Feminist Theory Research Articles

HYSTERICAL FEMININITY IN NICK JOAQUIN’S THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS

In this essay, I read Nick Joaquin’s The Woman Who Had Two Navels through the lens of feminist scholarship on the history and social construction of female hysteria. I argue that a critical intertextual reading of this sort affirms the heteropatriarchal foundations of popular ideations of the Philippine nation. I use Sara Mills’ Feminist Stylistics to draw attention to Joaquin’s discourse on women, specifically, hysterical women such as Connie Escobar. I argue that the discourse of the novel—its reliance on the stereotype of the hysterical feminine woman, its focalization through a male gaze, and its employment of the schemata of “women asking for it”—explains why readers find Connie Escobar’s inconsistent behavior and characterization not only plausible, but even subversive. However, reading the novel from the lens of feminist stylistics also reveals instances where the novel reinscribes patriarchal ideology. Any reading that views Connie as a metaphor for the Philippine nation must therefore confront the patriarchal ideology that informs this vision of the nation.

Voices of Feminism in Monica Ali’s Brick Lane

This paper explores the feminist voices in Monica Ali’s novel Brick Lane, focusing on the character development of Nazneen as she evolves from a compliant, dependent wife into a self-reliant, empowered individual. The analysis highlights how Nazneen’s journey toward financial independence through her sewing work plays a critical role in her personal transformation. The paper also examines the impact of female support networks on her empowerment, alongside the cultural obstacles she encounters as an immigrant woman living in London. Using feminist theory, this study discusses the complex interplay between culture, gender, and identity, emphasizing the multifaceted nature of women’s empowerment in a diverse cultural setting. Brick Lane is presented as a narrative that not only portrays the challenges faced by women in patriarchal societies but also celebrates their strength and capacity to reclaim their autonomy.

Patriarchy, Power and Prostitution in Lahore’s Red Light District: A Feminist Study of Fouzia Saeed’s Taboo

In her 2002 book Taboo: The Hidden Culture of Red Light Area, Fouzia Saeedexplains how patriarchal norms in Pakistani society rigidly categorise women into‘pure’ and ‘polluted’, shaping perceptions of prostitution and human trafficking. This article argues that patriarchy has its roots in materiality, and plays anindispensable role in pushing many women into the dreadful practice of prostitution or trafficking for sexual slavery through the structural andinstitutional flaws threaded within Pakistani culture. Women in Pakistan yet alsohave internalised the deep-rooted patriarchal ideologies and sexism that lead to a holistic understanding of what this patriarchal culture entails. Focusing on HeeraMandi – Lahore’s traditional red light district as depicted in Saeed’s ethnographic book, this textual cum descriptive analysis contributes to unveil the dilemmas of women engaged in prostitution who are constantly under threat frompatriarchyand other institutions. While unfolding men formulated cultural norms throughradical feminist analysis of Taboo, this article concludes that the patriarchal metamorphosing of women into valueless commodities perpetuates the practice of prostitution and trafficking in Heera Mandi. The study also suggests that, toeliminate female inferiority, feminist activism in Pakistan requires measures torestructure patriarchy together with consciousness-raising and political educationof women in all respects.

Bringing Children to the Center of Migration Theory

Migration theory is adult-centric, failing to account for the experiences of children despite their increasingly important participation in migration flows. Using a life-course perspective and findings from research at the intersection of childhood studies and migration, this paper considers whether different migration theories apply to child migration as compared to adult migration. We examine this question using the Mexican Migration Project data to track the cross-border moves of 109,096 individuals relative to their family members. We find that theories from economics best explain migration among young adults, with some participation from older adolescents, while children of all ages are sensitive to educational opportunities and the behavior of their peers and role models. Insights from the cultural turn and feminist theorizing in migration studies explain migration for both groups. We find that adult and child migration is strongly conditioned on migrant networks and family dynamics, including ties to family members in destination and family structure and caretaking arrangements in origin. We argue that child-centered analyses advance migration theory by highlighting the role of age, the life-course, and intergenerational family dynamics as determinants of international migration.

