State Feminism Research Articles

The Collateral Damage of Policy Reform: Low-Income Women Retirees, State Feminism, and the Pension System in Sweden

In 2014, the Swedish government declared itself the first feminist government in the world. Indeed, the country has been successful in promoting gender equality, yet many retired women, particularly in rural areas, live on an income below the EU poverty line. Based on analysis of Sweden’s pension system, the country’s commitment to gender equality, and interviews with low-income women pensioners in rural Sweden, this article explores why some women end up living in poverty in later life. The article demonstrates how the Swedish pension reform of the 1990s has generated a structural lag; today’s older women have lived during times that were radically different from the world nowadays, yet their pensions are based on forward-looking ideals. Consequently, today’s older women have become “collateral damage” (Bauman 2011) of securing a new form of pension system, and seemingly also neglected in the state’s promise of ensuring gender equality.

The Westernization of social and personality psychology in Turkey and the ongoing struggle for indigenous perspectives: A historical review and an agenda for liberating psychology.

Liberation is a multifaceted concept, often intertwined with psychological processes such as freedom from oppression and the ability to think and act freely. Historically, Western social psychologists have favored the individualistic notion of freedom over the collective effort of liberation. This divergence has led to the separation of the histories of liberation struggles and psychology, including feminism. This article explores distinct historical trajectories in Turkey and highlights the divisive dynamics within feminist movements, particularly the erasure of ethnic minority women by state feminists in postdynastic Turkey. Furthermore, the Westernization and the Americanization of psychology have positioned the field as a neutral, value-free science, effectively silencing indigenous feminist perspectives and encouraging overreliance on adapting gender-based scales to Turkish. Despite this, a nascent history of feminist psychology in Turkey exists, which challenges homogenization and standardization, advocating for a conceptualization of freedom beyond individualism. Finally, an agenda for liberating social psychology is proposed through challenging tattered binaries of "East" and "West" or "secular" or "conservative" and promoting a collective and intersectional approach to psychological research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Legal Feminism: Wang Ruqi and the 1950 Marriage Law

Abstract This article analyses Wang Ruqi’s 王汝琪 (1912–1990) contribution to the drafting of the 1950 Marriage Law, the first codified law promulgated by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It argues that Wang–who had been a legal specialist and a female political activist dating back to the 1930s and 1940s–was the actual author of the law’s first draft. In rehabilitating Wang’s long-forgotten contribution to the making of the Marriage Law, this study highlights that, first of all, lawmaking in the early years of the PRC was characterized by legal “professionalism,” rather than the “vernacularism” that scholars in recent years have tended to ascribe to this period. Second, Wang was an exemplary figure of a new breed of “state feminists” in the PRC, which we term “state-legal feminists.” State-legal feminists, like state feminists in general, were brought into the PRC state apparatus and took advantage of their role in the state to advance sociopolitical agendas. However, they differed from their fellow state feminists because they firmly believed that the state’s will and intent could be best articulated and exercised through codified laws and legal institutions. The making of the Marriage Law thus exemplifies the state-legal feminist approach insofar as it resorted to a codified law to push for the political agendas of women’s emancipation and restructuring families in China. While recent scholarship highlights the politicization of the law in the 1953 campaign to promote the Marriage Law, this study inverts this by addressing the legalization of political and social movements.

State feminism with Chinese characteristics: The inextricable link between women’s political representation and political episteme in contemporary China (2013–2023)

ABSTRACT This article examines the complex dynamics of state feminism in contemporary China (2013–2023) focusing on the paradoxical relationship between polemical narratives of gender equality and constraints on women's political representation. By tracing the historical evolution of Chinese state feminism, which strategically employs feminist rhetoric to emphasise male-female equality within a socialist context, the article highlights the role of the state-sponsored All China-Women’s Federation (ACWF) in its relation to the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) and other more independent feminist voices. While the CCP claims commitment to women's empowerment, because of its roots in socialist values and traditional gender roles they emphasise family values and neo-familism, which can inadvertently create patriarchal pressures, limiting independent feminist advocacy and hindering broader political opportunities for women. Drawing upon diverse sources, the article reveals the relationship between polemical state feminism on perpetuating gender hierarchies and restricting women’s political advancement in contemporary China (2013–2023) while also exploring the emergence of a new generation of Chinese feminists questioning and challenging patriarchal norms through diverse routes. While acknowledging the strong efforts for improving gender equality in China today, the article ultimately underscores the need for comprehensive policies addressing structural barriers for continued developments in gender equality.

