Feminist Principles Research Articles

Teaching Feminism: Between Marginalisation and Feminist Persistence

The aim of this article is to gain insights into how feminist principles, content and practices persist in higher education in times of neoliberal ideology, post-feminism and the intensification of extreme-right wing politics. The main issue the article seeks to address is the state of gender-related and feminist topics in higher education. Their state should be addressed at the intersections of: 1) social context; 2) institutional settings (formalised and officialised gender-related curricula); and 3) intra-institutional practices, such as backlashes to and sanctions against feminist practices. In order to achieve this, we start by briefly sketching the beginnings of women’s studies worldwide, and the ambivalences of institutionalising feminist knowledge. We proceed by focusing our discussion on the contemporary social situation, significantly marked by right-wing politics and neoliberal ideology, aiming to constitute feminism as irrelevant on the grounds of an individualised ‘brave new world’, where everything seems possible, achievable and accessible. We continue by focusing our attention on the state of feminist topics in the context of Slovenian higher education. This part is based on document analysis of curricula of various universities in Slovenia (a description of their study courses and programmes: the research shows that gender-related topics are still marginalised within higher education as feminist topics remain rare and optional rather than obligatory. After discussing the barriers and obstacles facing feminism, we conclude with a discussion on feminist persistence and resistance in higher education: it is still persisting despite the backlashes that seek to extort a price for doing feminism, even if feminist practices are forced to take a more subtle form.

WTF? Feminist pedagogy and 3D printing in a preservice virtual field experience

Systemic gender inequality and sexual discrimination continues across a wide spectrum of social, political, and economic fields. Using three key feminist curriculum and pedagogy principles (decentering norms, centering difference, distributing leadership) we employ feminist pedagogy by facilitating curriculum development and implementation that is empowering for not only junior high school students but also preservice teachers, and the collaboration between a junior high school teacher and university preservice educators. We introduce artists that use 3D printing in ways that embody feminist principles and social justice activism to inspire preservice teachers to develop feminist curricula and pedagogy that includes 3D printing. By introducing the artists, we highlight why and how feminist content is part of feminist pedagogy, and how feminist pedagogy works to challenge feminist concerns. Given that most preservice teachers did not experience feminist art pedagogy in preK-16, we designed opportunities to experience feminist art pedagogy in teaching junior high school art classes. As teachers (and students) create feminist curriculum to use and share with others, they gain political power as engineers of progressive educational change towards ending sexism. WTF? (Where's the feminism?) is about our (re)searching feminist pedagogy in a junior high school context through a collaborative form of distributed leadership.

Promoting gender equality

Women’s rhetorical contributions have been overlooked in the field of rhetoric because the rhetorical tradition has a long history of excluding female or feminine ways of speaking and writing. It is also worth noting that the analyses of women’s writings have been restricted to the coverage of the feminist perspectives and not necessarily the domain of rhetoric and the analysis of their works of fiction. This has therefore, led to the realisation of a gap in the present paper regarding the examination of feminist rhetoric in literary studies. Through a rhetorical lens, this paper examined the arguments that demonstrate that women have immensely contributed to the liberation struggle in Namibia alongside men; hence, there is a need for equal acknowledgment. Based on the Aristotelian rhetorical theory, the study established how the arguments (logos) provided in Kaleni Hiyalwa’s novel, Meekulu’s Children, provide evidence that women indeed actively participated in the liberation struggle and how these proofs stir the readers’ emotions (pathos). Furthermore, the determination and willingness of characters (ethos) to collaborate with other characters to promote gender equality was examined. Invitational rhetoric was also used to determine whether the novel has promoted feminist principles of equality, self-determination and immanent value. The paper found that arguments can be made to provide evidence for feminist rhetorical analysis with regards to how Dila and his wife were murdered by the omakakunya; the raping of his wife, how Meekulu cooks for eendume domomufitu, and also how Kamati and Estela make seemingly insensible choices to run out of the country. As a result, these supportive arguments stimulate emotions as exemplified by the descriptions of the murder of Dila and his wife and how Ketja copes with the death of both parents, which stirs empathy from the readers. Moreover, the novel presents how the men and women of Elombe have been supportive of each other in good and bad times throughout the time of war thereby bringing to the fore views geared towards appreciating the African sense of Ubuntu. Lastly, the study determined that invitational rhetoric allows readers to participate in conversations in the novel through the use of rhetorical strategies like: emotional utterances, respect of different ideologies, and rhetorical questions.