‘Saying No’: Frames of Sexual Abuse in Survivors’ Narratives

AbstractUsing qualitative interviews with survivors and activists against sexual violence in the Catholic Church in Switzerland, this article suggests that the expression “saying no” or the idea of “refusal” frames discussions regarding child sexual abuse with detrimental consequences. This discourse is sometimes linked to a restrictive understanding of sexual consent and is applied to children in very asymmetrical relationships, who should be placed outside the scope of sexual consent. Particularly for men who have been sexually abused as children, this understanding of consent is referred to when speaking about sexual abuse. This asks questions about the gender norms influencing the discourse of consent and the challenges of understanding oneself as a victim of abuse. The article argues for a critical examination of the concept of consent and its connection to children and minors. It suggests that it is crucial, as many (feminist) scholars in different fields have argued, to abandon a negative standard of consent (saying no, resisting) in politics against sexual violence and instead focus on the capability to participate in and determine the sexual relationship.

Gender Stereotype in Tess of The D’urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

This study focused on gender stereotypes in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925). The objectives of the study were to: examine the portrayal of masculinity-femininity stereotype; examine the language used in gender stereotype and analyse the impact of traditional gender stereotype on the female characters. The study used the feminist theory to examine gender stereotype in the two male–authored novels to show how they have positioned and portrayed women in their literature in the Victorian period both in England and America The literary analysis was to ascertain whether or not the gender stereotype was a global notion in literature or a misrepresentation of the women not as persons but as sexualized figures. Gender stereotype in these novels was examined using the descriptive research design and data was collected using literary analysis. The findings indicated that both novels portrayed the female gender with discrimination, injustice, dishonesty and exploitatively. This was done with the use of symbolism, imagery, similes and metaphor. The conclusion drawn points to the fact that the quest for a masculine identity is a common theme as male characters are seen struggling to become real men with traits such as: power, strength and robustness whereas female characters were portrayed as sexualized figure used for social status in the male dominated societies. With regard to language stereotype, the male characters employed language to paint negative image in line with the accepted image in the male dominated society. The researchers recommend that detailed and comprehensive studies be conducted in the area of gender and culture and gender and literature in the novel as a genre generally

“They’re Doing Their Own Kind of Nursing”: Challenging the Gender Bias

ABSTRACT Despite Iceland's reputation as a gender equal country, men make up about 4% of nurses which is low in comparison with similar countries. To shed light on what determines the choice of nursing and on cooperation at work, interviews with ten female and seven male nurses were analysed with reflexive thematic analysis. Drawing on poststructuralist and feminist theories, focusing on power relations and gender in the workplace, the analysis revealed stereotypical gender differences. Choosing nursing was for the female nurses a “natural” channel for their talents, the males were conscious of crossing a line and prepared for stereotyping obstacles. A powerful hierarchy characterized daily work, female nurses described suppressing working situations and lack of support, males ranked themselves higher in respect and opportunities, prioritized their professional boundaries, self-care, and nursing competence, free of gender labels. This difference is an important and self-sustaining part of nurses’ image as powerless, deters young people from nursing education and leads to distance between genders in the workplace. The findings highlight the need to recognize and tackle stereotyping, which maintains inequality, prioritizing diversity instead is a task for educational and health systems, and the debate on gender equality in Iceland.

Miscegenation Madness

Abstract In this article, I examine how the fear of miscegenation developed as a raison d’être for the construction and maintenance of apartheid. I argue that despite its efficacy at reproducing racial-caste formations, miscegenation taboo ultimately undermined its own hegemonic mythology by constructing contradictory erotic desires and subjectivities which could neither be governed nor contained. I consider how miscegenation fears and fantasies were debated in public discourse, enacted into law, institutionalized through draconian policing and punishment practices, culturally entrenched, yet negotiated and resisted through everyday intimacies. While crime statistics show that most incidences of interracial sex involved White men and women of color, the perceived threat to “White purity” was generally represented through images of White women—volks-mothers and daughters—in the Afrikaner nationalist iconography. White women’s wombs symbolized the future of “Whiteness.” This article offers a critique of the prevailing South African “exceptionalism” paradigm in apartheid studies. Detailed analyses of government commission reports (1939, 1984, 1985) and parliamentary debate records (1949) reveal considerable American influence on South Africa’s “petty apartheid” laws, and especially the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and Immorality Amendment Act (1950). While these “cornerstone” policies of apartheid developed from local socio-political conflicts and economic tensions, they were always entangled in global racial formations, rooted in trans-oceanic histories of slavery, dispossession, and segregation. This historical anthropological study of race/sex taboo builds on interdisciplinary literatures in colonial history, sociology, postcolonial studies, literary theory, art history, cultural studies, feminist theory, queer studies, and critical race theory.

