Hierarchical Gender Relations Research Articles

Afropolitan Masculinity: Forgeries of Wife-Owning Husbands in West Africa, 1850s–1950s

Between the 1850s and 1950s, when abolitionism masked neoslavery and engendered displacement and forced labour migration in West Africa, Africans used forgery as a survival mechanism. They forged legal documents, claimed multiple forms of citizenship and belonging as Afropolitans, and manipulated kinship and imperial bureaucracy in the quest for freedom. One arena of forgery examined in this article entailed the invention of “husband” as “wife-owner,” within a context of gendered aspirations for social reproduction in the age of abolition. Southeastern Nigerian male migrants mobilised freedom papers, labour contracts, marriage certificates, and the medium of petition-writing to fashion themselves into Afropolitan wife-owners in a bid to survive transimperial displacement, marginalisation, and subordination that arose from abolition forgery. Afropolitan masculinity illuminates how abolition forgery generated enduring structures of hierarchical gender relations in West Africa.

Gender and the Nationalist Imagination of Women in Sri Lanka

The paper focuses on how hierarchical gender relations that form the basis of the patriarchal Sri Lankan society allows women a very limited role within nationalist politics. It explores both Sinhalese and Tamil nationalism, exposes their inherently patriarchal nature and their respective nationalist imagination of women. It further sheds light on the myriad ways that Sinhalese and Tamil women submit to or subvert this nationalist expectation of them through their actions.

A world alone: Masculinities, humiliation and aggrieved entitlement on an incel forum

AbstractAn emerging body of criminological research has sought to investigate the ‘incels’ movement. This article explores the construction of masculinities, gender and violence in a popular incel online forum. Here, we discuss results from a digital ethnography incorporating qualitative analysis of user posts, with a focus on three key overarching themes, namely: biological determinism, masculine humiliation and hierarchical gender relations. Our analysis draws on concepts such as hegemonic and hybrid masculinities (Demetriou 2001; Connell 2005; Bridges and Pascoe 2014), as well as Kimmel’s (2013) notion of ‘aggrieved entitlement’, to further develop understandings of the complexity of users’ framings of gender and masculine identity within the forum. Implications for future research in the field are then discussed.

Gender Representation in East African History Textbooks: The Cases of Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda

Various studies have analyzed the ways in which gender is represented in textbooks. We draw on the cases of lower secondary history textbooks from three East African countries—Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda—where gender mainstreaming has been integrated into national education policies to varying degrees. Through a qualitative analysis of nine secondary history textbooks from these countries, we investigate how gender is represented in both text and images, illuminating the power relations in these representations as well as how gender representation varies across the three country cases. Our analysis demonstrates that despite the nominal inclusion of women, the texts draw on gender-biased language, discuss women primarily in relation to men, and construct men as the default. We argue that the representation of women in the textbooks also intersects with notions of race and class, serving to perpetuate gender stereotypes and reproduce hierarchical gender relations, contradicting the gendermainstreaming policies stipulated in education curricula within the three countries.

Un tiempo suspendido. Vida cotidiana y devenir feminista de mujeres argentinas exiliadas durante la última dictadura militar (1976-1983)

Durante los años ’60 y ’70, surgieron en Argentina numerosas organizaciones políticas que cuestionaron abiertamente el orden social capitalista y pusieron en práctica diversas estrategias para generar una alternativa a dicho orden social. En estas organizaciones la participación de las mujeres fue muy relevante, tanto por la cantidad de militantes como por el nivel de jerarquía alcanzado por algunas de ellas. Si bien sus organizaciones políticas no tenían reivindicaciones vinculadas a la modificación de las relaciones jerárquicas de género, las mujeres militantes cuestionaban, en la práctica, el lugar que la sociedad patriarcal les asignaba (Oberti, 2015). Como podremos ver en los testimonios recopilados para este trabajo, la vida cotidiana de las mujeres argentinas exiliadas se vio fuertemente sacudida por cuestiones relativas al género. Por otra parte, en el exilio, una vez que sus organizaciones habían sido ferozmente reprimidas y desarticuladas, en algunos casos, se dio un acercamiento a teorías y perspectivas políticas feministas. La desaparición o las rupturas de parejas, la maternidad, entre otras, fueron experiencias “femeninas” de vida muy profundas y frente a las cuales muchas debieron posicionarse, por primera vez, en el exilio. Este trabajo se propone dar cuenta de esta trayectoria a partir del análisis de testimonios orales de mujeres argentinas que estuvieron exiliadas.