Gendered labour and work, even in pandemic times.

Gendered labour and work, even in pandemic times.

Seven intersectional feminist principles for equitable and actionable COVID-19 data.

This essay offers seven intersectional feminist principles for equitable and actionable COVID-19 data, drawing from the authors' prior work on data feminism. Our book, Data Feminism (D'Ignazio and Klein, 2020), offers seven principles which suggest possible points of entry for challenging and changing power imbalances in data science. In this essay, we offer seven sets of examples, one inspired by each of our principles, for both identifying existing power imbalances with respect to the impact of the novel coronavirus and its response, and for beginning the work of change.

Explaining Symmetry Across Sex in Intimate Partner Violence: Evolution, Gender Roles, and the Will to Harm

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is regarded by key stakeholders involved in shaping arrest and intervention policies as a gendered problem. The prevailing assumptions guiding these policies, centered on patriarchal social structures and men's motivation to dominate their female partners, have collectively been called thegender paradigm. When states started to enact laws against domestic violence in the late 1970s, it was due to the efforts of battered women and their allies, including second wave feminists fighting for the political, social, and economic advancement of women. The focus was on life-threatening forms of abuse in which women represented, and continue to represent, the much larger share of victims. Since then, IPV has been found to be a more complex problem than originally framed, perpetrated by women as well as men, driven by an assortment of motives, and associated with distal and proximate risk factors that have little to do with gender. Nonetheless, the gender paradigm persists, with public policy lagging behind the empirical evidence. The author suggests some reasons why this is so, among them the much higher rates of violent crimes committed by men, media influence and cognitive biases, political factors, and perpetuation of the very sex-role stereotypes that feminists have sought to extinguish in every other social domain. He then critically reviews two theories used in support of the paradigm, sexual selection theory and social role theory, and explores how empirically driven policies would more effectively lower IPV rates in our communities, while advancing core feminist principles.

Subversive acts and everyday midwifery: Feminism in content and context

BackgroundMidwives are often at the forefront of political campaigns for women's empowerment, overtly advocating for women's rights and reproductive justice. However, midwives can also be found engaging in inadvertent activism on a daily basis within routine care. When casting a feminist lens over both the content and context of midwifery practice in Australia, subversive acts and opportunities for feminist reform can be found. AimTo interrogate the significance of feminism in midwifery practice, identifying feminist successes and further opportunities for implementation including: analysis of the Midwifery Standards for Practice; the primary tenets of woman-centred care; the content versus context of midwifery in Australia; and feminist opportunities for enhanced practice. This paper will discuss the importance of feminism in midwifery practice and its significance in informing optimal midwifery care. DiscussionIncorporating women's voice and respecting women's bodies and agency in the delivery of care is a fundamental component of midwifery practice. However, while the content of midwifery practice is innately feminist in its emphasis on woman-centred care, it will be argued that the context of birthing in Australia is not. The resultant effect is the emergence of victim blaming in maternity care and the construction of an archetypal ‘good birthing woman’. Implications and recommendationsMoving away from the myth of the ‘good birthing woman’ and the act of victim blaming, midwifery could instead direct its focus towards challenging the rigid systems and structures within which midwives implement care. By further embracing feminist principles midwives will ensure a truly woman-centred future.

