Feminist Theory Research Articles

GENDER DYNAMICS AND ROLE PERFORMANCE AMONG FEMALE POLICE OFFICERS IN KWARA STATE POLICE COMMAND, ILORIN

Discrimination against female gender is a universal phenomenon and it is more evident in Africa particularly Nigeria. The female gender is being stereotyped in almost all facets of human life including the police force. The disparity in career opportunities, promotions, and workload distribution between genders is troubling and demoralizing for women, especially among female police officers. Because of its historically unequal representation of men and women, the police profession is deeply patriarchal and male dominated. Women are still underrepresented in the Nigerian Police, despite the country's policy of making reservation for them. As a result, this study examined gender dynamics and role performance among female police officers in Kwara State, Nigeria. The Radical Feminist Theory and Liberal Feminism constitute the theoretical framework for the study. Descriptive design was adopted and 50 female officers, ranging in rank from corporal to chief inspector were purposively selected from the Divisional Police Headquarters in Ilorin, Kwara State. Data were gathered using questionnaire while analysis was done using descriptive statistics, including percentages, frequency counts, mean, and standard deviation. The findings revealed that the various gender relations experience of female police officers in the Kwara State include sexual harassment, bullying and intimidation and lack of respect. The study recommends that Police departments should establish mandatory training programs focused on gender sensitivity, diversity, and inclusion, while efforts should be made to create support networks, mentorship programs, and flexible work arrangements for female police personnel.

I Choose to Live: Mobility Work in and in between Cairo and Amsterdam

ABSTRACT Drawing upon fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with Egyptians in Cairo and Amsterdam, 1 along with interviews conducted for our podcast de Verbranders, in this paper, we describe the activities in which people engage as they strive to cross borders meant to keep them out and settle in places designed to exclude and subordinate them. We term these activities ‘mobility work’ arguing that wherever borders place obstacles between people and the lives they aspire to lead, there is also the work of overcoming these obstacles. In theorising mobility work, we pay attention to what people do as they encounter and surmount borders, rather than the identities imposed upon them by borders, incorporating insights from feminist scholarship on reproductive labour to grapple with the scope and depth of this work. Empirically, we observe that mobility work is unequally distributed, encompasses both legalised and illegalised activities, and is carried out individually and collectively. It multiplies as borders proliferate, interlocking in intricate ways with nationality, race, gender, class, age, and ability. Nonetheless, even as restrictions on mobility deepen and rearticulate these inequalities and shape self-identifications, our study also sheds light on people’s waywardness as they choose to live.

Obstetric Sonar, Media Archaeology, Feminist Critique.

The snub-nosed, reclining, and serene image of the fetus is commonplace in cultural representations and analyses of obstetric ultrasound. Yet following the provocation of various feminist scholars, taking the fetal sonogram as the automatic object of concern vis-à-vis ultrasound cedes ground to anti-abortionists, who deploy fetal images to argue that life begins at conception and that the unborn are rights bearing subjects who must be protected. How might feminists escape this analytical trap, where discussions of ultrasonics must always be engaged in the act of debunking? This article orients away from the problem of fetal representation by employing a method which may appear to be wildly unsuitable: media archaeology. Media archaeologists typically reject the body and the human sensory apparatus as the default subject of media and argue that the interpretive methods of the humanities are incapable of accounting for the ontology of machines. I propose, however, that media archaeological methods provide a necessary vocabulary to attend to obstetric ultrasound outside of iconography. I develop and deploy a media archaeological method that integrates feminist concerns-including advocation of subjugated persons and the making visible of maligned subjects-to examine the ultrasonic experiments performed by gynecologist Ian Donald on working-class Glaswegian women during the 1950s and 1960s, ultimately arguing that, in the case of ultrasound, there can be no separation between technical process and the historically situated body.

