious mothers expressed a need for holistic, multidisciplinary mental healthcare, with residential options during times of struggle or crisis.CONCLUSION:Findings reveal the complex context of motherhood and mental illness and identify barriers and opportunities for the multidisciplinary mental healthcare of anxious mothers. A holistic, multidisciplinary response to perinatal anxiety is recommended.

Critical Feminist Approaches to Migration and Mobility Justice in Canada: Guest Editors' Introduction

<p>This themed section examines how inequality constrain and enable contemporary human movement at state border crossings. It responds directly to questions, practices, and knowledge gaps that arise from critical migration/refugee studies, critical tourism studies, border studies, and/or mobility justice research by denaturalizing assumptions about the rights of some to choose to move across borders freely and others who are forced to leave, denied access, or detained. In so doing, we highlight research on human mobilities and borders in Canada to advance understandings on the dynamics of territorial control and access to state borders. What links the articles is the commitment to examining the reproduction of power through the following three shared understandings and starting points: (1) a critique of the Canadian nation state’s global reputation as exceptionally humanitarian (Nguyen and Phu 2021); (2) a consideration of the global entanglements of racial capitalism and colonialism that structures human movement (Gutiérrez Rodríguez 2018); and (3) an understanding that the mobilities of some and the immobilities of others coexist and are in fact co-produced (Ahmed et al. 2020; Bauman 1998; Sheller 2018).</p><p> </p>

The multiplicity, contradictions, and shifting status of widowhood in post-earthquake Nepal

This study brings a critical feminist approach to intersectional disaster research. It draws on qualitative research conducted in Nepal’s mid-hill region to centralize the experiences of widows, or single women, during and after the 2015 earthquakes. Through an intersectional lens, I deconstruct the monolithic experience of widowhood in Nepal to examine the messiness of reality and the possibility of different or even contradictory experiences in a post-disaster context. Intertwining social identities and factors beyond the trifecta of gender, marital status, and caste—such as family support, age, location, education, class, migration, property ownership, citizenship, experience in the public sphere, and NGO support—create a complex constellation of intersectionality that determined single women’s post-earthquake experiences and their access to post-disaster recovery. I find that the government’s post-earthquake housing reconstruction relief, which was predicated on property ownership, added a layer of systematic discrimination for many single women. Simultaneously, the post-earthquake development context provided a space for some single women to unite in a collective identity, facilitating a shift of longstanding stigma and an emerging renegotiation of what it means to “be a widow” in Nepal.

Environmental sustainability and social justice in Higher Education: a critical (eco)feminist service-learning approach in sports sciences

ABSTRACT Education for environmental and social sustainability in Higher Education requires a new approach that encompasses both care for nature and social inclusion. Ecopedagogy offers a critical framework within which to provide specific teaching and learning initiatives. In particular, this article aims to explore the effects of a critical (eco)feminist approach implemented through a critical feminist service-learning program. We use a qualitative study with an ethnographic-interpretative approach. The results show an increase in awareness and sensitivity towards environmental education and social justice in the students’ understanding, attitude, and commitment to sustainability. Institutional limitations were also detected, leading to a reduction in the opportunities for achieving optimal results that would create a global meaning and a real application of the teachings for sustainability and social justice.

Freighted Friendships to Phony Flowers: Feminist Memory Work and Self-Study in a Study Abroad Program

Background: This paper analyzes a remembered shared experience of cocurricular designing and coteaching an experiential learning pilot project in a university study abroad program (SAP) that emphasized social justice. Purpose: We look back because the pilot program is a significant demonstration of what complexities can arise when feminist educators bring their own politics and pedagogies to experiential learning and study abroad education contexts; we understand this as valuable because “experience” broadly is complex. Memory is crucial to feminist educators because it indicates the development of care, ethics, pedagogy, politics, and priorities, and so, we ask: what pedagogical insights can be gained through revisiting our enmeshed personal/professional memories of cocurricular designing and coteaching an experiential learning series for study abroad students? Methodology: We use self-study and memory work to analyze memory objects (curriculum materials) and narratives (of teaching) to explore this pedagogical work and highlight generative tensions that emerged while employing a critical feminist approach to work not initially conceptualized with this framing. Findings: We uncovered three key tensions: personal, community, and racial that troubled emergent issues related to difference, discourse, and positionality. Implications: This project offers pedagogical insights into how oppression and inequality may enter experiential learning and study abroad spaces.

Fire Safety in Informal Settlements: A Gendered Framework of Fire Justice.

People living in informal settlements, whether in urban or tented environments, face daily risks of injury and loss of life or property due to preventable fires. Currently, research and practice in the field of fire risk and prevention within informal settlements centres on technical interventions and solutions. While developments in materials, response and urban planning, for example, are an important aspect of reducing the effects of fire, the gendered framework for fire justice presented in this paper challenges the dominance of such technical solutions which neglect social dimensions of vulnerability to fire risk. Rethinking fire risk through gender can ensure strategies and systems of fire safety are situated, and informed by the range of people who experience fire and burns risk. The multidisciplinary framework engages with critical feminist approaches to disaster, vulnerability analysis and education, arguing for a gendered framework of fire justice that presents new possibilities for how fire risk and safety are understood and responded to by the range of stakeholders and actors who seek to reduce the instances and impact of fire on already marginalised populations, including those living in informal settlements.

