State Feminism Research Articles

‘Purpose’ and the Adaptation of Authoritarian Institutions: The Case of China’s State Feminist Organization

This article examines the All China Women’s Federation’s “women’s work” (funv gongzuo) since 1978 and offers a new analytical explanation of its mixed record of success and failure. It is argued that the ACWF has undergone a process of adaptation that is driven by the agency of its cadres, who have succeeded in institutionalizing purposive incentives for pro-women action in the Federation. Cadres have engaged with academic discourses on gender and have socialized with women’s organizations and the international feminist movement. This process has created a space within the ACWF where pro-women work can develop and influence policy-making without challenging the Federation’s dependency to the Party. The resulting duality of the ACWF, as purposeful cadre agency-driven initiatives coexist with the regime’s conservative policy priorities and campaigns, explains the Federation’s successes as well as its many contradictions and important limitations. The case of the ACWF demonstrates that cadre agency is an important, yet frequently overlooked, variable informing the adaptation of authoritarian institutions.

The State, the All-China Women`s Federation, and the Women`s Rights Movement : The Fragmentation of State Feminism in the PRC, 1920-1995

International Women’s Day, 2015 was marked by a clash between women’s rights organizations and the state in China, drawing academic attention to research on state feminism in the PRC. This article argues an inherent conflict exists between the goal of the Chinese Communist Party to maintain power, the goals of the All-China Women’s Federation and the needs and realities of the women’s rights movement in China. It traces the development of the alliance between the Chinese Communist Party and the women’s rights movement since inception in the 1920s up to 1995. In the process the article takes issue with the assumption of monolithic state feminism in not only the PRC context but also in socialist state feminism, showing that the conflicting governmental and societal actors who make up the process of state feminist policy-making and implementation exhibit fragmentation, rather than unity. This analysis holds important implications for the nature of state-society relations in China, state feminism in socialist regimes, and the transnational women’s rights movement.

El-Sissi’s Women? Shifting gender discourses and the limits of state feminism

In the wake of the overthrow of former President Morsi amid massive demonstrations through June and July 2013, a specific new gender discourse began emerging in Egypt. Focusing on the high levels of participation of women from all wakes of life in the demonstrations against Islamist rule in Egypt, this new popular discourse is articulated in vernacular forms of expression, in the media, or in the writings of intellectuals and political analysts. It stresses the supposedly unanimous and uncontested support of “Egyptian women” as a uniform category, to the Egyptian military in their war against Islamic terrorism and to the military State, as well as their purportedly universal infatuation with President Abd el-Fattah el-Sissi. This indicates the rise of a new discursive form of State feminism, one that seeks to erase a rich four-year history of diverse gender-based mobilization. This article deconstructs the myth of “El-Sissi’s women” in reference to particular models of gendered imaginations of the nation-State and Egyptian women in the twentieth century, as well as their political expressions – and to the emerging “revolutionary” representation of women since 2011. These images and narratives allow us to decode the media-borne myth of “El-Sissi’s women” and analyze it as an attempt to construct a new and disturbing discursive form of State feminism. The politicization of women’s images – dancing in front of ballot boxes in the 2014 presidential elections or expressing support for their favorite candidate El-Sissi in videos – is part of this emerging discursive attempt to mask the multitude of claims women address to the State and of readings of women’s rights. By constructing the image of “Egyptian women” as a unified category and silencing alternative and independent voices, this new State feminism instrumentalizes women and their issues for political purposes in this period of sharp political and identity-based polarization, while giving them little in return.