Locating and dislocating gender and middle-class moralities in Malayalam cinema: A study of Shyamaprasad’s Ore Kadal and Artist

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on two Malayalam films such as Ore Kadal (The Sea Within, 2007) and Artist (2013) directed by Shyamaprasad. The article argues that these films break the shackles of middle-class moralities and heteronormative practices, and challenge ‘traditional’ Indian values of arranged marriages and hierarchical gender relations. Through a narrative analysis of the two films, the article examines the conception of an alternative image of women, the transformation from silent endurance to sexual equality and the embrace of individualism and liberalism. In both these films, what is at stake is the notion of heteronormative families, where women go against the grain of the ways in which the idea of family is articulated in Indian society. Shyamaprasad’s films offer a poignant critique of normative gender ideologies and idealised notions of domesticity.

Swingers and polyamorists: A comparative analysis of gendered power dynamics

American culture reveres monogamy, holding it up as an ideal moral standard, as a kind of Holy Grail for intimacy, and as a cornerstone for establishing normative social interactions. Monogamy, as often practiced, also prescribes and reproduces binary and hierarchical gender relations. Given these interconnections, how do people in non-monogamous relationships conceptualize gender? To explore this question, this study examines how people experience two varied forms of non-monogamy—swinging and polyamory. A comparative analysis of data from in-depth interviews with 22 swingers and 23 polyamorists illustrates how discrediting varied aspects of monogamy can alter gender power dynamics and, under certain circumstances, substantially erode gender hierarchy.

Denuncias y marcos de escucha para la violencia sexual en tribunales militares durante la última dictadura argentina (1976-1983)

At this paper we analyze a number of sexual violence reports portrayed by women citizens against military personnel during the last military dictatorship in Argentina.We consider that analyzing those reports allows us to visualize how the sexist practices that we know that were taking place inside the clandestine detention centers also occurred outside them. The concentracionary power assumed similar characteristics outside the clandestine detention centers and that was because of the power that State Terrorism gave to the military personnel.In this research, the gender perspective allows, firstly, to deepen the analysis of everyday life during the last military dictatorship. Secondly, it allows us to inquire about hierarchical gender relations within our society, which, although not static, preceded and followed the military government. However, the military regime sought to reinforce such hierarchical gender relations during the period of State Terrorism both inside and outside clandestine detention centers.In that sense, the analysis of the selected cases shows, both with the reiteration of the cases and the mechanisms to discourage the reports, how the sexual violence was present further the boundaries of clandestine detention centers (in temporal and spacial terms). Furthermore, it shows how sexists’ myths and the discrimination towards women that impregnated the judicial system didn’t allow an audibility framework for the reports.

Emotional labour: a case of gender-specific exploitation

In this paper, I argue that women are exploited in a gender-specific way. Women’s exploitation is gender-specific (i) if they are exploited in virtue of their social position within hierarchical gender relations and (ii) if the object of exploitation, the good that is transferred, is in a specific way linked to gender and as a result not adequately valued. This form of exploitation is unjustifiably overlooked by dominant accounts of exploitation. My argument proceeds in two steps. First, I will challenge dominant accounts for failing to accommodate gender-specific exploitation. Second, I will develop a positive account of gender-specific exploitation and use the case of emotional labour to illustrate this form of exploitation. A gender-specific account of exploitation will provide a new instrument to analyse how hierarchical gender relations are sustained and reproduced.

Troubling Love: Gender, Class, and Sideshadowing the “Happy Family” in Vietnam

AbstractThough socially and politically different, Vietnam's Confucian, colonial, socialist, and marketizing regimes share a common master narrative of ideal women as the moral bedrock of their nation: virtuous, self‐sacrificing mothers. Drawing on ethnographic material collected in Đà Nẵng, this essay examines how women deploy discourses about ethical sentiments and national development to make sense of their experiences of love. I focus on women's moral struggles with and reasoning about sacrifice and care to complicate understandings of romantic love as linked to capitalist individualism and modernity. Instead, I show how women subtly critique, yet remain committed to, forms of love that reinforce—through state policy and common practice—hierarchical gender, intergenerational, and class relations. This is achieved through the telling and living of sideshadowing narratives, that is, subjunctive tales that invite contingency and contradiction. This nonteleological narrative practice reveals the precarious nature of ethical life and the ways love entangles political economy, moral sentiments, and moral reasoning. [morality and ethics, love, class and gender, narrative practice, Vietnam]

Dialogue in a learning process: problematization of gender and gender equality in higher education

The overall aim with the study was to describe the knowledge building that was developed in a group of students who were trained nurses enrolled in a Swedish higher education programme. With a point of departure in an interactive research approach, the authors applied the dialogue seminar as method and pedagogical model. When the students in close to practice talks, shared their thoughts about how gender and gender equality could be experienced and understood, the dialogue seminar became useable. At the analysis of the stories which the students shared at the dialogue seminars, it became clear that most of the students had an ambivalent approach to gender equality. When they reflected on gender relations, they brought out the hierarchical and separate gender relations which they experienced as existing within healthcare. Furthermore, their professional lives seemed to be embedded in gender-related practices. An important conclusion is that the students’ reflections oscillated between critical reflection on conditions and critical reflection on processes within their own practice in healthcare. Another finding was that the students’ reflections in dialogue form became important in a learning process, not least in the light of that gender relations and gender equality only to a limited degree had been included in their nurse’s education at the basic level.

