Gendered Narratives Research Articles

Caste and Gender: Kusumabale as a Tale of Coexisting Oppression and Resistance

The politics of caste finds voice in literary narratives in numerous ways. Some of the usual trends are where there is a heart-wrenching tale of oppression, exploitation and a gruesome end. However, some narratives capture the struggle, rebellion, and claim of rights. Nevertheless, these stories conflict with the ground reality, which is always an entanglement of oppression and resistance. Oppressed people make a way for their humiliation or they are sometimes indifferent to the existing injustice in certain situations. On the contrary, the same people resist and raise their voices in certain other situations. In addition to it, the way some of them resist is by flouting the moral rules. The unconventional modes of resistance and oppressive acts that co-occur are the peculiarity of the novel Kusumabale. The writer captures reality in the garb of magical realism and challenges the traditional narratives of caste and gender. This paper aims to analyze the oppressive and resistive acts in the novel using the theories of Bourdieu and Foucault. It will be an attempt to discern power dynamics encapsulated in the novel.

“Fluid” temporality: the conflict of gender and age in the postmodern socio-cultural context

Temporality, being an intrinsic property of the subject/object relations in the multiplicity of the socio-cultural and gender narratives, presents one of the most complicated ideas of postmodernity. The project of temporality embraces ambivalent scripts in their “momentous transition”, revealing the attempts at generalizing ages of men and women in the certain “unified” narratives. The latter is expressed in the triad paradigm of “past-present-future” with “present” as the dominating member. While conceptualizing binary oppositions, namely, the dualism “man/woman”, it is evident that nowadays the biological “intrinsic value” of the human being’s identity has become less relevant. The man/woman’s identity is not fixed anymore by anatomy, at present it is “fluid” with the time and age “shifts” of femininity and masculinity. The decentering “situation”, having transformed the temporal aspects of man/woman’s value in the social practices and corresponding narratives, nowadays demands their valorizing by means of the conceptual impact on the transformations of the “liquid temporality”.

The Cancer of Cancel Culture: Spreading "Correct" Scientific Ideologies Across North American Academia.

The spread of "cancel culture" related to sex and gender controversies in North America is examined as part of a larger movement to politicize sex research findings and certain sex and gender narratives as "correct" and "incorrect" from a so-called social justice standpoint. This binary is then used by academic administrators and empowered individuals or self-interest groups to reward or punish scholars for their viewpoints. The cases described by Meyer-Bahlburg, Lowrey, and Hooven are concrete examples of a growing "sexual McCarthyism" where empirical results are challenged by offended social justice "warriors" and embellished on social media into ad hominem attacks, to the point that it can damage-or even cancel-the careers of productive sexual scientists. This occurs largely out of fear on the part of academic administrators and lawyers charged with protecting the university from "brand damage" that might occur if the offending scholar is not dealt with. Sexual scientists are being vilified for research on sex differences, sex/gender assignment and subsequent causes for transitioning and/or de-transitioning, research that shows few or no untoward social or psychological effects of viewing pornography, research that debunks the notion of porn or sex "addiction," research showing the efficacy of medications to treat sexual desire disorders in women, research on "minor attracted persons" and even animal research that dares to show homologies to human sexual behavior. The silencing of empirical evidence and alternative viewpoints is contrary to the intellectual mission of universities and destructive to academic and political freedoms.

Teaching development economics from a gender perspective

An undergraduate course in development economics presents an ideal opportunity to introduce students to the importance of gender differences in economic outcomes. The authors of this article argue that a systematic integration of gender into development economics courses based on standard textbooks is feasible and desirable. They provide a gendered narrative of how to engender a development economics course in the Global North using as examples topics that are commonly taught and show how gender-aware scholarly articles, classroom activities, and assignments can complement a course based on a standard textbook or set of articles. They engender three main sections of a prototype development economics course: meanings and measures of economic development; strategies for economic development; and salient issues in development; and they add a forward-looking section on creating equitable development.