Les « femmes de Sissi » ? Mutations des discours du genre et limites du féminisme d’État

In the wake of the overthrow of former President Morsi amid massive demonstrations through June and July 2013, a specific new gender discourse began emerging in Egypt. Focusing on the high levels of participation of women from all wakes of life in the demonstrations against Islamist rule in Egypt, this new popular discourse is articulated in vernacular forms of expression, in the media, or in the writings of intellectuals and political analysts. It stresses the supposedly unanimous and uncontested support of “Egyptian women” as a uniform category, to the Egyptian military in their war against Islamic terrorism and to the military State, as well as their purportedly universal infatuation with President Abd el-Fattah el-Sissi. This indicates the rise of a new discursive form of State feminism, one that seeks to erase a rich four-year history of diverse gender-based mobilization. This article deconstructs the myth of “El-Sissi’s women” in reference to particular models of gendered imaginations of the nation-State and Egyptian women in the twentieth century, as well as their political expressions – and to the emerging “revolutionary” representation of women since 2011. These images and narratives allow us to decode the media-borne myth of “El-Sissi’s women” and analyze it as an attempt to construct a new and disturbing discursive form of State feminism. The politicization of women’s images – dancing in front of ballot boxes in the 2014 presidential elections or expressing support for their favorite candidate El-Sissi in videos – is part of this emerging discursive attempt to mask the multitude of claims women address to the State and of readings of women’s rights. By constructing the image of “Egyptian women” as a unified category and silencing alternative and independent voices, this new State feminism instrumentalizes women and their issues for political purposes in this period of sharp political and identity-based polarization, while giving them little in return.

Socialist internationalism and state feminism during the Cold War: the case of Bulgaria and Zambia

After independence, the southern African country of Zambia was governed by the United National Independence Party (UNIP), which, from 1972, ruled in a “one party participatory democracy.” Although Zambia initially hoped to remain non-aligned, after 1972, the country embraced a socialist path to development and began to rely heavily on aid from the Eastern Bloc. Women had been key participants in the struggle for national independence and continued to play a role in the UNIP party. This article examines the political economy of aid transfers from state women’s organizations in Eastern Europe (in particular from Bulgaria) to the nascent Zambian women’s movement, with a specific focus on the bilateral aid sent to develop and support the UNIP Women’s League. Through exchange visits, educational scholarships, travel grants and specific technical and logistical support, the Eastern Bloc countries built state feminist capacity within Zambia and helped Zambian women find their political voices on the international stage during the United Nations Decade for Women (1975-1985).

The Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics, and the End of Neoliberalism by Paul Amar

<i>The Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics, and the End of Neoliberalism</i> by Paul Amar

