Gendered Power Relations Research Articles

From promoting gender equality to managing gender equality policy

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the depoliticizing effects of managerial public governance reforms on gender equality policy. It combines two dimensions of depoliticization: the denial of gendered power relations and the denial of political interests, ideologies, and related conflicts. The article focuses on a recent strategic governance reform in Finland, considering the context specificity of governance reforms as well as how they are connected to “management fashions.” The article shows how the implementation of strategic governance has intensified ongoing shifts in the position, scope, and practices of gender equality policy. As a result, gender equality policy has been sidelined and instrumentalized to serve other government policy objectives; the scope of gender equality policy has been narrowed; and measures to promote gender equality have become increasingly aligned with the ideals and practices of managerial governance. The article argues that the two-dimensional process of depoliticization explains a “quiet backlash” against gender equality policy in a context of relatively strong gender equality policy and institutions. Such backlash does not involve open conflict between gender equality policy and conservative and/or anti-gender policies but is represented as a technical rather than a political shift.

Managing mobility: commuting domestic workers, mobile phones, and women’s ‘honour’ in Kolkata

ABSTRACT Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Kolkata and rural West Bengal and engaging with literature on mobile phones in the global South, and on gender and sexuality in India, this article seeks to understand the incongruence between widespread mobile phone use in India and commuting domestic workers’ own accounts of their mobile phone use. It illustrates the important role that mobile phones play in enabling commuting workers (who are mostly women) to find work and manage relationships, but also how commuting workers play down their mobile phone use, guarding against suspicion from husbands, sons, and others. Such suspicion reflects the stigma around women’s mobility/sexuality, connected to ideas about women’s ‘honour’ and the perceived risks associated with women’s work and journeys. When workers’ mobile phone use is, then, perceived to be ‘inappropriate’, or if workers transgress norms and expectations relating to ideas about women’s ‘honour’ in other ways, they can face (further) surveillance and abuse, their access to phones thereafter often being controlled by men. Contributing to gendered analyses of mobile phones in the global South, the article shows how phones can at once create new possibilities and freedoms for commuting domestic workers while at the same time reinforcing gendered power relationships.

The “Gender Agenda” in Agriculture for Development and Its (Lack of) Alignment With Feminist Scholarship

Sustainable food systems require sustainable agriculture. To achieve this, we argue, inclusive approaches are required that incorporate the voices and lived experiences of diverse social groups. In agriculture-based international development efforts (known as Agriculture for Development or A4D), it is increasingly being recognized that sustainable agriculture requires attention to gendered power relations. In the past, gender inequality has been a major barrier to developing inclusive, sustainable food systems, and continues to be so today. At the same time, however, gender is increasingly “on the agenda” in A4D. Yet what sort of agenda is being promoted and to what extent does it reflect progress in feminist scholarship? We examine the burgeoning “gender agenda” through the lens of policy materials produced by prominent A4D organizations. In doing so, we find problematic narratives that instrumentalise women in the name of sustainable agricultural development. However, we also find other more transformative discourses that, in troubling the drivers of gender inequality and promoting shared responsibility for change, reflect a deeper awareness of feminist scholarship. In any effort to advance sustainable agriculture, further progress is needed to address the myriad ways gender pervades not just development settings but development institutions and donor nations, and contributes to the production of as well as responses to global A4D challenges.

Gendered power relations in women-to-men interviews on controversial sexual behavior

ABSTRACT This article explores gendered power relations in studies of stigmatized sexual behavior, through a poststructuralist feminist theoretical perspective. Interviews conducted by a female interviewer with twenty men who pay for sex were analyzed using the interpretive constructivist method. We applied the concept defended subjects to suggest that the subjects – both interviewer and interviewees – defended themselves against three major threats that characterized the gendered power relations in the interviews: the threat of forced intimacy, the threat of deviancy, and the threat of objectification. We then propose a new heuristic concept – defensive interactions – to discuss these interview dynamics as they relate to three key aspects of gendered power relations in qualitative interviews: the establishment of intimacy, identity management, and objectification.