Neoliberal transformations after war: gendered narratives of post-conflict survival and crisis in Gulu district, northern Uganda

ABSTRACT The implementation of neoliberal reforms in northern Uganda was carried out in the context of armed conflicts in the years 1988–2006 and the post-conflict resettlement and reconstruction activities since 2006. This paper uses an intersectional gender analysis of the life histories of heads of the poorest households in Gulu district to document and examine the effects of neoliberalisation processes of appropriation and class formation in the context of extreme poverty in a post-war setting. It examines the gendered nature of the households’ experiences of survival, crisis, and vulnerability and analyses the effects of neoliberal policies on land, labour, livelihoods, and access to healthcare. The data evidences that the neoliberalisation of northern Uganda is compounding the dispossession of the poor, who were previously dispossessed by war. It underscores the fallacy of the ideology of ‘inclusive neoliberalism’ that informed the second phase of neoliberalisation in Uganda, into which northern Uganda was integrated. Gender proves to be a highly useful analytical lens through which to explore life histories.

Transformation in Gender Narrative in the Context of Globalization – Study on the Screen Image of Mulan

Abstract In the context of globalization, the Chinese story of Mulan has moved from China to the world, providing an important case for feminist film criticism. From the perspective of film narratives of female characters, intertextual narratives about Mulan reveal the neutral change in the female narratives from the male “gaze”, gender role anxiety and female self-awakening, transcending traditional gender role norms. From the perspective of the gender narrative of the role relationship in the movie, the gender role relationship shifts from implicit patriarchy to a new relationship involving equal dialogue between gender roles. The inner strength of the development of feminist films in the context of globalization is the result of the strong willingness of female directors who want to create narratives of independent women and audiences who desire new images of independent women.

Female influencers: Analyzing the social media representation of female subjectivity in Italy.

The paper addresses the representation of female subjectivity on social media, highlighting how such women's images have a significant impact on the gendered narratives and discourses that populate the public sphere. The article analyzes specifically the pattern of femininity represented by female influencers and the bond they are able to establish with their followers. Starting from the notion of post-feminism sensitivity, it highlights how these celebrities embody its ideals in terms of self-realization, independence and empowerment. Finally, the figures of two of the most popular social media influencers in Italy, Chiara Ferragni and Benedetta Rossi, are analyzed, highlighting their ability to represent a successful model of female digital entrepreneurship. The analysis aims to point out how these media personae provide an ambivalent model of female subjectivity, because on one hand they emphasize women's ability to assert themselves as ambitious, professionally autonomous and free-choosing subjects (as postfeminist culture prescribes), but on the other hand they exploit the spur to female self-fulfillment for marketing aims, turning it into a self-branding tool.

Ageing at the margins: gendered and southern narratives of displacement among the East Timorese in Indonesia

ABSTRACT Existing literature on older refugees has primarily focused on the experiences of those living in more developed countries in the global North. This paper examines later-life experiences in displacement settings and the global South by discussing the East Timorese case in West Timor, Indonesia. In considering how the ageing and forced migation nexus manifests in a Southern context, the paper argues that global, regional and local histories matter and profoundly shape older people’s ageing and displacement processes. Specifically, they produce multiple gendered marginalities and possibilities relating to older persons’ perceived (im)mobility to travel to their places of origin and the meanings they attach to place. Although East Timorese people’s experiences of displacement and resettlement are diverse, the male perspective often takes precedence in scholarly and public discourse. This article thus zooms into older East Timorese women’s experiences and how after over two decades of living in Indonesia, the conditions shaping their everyday lives remain deeply entangled and are negotiated within the gendered narratives of displacement and citizenship.