Designing a Greedy and Earth-Devouring Cat: Towards a Critical Feminist Approach to Gamification

ABSTRACT In recent years, gamification has been widely implemented for sharing knowledge about, making sense of, and imaging futures. This article considers how gamification could be mobilised as a feminist method of futures. It presents a case study of making the idle game Square Cat in which a cat destroys and devours the entire earth. Much of the existing work on gamification examines games and gamified apps that have already been produced. The case study offers different insights into gamification practices by providing an account of the process of designing and developing an experimental game. Square Cat makes visible and bodily felt the ambiguous affective dynamics of the asset-driven logic of late capitalism, and how it shapes human-environment relations. It parodies the embodied habituation of repetition and reward feedback, dramatises idle games’ structure of accumulation, and rejects the narrative of linear progress. In so doing, it reworks the binary logic of game and asks to entertain a form of play where the relation between winning and losing, subject and object, becomes confounded, and where futures are multiple even as the game’s beginning and end appear predetermined.

Gender, faith, education, and family background in the United Arab Emirates: A case study of women professionals

This paper explores some of the reasons behind the remarkable accomplishments of five women managers in higher education settings in the United Arab Emirates: despite four of them being brought up in extremely humble, poor, albeit nurturing environments. It adopts a critical feminist approach via narrative analysis of interviews with the five women, drawing out key themes around their family backgrounds, education, and Islamic faith, juxtaposing these against the literature. It finds that in all the five women, their backgrounds instilled a remarkable tenacity, resilience, and drive to succeed against the odds; but that they remain major exceptions in Emirati society, despite the government's work over recent decades to provide greater leadership opportunities for women in the workplace. The women encountered a host of cultural obstacles on their way up, from both their families and later, in their professional lives. This study observes that, while their stories are inspirational for all women and girls, especially those living in the Gulf region, there is clearly still a huge amount of work to be done by policymakers. The paper makes recommendations in such regard, highlighting the pressing need for the private sector to follow in the government's footsteps and provide more opportunities for women at executive levels in leadership and management.

How cosmetic apps fragmentise and metricise the female face: A multimodal critical discourse analysis

In the present time, we see a rapid development of so-called cosmetic apps promoted by prominent cosmetic companies. Although there is an emerging market for male consumers, these apps are marketed as technological innovations designed to analyse, rate and evaluate mainly women’s facial appearances through the submission of a selfie. Based on the results generated from the selfie, personalised solutions are offered in the form of recommended products to supposedly help women improve their appearances. Drawing on a critical feminist approach and using multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), the aim of this article is to study how these evaluations are semiotically reproduced and presented to the users. The paper examines in detail how apps convey the evaluation process and transform a selfie into measures, presented through diagrams and charts, that is, how the female face is fragmented and metricised. Coming with affordances of being systematic, exact and scientific, these infographics assign the facial evaluations with meaning. A key argument is that these cosmetic apps are changing the way women are implied to consider and control their (facial) appearance. Following neoliberal notions, the apps put strong pressure on women to take the responsibility to engage in intensive forms of aesthetic labour and to consume the ‘right’ products to appear as the best versions of themselves.

A Space of One’s Own? The Tensions of Being Visible on Instagram for Turkish Female Athletes

In this study, we seek to understand how Turkish female athletes who are active on Instagram experience cyber violence, the cultural context of that violence, and the ways in which athletes negotiate and struggle with violence via a critical feminist approach. We analyze data obtained via individual, in-depth interviews with 15 athletes using the thematic analysis method. The findings show that active use of Instagram brings with it experiences of cyber sexual harassment and online and offline stalking. Turkey’s neo-conservative, religious, and patriarchal gender regime does not allow the interviewees to post freely on Instagram. Findings also reveal the presence of digital emotional labor, which is an important part of the athletic labor of femininity, in the struggle of participants to use Instagram as their own safe and free space. Consequently, although the participants have a fear of being exposed to violence in the real world due to their cyber violence experiences, or even fear death from time to time due to their Instagram posts, they nevertheless strive to use this space freely and break the control over their bodies.

Menstrual health and management during the COVID-19 syndemic in the Barcelona area (Spain): A qualitative study.