Straight-acting: gay pornography, heterosexuality, and hegemonic masculinity

ABSTRACTThis article explores how the gay adult film industry may contribute to conceptualizations of masculinity and sexuality. Content analysis of a popular gay adult film company’s website, which features ‘str8’ films, provides an exemplary case through which I explore the construction of heterosexuality within the context of same-sex acts, and the relative desire and eroticization of heterosexuality. Findings indicate that straight performers’ profiles contain significantly more masculine markers, while profiles of gay performers are depicted as more feminine and subordinate. Further, data indicate a correlation between masculinity and consumer rating, and through the co-constitution of heterosexuality and masculinity may legitimate hierarchical gender relations.

Sexual harassment in an east African agribusiness supply chain

AbstractThis article discusses sexual harassment in the east African cut-flower and horticultural industry, based on research on 62 farms in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. It argues that sexual harassment is fostered both by coercive labour conditions within global value chains and by existing hierarchical gender relations. The research finds that harassment is widespread, that many lack a vocabulary to describe or discuss this, and that female casual and temporary workers are most likely to be targeted. Action research coupled with organisation of workers, however, has been effective in giving ‘voice’ to those suffering harassment: this is a first step in a feminist labour mobilisation and policy formulation. Procedures against sexual harassment are beginning to be formulated: a key concern is implementation. Addressing sexual harassment is central in ensuring the security of working people, particularly the most marginalised.

Rethinking gender and waste: exploratory findings from participatory action research in Brazil

This article focuses on how women waste pickers identify and deal with hierarchical gender relations. Based on findings from an exploratory participatory research action project with women waste pickers in Minas Gerais, Brazil, it reflects on the different forms of oppression experienced by women waste pickers at home, in the workplace and in their national movement. The article seeks to highlight how shared reflections on particular experiences of oppression not only help build awareness of women's multiple and intersectional identities but also foster paths towards individual and collective empowerment.

On the Demonization and Discrimination of Akan and Yoruba Women in Ghanaian and Nigerian Video Movies

This article focuses on the religious information inside Ghanaian and Nigerian video movies regarding Akan and Yoruba women. More specifically, it focuses on the indigenous religious, Christian, and Islamic messagesinside these movies in relation to women. The article demonstrates that Akan and Yoruba filmmakers, who dominate the Ghanaian and Nigerian video movie industries, are part of networks of religious institutions, predominantly Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian and modest Islamic ones. These organizations sponsor filmmakers to spread religious messages that promote hierarchical gender relations and the suppression of equal rights for women, e.g., economic independence. By providing an overview of Akan and Yoruba belief systems, in respect of indigenous, Christian, and Islamic gender-related positional concepts and ideological communication on what is appropriate behavior for women, the author will show and support the hypothesis that these movies contribute to women’s demonization and (economic) discrimination.

When African teenagers become fathers: culture, materiality and masculinity

Between 1996 and 2010, the percentage of African children living with their fathers in South Africa dropped from 44% to 31%, with only a third of preschool children living with their parents. Concern about the spate of father absence and its effects on children's well-being has led to a growing focus on fathers in family interventions, although there is relative silence on teenage fathers. In this paper, we draw on an interview-based study with teenage fathers living under conditions of poverty to show how their understandings of fatherhood and constructions of provider masculinity intersect with cultural demands that express both weakness and power. In expressing the desire to care and be involved with their children, and aligning with patterns of masculinity that sought enhanced options for contraceptive use based on gender-equitable relationships, we show a new direction in the making of teenage fatherhood, diverging from hierarchical gender relations where men make the decisions. These changes, however, are limited by constructions of masculinity that contradictorily reinforce provider status, gender inequalities and male patterns of sexual entitlements within a context where teenage fathers are unable to achieve the cultural status of provider masculinity. Implications are discussed in the conclusion.

On the Demonization and Discrimination of Akan and Yoruba Women in Ghanaian and Nigerian Video Movies

This article focuses on the religious information inside Ghanaian and Nigerian video movies regarding Akan and Yoruba women. More specifically, it focuses on the indigenous religious, Christian, and Islamic messages inside these movies in relation to women. The article demonstrates that Akan and Yoruba filmmakers, who dominate the Ghanaian and Nigerian video movie industries, are part of networks of religious institutions, predominantly Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian and modest Islamic ones. These organizations sponsor filmmakers to spread religious messages that promote hierarchical gender relations and the suppression of equal rights for women, e.g., economic independence. By providing an overview of Akan and Yoruba belief systems, in respect of indigenous, Christian, and Islamic gender-related positional concepts and ideological communication on what is appropriate behavior for women, the author will show and support the hypothesis that these movies contribute to women’s demonization and (economic) discrimination.