Moulding Lives, Shaping Destinies: Motherhood and Nation in Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi and A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam

Female narratives hold an important place in literature as it tells stories from women’s perspectives, spatially and temporally. In Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi and A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam, the female characters play a significant role in determining the outcome of the story as their personal narratives run parallel to the history of Oman and Bangladesh in the 1970s, respectively. The paper examines the intersectionality of gendered narratives through the lens of motherhood and individual lives within a nation in both texts with the aim of uncovering its manifestation in both Omani and Bangladeshi societies. The methodology adopts the theory of parenting as a lens to examine the textual depiction of mothering within the two socio-cultural contexts of Oman and Bangladesh with a specific focus on Diana Baumrind’s categorisation of parenting styles. The findings suggest that the mothering styles portrayed in the two novels, namely authoritarian and permissive, are present in two distinct yet overlapping manners: one, within mother-daughter relationships grounded in cultural engagement, and two, through participation in nationhood. In addition, mothers in Celestial Bodies serve as witnesses to the cultural changes in Oman, creating intra-gender generational conflicts. In contrast, the mother figure in A Golden Age functions as the backbone of the youth’s participation in Bangladeshi liberation. Many of the choices made by the mothers in the two novels implicate the lives of the youth, society, and consequently the nation-states. The implication of this comparative reading shows that the mothering roles in women’s fiction are rich and multi-faceted as they partake in the pursuit of nationhood within and without the family institution.

‘He’s out of control, I’m out of control, it’s just – I’ve got to do something’: a narrative inquiry of child to parent violence

Families globally experience child to parent violence (CPV). Stories of CPV have been considered at an individual and collective level to ascertain themes in parents’ accounts to identify enabling and restraining factors for CPV. However, understanding the societal narratives, defined as discourses, which have a multi-directional and entangled relationship with individual recounts of CPV have yet to be investigated. This research utilizes Narrative Inquiry with participatory approaches to explicate the societal narratives within mothers’ recounts of CPV. This analysis, guided by the interactional and discursive view of violence, and response-based practice, identifies societal narratives which set the conditions for what is possible and impossible in relation to CPV. The analysis contributes to understanding the attitudes of minimization and concealment of violence within parents’ accounts of CPV. The mothers’ recounts were constrained and made possible by the ‘good’ mother narrative and narratives of adolescence and gender. This research examines the intra-actions mothers’ recounts have with the societal narratives, and the performance of their roles as (en)actors of the subject positions ‘mother’ and ‘child’. Implications for practice and research include: consideration to practitioner’s views of power and subject positions in a parent and child relationship when working with CPV; and practitioners to be critical of essentialism and gender in working with CPV. This study posits a practical demonstration for using the response-based practice approach in research; and a way of viewing stories which can be incorporated in working with families experiencing CPV.

Changing the Academic Gender Narrative through Open Access

In this article, we ask whether dominant narratives of gender and performance within academic institutions are masking stories that may be both more complex and potentially more hopeful than those which are often told using publication-related data. Influenced by world university rankings, institutions emphasise so-called ‘excellent’ research practices: publish in ‘high impact’, elite subscription journals indexed by the commercial bibliographic databases that inform the various ranking systems. In particular, we ask whether data relating to institutional demographics and open access publications could support a different story about the roles that women are playing as pioneers and practitioners of open scholarship. We review gender bias in scholarly publications and discuss examples of open access research publications that highlight a positive advantage for women. Using analysis of workforce demographics and open research data from our Open Knowledge Initiative project, we explore relationships and correlations between academic gender and open access research output from universities in Australia and the United Kingdom. This opens a conversation about different possibilities and models for exploring research output by gender and changing the dominant narrative of deficit in academic publishing.

Turbaning of Amina Yusuf Garba as Tambarar Binji: A Gender Narrative in Nigeria

The paper examines the epic turbaning of Amina Yusuf Garba as Tambarar Binji and the promises it holds for women folks in the Muslim north and non-Muslim women in Nigeria. It notes that the event which occurred on the 26th February 2022 was first of its kinds in the recent history of northern Nigeria and the Sokoto caliphate in particular. Generally and traditionally, women even before the Jihad of 1804 are perceived to be held to utmost seclusion which is to have very serious effect on the ambitious few. However, Amina’s experience in recognition of her contributions to girl child education and the general development of her people appears to drawn a new curtain that society now appreciates and recognizes outstanding personalities irrespective of religion and sex. The paper therefore, concludes by charging women in the north and beyond to explore and grab the opportunities brought about by the event in the struggle for the changing plight of female.

Italian Neorealist and New Migrant films as dispositifs of alterity: How borgatari and popolane challenge the stereotypes of nationhood and womanhood?