An intersectional feminist analysis of compulsory income management in Australia

Abstract Globally, women experience poverty at disproportionate rates to men, with the situation being worse for Indigenous women and women of colour. Social security systems are one avenue for income redistribution that can alleviate poverty. However, such systems are themselves embedded within and produced by unequal social relations, meaning they can also serve to perpetuate and exacerbate social inequalities. This is exemplified under neoliberal welfare reforms, which have disproportionate negative impacts for women across the world (e.g. increased poverty and stigma, reduced health/wellbeing, and more). Again, this is particularly the case for Indigenous women and women of colour. In this article, we offer an intersectional feminist analysis of an intensive form of neoliberal welfare conditionality, Australia’s ‘compulsory income management’ program (CIM). CIM quarantines social security incomes onto cashless bank cards to restrict expenditure to ‘approved’ items. Drawing on interviews and surveys with 170 individuals who have personally experienced CIM, we show that it has myriad negative impacts that are especially borne by (Indigenous) women. These are not, we argue, unintended policy impacts, but are instead symptomatic of the gendered and racialised violence that is woven into patriarchal capitalism more broadly. Thus, the experience of CIM holds lessons for welfare states internationally.

The Political Economy of Land Reparations in South Africa

ABSTRACTThis article examines white settler colonialism and racial capitalism as the primary mechanisms for the historical and ongoing land dispossession of Afrikan people in South Africa. It argues that by addressing land dispossession through land restitution, South Africa could begin to meaningfully address the ongoing impacts of settler colonial displacement of Afrikan people. It contends that land reparations are central not only to restorative physical and spatial justice but also to physical healing. The aim of this contribution is to historicize and herstoricize the South African land question; situate this within the context of racial capitalism and settler colonialism; provide a framing of the racialization and feminization of the land economy; and expound on the particularities of misogynoir and critical feminist theory in theorizing the acute land dispossession of Afrikan women. Situated within the Azanian School of thought, its essential contribution is the suggestion that land restoration is a necessary and meaningful reparative measure for South Africans.

Reality of Women in Indonesian Society: A Feminism Approach

Issues regarding gender in Indonesia are still ongoing, which cannot be denied that the patriarchal system is still very strong. Feminist law is based on feminist sociology, feminist philosophy and feminist history expansion of women's attention later in life. At the end of the 20th century, there were many feminist movements seen as a splinter of the Critical Legal Studies movement, of which there are many in essence provides criticism of the legal logic that has been used, its manipulative nature and legal dependence on politics, economics, the role of law in forming patterns social relations, and the formation of hierarchies by legal provisions is not fundamental. Feminist theories often ignore women's contemporary position, focusing on women historical past or utopian future. Focus on praxis often about creating revolutions, egalitarian reforms, or cultural utopias. Much of sociology is based on what are known as individual relationships with the world as it is and as it is maintained.

Let the Silenced Speak: Digital Platform Usage by Feminist and Gender Equity Nongovernmental Organizations in Ghana

The freedom and acceptance of feminists’ activities in Ghana hit several rocks after the first African Feminist Congress in Ghana in 2004. In Ghana, research on gender advocacy and feminist organizations has increased, but little emphasis has been paid to the contribution of self-identified feminists to women’s empowerment. I explored how self-identified feminists and gender equity-focused NGOs in Ghana leverage social media to educate and advocate for women’s and children’s welfare. I also examined how these feminists and NGOs engage women in rural areas in seminars, discussion sessions, and training workshops to create spaces for women to voice their concerns and gain empowerment. Given this, 17 in-depth interviews were conducted with self-identified Ghanaian feminists and NGO leaders. I employed muted group theory and African feminist theory to guide the data analysis. I argued that Ghanaian self-identified feminists and NGOs have put in a lot of work to empower Ghanaian women to enable them to express themselves and share their experiences. The findings contribute to the discussion on Ghanaian feminism and how they enact empowerment and advance how the growing acceptance of feminism in Ghana allows Ghanaian women to speak for themselves and have their voices heard in national and global digital spaces. Keywords: Freedom, Feminism, Digital platforms, Muted Groups, NGOs

Translating the feminist theory of intersectionality into gender analytical frameworks for gender and development

The growing popularity of intersectionality theory, the critiques levelled against it and its use in gender and development (GAD) warrant a critical reflection by feminists, especially those working with less affluent women. This article examines the stretching of intersectionality in GAD research, policymaking and practice, and shows how it has been depoliticised into becoming a ‘catch-all’ term that can be used by all feminists as a shorthand for explaining differences within the category of ‘women’. The particular focus here is on the gender analytical frameworks that are generally based on a binary understanding of gender and used in the development industry, generally by liberal feminists. Finally, and as a corrective, the article explores the possibilities of an ‘intersectionality-informed’ approach to gender analyses.