Doing feminist collaborative event ethnography

Feminist political ecologists have transformed mainstream political ecology since its inception. The foundational and current work of feminist political ecologists indicate that their field is attentive to the epistemological foundations of power, inequities, and inequalities that cut across intersectional identities and hierarchies of difference and at the sites of environmental conflict and governance. Feminist political ecologists have made important theoretical interventions in the interdisciplinary community of political ecologists, but the use of feminist methodologies and 'team-based environmental science' can be expanded. We argue that revisiting feminist methodological commitments is critical for furthering how feminist political ecology examines how, and in what way, power and privilege operate in the contexts where environmental knowledge is produced. We make our argument by drawing upon a multi-year, multi-sited project to describe how collaborative event ethnography (CEE) offers many possibilities to reassess feminist political ecology research designs. We show how the recognition of diverse and plural epistemologies are foundational preconditions to integrating feminist principles in feminist political ecology research. We find that integrating reflexivity, responsibility, and co-production in research designs create opportunities for, and challenges to, carrying out feminist political ecological practice. In so doing, the integration of feminist methodologies are critical to disrupting knowledge hegemonies and providing new modes of practicing feminist political ecologies.Keywords: Collaborative event ethnography, feminist political ecology, feminist methodologies, global environmental governance

Making the case for a transformed development ecosystem: a feminist reflection on the experience of RootsLab in Lebanon

ABSTRACTThis article draws on our experience of implementing RootsLab, a feminist programme piloted in Lebanon by Oxfam, Global Fund for Women, FRIDA|Young Feminist Fund, and Young Foundation. It works with young grassroots activists, supporting feminist movement building. Here, we reflect critically on RootsLab, and its place and role in the wider development system. RootsLab offers a unique perspective on navigating challenges and capturing learning, to demystify feminist practices and make an effective case for a transformed ecosystem that is conducive to sustainable feminist change. Feminist principles, approaches, and tools aim to challenge power imbalances embedded in our programmes and are intentionally political and transformative. However, they are often criticised for being idealistic, with unattainable goals. It is important to step away from both romanticisation and paralysing criticism – which is often rooted in patriarchal thinking. And it remains essential to work towards that ideal. But, given the restrictive realities of the current development ecosystem, how do we then translate feminist values into all aspects of our programme?

Informal and socially situated learning: gendered practices and becoming women church leaders

Purpose This paper aims to explore how informal and socially situated learning and gendered practices impact the experiences of women learning to lead and the gendered dynamics inherent in women’s lived experiences of learning. Design/methodology/approach The authors adopt a becoming ontology and a social constructionist perspective. A qualitative approach guided by feminist principles facilitated the surfacing of rich and reflective accounts from women leaders. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 women leader priests in Canada. Findings The authors highlight how gendered practices are concealed and revealed through informal learning processes and illustrate this through two themes, informal and socially situated learning as inductive and gendered, and the jolt of gender discrimination in informal learning. Research limitations/implications While each account from the women church leaders is highly valued in its own right and the women’s stories have generated new insights, the overall data set is small and not generalizable. Future research should explore further the types of informal learning initiatives and systems, which acknowledge and best support women learning to lead in (gendered) organizations. It should also explore how informal learning informs leadership styles in this and other contexts. Originality/value The research demonstrates how informal learning experiences can serve as a site for invisible and unaccounted for gender bias and inform the becoming of women leaders. The research also advances the limited body of work that seeks to better understand the gender dynamics of women’s leadership in faith-based organizations.