Explaining leadership quality among the directors of Mexico’s subnational women’s policy agencies

ABSTRACT This article examines the effectiveness of women’s policy agencies (WPAs), with a focus on the leadership of subnational women’s institutes in the Mexican states. We contribute to the existing research with a new original dataset on WPAs in an important third-wave democracy in Latin America. Our focus on leadership quality provides a useful method for measuring one central component of institutional effectiveness across a large number of cases. We consider high-quality leaders to be those with longer tenure in office and higher levels of education, more professional experience, and closer connections to the feminist movement. Using a dataset of 226 directors, we find evidence that party ideology, electoral competition, and the institutional design of the agency influence the quality of leadership. Moreover, states with stronger women’s movements have higher-quality leadership in their WPAs. These findings support a central premise of the state feminism literature – that WPAs are most effective when allied with strong women’s movements and left-wing governments – and also point to the importance of electoral democracy in promoting institutional effectiveness.

Introduction to the roundtable: emerging research agendas for state feminism in the age of democratic reversal

Introduction to the roundtable: emerging research agendas for state feminism in the age of democratic reversal

State feminism, global feminist waves and democratic backsliding: global and cross-national perspectives

State feminism, global feminist waves and democratic backsliding: global and cross-national perspectives

Anti-democratic maneuvers and state feminism in Jordan: lessons for research in an autocratic context

Anti-democratic maneuvers and state feminism in Jordan: lessons for research in an autocratic context

Unsung Heroine: Wang Ruqi, the 1950 Marriage Law, and State-Legal Feminism

This article analyses Wang Ruqi’s contribution to the drafting of the 1950 Marriage Law, the first codified law promulgated by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It argues that Wang—who had been a legal specialist and a female political activist dating back to the 1930s and 1940s—was the actual author of the law’s first draft. In rehabilitating Wang’s long-forgotten contribution to the making of the Marriage Law, this study highlights that, first of all, lawmaking in the early years of the PRC was characterized by legal “professionalism,” rather than the “vernacularism” that scholars in recent years have tended to ascribe to this period. Second, Wang was an exemplary figure of a new breed of “state feminists” in the PRC, which we term “state-legal feminists.” State-legal feminists, like state feminists in general, were brought into the PRC state apparatus and took advantage of their role in the state to advance sociopolitical agendas. However, they differed from their fellow state feminists because they firmly believed that the state’s will and intent could be best articulated and exercised through codified laws and legal institutions. The making of the Marriage Law thus exemplifies the state-legal feminist approach insofar as it resorted to a codified law to push for the political agendas of women’s emancipation and restructuring families in China. While recent scholarship highlights the politicization of the law in the 1953 campaign to promote the Marriage Law, this study inverts this by addressing the legalization of political and social movements.

Feminist democratic innovations in policy and politics

This article examines the potential of feminist democratic innovations in policy and institutional politics. It examines how feminist democratic innovations can be conceptualised and articulated in local institutions. Combining theories on democratic governance, feminist democracy, social movements, municipalism, decentralisation, gender equality policies and state feminism, it conceptualises feminist democratic innovations in policy and politics as innovations oriented at (a) transforming knowledge, (b) transforming policymaking and public funding, (c) transforming institutions, and (d) transforming actors’ coalitions. Through analysis of municipal plans and interviews with key actors, the article examines feminist democratic innovations in the policy and politics of Barcelona’s local government from 2015 to 2023. Emerging from the mobilisation of progressive social movements after the 2008 economic crisis, the findings uncover a laboratory of feminist municipal politics, following the election of a new government and self-proclaimed feminist mayor. Critical actors and an enabling political context play a pivotal role in the adoption of this feminist institutional politics. The article concludes by arguing that feminist institutional politics at the local level contribute to democratising policy and politics in innovative ways, in particular encouraging inclusive intersectionality and participatory discourses and practices.

Commodified State Feminism: The Entanglements of Feminist Commodity Activism and Feminist Politics in a Nordic Welfare State

Abstract This article analyzes the entanglements of feminist commodity activism and state feminism. Feminist commodity activism refers to consumption and commodified communication as modes of feminist political participation. Earlier research on these topics has focused on the business sector and on media and popular culture, largely sidelining the state as a site of feminism. This article addresses the increasingly close relations between consumerism and state politics and asks how feminist commodity activism interacts with state feminism. It draws on two empirical cases in the Nordic welfare state of Finland. The first is Uhana Design, a small-scale fashion business, and its Girl Gang campaign that leans on state feminism. The second is Finland's former leading female politicians’ engagements with feminist fashion. By analyzing these cases via three theoretical lenses, business, popular, and state feminism, this article develops the notion of commodified state feminism, paying attention to economic, cultural, and political dimensions of feminist commodity activism and state feminism. It also argues that commodified state feminism is emblematic of the current political context, in which the boundaries between market and politics have become blurred.

