Patriarchal Power Research Articles

The GENDER RELATIONS AND INTRA-HOUSEHOLD RESOURCE ALLOCATIONS: WOMEN’ S ACCESS TO AGRICULTURE EXTENSION AND ADVISORY SERVICES IN KABLE DISTRICT, UGANDA

Abstract
 Gender relations embody and justify unequal power relations in intra-household allocation and livelihood improvement strategies. While women are the main actors in agriculture production in the Kabale’s dominant smallholder farmer households, they are restricted from control and use of the production resources necessary to access Agriculture Extension and Advisory Services. Household and higher level institutional structures are within patriarchal power setting and women have to bargain through explicit and implicit ways to access household resources, each with implications on accessibility to support services needed to improve livelihood. There are however, some few cases of mutual cooperation with positive ramifications on access to extension services as well as on household livelihood outcomes. While this paper recognizes eminent reforms during the era of agriculture modernisation, these have not yet fully achieved power and institutional transformation for the meaningful positioning of women with regard to control and use of resources needed to access extension services at household level.

Protests and Pushback: Women's Rights, Student Activism, and Institutional Response in the Deep South

Pivoting around two sit-ins at the University of Georgia, this article examines student activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the US South. The first sit-in, at the conclusion of the spring 1968 March for Coed Equality, was part of the effort to overcome parietal rules that significantly restricted women's rights but left men relatively untouched. The second occurred in 1972 when the university responded to salacious allegations of immorality in women's residence halls by replacing progressive residential education programming with the policing of student behavior. This article centers student efforts for women's rights, demonstrates how students and administrators shifted tactics in reaction to external stimuli, and explores the repercussions of challenging the entrenched patriarchal power structure. In so doing, it joins the growing literature complicating understandings of student activism in the era by focusing attention away from the most famous and extreme cases.

Tricksters and female warriors: womanist interweavings from Oríta to Wakanda

Túndé Kèlání's The Narrow Path (2006) may be read as prefiguring the emancipatory, womanist project of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther (2018). Hence, a broad understanding of the black struggle in Black Panther as encompassing an African presence propels this article's womanist reading of Túndé Kèlání’s The Narrow Path, from the Nigerian film industry, alongside Coogler’s film. The article uses images of the trickster deity, Èṣù, and the warrior woman to respond to Ananya Kabir’s call that Black Panther demands an interpretive model which excavates the layers of signification that make Afro-Futurism the arena where the African diaspora and the African continent confront each other. Both films reveal how women, marginal to patriarchal power structures, may come to possess an ambivalent agency rendered visible in their transformation of marginality through rhetorical, and technological weaponry.

Women in TVET: Contestation of Agency and Patriarchal Power for Liberation

Against the effort made through Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in ensuring gender equality through providing women with the self/employment opportunities, there exists under-representation of them particularly in male-dominated training courses and jobs. In this context, the paper, based on a qualitative case study of three women who engaged in the courses and then occupations, portrays their struggles for coping with the gender stereotypes of devaluing women’s capability in the context of patriarchal power domination. Visualising from the feminist power perspectives, we came to the insights that the women’s agency (willingness, commitment, motivation, and knowledgeability) contests with the power held by males and patriarchal social structures. The negotiation of within self-power of women and external power of males and society support to unleash them for making a choice of career path.

Neoliberal-neoconservative feminism(s) in Turkey: politics of female bodies/subjectivities and the Justice and Development Party’s turn to authoritarianism

AbstractStudying changes in the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) politics within the general context of the long-lasting history of neoliberalism-neoconservatism in Turkey, this paper aims to provide a new perspective for analyzing the party’s recent drift to authoritarianism from the perspective of its gender politics. For many feminist scholars and activists, the recent changes in the AKP’s gender politics are a matter of an increase in the AKP’s oppression and patriarchal power. These analyses give no explicit account of why there has been an increase or if it is only a matter of an increase in the level of the oppressiveness of patriarchal power. From a perspective that questions this quantitative assumption (i.e. with an argument that the AKP’s politics has been equally oppressive for all women and from the very beginning of its rule), this paper aims to give insights into this complex process which led, first, to the emergence of neoliberal feminism as a new subjective position, and, later, to the modification of this official politics on women’s issue and the emergence of neoconservative feminism along with the AKP’s drift to authoritarianism in response to certain contradictory effects of neoliberalism and its eventual crisis.