Contesting the Normative

Contesting the Normative Fulera Issaka‐Toure Introduction For Muslim men and women—for believing men and women, for devout men and women, for true men and women, for men and women who are patient and constant, for men and women who humble themselves, for men and women who give in charity, for men and women who fast, for men and women who guard their chastity, and for men and women who engage much in Allah's praise—for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and great reward. (Qur'an 33:35). O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (not that you may despise each other). Surely the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you, And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). (Qur'an 49:13). The former verse is pivotal to gender and human relations as well as rights in the physical and mundane world in Islamic understanding. Hermeneutically, it should be the eyes through which other verses are interpreted in relation to gender in particular. Prominent Muslim interpreters from both classical and modern periods concur on the occasion of the revelation of this verse. It came when Umm Salama, one of the wives of the Prophet who was among the earliest converts to Islam and among the earlier Hufaz (memorisers) of the Qur'an, challenged the Prophet by asking: Why does Allah always speak to men? The response was the revelation of this particular verse. The verse concurrently describes ten qualities including chastity which ironically is attributed only to women in most patriarchal Muslim communities. However, in this particular verse, chastity is ascribed to both men and women. The question Umm Salama posed does not suggest that forgetfulness can be attributed to God. Speaking from a feminist's point of view, Wadud (, ) has suggested that the approach of revelation speaks to a particular context. Likewise, the Arab context of seventh‐century Arabia is notoriously patriarchal, and hence, it was a divine tactic. Further, the question posed by the Prophet's wife is a mercy from God to address the issue of social injustices (Barlas ). In the latter verse, the equality and particularities of both men and women are cogently acknowledged with the most acceptable in the sight of God being the pious one. These two profound and compelling verses ought to serve as the basis of the struggles against social injustices. Such Qur'anic verses are in line with feminists' critique of hierarchical gender relations within Muslim contexts. For concerned Islamic feminists, the engagement with the Islamic textual sources is a vigorous and dynamic engagement with God. Revelation speaks to humans. Despite this, humans are actively engaged with divine words in order to reach a responsive and practical understanding. From this perspective, the words of the Qur'an are inevitably linked to dynamic experiences of humans. As such, religion and tradition are constantly changing (Rahman , Wadud ). Since there are evidences to suggest violations of women and girls' rights in the Ghanaian Muslim contexts (Ammah , Issaka‐Toure , ), the attention of the paper has a particular concern with the way Muslim women in heterosexual relationships and girls have had their basic rights curtailed. The study also highlights the challenges of Muslim women in the Ghanaian Muslim community with regard to marital experiences. Through their voices, the study brings to light some of the contemporary debates in the field of study. Theoretical foundation This work engages a category of literature or theoretical approach that is broadly called Islamic feminism. This approach articulates the diversity of women's realities without universalizing the concept of feminism. The paper is further informed by the commitment of feminism in using women's experiences as a process of knowledge production. These writers argue that Islam is inherently egalitarian, and therefore, they advocate women's rights, social justice, and gender equality (Barlas , Wadud , ). Many Islamic feminists argue that in the course of time, Qur'anic principles were ignored through male‐dominated interpretation. Islamic feminists contest readings that are oppressive to women by...

Southern Bodies and Disability: re-thinking concepts

Re-making disability studies from the global South requires a major reconsideration of concepts. Southern perspectives are emerging across the social sciences and humanities, and are now an important resource for disability studies. Impairment has to be understood in the context of the violence of colonisation and neocolonial power. The global dynamics of capitalist accumulation, and of hierarchical gender relations, change the material character and meaning of disability. Global society has to be understood as embodied, and social embodiment as a reality-forming (ontoformative) process, not a system-maintaining one. The intellectual, cultural and social resources of colonised and postcolonial societies provide vital resources for disability politics.

“Lord, I Am a Father!” The Transnational Evangelical Men's Movement and the Advent of “Benevolent’ Patriarchy

Begun as a small faith-based organization in South Korea in the late twentieth century, the Father School has evolved into a transnational evangelical men's movement, aiming to bring positive changes not only in the family but also in the church and larger society. Through a critical examination of the Father School's remaking of manhood and womanhood by analyzing what I call the “scripts of the wounded father’ and “scripts of the wise mother and good wife,” this article argues that despite its seemingly commendable goals such as the reduction of family violence and an increase in communication among family members, the Father School does not alter hierarchical gender relations and the hetero-patriarchal structure of the family and church. Instead, the remaking of manhood through the reformation of hegemonic masculinity “softens’ such a structure by calling for “benevolent’ patriarchy. Simultaneously, the Father School encourages women's re-domestication by legitimizing the roles of wife and mother as women's most valuable functions.