The Role of UK Communities and Leadership in Tackling Female Genital Mutilation

Female Genital Mutilation is the act of removing part or all of a woman's external genitalia, including the act of injuring a woman's genitals without medical reasons. It is estimated that more than 200 million women have undergone Female Genital Mutilation procedures. This is an international problem and concern. The practice of Female Genital Mutilation in England emerged due to the arrival of immigrants who brought this culture. The efforts made by the British government in dealing with Female Genital Mutilation are by enforcing the law in the form of creating anti-Female Genital Mutilation laws and educating the public through campaigns and community empowerment. This research was created to try to see the role of British communities and leadership in dealing with Female Genital Mutilation using comparative feminist political theory and the concept of women's rights. This research will use a qualitative descriptive research methodology. The results of this research are in the form of political policy analysis using four approaches, namely gender; policy; and welfare states, state feminism, policy implementation and making, women's movements. As well as the emergence of obstacles in handling efforts which are influenced by various factors.

1975 – International Women’s Year and the Exhibitions Organised on this Occasion in Warsaw: A Case Study on State Feminism and Art Through a Revisionist Lens

The article centres around International Women’s Year IWY (1975) and the celebrations of this international event in Warsaw – the capital city of the People’s Republic of Poland. Based on archival documents held in the Department of the 20th and 21st Century Visual Arts Documentation at the Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Sciences, correspondence and press reviews, this text describes plans and realisations of art exhibitions related to IWY. This case study aims to add to the growing body of research regarding IWY, especially to the research focused on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain. It adopts a revisionist approach to analysing the intersection of cultural policy and women’s emancipation in the state-socialist context. The 1970s is seen as a unique moment when feminist art rooted in the western second wave met state-socialist initiatives for women’s art.

Chinese Feminists Face Paradoxical State Policies

Struggles for women’s rights, and the state’s responses, have shifted over the history of the People’s Republic of China. In an initial period of socialist state feminism, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated “women’s liberation” and offered child-friendly services to facilitate women’s entry into the workforce. During the era of post-socialist economic modernization, services were curtailed, shifting family responsibilities back to women and reinforcing patriarchal norms. Most recently, a form of made-in-China feminism has emerged, characterized by everyday resistance to prevailing gender expectations. Now, the state is suppressing feminist activists while adopting some of their proposals into law and policy.

Militarising gender: a (contrapuntal) reading of Women, Peace and Security (WPS) applications in EU-Tunisian security assemblages

ABSTRACT This article seeks to advance a contrapuntal reading of experiences and practices of Women, Peace and Security (WPS) applications in Tunisia. Drawing from Edward Said, a “contrapuntal reading” encourages to look at multiple perspectives and experiences, beyond dominant ones, to achieve a better understanding of the way WPS applications intersect with contextual and power dynamics. By focusing specifically on European-Tunisian security assemblages and their WPS discursive-practical articulations foregrounded in ‘capacity-building' and training sessions, the article argues that processes of militarization emerge distinctively from these assemblages and are linked to a muscular neoliberal security order that produces gendered divisions of labour, instrumentalizes (wo)men's roles and keeps them subjugated to masculine military requirements. Accounts emerging from in-depth interviews and participant observation are emblematic of the propensity to locate the genesis of gender-based discrimination and violence in the Tunisian context (and more extensively in the Global South), while discharging the conditions of reproduction of that violence favoured by policies of external intervention, including WPS ones, and by the militarization of social relations. This legitimizes and normalizes in turn the need for external intervention and training, undermines real gender transformative change and benefits versions of “state feminism” and its transnationally well-positioned Tunisian elites.

Decolonizing the Moroccan Woman

Abstract A public debate about the social status of women accompanied the emergence of mass politics in Morocco after World War II. The Arabic-language press argued that true sovereignty required the liberation of the kingdom’s female citizens from the shackles of tradition. Taking inspiration from developments across the decolonizing world, nationalists promoted women’s “rights and duties” to build a “new Morocco” beyond the constraints of French colonialism. State formation became dependent on a profound social transformation. Following independence in 1956, however, King Mohammed V gradually replaced the public conversation about female emancipation with a narrative that began and ended with the royal palace, thereby constructing a unique version of state feminism that persists today.