The gendered politics of researching military policy in the age of the ‘knowledge economy’

AbstractThis article explores our experiences of conducting feminist interpretive research on the British Army Reserves. The project, which examined the everyday work-Army-life balance challenges that reservists face, and the roles of their partners/spouses in enabling them to fulfil their military commitments, is an example of a potential contribution to the so-called ‘knowledge economy’, where publicly funded research has come to be seen as ‘functional’ for political, military, economic, and social advancement. As feminist interpretive researchers examining an institution that prizes masculinist and functionalist methodologies, instrumentalised knowledge production, and highly formalised ethics approval processes, we faced multiple challenges to how we were able to conduct our research, who we were able to access, and what we were able to say. We show how military assumptions about what constitutes proper ‘research’, bolstered by knowledge economy logics, reinforces gendered power relationships that keep hidden the significant roles women (in our case, the partners/spouses of reservists) play in state security. Accordingly, we argue that the functionalist and masculinist logics interpretive researchers face in the age of the knowledge economy help more in sustaining orthodox modes of knowledge production about militaries and security, and in reinforcing gendered power relations, than they do in advancing knowledge.

Gender, Politics and Governance: Assessment of Women’s Attitude towards Political Participation in Ekiti South Senatorial District of Southwestern Nigeria

This paper seeks to examine the gender power relations in leadership in Nigeria by assessing the women’s attitude towards political participation at different levels of political activities and investigate the factors sustaining gender inequality in politics in Ekiti South Senatorial district in Southwestern Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive survey design. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected for the study. Results showed that women had poor attitude towards political activities (40.3%) and the women’s level of political participation at contesting for political posts was low (22%). However, inferences drawn from the analysis of the study showed that there were significant association between women’s membership in political parties (χ2=17.292, p<0.001), age (t=3.272, p=0.001) and occupation (χ2=13.592, p=0.004). The study identified inadequate finance, insecurity, gender roles, lack of policy implementation as challenges causing gender inequality in politics. The study concludes that improving women’s attitude as crucial for bridging the gender gap in politics.

Swedish study shows how managers in forestry and mining industries blame gender inequality on male, blue-collar workers

PurposeIn previous studies of the subject women had received more attention as both the problem and solution. Instead, the authors wanted to focus on how power relations of gender, class and place all have a role to play in how the problem is “constructed.”Design/methodology/approachThey used material from four previous research projects in the same industries as a point of departure. The first project examined gender equality in four forestry work organizations. The second project analyzed existing methods for increasing gender equality in forestry organizations. The aim of the third project was to examine gender patterns and equality initiatives in Nordic mining organizations. Finally, the fourth project merged theory concerning industrial workplace relations with gender theory and knowledge about gender equality interventions.FindingsThe data revealed that gender, class and place are powerful intersecting forces when it comes to “constructing” gender equality in male-dominated industries. Company managers formulating policies tended to blame gender inequality on groups of male, blue-collar workers who represented ‘uneducated’ masculinity in a rural context.Originality/valueFraming the issue of gender inequality as a problem of rural, blue-collar masculinity risked reinforcing class-based and place-based inequalities in forestry and mining. Therefore, bringing these exclusionary norms into light helped to broaden the discussion. Instead, companies should focus more on the structures and daily practices embedded in their organizations. From a research point of view, the study had a lot of lessons about challenging organizational inequalities. Meanwhile, from an organizational perspective, a heightened awareness of the interrelated power relations of class, place and gender could help sharpen processes for change.

Exit, voice and loyalty in the family: findings from a basic income experiment

AbstractThis article investigates how a basic income could transform families and gender power relations within them. We draw on Hirschman’s exit, voice and loyalty framework to argue that a basic income can offer a structural foundation for a radical shift towards more equitable family relations. This is because a basic income can support couples through economic uncertainty and reduce women’s structural vulnerability to economic dependency within marriages that strips them of exit and voice. We build our case on novel data from an understudied social experiment from the late 1970s called the Manitoba Basic Income Experiment, or Mincome. Using difference-in-difference regression with individual fixed-effects, we analyze three types of family outcomes: separation, bargaining power and marital conflict. We find that during Mincome unhappy couples became more likely to consider separation, but that separation overall did not increase. We also find that Mincome reduced marital conflict associated with financial stressors and that some measures of wives’ bargaining power increased. Taken together, our results speak in favor of the view that a basic income has the potential to foster more equitable family lives.