What do the bloody spiritualists say? Exploring menstruation advocacy and feminist frictions in Sweden

While globally menstruators are increasingly receiving support through solidarity campaigns, the menstruating body remains an ambivalent subject in Swedish politics and feminist scholarship. Menstruation activists emphasise that periods are both a local and global political issue, urging menstruators to become more aware of how their bodily cycles impact them. This article aims to explore a selection of narratives on menstruation as a political and spiritual phenomenon and investigate the still residual ambivalence in the relationship between feminism and menstrual advocacy in a Swedish context. The study is empirically anchored in a campaign for menstruation awareness combined with interviews with feminist women about menstruation as an experience and as a cultural phenomenon. The campaign, here called PeriodPride, addressed different topics, such as body literacy and menstrual solidarity. Drawing on an ethnographic study combined with a narrative approach, three narratives have been identified: (1) the menstruating body as a ‘woman’s issue’, (2) menstruators in need, remembering period poverty, and (3) the forceful cycle, reclaim the value of bodies. These narratives elucidate the discursive complexity of menstruation advocacy, underscoring its entanglement with multiple frameworks of meaning and revealing some of the productive tensions inherent within Swedish feminist traditions.

From Inclusion to Transformation: Politics & Gender as a Critical Actor for Intersectional Political Science

Abstract The popularization of intersectionality within political science, feminist scholarship, and activism has constituted nothing less than a paradigm shift (Hancock 2007a). Politics & Gender has been a critical actor in enabling change within our discipline. However, this development has been hard won and there remains much to be done to operationalize intersectionality in line with Black feminist theory, and to center women of color and other intersectionally marginalized groups within scholarship. This article both traces the evolution of intersectional approaches within Politics & Gender over two decades and articulates pathways for future gender and politics research which aims to employ intersectionality. We employ quantitative and qualitative analysis of articles’ foci on different inequality structures and categories, their methodological approaches, and how they employ the concept of intersectionality. Subsequently, we argue in favor of approaches which center rather than include diverse intersectionally marginalized groups, emphasize the normative commitments of Black feminist theory to transformative justice rather than liberal inclusion, analyze intersectional structures and institutions as well as individual experience and identity, treat the constitution of categories and groups as contextual and contingent, dare to address the dangers of “women” as a theoretical starting point, and challenge fundamental raced-gendered assumptions of liberal democracy.

Transforming medical anthropology: Community, praxis, and the Black Feminist Health Science Studies Collaboratory.

Despite the transformative contributions of Black feminist thought, medical anthropology often fails to recognize or center the works of Black feminist thinkers. We argue that Black feminist theory is critical for a study and praxis of new approaches to healing, health, medicine, illness, disability, and care. We can't continue to simply recognize that current systems are failing us; Black feminist theory moves us past recognition toward transformative liberation. This special issue emerges from works and conversations leading up to, during, and after the first Black Feminist Health Science Studies Collaboratory, held virtually in May 2021. Through the Collaboratory, we propose a new form of coming together around the sharing of knowledge and practice based in Black feminist thought and Black feminist healing arts. The collection of works that follow demonstrates and provides practical means toward a more liberatory practice of medical anthropology.

Diversification of the educator workforce: toward communities of practice and integrated networks of care

Abstract Diversification of the Educator Workforce (DEW) is an urgent need requiring intervention to push against many deeply entrenched systemic barriers (Chapman, Anne. 2021. Opening doors: Strategies for advancing racial diversity in Wisconsin’s teacher workforce. Wisconsin Policy Forum. Available at: https://wispolicyforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/OpeningDoors_FullReport.pdf; James, Weade & Jacqueline Rodriguez. 2020. The use of networked improvement communities in educator preparation programs to improve teacher shortage and diversity. Success in High-Need Schools Journal 16(1). 10–22). This collaborative autoethnographic case study (see e.g., Chang Heewon, Ngunjiri Faith & Hernandez Kathy-Ann. 2016. Collaborative autoethnography. New York: Routledge) illustrates how a group of individuals across institutions collaborated to dismantle barriers to students who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) entering the educator workforce. More specifically, this study reveals how members embodied a collaborative and non-competitive approach to overcoming systemic barriers that BIPOC teacher candidates experience. Through this collaborative approach, the unique contributions of members were evident, and tenets of critical consciousness and feminist theory supported the development of an integrated network of care (Reyes, Ganiva. 2021. Integrated networks of care: Supporting teachers who care for Latina mothering students. Critical Studies in Education 62(4). 471–485). This case study identifies positive impacts of communal support of DEW workers and illuminates invisibilized labor of professional stakeholders and BIPOC students.