Gender equality in the name of the state: state feminism or femonationalism in civic orientation for newly arrived migrants in Sweden?

ABSTRACT This article contributes to ongoing discussions in the social sciences about how to interpret the incorporation of gender equality into integration policies – is it a form of state feminism or femonationalism? Drawing upon intersectionality, we analyse how gender equality is presented, discussed and negotiated in relation to ethnicity and nationality in Sweden. Methodologically, we employ a bifocal lens that combines (1) a quantitative investigation of representations of civic orientation programmes in Swedish policy documents and mainstream media, and (2) a qualitative analysis of ethnographic data collected in six civic orientation courses – three in English and three in Arabic – in three large municipalities. Such a two-pronged approach, which connects policy and media discourses with interactions in civic orientation classes, offers a granular picture of the complex and often ambivalent intersections of ethnicity and gender in relation to migration in Sweden. Ultimately, the co-optation of feminist values brings with it the risk of warping feminism into a trait of national/ethnic distinctiveness. Crucially, femonationalism is not the prerogative of far-right parties but is already becoming institutionalised, informing both mainstream media and educational practices in a feminist state like Sweden.

Theorizing illiberal state feminism: Institutional dilemmas and political parallelism in China's gender governance

Institutionally speaking, state feminism is manifested by a strong women's policy agency (WPA) that facilitates bargaining between women's movements and state bureaucracies. It remains underexplored, however, when state feminism thrives or deteriorates under authoritarianism and what institutional factors account for this. Using China's contemporary gender politics as a case study, this article aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of illiberal state feminism theory and its internal workings. It contends that deep-rooted institutional dilemmas lie at the heart of an illiberal state feminism such as China's, which are expressed in four pairs of contradictions: 1) interest consolidation vs misrepresentation, 2) coalition-building vs repression 3) institutionalization vs bureaucratization, and 4) political integration vs parallelism. These internal contradictions lead to the inevitable segregation and marginalization of illiberal state feminism. This article contributes to the current scholarship on state feminism by dissecting the unintended institutional obstacles faced by a single dominant WPA sponsored by an illiberal state.

Egyptian Feminism: History, Achievements and Problems

The article discusses the expansion of women’s rights in Egypt. The author notes that Egypt, concerning the status of women in society, has traditions that differ from those in other countries where Islam is the predominant religion. This is because the state has experienced various periods throughout its history, including the Pharaonic era, the Greco-Roman period, the era of Islamic dominance, and periods of revolutionary reformers. The author pays much attention to the fact that Egypt has strong class divisions and property stratification. People in different areas of the country live differently. What concerns educated urban feminists in Cairo and Alexandria is often alien to poor women in the rural regions of Upper Egypt. The definitions of “women’s equality” and “feminism” themselves in a country with nationalist and Muslim traditions often have different meanings than in Western countries. On the one hand, Egyptian women have historically been considered the heads of their households as wives and mothers, and many women have consented to this role. A small percentage of Egyptian women worked outside the home, and their involvement in political life was limited. However, “state feminism” became the policy of all successive authoritarian regimes. The author also highlights the “Islamic feminism” as an interesting recent phenomenon.

“To Feel Their Warmth, Sisterhood, and Closeness”: Australian Feminist Entanglements with Chinese and Vietnamese Communism, 1969–1979

Between 1969 and 1979 the Australian women’s liberation movement was richly entangled with Vietnamese and Chinese Communism. While this social movement has been substantially critiqued for its privileging of white women, this article considers a moment when women did work across racial and political difference, albeit imperfectly. Australian socialist feminists were directly inspired by Vietnamese and Chinese women, considering them tantalizing evidence of a woman-friendly communist utopia. But other feminists were entangled in ways that were less tightly woven and more surprising; for example, through the technique of consciousness-raising. Feminists also projected their desire for global sisterhood onto Vietnamese and Chinese women. Yet face-to-face visits reveal that East Asian feminists were not just a site for Australian feminist projections. As representatives of state women’s organizations, East Asian Communist women acted strategically to construct Vietnam and China as gender equal in the eyes of Australian visitors. This assertion of equality went largely unquestioned due to the revered place testimony occupied in the women’s liberation movement. Yet women’s differences were exposed in moments of bafflement during these visits. These are animated as moments of productive confusion; they are productive because they reveal the differences between women. Finally, Communist state feminists are not exceptionalized and are compared to Australian state feminists or “femocrats.” I find their agency similarly limited.