Women’s subordination in premarital pregnancy

The presence of patriarchal culture can be found in most regions of Indonesia, including Bali. The patriarchal culture in Bali tends to be more rigid because of the Balinese belief that any offspring, especially men, will not only continue the responsibilities of the parents in terms of the social life of the community; however, they also expected to carry out the ceremonies of death for their parents. They are trusted to help their parents reach the creator easily. The Balinese culture has been dominated by patriarchy for a long time and has continued developing to this day. Patriarchal power is increasingly persistent when it comes to power in Bali. As a result, women in Bali are still considered subordinate creatures under the patriarchy’s control and bondage. The phenomenon of premarital pregnancy in Bali is a reflection of the new way that men dominate women. The approach used in this study is Michel Foucault’s theory of power. The method used was qualitative research with in-depth interviews with 18 informants who were native Balinese. This research was conducted in Denpasar, Singaraja, and Badung City. The results of this study found that the social reality of premarital pregnancy in the urban areas of Bali’s Island is inseparable from the influence of the social discourse behind the apparent reality. The discourse then obtains the legitimacy of truth from the family and produces new knowledge to believe the truth. In this social reality, premarital pregnancy has made Balinese women significantly disadvantaged and increasingly subordinated.

‘I Wanted More Women in, but . . .’: Oblique Resistance to Gender Equality Initiatives

Despite many interventions designed to change the gender demographics of positional leadership roles in organizations and professions, women continue to be under-represented in most arenas. Here we explore gender equality (GE) interventions through the example of positive discrimination quotas in politics to develop an understanding of resistance to them. Our case is the British Labour Party, analysing interviews with the people who designed, implemented and resisted the system of all-women shortlists. We develop the notion of ‘oblique resistance’ to describe an indirect form of resistance to the erosion of patriarchal power, which never directly confronts the issue of GE, yet actively undermines it. Oblique resistance is practised in three key ways: through appeals to ethics, by marking territory and in appeals to convention. We conclude by considering the conceptual and practical implications of oblique resistance, when direct and more overt resistance to GE is increasingly socially unacceptable.

The Moving Parts in Michèle Magema's Body of Work

The Moving Parts in Michèle Magema's Body of Work

Homosocial trust in urban policing

The exercise of social control in cities has been linked in a fundamental way to a wide variety of policing mechanisms in urban contexts. This article builds on the literature on urban policing by foregrounding ‘masculinities’ as a unit of analysis for understanding everyday practices of law enforcement on city streets. It describes quotidian interactions between male public transport vehicle operators and traffic police in contemporary Kolkata, India, to make a set of analytical observations about three interrelated concerns (a) the gendered character of urban policing, (b) the emotional and moral ethos of urban law enforcement, and (c) the production of the city as a male space. Through these analyses the article develops the concept of ‘homosocial trust’ as an explanatory framework for understanding gendered dimensions of the everyday state, place-making, and mobility in the ordinary city. Such a heuristic draws thought to the vocabulary of masculinity used by men, who are otherwise framed in a conflictual relationship, to transact situational trust and make city streets inhabitable for themselves. The article shifts the emphasis in studies of urban policing away from conflict to mundane collaboration between law enforcement officers and urban publics to highlight the masculinities of everyday state practice through which the city is reproduced as a space of patriarchal power. The article draws on ethnographic interviews with autorickshaw drivers, taxi drivers, traffic police personnel, and participant observation at workshops conducted by the police with transport workers to sensitize them to safe road practices in Kolkata.

Practices of Domestic Violence in Pakistan: An Islamic Perspective

Violence against women is an important global phenomenon. In Pakistan like other developing countries, women particularly become target of domestic violence. Frequent media reports of violence perpetrated against Pakistani women creates an image of the country as a dangerous place for women to live in. Even though Islam is the official religion of the country, its provisions of justice and equality to protect Muslim women from the domestic tyranny remain ineffective. The prime reason behind this prevalence of violence in the country is the influence of patriarchal norms over the domestic and socio-legal structure of the Pakistani society. Consequently, patriarchal abusive power and control over the lives of women result in the prevalence of varied practices and forms of female domestic violence in the country. However, majority of these victims live in the rural areas of the country where lack of education and resources facilitates the rule of oppre-ssive patriarchal norms and values remotely distant from the teachings of Islam. Among the most popular forms of domestic violence practiced there, honour killing and Vani/ Swara are on the higher scale faced by the females. Honour killing is a form of murder which is committed in order to restore the lost dignity of the aggrieved family. Whereas, Vani/Sarawa is a kind of forced marriage where a female member of the accused family is given to the victim party in order to settle the disputes. Considering the Islamic justifications offered by some Muslim scholars in defense of these two types of violence, the present study challenges the misinterpretation of Quranic verses and Hadith to legitimatize these anti-Islamic practices devised to oppress women. This is done by examining the issue of Honour Killing and Vani (Sawara) through their meaning and historical back ground in the country. Concluding this paper clarifies that Islam condemns killing of mankind and forbids female victimization and the assumed notion of Honor killing and Vani.