Redemptive masculinity in the context of HIV and AIDS in Surabaya, Indonesia

This article provides an analysis of how women have been negatively impacted by HIV and AIDS infections in Surabaya, Indonesia. The study explored the way silent socio-cultural beliefs on sex, sexuality issues together with cultural forms of marriages, gender power relations and gender inequality has led to the vulnerability of women to HIV infections. Cultural ideologies in relation to the status and position of women in the marriage and family have far reaching consequences on women especially in the face of the pandemic. This article uses qualitative document analysis which focused on purposively sampled text such as books, journal articles, and newspapers. Using Simon de Beauvoir's concept of the 'Other' and 'Second Sex', the study revealed that women are the most affected amidst HIV and AIDS pandemic. As a result, redemptive masculinity has been suggested as the key tool to combat HIV and AIDS in Surabaya, Indonesia.

Redemptive masculinity in the context of HIV and AIDS in Surabaya, Indonesia

This article provides an analysis of how women have been negatively impacted by HIV and AIDS infections in Surabaya, Indonesia. The study explored the way silent socio-cultural beliefs on sex, sexuality issues together with cultural forms of marriages, gender power relations and gender inequality has led to the vulnerability of women to HIV infections. Cultural ideologies in relation to the status and position of women in the marriage and family have far reaching consequences on women especially in the face of the pandemic. This article uses qualitative document analysis which focused on purposively sampled text such as books, journal articles, and newspapers. Using Simon de Beauvoir's concept of the 'Other' and 'Second Sex', the study revealed that women are the most affected amidst HIV and AIDS pandemic. As a result, redemptive masculinity has been suggested as the key tool to combat HIV and AIDS in Surabaya, Indonesia.

Between Permanence and Adaptation

In the Purepecha community of Cherán (Mexico), forest management is carried out through a community government, a system recognized in the Mexican law, and obtained by Cherán after the 2011 uprising in response to the looting of forests by organized crime. In this context, indigenous traditions and daily forest use practices have changed. This study illustrates how Cherán confronted a socio-environmental crisis and is recovering its means of social reproduction. Specifically, it analyzes community institutions, gendered-power relations, and indigenous rights in the context of community-government relationship to discuss the importance of eco-territorial strategies beyond resistance. Grounded on ethnographic observations, interviews, and literature review, this article illustrates a community’s experience of building a path toward autonomous forest management. The case of Cherán provides insights into the development of autonomous community forest management as well as its objectives and relations with forest sustainability.

Are Progressive Texts Necessarily Disruptive? Investigating Teacher Engagement with Gendered Textbooks in Ugandan Classrooms