Navigating the Beauty Bind: Young People’s Intersectional Perspectives on Appearance, Privilege and Inequality

The digital age exposes young people to a celebrity-saturated ‘beauty regime’ that reinforces ideals of physical perfection. Cultural sociologists and feminist scholars have highlighted the role of appearance as an important dimension of social stratification and demonstrated the prominence of celebrity images in popular culture and everyday imaginings. While beauty is increasingly recognized as an important element of culture and inequality, research is lacking on how young people understand the contemporary beauty regime and its intersectional complexities. This study explores how diverse Canadian youth navigate this complex landscape, focusing on their interpretations of beauty icon and billionaire Kylie Jenner. We draw from focus groups centred on the following question: How do young people understand beauty and its relationship to privilege and inequality? Our discussions highlight the intersectional nature of beauty and reveal three antinomies that young people navigate in the current beauty regime: (1) an aesthetic tension between fake and natural beauty; (2) a relational tension between elite beauty and democratic accessibility, and (3) a moral tension between looking good and being bad. The beauty bind describes the delicate balancing act young people face when navigating these tensions. Through an intersectional analysis, we aim to deepen scholarly understanding of beauty culture’s evolving dynamics, young people’s understandings of a celebritized beauty regime, and how beauty emerges as a powerful ideal that commands attention even as it often feels painfully out of reach.

Intimacies of Guerillas: Palestinian Liberation and the Cold War Revolutionary Image

Intimacies of Guerillas: Palestinian Liberation and the Cold War Revolutionary Image

Haunted by Gazaplatsen in our hearts: Exploring microfascist encounters in everyday activism

This article explores the complex interplay between activism and academic research, particularly in the context of ongoing crises such as the genocide in Palestine and anti-gender politics. Drawing on ethnographic observations from two different research fieldworks and the experiences of anti-genocide activists, this article examines the persistent presence of the Palestinian issue in diverse contexts as a haunting feeling. Inspired by the insights from feminist ethnography and theory, we challenge the traditional separation of academic and activist identities, recognizing the influence of our academic knowledge and background as well as our activist experiences in shaping our understanding of contemporary political discourses and tensions at universities. As such, we analyse how seemingly minor acts of suppression and control within academic spaces and public life can be read through the concept of microfascism, and contribute to the broader silencing of dissent and the erosion of democratic principles. Through a nuanced exploration of microfascist encounters aimed at suppressing activism, such as purported security concerns regarding small informal student encounters organized for Palestine, and micro-regulations on putting up posters and announcements that permeate the daily lives of anti-genocide advocates, we discuss subtle yet pervasive forms of oppression that undermine academic freedom, social justice movements, and freedom of expression. Considering the growing presence of microfascist tactics in academia, we invite a reconsideration of the power systems that underpin universities in order to resist these oppressive forces within scholarly work and academic environments.

