Patriarchal Power Research Articles

“Bananas are for Women, Coffee is for Men”: Gendered Narratives of Agricultural Histories on Mount Meru, Tanzania

AbstractThe history of coffee cultivation on Mount Meru in northern Tanzania has been narrated by men and most scholars as a tale of extraordinary achievement and unfortunate decline. Meru women, however, associate coffee agriculture with gender inequality and social disorder. Complicating narratives of cash crop agriculture as a straightforward communal good, Williams uses oral histories to explore alternative renderings of Meru agricultural history, centering memories that highlight coffee’s role in reifying patriarchal power. Women’s concern with labor exploitation and emphasis on relational integrity challenge our understanding of what coffee represents in Meru history and our ideal models for pursuing sustainable growth through cash crop commodities.

Sport Groupies: Perpetuating Patriarchal Power

Many female “groupies” of professional athletes pose a direct threat to the sport marriage, so players’ wives attempt to deal with groupies in numerous public situations. The self-management strategies they rely on include emotion work and boundary work.

Patriarchal power as a conceptual tool for gender history

ABSTRACT The concept ‘patriarchy’ has endured decline in use by historians despite calls for its redemption. One of the main reasons is that uses of ‘patriarchy’ fall into potentially clashing categories: There are theories of ‘patriarchy’ as hierarchical authority in the family and there are theories of ‘patriarchy’ as a ubiquitous or universal structure through which men dominate women. I suggest that the first is more useful because it allows for a better historically situated understanding of patriarchal power. Yet, patriarchy as hierarchical authority is less applicable as a toolbox to understand gender history diachronically, something patriarchy as universal structure aspired to, and a project that we should not abandon along with the abandonment of patriarchy as universal structure. Instead, I argue for an understanding of patriarchal power as something that can help us think about how gendered bodies move through time. By turning more explicitly to the way in which patriarchal power appropriates the body and claims natural and universal status, it can be a potential conceptual tool in the historian’s toolbox that helps us address the challenge of diachronic history of gendered bodies without resorting to a biological essentialism.

Género y exotismo en la representación turística: las casas/tiendas en Zinacantán, Chiapas

This article analyses the exotic and idealizsd images of indigenous women in tourism. In particu‑ lar, it reflects on the role of gender in the construct of imaginaries and the representation of femininity asso‑ ciated with the traditional roles of women in the private and domestic sphere. To this end, the author inves‑ tigates the tourism scenario in the houses/shops of the municipality of Zinacantán, in Los Altos de Chiapas, Mexico, and the criteria of authenticity as deployed in tourism promotion. The paper aims to investigate this view of female exoticism that affects the way these women redefine themselves through the staging of their bodies and their traditional roles. It concludes that this image of exoticism reproduces a colonial gaze and perpetuates patriarchal power relations and ideologies.

The Way That Splits beneath Heaven

In the Chinese cultural imaginary, the road (Dao, “way”), especially trade routes, has always been an important metaphor for changing circumstances including shifting ideological grounds. Its own life trajectory is both classical and contemporary, and its emergence predates the trains, nation-states, sovereign powers, and so on, all such signs of techno-political modernity at work. Also in that regard, spiritually inflected images of the “West Heaven,” also an old name for India, where Buddhism originated, have always been present in East Asian cultural spheres, which, in turn, points to the presence of a deeper Eurasian world connected through the Middle East as well. Now, however, quite strikingly, such global conceptual structures, long part of the evolving Chinese cultural tradition too, are being rapidly localized and recast into something else. For example, in China, Buddhism, a religion fundamentally critical of idol worshipping, has become pantheistic, and the political ideas that originally promoted equality newly patriarchal. For those living along the China Eastern Railway tracks in the twenty-first century, all such ideologies have become part of a tensional fight of gods in which they, too, are caught: on one hand they long for a linear progression of society that would never turn back, but on the other hand they are reluctant to abandon the self-comforting theory of reincarnation. This is also how they come to praise the imported concept of the motherland while worshipping figures of traditional patriarchal power.