LA JUSTICIA DIGITAL COMO ESTRATEGIA DE DESENCRIPTACIÓN FEMINISTA DEL PODER

El artículo propone, teniendo como estudio de caso el #MeTooMexicano, que la justicia digital puede ser una forma de desencriptación del poder colonial/patriarcal en el caso de violencia sexual y de género, como parte del Feminismo 4.0 o de cuarta ola, como propone la feminista Nuria Varela. Se entiende la encriptación del poder como el entrelazamiento progresivo del lenguaje de interpretación no sólo de la Constitución y el derecho, sino de una serie de procesos y datos que integran la realidad como tal; desencriptar el poder significa pues revertir la exclusión del sujeto de la colonialidad y el patriarcado como la forma básica de dominación. La justicia digital es el proceso mediado por las plataformas digitales, en el que a falta de un sistema de justicia funcional y eficiente, las víctimas de algún delito o violación a los derechos humanos, especialmente las víctimas de violencia sexual y de género, narran sus experiencias bajo un hashtag con la expectativa de que se haga trending topic y su masividad y viralidad tenga el efecto de evidenciar al presunto perpetrador, quien puede por la vía de las plataformas digitales negar o aceptar la acusación. El argumento central es que en el #MeTooMexicano la violencia sexual se litigó digitalmente como estrategia para desencriptar el poder colonial y patriarcal que no permiten a las mujeres el acceso a la justicia.

Male and Female Genital Cutting: Between the Best Interest of the Child and Genital Mutilation

Abstract In the UK, male genital cutting is in principle legal and may even be ordered by a court, whereas female genital cutting is a criminal offence. The coherence of this approach was recently questioned by Munby P in Re B and G (children) (No 2); the present article continues this inquiry and demonstrates that the justifications that the courts have provided for the differential treatment of male and female cutting—relating to the harm involved in the respective practices, possible medical benefits of male cutting, the absence of a religious motivation with regard to female cutting, and patriarchal power structures enabling female but not male cutting—are insufficient. It proposes a different foundation for the categorical rejection of female genital cutting and argues that such practices are wrong as a matter of principle. This provides a convincing basis for the rejection of all forms of female genital cutting, including comparatively mild ones such as ritual nicks, and furthermore leads to the conclusion that male cutting, too, must be regarded as categorically impermissible.

Navegando entre mujeres: La etnografía digital y sus aportes a las investigaciones feministas

Presentamos algunas reflexiones metodológicas surgidas en el marco de una investigación feminista de diseño etnográfico digital desarrollada en un grupo de Facebook en torno al apoyo y cuidado mutuo que convoca a mujeres de una localidad del sur de Chile. Los objetivos de la investigación buscan comprender las relaciones de poder patriarcales que se ejercen en este espacio de interacción, las regulaciones a las performances de género y las significaciones de comunidad que sus propias participantes asignan al espacio. Contextualizamos la investigación, explicando cómo se gesta a partir de las reflexiones de nuestras propias experiencias como participantes. Luego, presentamos las propuestas teóricas y las decisiones que tomamos al elaborar el diseño metodológico. Finalmente, profundizamos en aspectos transversales como nuestros posicionamientos, la dicotomía sujeto/objeto, la categoría mujer y el ejercicio del poder. La originalidad del presente artículo guarda relación con la naturaleza de la misma investigación, es decir, el análisis de un grupo online desde una mirada feminista, cuestionándonos las posiciones de poder en la producción de conocimiento, vislumbrando sus aportes a la transformación social y la colonización del conocimiento, los cuales contrastamos con nuestra propia experiencia en el desarrollo de la etnografía digital a la luz de los debates sobre epistemologías feministas y propuestas metodológicas, profundizando en las potencialidades y limitantes que encontramos en el proceso.