How nature-based learning impacts teachers: Discoveries for well-being in and with the project EXPLORE community

Project EXPLORE (PEX) is a nature-based learning (NBL) program designed by the North Carolina Arboretum to help North Carolina K-12 teachers implement citizen science-based curricula to reconnect youth with the natural environment. Initiatives supporting teacher confidence are critical to mainstream implementation of NBL. As there is scant literature on programs’ impact on teachers’ well-being, the purpose of this study is to explore how participating in PEX impacts teachers’ “well-being.” Informed by critical feminist theory, we used an amended two-part collective memory work design. Three former PEX participants created video narratives about a memory of the program’s impact on their well-being. They participated as co-researchers in a focus group to analyze the video diary entries for meanings around teaching well-being and PEX. The group discussed ways PEX supported self-actualization, relationships, and, most importantly, how PEX was a powerful tool for well-being within a neoliberal school context.

Entanglements for Visualization: Changing Research Outcomes through Feminist Theory.

A growing body of work draws on feminist thinking to challenge assumptions about how people engage with and use visualizations. This work draws on feminist values, driving design and research guidelines that account for the influences of power and neglect. This prior work is largely prescriptive, however, forgoing articulation of how feminist theories of knowledge - or feminist epistemology - can alter research design and outcomes. At the core of our work is an engagement with feminist epistemology, drawing attention to how a new framework for how we know what we know enabled us to overcome intellectual tensions in our research. Specifically, we focus on the theoretical concept of entanglement, central to recent feminist scholarship, and contribute: a history of entanglement in the broader scope of feminist theory; an articulation of the main points of entanglement theory for a visualization context; and a case study of research outcomes as evidence of the potential of feminist epistemology to impact visualization research. This work answers a call in the community to embrace a broader set of theoretical and epistemic foundations and provides a starting point for bringing feminist theories into visualization research.

Female Undergraduates’ Perception of Feminist Depictions in the Woman King Film

This study sets out to ascertain the opinions of female undergraduates on portrayals of feminism contained in the movie The Woman King (2022). The study used focus group discussion to elicit data from female undergraduates in Anambra State, Nigeria, in order to determine the inherent feminist themes in the selected movie and ascertain how they perceive them. Three universities were randomly selected from the nine universities in the state to represent the three forms of university ownership in Nigeria, which are federal, state and private universities. twelve focus group discussants were purposively selected from each university based on their availability and willingness to participate in the exercise. Analysis of data was done and presented thematically. Results showed the various themes female undergraduates identified from the selected film and female empowerment through leadership was most striking among them all. Their views about the feminist representations are those of inspiration and thought-provocation. The study recommends that film makers should be more diverse in creating feminism perspectives to provide a more comprehensive representation of feminism ideals and experiences and give a deeper exploration of feminism struggles within historical contexts that would offer a richer understanding of the challenges faced by the female folks.

Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship and Medieval Studies: Our Institutions, Our Selves; Our Past, and Our Future

Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship and Medieval Studies: Our Institutions, Our Selves; Our Past, and Our Future

Is climate change the problem? A feminist analysis of climate change discourses in Spain and Catalonia

Is climate change the problem? A feminist analysis of climate change discourses in Spain and Catalonia

The Subjugated Woman ‘SELF’ in Kalidas’s ‘Shakuntala’

This research paper tries to inculcate the epiphany Shakuntala experiences once she is insultingly evicted from the palace of the king, Dusyanta. Although she devoted herself to Dusyanta blindly, he denounces to accept Shakuntala his wife. A disparaged betrayed pregnant wife leaves the palace and births the child in the midst of forest. Her real struggle in quest of her ‘self’ and nurturing her son singly is the most captivating scenario of this epic. The king’s abandoning Shakuntala corroborates novice strength in her which leads to her further recognition about her position as a beloved and a wife. The broader umbrella term called “Feminism” somehow nearly ignores the south Asian and Third World feminine traumas. Thus, this research paper uses several transnational feminist theories to justify Shakuntala’s journey of self evolution.