JANDA DAN DUDA: GENEALOGI PENGETAHUAN DAN KULTUR MASYARAKAT TENTANG JANDA SEBAGAI PELANGGENGAN KUASA PATRIARKI

Marital status is a cultural benchmark in assuming that a person is an adult. Similarly, Janda or Duda. For Janda, the community still considers one eye when compared to Duda. Events that cause a Janda for the community (village, especially) will usually be seen by women as the guilty party. Furthermore, when the status of the Janda is officially assumed, the community will observe its activities. For example, coming home late, not working, not socializing, or anything else. The discussion will be drawn to the discourse of the body and mind of a Janda has been executed and controlled by the mind in a patriarchal culture. This condition does not occur in Duda. For any Duda, the community considers it normal. In the divorce process widowers tend not to be seen as guilty parties. This research is a qualitative study with a phenomenological method in Central Java and Yogyakarta. The results of this study indicate that from the beginning until today the condition of women (Janda) has not changed much, The rights attached to Janda are reproduced by the public which gave rise to marginalization and stereotypes; The social space for Janda has shifted to the imbalance of power relations; myths and symbolic violence experienced by Janda because culturally the behavior of Janda is a public concern; Symbolic violence is experienced by Janda due to negative assumptions about their activities; patriarchal power always shackles women into a space of injustice; A public dominated by patriarchal culture eventually forms an unequal power discourse.

Psychological Violence Reinforcing Patriarchal Power Structure in Uzma Aslam Khan’s Trespassing: An Investigation of the Genette’s Model of Narratology

The present study explores through Genette’s model of narratology, the theme of psychological violence as the outcome of housewifization and how it works in multiple ways to reinforce patriarchal power structures in Uzma Aslam Khan’s novel ‘Trespassing’. The purpose of the research is to identify the various factors responsible for propagating the evil of psychological violence and suggest ways in which this violence can be curbed. The methodology selected for this research is qualitative. Through qualitative research, the researcher has attempted to analyze the narrative structure of the novel and explore how psychological violence inhibits women’s psychological and social growth? Further analysis of the novel attempts to extend some interpretations of the novel's analepsis and prolepsis and determine precisely the duration through the accelerated techniques.

Empower or disempower? The Cunning Patriarchal Consumerism and Female Representation in the Chinese Online Shopping Festival Queens Day

Chinese online shopping festival has become increasingly important to research on cultural and societal issues related to gender. This paper focuses on the Chinese online shopping festival 3.8 Queens Day, investigates the relationship between female empowerment and patriarchal consumerism power embedded in Queens Day in context of Chinese society. This paper analyses the reason of the popularity of Queens Day through the historical and societal perspective, and by critical discourse analysis of the advertisements and slogans in Queens Day, the patriarchal power presented by dominant male aesthetics and patriarchal discourse have been found. Then, through renaming Womens Day and the word Women ( in Chinese) to Queen, it can be seen that patriarchal consumerism discourse has done alienation towards female by deconstructing the historical and societal meaning of the Womens Day. This paper uncovers the cunning of patriarchal consumerism as inconspicuous male power seemingly empowers but actually disempowers female through ads that advocate female independence.

Constructing the ultimate “leftover women”: Chinese media’s representation of female PhDs in the postsocialist era

ABSTRACT Although China’s “leftover women” phenomenon has drawn much attention academically in recent years, there is a lack of clarification of the diversity within these largely “demonized” women. This study is particularly interested in the female PhDs in postsocialist China since they are supposed to exemplify women’s empowerment but still end up being the common target of patriarchy. Therefore, this study not only examines patterns and implications of Chinese mass media’s representation of female PhDs, but also analyzes how media coverage of them has reflected the Chinese authorities’ strategic dissemination and consolidation of patriarchal power and ideologies in a postsocialist context intermingled with neoliberalism. In the end, the study discusses China’s discursive marginalization and eugenic concerns regarding female PhDs, as well as the causes of the lack of collective negotiation within these women.

Some Problems with Gendered Subjectivity and Representation: Baise Moi and Hard-Core Pornography

Based on a framework developed by the works of critical theorists Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, this article focuses on a reconceptualization of the relationship between representation on screen and the production of sexualities in order to examine the discourse around the film Baise Moi (Despentes and Trinh Thi, 2000). There have been criticisms about the film’s pornographic and violent elements as well as its “bad ending”, arguing that the film results in a reaffirmation of the patriarchal power practices. This article counterargues that such readings remain within the limited territory of seeking an ideal representation of femininity based on the gender/sex binary which Butler’s work has critiqued. The final section of the article aims to demonstrate how Baise Moi conveys a layered audio-visual organization that focuses on the attainability of different sexualities that are not conforming to the idea of universal sexuality through adopting a pornographic aesthetic that provides the means through which the film can overturn gender norms as well as hard-core porn’s idealism.