Informed Consent - Said Who? A Feminist Perspective on Principles of Consent in the Age of Embodied Data

While consent continues to be a crucial element of data protection regimes around the world, it has also been diagnosed with numerous weaknesses as a tool to promote and protect individuals' autonomy. In this paper, we set out to learn from feminist theory around consent in general and feminist applied thinking around sexual consent in particular how consent regimes in data protection can be strengthened. We argue that such a journey will be promising because of the close entanglements between our bodies and our data. We particularly foreground feminist criticisms of the concept of “property in the person” to understand in more detail the profound harms that current data practices do to our personhood, as well as the ways in which consent is currently deployed to enable and even legitimise such practices, rather than challenge or reject them. Through close engagement with feminist thinking around consent, we then develop a list of feminist principles that will need to be followed if consent is to ever be meaningful in data governance. Finally, we outline three areas of change that the application of these principles immediately points to: changes related to the collection of data; changes related to the uses of data; and changes required to protect people who are especially vulnerable in particular. Making these shifts, we argue, is essential if we are to put into place a data infrastructure that is actually empowering for, rather than exploitative of people.

Contemporary Feminist Protest in Ireland: #MeToo in Irish Theatre

This essay draws upon the work of Judith Butler, Sara Ahmed, and Germaine Greer to consider the #MeToo movement and its reflection in the work of the author's students and the scandal at Dublin's Gate Theatre. Taking competing conceptions of freedom as they are materialised in this activism as it starting point, the essay questions intergenerational feminist ideas about the nature of freedom and its relationship to fear and to harassment. The essay returns to the feminist principle that ‘the personal is the political’ to reflect on women's lived experiences of threat and harassment, and young women's resistance to their objectification.

The Long and Winding Road of Being and Becoming

Through the process of dialogue, collaboration, and sisterhood, we attempted to demonstrate feminist values and principles in leadership and mentorship through the process of writing this article. Discussions between the three authors led to our reflections of our own personal journeys in leadership roles, along with lessons learned. We then connected our lived experiences to relevant feminist leadership concepts and conclude with our thoughts about this process.

Exploring the Bottom-Up Constitutionalism of the ‘Feminist Principles of the Internet’

Digital constitutionalism has been developed as a term that describes a conversation around fundamental rights and principles regarding the digital world. Initiatives of digital constitutionalism are often led by civil society networks that aim to entrench a set of rights and principles into a transnational constitutional order. Based on a single-case study methodology and an analysis of qualitative data, this paper explores one particular document of digital constitutionalism: the Feminist Principles of the Internet. The Feminist Principles, produced by feminist and digital rights activists from the Global South, have been translated into a number of local initiatives and introduced into national policy arenas. Conceptualizing this as “bottom-up” constitutionalism, the paper investigates the entire lifespan of the document from its genesis starting in 2014 to more recent activism based on the document. Remarkably, low levels of conflict characterize the making of the document and its operationalization, with the sustained mobilization of the network that formed around it being another key characteristic. Nonetheless, the translation of the coalition’s aims does fare better in some contexts than others, facing significant burdens to enter the crucial tech development domain.

Insinuatio in Lucrezia Marinella’s Essortationi alle donne (1645): Exhorting Marital Harmony And Insinuating Feminist Critique

AbstractLucrezia Marinella (c.1579–1653) is a pivotal figure in the history of early modern women’s writing. Yet her final non‐fiction contribution to the querelle des femmes, a book of exhortations for women entitled Essortationi alle donne (1645), has received little critical attention. The Essortationi’s ostensibly conservative volte face on the feminist principles that characterise the author’s earlier works has perplexed and divided modern scholars. This article provides a new reading of the Essortationi drawing on the classical rhetorical technique of insinuatio. Through close textual analysis of Marinella’s exhortation to marital harmony as an example, I trace the author’s rhetorical posture of deference to traditional authorities and ideas about marriage and the wife’s role. I show how, as an exercise in insinuatio, this works to ingratiate her audience and mitigate resistance before exposing those authorities and precepts to critical scrutiny. Contextualising the Essortationi within mid‐Seicento Venice reveals how this strategy responded to a cultural climate defined by antifeminism and literary dissimulation. This article both sheds new light on Marinella’s complex, ground‐breaking contribution to the male‐authored Renaissance conduct literature tradition and reveals the sophistication of her rhetoric as she challenges women’s subordination to male authority.