A Precondition for Justice: Political Listening, Feminism and Sexual Violence

Questions of speech, silencing and injustice have long been central to feminist understandings of sexual violence, and to activism around it. Listening, and its relationship to justice, in contrast, remains under-explored by feminist scholars and activists. In this article, I argue for a feminist politics of listening as an essential precondition for justice around sexual violence. I argue that feminist engagements with listening have tended to be limited to questions of belief but that this is inadequate for a just practice of listening. Instead, I call for the development of a feminist listening public that engages in active practices of both attentive listening in for the details and nuances of survivor speech and listening out to unheard and marginalised voices. It is only within the context of collective political labour around listening, I suggest, that we can begin to develop a just politics around sexual violence.

Sexual minority men’s experiences of, and strategies for emotional intimacy in intimate partner relationships

Emotional intimacy is key to intimate partner relationship quality and satisfaction. For sexual minority men, queer and feminist theorists consistently link emotional intimacy to diverse sexual practices and partnership dynamics formulated within the relationship. This Photovoice study adds to those insights by drawing on individual photovoice interviews with 16 sexual minority men to describe participant’s experiences of, and strategies for emotional intimacy in their intimate relationships. Analysis revealed three distinct yet entwined themes: (i) embracing vulnerabilities to drive self-acceptance; (ii) building relationality with partners; and (iii) securing connections with family, friends and community. By embracing vulnerabilities to drive self-acceptance, participants spoke to embodied courage and autonomy as key components for addressing wide-ranging emotional intimacy challenges in their relationships. In theme two, building relationality with partners, participants described how empathy, trust and reciprocity underpinned collaborative work to foster emotional intimacy. Lastly, in securing connections with family, friends and community, acceptance and inclusion were key to participants’ sense of belonging and legitimacy which aided their emotional intimacy with partners. The findings provide guidance for tailored programmatic efforts to assist sexual minority men build intimate relationships.

Language and Group-based Power: Myths, Proverbs and Metaphors as Depositories of Gendered and Ethnic Identities in Perpetua Nkamanyang Lola’s Revised Edition of "The Lock on my Lips (2023)"

Gender and Ethnicity are two types of group distinctions with which group-based power is associated and, in most postcolonial African urban contexts, gender and ethnicity intersect to shape our identities, opportunities and the challenges we face. Drawing from postcolonial, queer and feminist theories, this study examines the role of language in the construction of group-based power structures. The study examines the gender and ethnic specific function of Language (specifically myths, proverbs, metaphors, idioms and witty sayings) in the revised edition of Lola’s The Lock On My Lips with the view of demonstrating that the budding dramatist employs these linguistic devices to invest her work with a truly African sensibility and flavour, but mainly to show the role language plays in the social construction of gender and ethnic otherness.

Thoughts on the ink: a critical discourse analysis of women’s petitions in colonial Ijebu, Nigeria (1918–1953)

ABSTRACT Petitions were a prominent platform of engagement between colonial officers and Ijebu women during the colonial period in Nigeria. Studies on Ijebu women have been silent on how lexical choices in their structured petitions against the colonial government reveal inherent contextual issues. To address this void in scholarship, this study investigates petitions in colonial Ijebu with a view to describing the connection between women, power and protest. Engaging insights from critical discourse analysis, complemented with postcolonial feminism theory, twenty petitions constituted the study population. However, eight petitions were purposively selected to describe patterns of Ijebu women’s resistance against colonial hegemony and their implications for petition discourse in Ijebu land. The study notes that petitions in colonial Ijebu are contextually imbued with lexical choices which covertly negotiate power, threat and resistance. The petitions are replete with covert negotiations of power struggles between the colonial officers and Ijebu women.