Background Undergirding the dominant research focus on gender representation in textbooks is the assumption that making texts progressive in their construction of gender is a panacea for equality in the classroom. As this study demonstrates, however, textbooks containing traditional representations of gender can be used to challenge biases, while textbooks with progressive representations can be undermined. This suggests that “fixing” gender in textbooks to make them progressive does not guarantee how teachers enact them in the classroom. Indeed, the predominant focus on texts, rather than teachers’ gender knowledge base, has had little impact on classroom practice. This justifies the shift to “teacher talk around the text,” which, as scholars argue, should be the focus of research. Purpose and Research Questions This study, which goes beyond the dominant focus on textbooks to draw attention to how teachers take them up, was guided by the following research questions: How do teachers use gendered textbooks in the classroom? What discourses and practices circulate? What informs teacher selection of textbooks? Is gender one of the considerations? Context The study was situated in Uganda, a multiethnic patriarchal developing country in East Africa. Research Design A qualitative case study approach was taken up with two cases, specifically an affluent girls’ single-sex school and a less affluent mixed school. This illuminated how gender is constructed in relation to other socially constructed categories. Data Collection and Analysis The investigation involved textual analysis, classroom observations, and interviews, which were analyzed using feminist poststructural discourse analysis to identify and name discourses and discursive practices cited during the classroom interactions. Findings/Results Overall, the teachers’ use of textbooks in both cases challenged previous research, which assumed that teachers necessarily take up gender as constructed in textbooks. This overlooked teachers’ gendered truths, which, as shown in my study, informed how they took up and/or rejected both traditional and transgressive texts. Traditional gendered texts, which illuminated dominant realities, surprisingly offered more disruptive potential for engaging with gendered hierarchies than did progressive texts, which constructed marginal realities and/or realities incongruent with dominant truths. Conclusions/Recommendations The study has implications for teacher education in Uganda, which should prepare teachers by unsettling the taken-for-granted gender knowledge base, through disrupting traditional gendered ways of thinking/discourses. This will create possibility for producing teachers who can critically navigate gendered texts, by deconstructing gendered power relations during classroom engagement with texts. Indeed, as research has indicated, teachers are capable of challenging gender bias if well prepared. It will also be useful for researchers to observe lessons in which expert teachers engage with gendered textbooks, providing a model to inform teacher education.

Nationale Identität und Geschlecht in Österreich nach 1945 by Erika Thurner

Reviewed by: Nationale Identität und Geschlecht in Österreich nach 1945 by Erika Thurner Michael Boehringer Erika Thurner, Nationale Identität und Geschlecht in Österreich nach 1945. Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2019. 180 pp. In the times of COVID-19, when women disproportionally affected by the economic fallout of the pandemic endure a "she-cession" as they are refunctionalized as primary familial caregivers (unpaid, of course) and when an ensuing de-globalization of economies is employed to shore up nationalist and identitary perspectives, the reissue of Erika Thurner's Nationale Identität und Geschlecht in Österreich nach 1945 furnishes a welcome gender-critical perspective on the process of nation-building since the end of World War II. Thurner's study, first published in 2000, examines the political process of developing (and maintaining) a stable national Austrian identity following the loss of the Austrian population's "emotional home" after 1945 (50). Her findings demonstrate that Austria's nationalizing project adheres to the blueprint of other Western nations and relies on traditional gender hierarchies to stabilize the emerging Second Republic. Thurner's point of departure is the need for Austria's postwar political leadership to ensure the acceptance of the new democratic state by the majority of its population. The numerical "excess" of women, Thurner argues, had to be brought to accept again the restrictions and limitations required by a "natural," hierarchical, and dimorphic gender order via legislation, propaganda, and coercion. From the mid-1950s on, this process resulted in the acceptance of traditional ways of family, work, and life by the majority of Austrian women. Against this background, Thurner unfolds the struggle for emancipation by Austrian women up to the new millennium. As such, Thurner's informative study fills a void even today in nationality research by highlighting the role of gendered power relations in the nation-building process and countering the dominant societal discourse of "gender neutrality" (18). Based on a constructivist understanding of the concepts "nation," "gender," [End Page 146] and "identity," Thurner's sociological study, taking an interdisciplinary approach, includes analyses of political efforts to establish a separate Austrian identity via a "nationalism light" (79)—strategy that aims to differentiate itself from the pan-German völkisch rhetoric of National Socialism by invoking a dynastic "House of Austria" ideology. Thurner refers to a wide variety of sources to show the re-masculinization of Austrian society via the promulgation of a male "worker-hero" ideal intended to restrict women to home and family. Her succinct case studies include analyses of the pre- and postwar (lack of) participation of women at universities; the male-dominated structures of the early postwar Austrian literary establishment; the male-centric culture surrounding the national icon of Kaprun; the social disciplining of and male aggression against young "wayward" women who transgressed "national" boundaries by participating in the postwar sexual economy; the participation of women in postwar politics, both as politicians and voters; the conflicting demands placed on women as (biological) mothers of a "new" Austria and as second-class workers in the growing economy; the function of the military as an exclusionary masculinist space and the cautious inclusion of women into the military; and the function of sports as a masculinist vehicle for national-cultural identification and strict gender dimorphism. While much of this information is well known, Thurner's study shows some distinctive strengths: Aside from the broad range of economic and cultural institutions under analysis, she includes little-known primary sources, such as interview excerpts by Ingeborg Bachmann or by Edith Lassmann, the sole female architect who participated in the construction of Kaprun, that demonstrate both these women's view of the national project "Austria" and reflections on their own standings within postwar patriarchal structures. Thurner also unearths astounding pieces of information that illustrate both the necessary and voluntary complicity of women in early Austrian consensus society, such as the fact that in 1959 over 80 percent of women participated in the workforce due to economic necessity, while public discourse framed this participation as overblown female consumerism (95). By focusing on the few notable women in positions of influence and responsibility, Thurner is able to highlight the overwhelming absence of women in the postwar Austrian...