Feminism as an Evolving Culture of Inclusion and Affirmation: A Review of Contemporary Feminist Research from Theory to Practice

In Contemporary Feminist Research from Theory to Practice, Dr. Patricia Leavy and Dr. Anne Harris (2019) translate feminist principles into good research practice to offer learners of all career stages a concise and lively blueprint for bringing feminism out of the realm of theory and into that of application. Their constant critical thinking and consistent attention to detail orient readers to feminism as a dynamic, continuously evolving culture of inclusion and affirmation.

Remarks for a Roundtable on Transnational Feminism

Abstract In 1977 a collective of Black Lesbian Feminists published the Combahee River Collective Statement, a manifesto that defined and described the interlocking oppressions that they and other women of color were experiencing and the deleterious impact of these oppressions upon their lives. They committed themselves to a lifelong collective process and nonhierarchical distribution of power as they struggle(d) to envision and create a just society. Twenty-nine years after the appearance of the Combahee River Collective Statement, over one hundred African Feminists met in Accra, Ghana to formulate their own manifesto and ultimately adopt the Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists, which was first published in 2007 simultaneously in English and French. This paper reviews both statements and acknowledges their critical contributions to the evolution of Transnational Feminisms.

Editors’ Introduction

> “Through this book, I imagine the possibility that later generations of media feminists might not have to do this work again: putting a stop, for a while at least, to this particular feminist ‘re’-cycle.” > > —Alexandra Juhasz, Women of Vision , 20011 > “Theories and concepts help order history, but critically informed production practice, an orientation of learning, thinking, and doing might move us out of these painful historical reveries.” > > —Angela J. Aguayo, Documentary Resistance , 20192 alexandra juhasz: In October 2017 I received …

Tensions between feminist principles and the demand for prostitution in the neoliberal age: a critical analysis of sex buyer’s discourse

In the age of neoliberalism, feminists strongly disagree on the ideal legal status of prostitution while the pro-prostitution lobby endeavours to keep their male-dominated business running smoothly. Feminist debates should be concerned with the sex buyers' belief system about women, which is likely to have practical consequences in the way they behave with women (prostituted and non-prostituted) in terms of sexuality and, therefore, for feminist purposes of equality, on a broader scale. A Critical Discourse Analysis of buyer-authored online reviews of prostituted women provides the opportunity to verify whether the relationship they establish with them is based on democratic mutual equality or gendered power relations driven by domination and subordination.En la era del neoliberalismo, no hay consenso entre las feministas acerca del estatus legal que debería tener la prostitución; mientras, el lobby pro-prostitución intenta proteger tan lucrativo negocio. Los debates feministas deben abordar críticamente el sistema de creencias de los sujetos prostituyentes, en tanto que afecta a cómo actúan con las mujeres (prostituidas y no prostituidas) dentro del marco de la sexualidad y, por tanto, al potencial logro de la igualdad fáctica a nivel social. El análisis crítico del discurso online de los sujetos prostituyentes sobre las mujeres prostituidas permite comprobar si las relaciones que establecen con ellas están basadas en términos igualitarios o en la dicotomía dominación-subordinación característica de las relaciones de poder de género.

Bringing about social justice through feminist research for monitoring, evaluation, and learning? A conversation from Oxfam GB

ABSTRACTAt Oxfam, we have spent much of the last two years talking about feminist principles. In the context of the #Metoo and #Aidtoo movements, the presence (or absence) of these feminist values and principles is increasingly – and rightly – under the spotlight. In this article, we reflect on what it takes to embed these values in our research practice within the monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) function of an international non-government organisation such as Oxfam. These values shape our understanding of the purpose of carrying out MEL activities as a tool for bringing about social justice, through examining gender and power relations, why they exist and how they change. We reflect on the successes and challenges we have faced while utilising evaluation for greater gender equality. By doing so, we aim to start shedding light on the structural changes needed to bring about social changes through MEL, and research more broadly.