Rethinking gendered anti-Muslim racism in a relational matrix of race and gender

Gendered ideas of Muslims and Islam are one of the central organising principles of anti-Muslim racism. However, discussions around gendered anti-Muslim racism often ignore ‘Muslim men’ as a gendered category despite ideas about ‘Muslim women’ being constructed in direct relation to (often implicitly assumed presence of) their male counterparts. As problematised by Alimahomed-Wilson (2020), historical anti-Muslim racist representations of Muslim men as violent and oppressive have not been often considered in these gendered perspectives, but instead treated as a ‘gender-neutral’ facet of anti-Muslim racism. Developing on previous works, our research findings highlight that anti-Muslim racism is inherently gendered, not only because women are disproportionately targeted in Islamophobic attacks but because of its gendered essence. Informed by feminist scholars, our understanding of gender is a relational matrix between men and women upon which we elaborate this gendered foundation of anti-Muslim racism. Anti-Muslim racist ideologies are premised on myths and stereotypical ideas which claim that: 1) Islam is an inherently misogynistic religion; 2) ‘Muslim men’ are therefore inherently violent and oppressive, primarily towards Muslim women, but also backwards and unable to govern themselves or their communities and, as such, are in need of correction or control (Abu-Lughod, 2013; Farris, 2017; Kumar, 2012; inter alia). In this article, building on the previous analyses of the gendered aspect of anti-Muslim racism and our research findings based on fieldwork with Muslim communities in Ireland (n = 193), we argue that anti-Muslim racism is gendered not only because it affects women more, but also because: 1) its underlying gendered racial ideology constructs Muslim women as the passive Other of assumed ‘violent Muslim masculinity’; 2) ‘Western liberal’ anti-Muslim discourses, claiming to be vying for the liberation of all women, assume it as their ‘duty’ to save ‘Muslim women’; 3) with ‘white feminism’ often providing the moral ground for this saviour image, ignoring Muslim women's emancipatory agency and politics.

GENDER-RELATED FACTORS AND ENTREPRENEURIAL INTENTIONS OF UNDERGRADUATES IN SELECTED FEDERAL UNIVERSITIES IN SOUTHWEST, NIGERIA

Purpose: The study assesses the gender related factors and entrepreneurial intentions of undergraduate students of selected Federal Universities in Southwest, Nigeria. It specifically, examined barriers to male and female entrepreneurial activities in the selected Universities; assessed how entrepreneurship education has impacted entrepreneurial intentions of female and male undergraduates in the study area; and evaluated how entrepreneurial intentions of male and female undergraduates differ in the study area. Theoretical Framework: The study's foundation was Social Feminist Theory (SFT), which clarified the widely held stereotype that women are subservient to men. This stereotype is said to conflict with the innate desire for entrepreneurship, and female students' inclination to start their own businesses may be viewed as a hindrance. In this regard, the study has attempted to conduct a methodical assessment of several publications concerning the relationship between gender and the entrepreneurial intentions of students at particular Federal Universities in the Southwest region of Nigeria. Design/Methodology/Approach: To guide the investigation, three research questions were developed. Similarly, three objectives and three null hypotheses were generated for the study. The study adopted the use of a cross-sectional survey approach, and structured questionnaire administration was made use of, to gather data. A total of 1,820 questionnaires were distributed to the respondents and were all recovered for the study. The study made use of a well-structured and validated “Gender Related Factors and Entrepreneurial Intentions Questionnaire” as the instrument for data collection. The data analysis included both inferential and descriptive statistics, such as; Mann-Whitney U Test, Multiple Linear Regression and basic percentages, counts, mean, and standard deviation.. Findings: The study found that female students faced more barriers to entrepreneurial activities than male students. The distribution of barriers is not the same across the two categories of gender. Entrepreneurship education is positively related to entrepreneurial intention and explains a variation in the level of entrepreneurial intention of undergraduate students in the selected Federal universities. Female students showed less entrepreneurial intention than male students and suggests that the distribution of entrepreneurial intention is not the same across the two categories of gender. Originality/Value: The study, recommended among others that; Policymakers and stakeholders in entrepreneurship matters should give adequate consideration and preference to the female gender in terms of training and other forms of entrepreneurial education to foster better intention with them. Nevertheless, the male gender must not be ignored completely as this may result in a viscous cycle; University management, facilitators and lecturers should also improve on the techniques and methods used in teaching entrepreneurship in Nigerian universities to positively impact the entrepreneurial intention of university students; and Management should also use attractive methods and practical styles that will raise the curiosity of students to the field of entrepreneurship..

Gender-Based Violence in the Lives of Somali Women With Refugee Status: A Framework for Analysis and Action.

Gender-based violence (GBV) poses a significant threat to women with refugee status. Following our analysis based on a previously published scoping review, we introduce a conceptual framework based on postcolonial feminist theory to inform research, policy, and practice that addresses the unique risk factors faced by Somali women with refugee status experiencing GBV and encountering barriers to care. The framework synthesizes existing literature, incorporates findings from previous work with Somali women, and emphasizes the importance of understanding structural and sociocultural factors influencing help-seeking. By developing women-centered interventions, health care and social service institutions can play a pivotal role in addressing GBV for Somali women with refugee status.