ABSTRACT The article explores the place of women and migrants in Italian Neorealist and New Migrant cinema, arguing that New Migrant cinema continues and reworks key Neorealist tropes and tendencies. It intends to render explicit how an ensemble of films challenge the stereotypes concerning gender, national and cultural identities. Among the figures that are scrutinized are the borgatari, extracomunitari, popolane and terrone. Its main objective is to demonstrate how the cinematic expression of these figures in Italian Neorealist and New Migrant cinema enhanced the reinvention of italianità and the generalised understanding of gender. It also aims to explain why the cross-fertilisation between migration studies, urban studies and gender studies is indispensable for comprehending this reinvention. Particular emphasis is placed on the shared interest of Roberto Rossellini’s Roma città aperta and Vittorio De Sica’s Il tetto in the plight over housing and the special character of the urban landscape of Rome. The article also sheds light on certain common concerns of Italian Neorealist and New Migrant cinema, especially as far as national and gender narratives are concerned. Pivotal for the reflections developed here are the roles of Anna Magnani in Roberto Rossellini’s Roma città aperta, Luchino Visconti’s Bellissima and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma.

The secret and gendered lives of the underground

The underground—for decades the invisible ‘other’ of landscape and terrain in geography—has emerged in political ecology literature as the source of ‘stuff’, or material things, resources and commodities that are not deemed intrinsically valuable until extracted. As a corrective, this paper offers a feminist political ecology perspective that brings subaltern women’s voices to the forefront, and argues that the underground is co-constituted as a gendered space by gendered humans. As evidence, I take the readers on a journey into the belly of a coalmine where humans labour, and bring out women’s voices that narrate their experiences and imaginations to create the underground as a space teeming with social life. These alternative and gendered narratives reinstate the diverse, complex, and secret lives of this netherworld, draw attention to the politics of imagining space, and potentially shift geographers’ focus to interpreting the underground as a gendered social space.

Examining water and gender narratives and realities

AbstractThere is a wealth of scholarly knowledge that aims to disentangle the complex relationship between gender and water. This scholarship coupled with practitioners' collective experiences and insights have resulted in the emergence of certain narratives that describe how unequal gender relationships to water are manifested and how they can be addressed. In this paper, we critically examine four of these water and gender narratives, myths, or realities: Are women solely responsible for water collection? Are women excluded from the global water workforce? Is technology is sufficient enough to solve water‐related gender inequalities? Does participation in design and implementation of water services address gender inequalities? By reviewing existing evidence underlying these water and gender narratives that are prominent in much academic research and international programming, we show the nuances of water and gender relationships, and the discrepancies upon which these narratives are grounded. We draw on examples and research largely focusing on the Global South, but highlight a need for similar examination of these narratives in the Global North. Finally, we discuss remaining knowledge gaps and argue that these normative understandings overlook limited and potentially contradicting evidence on the intricacies of the relationship between gender and water.This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Engineering Water > Water, Health, and Sanitation

MAPA Social Innovation Lab

The purpose of this commentary is to invigorate the theoretical approach used by the MAPA Social Innovation Lab in its effort to elaborate a gender equality narrative for the 21st century. To this end, I examined the intersection of Otto Scharmer's Theory U with the main postulates of Paulo Freire's critical pedagogical method, as reflected in the MAPA Social Innovation Lab process. The discussion passes through three axes: the construction of collective consciousness, the role of culture, and the theory-praxis dilemma for social transformation. I make the case that Scharmer (Thoery U) and Freire agree that the search for authentic or generative consciousness is an indispensable step in the reshaping of society. Freire offers a comprehensive methodology for the understanding of culture and social transformation which can been seen as complementary to Scharmer's co-sensing. Taken together they address the issue of "historical viability". The aim of these reflections on the intersection of Theory U and Freire is that they will nurture MAPA´s—and other social innovation labs'—action research, political activism, and praxis towards a vigorous gender narrative for the 21st century.