Meme and cyber sexism: Habitus and symbolic violence of patriarchy on the Internet

This study examines the various sexist practices on the Internet called cyber sexism. The Internet seems to become a new world for patriarchal domination. The amount of content, comments, and memes circulating on the Internet and social media, such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp harassing women, is proof of the patriarchal power on the Internet. This study used a qualitative method with a feminist perspective, collecting memes through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. The memes were then reviewed and interpreted to find their meaning. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus theory and symbolic violence, memes were analyzed to find the factors that cause sexism against women and the logical link between sexist practices in the real world and cyber sexism on the Internet. Results indicate that people’s habitus about patriarchy has become a mental structure of society that influences stereotyped behavior and gender bias and plays an important role in sexism on the Internet. The Internet, as an arena, has become the initial capital for men to dominate. Naming and mentioning women in various memes are the forms of symbolic violence against them that form new sexist habitus on the Internet.

Risk and intersectional power relations: an exploration of the implications of early COVID-19 pandemic responses for pregnant women

The World Health Organization and many national health authorities identifie pregnant women as requiring extra protections during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Nevertheless, many initial responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were implemented in ways that have disrupted the care and support women receive and provide during pregnancy. In this article, I apply an intersectional approach to explore the unintended implications of discourses and practices targeting universal risks of COVID-19 for pregnant women. I discuss three overlapping topics. First, pandemic responses that aimed to negate the universal risk of COVID-19 transmission created obstacles to maternal health care that disproportionately impacted low-income women and regions. For example, rapidly changing public health mandates that were intended to protect the population from the universal threat of COVID-19 have produced unintended results of restricting public transportation, and consequently, access to maternal care. Second, overly precautious healthcare practices aimed at protecting foetuses and new-borns from possible risks can harm women and their new-borns. Recommendations, such as separating women from their new-borns at birth to prevent the spread of COVID-19, are shown to be often entangled with racism and colonialism. Third, in neoliberal contexts, dominant discourses have constructed privileged women as ‘normal’ in a way that responsibilised all women to minimise health risks for their foetuses. Such recommendations ignore inequalities in women’s living conditions and ability to follow public health advice about COVID-19. I argue that responses to COVID-19 were (dis)organised within pre-existing economic, racial, colonial, and patriarchal power relations that disadvantaged some pregnant women more than others.

From Afghan Pan-Islamism to Turkish Feminism

From Afghan Pan-Islamism to Turkish Feminism

Workforce localization, women workers and gendered power relations in Saudi Arabian private sector workplaces

PurposeThe paper investigates the implications for gendered power relations at work of Nitaqat, a workforce localization policy operating in Saudi Arabia which, by regulating the employment of Saudi nationals in private sector firms, has stimulated greater feminization of employment.Design/methodology/approachBased on an interpretivist, phenomenological research approach, rich qualitative data were collected in two case study organizations – a retail company and an architectural firm. The mixed-method design involved in-depth interviews with managers and women workers and extensive non-participant observation.FindingsIn exploring gendered power relations in Saudi private sector workplaces under the Nitaqat regime, the paper highlights the importance of patriarchal power. However, increased feminization of employment provides women workers with access to power resources of their own, producing complexity and variation in gendered workplace power relations.Originality/valueDrawing on Bradley's (1999) relational conception of gendered power, the paper illuminates how a Nitaqat-inspired feminization of employment, by increasing firms' dependency on women workers, has influenced the dynamics of gendered power relations in Saudi workplaces.

Cosmopolitanism and strange encounters in George Elliott Clarke’s The Motorcyclist

ABSTRACT This article engages a form of cosmopolitanism that departs from universalist precepts, and instead underscores the role of situated difference in establishing productive dialogues among particular world views. It also works with the associated concept of the cosmopolitan stranger to delineate relationships among othered groups. Reading encounters between strangers in George Elliott Clarke’s 2016 novel The Motorcyclist, it attempts to illustrate how othered subjectivities interact in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and how these interactions are profoundly shaped by colonial, white-supremacist, and patriarchal power structures. Divisions and hostilities among strangers are contingent on hierarchical and seemingly fixed oppositions in terms of race, class, or gender. Use of the figure of the cosmopolitan stranger helps to demonstrate that these conflicts can be approached in self-critical terms, and that simple binaries of exclusion may be replaced by a more nuanced reading of relational difference.