Process Relational Theology and Islamic Feminist Thought: An Initial Exploration

Process Relational Theology and Islamic Feminist Thought: An Initial Exploration

Disrupted Patriarchy – Powers of Pregnant Women in Halsey’s If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (2021)

Horror movies are the main contradictors of the cultural characterization of pregnancy as a blissful and positive experience. The representation of characters within the genre withdraws from that practice and offers stories where gestating women disrupt the patriarchal order through an attempt to reclaim their autonomy. In this work, I analyze the issue of horror pregnancy and the numerous binaries that try to define women in the patriarchal structures. This work proposes that Halsey’s independent movie If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power (2021) is a story of a woman who does not conform to misogynistic categories through mystical pregnancy. I will trace the evolution of the binaries that began with Freud’s Madonna Whore Dichotomy to Erin Harrington’s “Good” and “Bad” Mother theory to delineate that Halsey’s movie is a contemporary attempt to reintroduce and reframe the theories about women’s sexuality and identity. While referencing the conclusions of feminist scholars like Shulamith Firestone and Betty Friedan, I present how the patriarchal culture often excludes, demonizes, and limits pregnant women’s significance as individuals. A close reading of the scenes and the soundtrack to the movie suggests that If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power uses the trope of horror pregnancy to point out the patriarchal discrimination of pregnant women’s empowerment. In that, the feminist interpretation of Halsey’s movie breaks down the stereotype of a monstrous gestating woman to present that pregnancy can come with a form of power.

“Beauty Would Roll Itself up”: From Beauty to the Feminine Sublime in To the Lighthouse

Known for her unconventional approach to shaping feminist aesthetics through writing, Virginia Woolf portrays a woman painter’s quest for autonomy in the novel To the Lighthouse. Critics have probed Woolf’s insightful rewriting of the sublime from different angles, but systemic research into her innovative refashioning of the feminine sublime in her novels remains inadequate. Applying the classic and feminist theories on the sublime and beauty, the article investigates how Woolf reimagines a new sublime mode for Lily Briscoe. The article first focuses on how Virginia Woolf writes her personal life into Lily Briscoe’s quest for the feminine sublime: the archetypal mother’s beauty haunts the woman artist until she works out a new pattern that redefines the position of beauty and sublimity. It then examines Lily’s first step to challenge the traditional aesthetics of beauty by embracing her heterogeneity; namely, by accepting her ambivalent attitudes towards Mrs. Ramsay’s maternity, she empowers the inner self oppressed by the patriarchal society. Furthermore, Lily enriches the feminine sublime by breaking beyond the subject–object binary and succeeding in building intersubjectivity between her and Mrs. Ramsay, and her and Mr. Ramsay. The article concludes that to attain autonomy, Lily Briscoe builds her feminine sublime by cultivating her heterogeneity and subjectifying the Other. It further reveals that through the portrayal of Lily in To the Lighthouse, Woolf conveys her rebellion against the beauty fashioned within patriarchal discourse and promotes the new sublime for women artists like herself.

You Will Recognize Her… About the Transformations of the Female Body in Cinema

The study of female corporality in cinema is relevant in the context of the analysis of contemporary ideas about the body as a cultural and ideological construct. In the con-text of mass visual culture, the female body is often depicted stereotypically, emphasizing either sexualized or vulnerable aspects, which limits the depth of perception of corporality and female identity. The purpose of the article is to identify how cinematic images of the female body serve as a means of conveying cultural and social meanings, as well as to expose the illusory nature of ideas about the female body often created by screen culture. The study applies methods of socio-philosophical, cultural and feminist analysis, as well as the theory of visual media. Particular attention is paid to the concept of the “male gaze” and the fragmentation of corporality, which are used to identify and deconstruct stereotypical images in cinema. One of the key results of the work was the conclusion that the female corporality on screen is often depicted as a visually attractive shell, devoid of deep meaning and authenticity. Cinema represents the body as an object of the viewer's gaze, reinforcing ideological stereotypes and turning the body itself into an instrument of manipulation. The absence of an authentic body leads to a loss of subjectivity, which creates a need for new approaches to visualizing corporeality that can bring the viewer closer to an authentic experience.