Dynamics of Gender Self and Other in Sharon Doubiago's South America Mi Hija

This paper explores the poetic feminist discourse of the South American poet Sharon Doubiago's epic South America Mi Hija and how she engenders and maintains her gender's visions and beliefs in masculine societies that still engulf the whole human world. She poetically defends herself and her gender refusing to submit to the standing patriarchal paradigm. She portrays herself as a modern spokesperson of her gender and its vulnerability to victimization. Doubiago also tries to cast her challenge against the dominant patriarchal power. Further, this paper sheds light on the poet’s optimism in winning the battle in the light of modern feminist analysis, providing relevant representations of her poetic discourse. It elucidates how the poet publicizes her feminist and gender thoughts despite the domination of the masculine power. As a result, as an intimate feminist poet, Doubiago succeeds in identification with her psyche and other similar selves that can assimilate with her soul and vision. In a broader sense, the focal hypothesis of this paper revolves around conceptualizing feminist poetics and gender in an appreciative receptionist way.

Digital surveillance in post-coronavirus China: A feminist view on the price we pay.

In this piece, I look at the question — are we worth saving and if so at what cost? — through a Foucault‐inspired feminist lens on surveillance. I examine a case that illustrates how digital surveillance, despite being perceived as a successful development in China’s response to COVID‐19, reinforces the country’s gender‐biased discourses on contagious disease and sexuality. In doing so, I want to emphasize that the states of exception that governments can establish and extend are not gender‐neutral. Given the feminist interest in and responsibility for life, this fact compels us to react to states of exception from a freedom‐enabled gender perspective. It is to be hoped that this perspective would then help to promote socio‐political practices that allowed society to challenge the normalizing male gaze induced by digital surveillance.

A Paradox of Women’s Employment and Empowerment inFlexible Capitalism

This paper discusses a paradoxical implication of employment for women’s empowerment in flexiblecapitalism. Export-oriented factories employ women from the poorer sections of a society and theirearnings make substantial contribution to poverty reduction at a household level. However, animplication of wage work for women’s empowerment is contentious. Many socialist feminist criticshighlight exploitative aspects of export-oriented industries. The micro-level studies point out women’sempowering experiences through employment in daily life. Employing a materialist feministperspective and Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this paper examines the discussion on women’semployment and empowerment in the past fifty years and attempts to understand women’smultifaceted exercise of agency within patriarchal power relations and explain a paradox ofexploitative employment and women’s empowering experiences. It argues that flexible employmenthas empowered many women in the world, yet, in a way to serve flexible capitalism and patriarchy.

Faculty and staff reporting & disclosure of sexual harassment in higher education

ABSTRACT Sexual harassment in the workplace is an overt form of sexism that reinscribes patriarchal power relations within the university. Despite the perception that many people are reporting their harassment in academia thanks to the MeToo movement, we found the problem largely unreported in our sample of faculty and staff at US universities. Little is known about what drives reporting and disclosure behaviors of faculty and staff within institutions of higher education (IHEs). The present study was designed to examine disclosing and reporting sexual harassment in academia, using a sample of (N = 88) faculty and staff from IHEs who experienced some form of unwanted sexual attention. Approximately 40% did not report or disclose to anyone, and among those who did disclose the harassment they overwhelmingly chose people outside the workplace. The most common reasons for not reporting included not interpreting the event as serious enough, concerns of not being taken seriously, and thinking that nothing would be done. Regression analysis showed that experiencing electronic harassment, but not other forms of harassment, predicted reporting and disclosure. This finding reveals the stereotypes behind ‘the perfect victim’ are alive and well, continuing to limit the ability of victims to come forward with claims of harassment. .

Seeking Sanctuary: Violence Against Women in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

This article identifies the way spaces of violence operate within gendered hierarchies in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. As migration accelerates, gender-related differences become evident. Strong push factors underlined by patriarchal power systems and hypermasculine spaces have normalized violence against women. Using data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), and local data from the three countries, this article illustrates how gender inequalities sustain the emigration of women. The study also evaluates how the interweaving of female murders has further ostracized women and forced them to flee their home countries in search of sanctuary.

Sonic patriarchy in a left‐wing French philosophy department

AbstractIt is a contradiction that patriarchal power and masculine violence continue to endure in academic spaces that are nominally dedicated to liberation and radical critique. How does a left‐wing patriarchy reproduce itself? I propose an exploratory ethnography of a patriarchal drama in France, focusing on administrative meetings in a university philosophy department. Drawing on Rebecca Lentjes’ concept of sonic patriarchy, I propose that an established mode of patriarchal anarchism served to reproduce masculine radical subjects through a culture of aggressive noisemaking. These radical subjects were organized by the exclusion of two sorts of Others: women and conservative men, each excluded by specific sonic processes. The ensuing mode of reproduction was nevertheless unstable, threatened with neoliberal normalization and by internal critiques pointing towards a feminist materialism. When patriarchy becomes self‐dramatizing, dedramatization may become a meaningful political strategy.

Wrestling with Angels

Wrestling with Angels