Available evidence suggests that menstrual health and management have been impaired during the COVID-19 syndemic. However, research in this area is scarce, and it is failing to voice the experiences of women and people who menstruate regarding their menstrual experiences. This study aimed to explore the experiences of menstrual health and menstrual management among women and people who menstruate in the Barcelona area (Spain) during the COVID-19 syndemic. This is a qualitative study, conducted taking a critical feminist approach, is embedded in the 'Equity and Menstrual Health in Spain' project. It includes photo-elicitation individual interviews with 34 women and people who menstruate in the area of Barcelona (Spain). Data were collected in person and through telephone calls between December 2020 and February 2021. Analyses were performed using Thematic Analysis. Main findings navigated through the menstrual changes experienced by some participants, especially women living with long COVID-19, and the barriers to access healthcare and menstrual products during COVID-19. While some participants experienced menstrual poverty, this did not appear to be exacerbated during COVID-19. Instead, access to menstrual products was compromised based on products' availability and mobility restrictions. Menstrual management and self-care were generally easier, given that menstrual experiences were almost exclusively relegated to private spaces during lockdown periods. Our findings highlight the need to further research and policy efforts towards promoting menstrual health and equity, considering social determinants of health, and taking intersectional and gender-based approaches. These strategies should be further encouraged in social and health crises such as the COVID-19 syndemic.

Problematiek rakende ‘opofferende en reinigende liefde’ in die bruid-en-bruidegom-metafoor (Ef 5:22–33)

The problematic use of ‘sacrificial and purifying love’ in the metaphor of the bride and bridegroom (Eph 5:22–33). The sacrificial love expected of the bridegroom in Ephesians 5:22–33 is a totally foreign idea in the culture of the first-century Mediterranean world in which the first Christians lived. An argument can be made that the working of the Holy Spirit within the believing men infiltrated the cultural boundaries and expectations with new values such as sacrificial love. However, ‘cleansing love’ as expressed in Ephesians 5:25–28 is an unfamiliar idea, even in our contemporary culture. How can the husband’s love cleanse his wife as Christ cleanses the church? To what extent can the metaphor of the bride and bridegroom be applied to the marital relationship between the present-day man and woman? This article examines the problematic ‘cleansing love’ as portrayed in the metaphor of the bride and bridegroom in Ephesians 5:22–33. A critical investigation is done into the symbolic importance of the bride and bridegroom metaphor for contemporary culture. Schüssler Fiorenza’s (2001) application of the approach of suspicion is followed to interpret the cultural roles assigned to female and male believers from a feminist point of view. The critical feminist approach and its meaning and application to the ancient context of the early Christians in Ephesus serve as the hermeneutical model of this article. Although certain aspects of the bride and bridegroom metaphor, representing Christ as bridegroom and the church as bride, can be applied to the relationship between a Christian bride and bridegroom, there are also aspects of Christ’s relationship with the church, such as his ‘cleansing love’, which cannot realistically apply to the Christian marriage. The husband’s love cannot purify and sanctify the wife (Eph 5:27). Everyone is responsible for his or her own salvation and sanctification. The wife does not need the love of her husband to be in a relationship with Christ, her heavenly bridegroom. Christ’s love cleansed the church, which consists of male and female believers. The love that Jesus demonstrated on the cross, should result in equality among all people.Contribution: The sacrificial and cleansing love of the bridegroom as portrayed in the metaphor of the bride and bridegroom in Ephesians 5 is problematic regarding the gender roles in contemporary marriages. A critical interpretation of the relevant metaphor respects the integrity of the text, but also sees the underlying message of gender inequality.

Curating the history of POWES and Feminist Psychology in the UK: In conversation with Rose Capdevila

Rose Capdevila is a Professor at the Open University whose research interest focuses on gender in digital spaces, taking a critical feminist and poststructuralist approach to her research. Rose is currently working on a longer-term project with colleagues Katherine Hubbard (Surrey) and Lois Donnelly (Worchester) exploring the History of Feminist Psychology in the U.K. At the 2022 POWES Conference, Rose presented her keynote speech entitled ‘If I could turn back time’ which curated and reflected on the history of POWES and Feminist Psychology within the U.K., in which she discusses some of the work she has been doing with Katherine and Lois. As someone who missed the POWES 2022 conference, Rose and I organised an email interview to (digitally) discuss her keynote and covered areas beginning with Rose’s history with POWES, the evolution of her keynote research and some of the interesting findings from the work, concluding by considering the important work that can be done in feminist spaces and importance of memorialising feminist knowledge and contribution.

Navigating feminist and biomedical conceptual frameworks in educational interventions for eating disorders: Spanish educators’ understandings of the causes and treatment of eating disorders

The biomedical view of eating disorders (EDs) dominates in their classification and treatment regardless of the importance of sociocultural factors in EDs. Critical feminist approaches to EDs try to relate them to oppressive situations, disempowerment and the construction of gender. Educational interventions with people with EDs may be an alternative to biomedical approaches, giving them opportunities to tell their stories, listen to themselves and take control of their lives. This article presents a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with professionals who carry out educational interventions for people with EDs. Findings show that the biomedical description and treatment of EDs remain unchallenged and recognising client voice may be a problem, even in educational interventions. Also, the potential negative consequences of the rigid control of the clients’ lives seem to be ignored. Feminist approaches to EDs are acknowledged but do not seem to guide any intervention. Sociocultural critical stances that would recognise the coherence or the transitions between what is considered as healthy and sick eating also seem to be lacking.