The perspectives of caste, gender & identity in India: Media activism

Marginalisation, exclution and exploitation based on caste, gender and other aspects have played a dynamic role in Indian society since long. In the context of rise of feminist scholarship exploring links between caste, class and gender, this paper is concerned with developing a sociological fram work that would help locate gendered power relations and women's oppression within the structures of caste and class domination, inequality and social stratification. This paper depict, about how the age old caste, gender and identify notions that one quiet predominant in media and how the media have tried to higlight the ongoing process that will exists in today's world.

Social space of preschool institutions as a factor of gender equality

The subject of this paper is a sociological gender-sensitive analysis of the use-value of space in public preschool institutions (PPI), starting from the level of Serbian society, through Belgrade and Belgrade municipalities, down to the level of individual kindergartens. The objective of the research is to design the space of PPI facilities, which would provide the families and mothers with control over public space, and thus meet one of the preconditions for positive structural change - gender equality. The following parameters are used as indicators of the use-value of DPU space: the position of the preschool system in Serbia, coverage of children in the preschool system and preschool institutions by type of ownership, coverage of DPU children, insufficiency of DPU social space in Belgrade, compliance of available space in DPU municipalities Cukarica and Vozdovac with valid norms). Data sources: institutional data research (survey research ?Spatial capacity of preschool institutions in Belgrade?, conducted at the Faculty of Geography, Department of Spatial Planning, on the subject of Social Development Planning, 2018-2019). The main results of this research confirm the presumed issue in this field, which causes the unequal gender power relations and various consequences which affect the position and quality of life of women-mothers and men. The preschool system in Serbia is in an unfavourable position due to the serious insufficiency of PPI facilities in Belgrade (out of a total of 124,846 preschool children, there is enough space for less than one half; the analysis of the existing PPI capacity shows that there are large differences in capacity at the municipal level, from about three quarters to about one quarter,) and at the level of Belgrade municipalities. The data available for the municipalities of Cukarica, Vozdovac, Palilula, Zemun, Zvezdara, and Novi Beograd show that the same problem exists there as well, which can be solved by accepting the proposals for the required capacity of public kindergartens, which are given in this paper. The insufficient PPI capacity in the municipalities of Cukarica and Vozdovac has been documented at the kindergarten level (a total of 55, 22 of which in the municipality of Cukarica, and 33 in the municipality of Vozdovac.

Gender, Leadership, and Governance in English National Governing Bodies of Sport: Formal Structures, Rules, and Processes

Within this article, the authors explore the extent to which the administrative and governance hierarchies, rules, and processes of two English national governing bodies (NGBs) reproduce or resist gender segregation and male dominance within their leadership and governance. Drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, the authors expand upon current literature to better understand the workings of gender power relations at the structural level of organizational practice. Semistructured interviews with male and female leaders were supplemented by an analysis of formal documents. The authors found that gender power relations privileging men were simultaneously conserved and resisted within the two NGBs. While resistance to male-dominated leadership and governance was evident, transformational organizational change was lacking. This highlighted the limitations of strategies being primarily driven through top-down, policy-based approaches. The authors end the article by emphasizing the importance of a combined approach at the structural, cultural, and individual levels to enable sustainable and transformational organizational change.