From inclusion to queer-trans pedagogy in school and physical education: a narrative ethnography of trans generosity

Originally suggested by Rodriguez (2012), trans generosity aims to address the tensions and complexities of queer and trans pedagogies in educational settings. Using this concept, this study generates empirical insights on how queer and trans affirmative practices can disrupt heteronormativity, foster gender diversity and proactively emphasize the self-determination of trans students in schools and PE. Drawing on narrative ethnography, we relate the experiences of Lucas, a secondary trans student, during a period of four years, using the messy method of data collection. A dialogical narrative analysis helped to give sense to the whats, the hows, and the effects of Lucas’s stories and storytelling within the narrative environment of the school. Legal and educational policy and academic frameworks provided Lucas and other actors with an adequate space for critical performances to foster the disruption of heteronormativity and broaden the circulation of (queer)gender narratives within the school. The dialogue, commitment, collaboration, and mutual trust between Lucas, his PE teacher and the school environment helped to make Lucas’ trans affirmative stories tellable and coherent. This story of trans generosity may inspire other trans students, PE teachers, schools, or whoever wants to embrace queer and trans theories and pedagogies, to foster trans recognition and gender diversity education.

“I Didn’t Feel I Was A Victim”: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Experiences of Male-on-male Survivors of Rape and Sexual Abuse

ABSTRACT Research on men’s experiences of sexual victimization is limited and largely outdated. The present study seeks to remedy this issue by qualitatively examining the accounts of nine male-on-male survivors of rape and sexual abuse in the UK. It examines survivors’ experiences of psychological distress post-incident, the influence and manifestation of male rape myths, challenges in self-recognition and disclosure, and barriers to accessing therapeutic support and reporting to the Criminal Justice System (CJS). Participants took part in one-to-one, semi-structured video interviews, and an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was utilized to identify four superordinate themes of participants’ experiences: i) gendered narratives, ii) coping with the abuse, iii) masculinity, and iv) reporting to the police. These themes emphasized the stigma and hostility repeatedly encountered by survivors after their victimization. Participants provided an account of short and long-term psychological issues following the abuse, emphasizing the role of self-perceptions of masculinity in the development of unhealthy coping mechanisms. Findings also highlighted the prevalence of prejudice and rape mythology that characterized negative encounters within the public, voluntary agencies, and the CJS. Results are discussed in relation to current service provision in the UK, recommendations for future research, and avenues for improvements across multiple vital entry points.

Characterization and the hermeneutics of recognition in Virginia Woolf’s The Voyage Out

ABSTRACT This article traces Virginia Woolf’s interest in the representation of women back to her first published novel, The Voyage Out (1915). It argues that her dissatisfaction with traditional modes of women’s characterization stems from their reliance on recognizable patriarchal models of personhood, an unhealthy dependence which restricts the development of new forms of gendered political and personal identification. This reading uses the concept of recognition, as understood in the post-Hegelian feminist tradition, as a key structuring and interpretative tool to demonstrate Woolf’s early critical insight into the fraught relationship between idealized narratives of individual autonomy and gender. In doing so, it makes a case for the broader inclusion of recognition as a critical term of inquiry in modernist studies, both as an aesthetic and political site of contention.

Sexual intimacy and aging: An integrative framework to promote intimacy resilience in couple therapy.

In our work at the Intimacies Project at The Ackerman Institute for the Family we became aware of a gap in attention about sexuality and aging in the couple and family therapy field. In this article, we provide an integrative framework to guide therapists on how to address problems of sexuality and aging in the therapy room. Starting from considerations about the social context of aging and the self of the therapist, we contend that when normative sexual challenges become entangled with stigma, misconceptions about sexuality, limiting gender narratives, vulnerabilities, and defensive postures, they often result in emotional and sexual shutdowns. Through a combination of the vulnerability cycle with an expansive definition of sexuality, we demonstrate how we deconstruct impasses, disentangle normative quandaries from reactive dynamics, and help couples transform their sexual narratives. We outline how we conduct individual sessions to obtain relational sexual histories, utilize Sensate Focus as a mindful touch exercise, and help partners expand their sexual menus beyond penetration and orgasms. We also describe relational skills that may need to be strengthened to help aging couples deal with the ebb and flow of intimacy, sustaining resilience over time.