Mouldy Matriarchs and Dangerous Daughters

Mouldy Matriarchs and Dangerous Daughters

A Study of Local Government in Africa through Participatory Action Research (PAR)

A Study of Local Government in Africa through Participatory Action Research (PAR)

Women's Right to Land Between Collective and Individual Dimensions. Some Insights From Sub-Saharan Africa

Women represent a large part of the 2.5 billion people who depend on lands managed through customary, community-based tenure systems and are especially reliant on commons for their lives and livelihoods. They have very often limited and unsecured access to land and natural resources and tend to be excluded from decisions concerning them. Far from representing a homogenous group, they face varying challenges that are the result of multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, whereby gender dynamics intersect with other characteristics, such as age, disability, ethnic origin, or socioeconomic status. Peasant and indigenous women, in many instances, face the compounded impact of the lack of recognition and violation of the collective rights of their communities, which is often the legacy of histories of colonization, conquest, dispossession and discrimination, and patriarchal norms, exacerbated by neoliberalism and the commodification of land and natural resources. The nexus between individual and collective rights is one of particular importance, but has received limited attention, including as regards the gendered effects of human rights violations of collective rights. In the present article, the nexus between collective and individual rights of peasant and indigenous women is illustrated by considering the experience surrounding the recognition and implementation of collective rights to land in Sub-Saharan Africa and the impact on women's right to land. The article argues that peasant and indigenous women's right to land is best protected through interventions aimed at guaranteeing both their collective and individual rights. There is a need to take into account and address simultaneously the barriers that indigenous and peasant women face with regard to their collective as well as their individual rights. These barriers include those ascribed to the discrimination and social, economic and political marginalization suffered by their peoples and communities, as well as those related to patriarchal power structures within and outside them. Addressing these barriers requires the respect, protection and fulfillment of both collective and individual human rights of women and a careful analysis of the interaction between these rights.

The fugue - music as a euphemism in the works of Carson McCullers and Emiliya Dvoriyanova

In Women in the House of Fiction Lorna Sage writes: "…the novels too treated the domain of character and representation as the place where the 'others' lived, playing their parts and acting out their roles…" (Sage 1992: viii). Sage investigates the impact women writers have had on post-war fiction employing that every novelist tries to probe the boundaries of fiction, to "voice" their views and positions through the language of literature. Using Henry James's metaphor of fiction as a house, however, Sage is indebted to one of the writers she read and wrote about – Angela Carter. It was Sage, as the first-ever critic to discuss Carter's works thoroughly, who noticed that houses are unable to endure holding the woman and her transgressive power at bay. All houses, castles, buildings, every entity that stands for patriarchal power, are eventually destroyed. Sage reads this as an attack from women novelists against their literary inheritance (Sage 1992: ix). Womanhood is a topic widely outspoken and deeply problematic. Each text takes on different ways to construct, deconstruct, explain and see the woman, her body, her role: in society, history, culture. I argue that women writers project a certain amount of personal experience into the fictional worlds they create - an approach Ellen Moers had in Literary Women and her reading of Frankenstein as Merry Shelly's personified trauma of giving birth. My paper outlines cultural contexts as relevant to the works of different writers. It traces how intentional or non-intentional intertextuality connects texts and motifs; my article seeks to answer how different cultural contexts brought about similar problems. To complete the outlined goals, I rely on close reading of particular texts.

Constructing the unruly public: governing affect & legitimate knowledge in post-Katrina New Orleans

This paper turns to a series of public meetings surrounding the rebuilding of the New Orleans jail, OPP in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to argue that neoliberal urban governance is predicated on the everyday reification of racist and patriarchal power hierarchies through the sociospatial policing of what constitutes legitimate knowledge and of affect in the public sphere. We demonstrate that these public meetings served to reproduce racialized and gendered power relations under the façade of urban civic participation. Through ethnographic research and drawing on anti-racist and Black feminist scholarship on epistemology and affect, we uncover three key bureaucratic mechanisms/techniques that shaped the public meetings: the regulation of space, the defining of legitimate knowledge, and the policing of affect. We argue that together these mechanisms produced an unruly public along lines of race and gender which was then used as justification for silencing communities directly impacted by the harms of the criminal legal system from legitimate discourse and debate. However, meeting attendees challenged these processes, using their ‘unruliness’ to call attention to how the narrow definition of legitimate participation in public meetings under neoliberal urban governance regimes mirrored the broader punitive patterns that mark the everyday crises of the carceral state.