Learning from poor single women’s autonomous households in Mexico in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

ABSTRACT What is the ability of poor single women today to maintain an economically autonomous household? In the context of gender power relations, the literature often employs the concept of de-familialisation, which is the degree to which a woman is able to maintain an autonomous household without having to depend on a male breadwinner. Scholars argue that current welfare reforms deliberately aim at re-establishing the family as the primary source of economic security and encourage a traditional model of gender relations where women have to be dependent on male breadwinners. By reinstating the nuclear family as the primary source of economic security and a comprehensive alternative to the welfare state, women’s ability for agency and resistance becomes narrower and heavily limited by their inferior gender and class positions. Today, studies clearly indicate the problematic condition of poor women. It seems that without a massive reform in the labour market as well as welfare state expansion, de-familialisation among poor women will become almost impossible. In the current article, we explore the possibility that low-income women, whose common survival strategies are very limited, nonetheless could engage in alternative ways of providing for themselves and their children. We ask to learn from the experience of poor Mexican women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries about the ability of de-familialisation. Drawing on historical data, we argue that the formation of alternative household arrangements – sisterhoods – women-only households, enabled women to develop new family models and to maintain an extended household headed by women, without the need to depend on a male breadwinner. By learning from history, this article offers insights that may enhance poor women’s economic and social conditions today, and suggests that women’s joint power can resist traditional patterns of gender relations, even in times when conservative values are reemphasized.

Communal Challenges for Child Education in the Digital Era: A Perspective from Gender and Family Power Relations

The paper investigates how the digital technology’ advancement has affected our communal being and what could be done to address these challenges. In doing the research, I employ qualitative research to gather the data by documentation, observation, and interview technique with willing and selected informants. My study finds that excessive usage and inability to control the technology endanger human beings, make them submissive to the technology’ logic, and divide community. Community resilience can be achieved if every family units in the neighbourhood are strong and stable. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic enhances the widespread use of digital technology in many things, such as the learning process, economic transactions; it has changed the social structure. Despite bringing new opportunities, digital technology also presents significant challenges on issues such as gender relations in the family, patterns of parent-child relationships, and even on community health and cohesion. Digital technology might influence the shift of habitus. Still, parents and educational institutions also have the opportunities to contend the digital technological-based habitus and become the axis for the formation of a new habitus for people to navigate their lives guided by love, compassion, and respect.

Communal Challenges for Child Education in the Digital Era: A Perspective from Gender and Family Power Relations

The paper investigates how the digital technology’ advancement has affected our communal being and what could be done to address these challenges. In doing the research, I employ qualitative research to gather the data by documentation, observation, and interview technique with willing and selected informants. My study finds that excessive usage and inability to control the technology endanger human beings, make them submissive to the technology’ logic, and divide community. Community resilience can be achieved if every family units in the neighbourhood are strong and stable. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic enhances the widespread use of digital technology in many things, such as the learning process, economic transactions; it has changed the social structure. Despite bringing new opportunities, digital technology also presents significant challenges on issues such as gender relations in the family, patterns of parent-child relationships, and even on community health and cohesion. Digital technology might influence the shift of habitus. Still, parents and educational institutions also have the opportunities to contend the digital technological-based habitus and become the axis for the formation of a new habitus for people to navigate their lives guided by love, compassion, and respect.

Not Just at Home or In The Grave: (Mis)Understanding Women’s Rights in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT This article presents an original dataset collected in predominantly rural, Eastern Afghanistan, which finds that girls’ access to education and women’s professional and economic opportunities are key to understanding the experience of peace. In other words, many Afghan men and women in the areas studied not only want to see girls go to school and women sell goods at the market or treat patients in the hospital, but believe this to be fundamental to their understanding of peace in their communities. We seek to investigate this relationship, arguing that much of the donor-assisted programming in Afghanistan is based on a flawed and fragmentary understanding of gendered power relations and priorities, to the detriment of the goals of both peace and women’s rights.