Cartooning and the Democratic Transition in Tunisia

Cartooning and the Democratic Transition in Tunisia

Detention of the Feminist Five in China

476 Feminist Studies 41, no. 2. © 2015 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Wang Zheng Detention of the Feminist Five in China On March 6 this year, just before International Women’s Day, the Chinese police in Beijing arrested five young women who had engaged in activism to protest sexual harassment on public transportation. The month-long detention of these five young feminists has changed the landscape of Chinese feminism. The global feminist mobilization that emerged to appeal for their release also presents a fascinating example of a successful feminist response to authoritarianism. In this short piece, I open with a few personal snapshots to briefly illustrate the history of Chinese feminist engagement with sexist sexual norms. Next, I will situate the five young feminists’ actions within this historical context in order to illustrate significant changes in Chinese feminist practices as well as in Chinese society. Finally, I will discuss the political implications of the detention of the so-called Feminist Five as well as the global mobilization for their release. In 1985 I came from Shanghai to study US history at the University of California, Davis. I made quite a few American friends in the graduate program. They were very curious about my life in China, and I was very proud of being a liberated woman from socialist China. I acted like an ambassador, talking to different groups about the great accomplishments of women’s liberation under socialism in China. As a young, urban woman I enjoyed equal education, equal employment, equal pay, and equal opportunity for promotion. I had never experienced gender News and Views 477 inequality, I thought. One day I was telling my friends about how I once confronted a thief who had just snatched my wallet on a crowded bus in Shanghai and how I forced him to drop my wallet. My friends were very impressed: “Wow! You were so brave,” they said. A few days later, I happened to mention that on the same crowded Shanghai buses, men would frequently grope women, and my friend asked instantly, “How did you respond to them?” I replied without thinking, “What could I do? I just tried my best to move to another spot to avoid such rascals.” My friend then raised a question that shattered my self-perception as a brave and liberated woman: “Why did you dare to confront a thief but not a sexual harasser?” I answered, “Oh, I would be so ashamed if people around me noticed.” Immediately, I realized that my reply was highly problematic. That conversation set in motion a process of soul searching . Why would a liberated woman still continue to observe the patriarchal value of chastity? Why would women of my generation—the liberated Chinese women in socialist China—have no consciousness of the serious problems contained within these sexual norms? It was not only a personal reflection. From this point, I embarked on a long review and contemplation of women’s liberation in socialist China. I realized that in the realm of sexuality, while state feminists were able to transform the sexual double standard to a single standard for the general public (although some top male leaders continue double standards and engage in extramarital sexual relationships without being punished), puritanical sexual morality did not shake deeply entrenched masculinist cultural values of women’s chastity and virginity. As a result, a liberated woman such as myself could internalize such sexist values with no consciousness , let alone action, focused on changing such sexist culture. In 1992, I attended a conference by the Shanghai Women’s Federation . When a US feminist scholar asked if there were any cases of sexual harassment in China, the Chinese women participants all replied, “No, no, we don’t have sexual harassment.” I stood up and named things that happened to women every day on Shanghai buses as sexual harassment. By then I had long been empowered by my study of feminist history and theories. In 1995, at the NGO forum at the Fourth UN Conference on Women held in Beijing, feminists from inside and outside China openly challenged pervasive sexist sexual norms. Sexual violence and sexual harassment were clearly defined as violations of women’s human rights...

Murchidat: renacimiento islámico femenino como control estatal del discurso religioso en Marruecos

This article describes the training program for college students to become murchidat, female religious guides. The Moroccan state has developed and codified this new category since 2004, showing a traditional transmission of Islam by female and shaking the male establishment of the structures of the Islamic religion. The training and recruitment as officials of the new religious guides provides new job opportunities and a certain emancipation through religion to young believers students, transformed into community leaders whose mission is to convey a moderate Islam that has been strategically shaped by the Ministry of Religious Affairs to control religious speech and radicalization. Also it is shown in the text the voice of the new women religious guide showing the similarities of their speech to the concepts of the current Islamic feminism. Finally, it is proposed as the recruitment of women by the Moroccan administration can respond to a movement of re-Islamization of Moroccan society through an Islamic state feminism.

From feminism to FemInc.ism: On the uneasy relationship between feminism, entrepreneurship and the Nordic welfare state

Feminism in the Nordic countries was primarily formulated in terms of ‘state feminism’. The women’s movement cooperated with feminist government officials and politicians, resulting in societies that can be considered to be the most gender-equal societies in the world. Historically, the state provided for a large publicly-financed welfare sector which made it possible for many women to combine work and family through the state’s implementation of family-friendly policies, while simultaneously providing employment opportunities for many women. However, since the financial crisis of the 1990s, there has been a political change influenced by neo-liberal thought, in which politicians have handed over the welfare state’s responsibilities to the market, and, instead, the politicians have encouraged entrepreneurship, not least among women. Further to this development, there has been a change in emphasis from entrepreneurship (understood as starting and running a business) to entrepreneurialism which, in addition to a belief in the efficacy of market forces, also contains a social dimension where individuals are supposed to be flexible and exercise choice. In this article, we ask whether this entails a change in the feminist project in the Nordic countries, and if so, what the likely consequences are for this project, both in practice and in research. In order to answer this question, we reviewed existing Nordic research on women’s entrepreneurship and examined how this body of work conceptualizes entrepreneurship, gender, the state, and equality. We also considered whether any trends could be identified. We relate our findings to recent changes in government policy and conclude that the current discourse on entrepreneurship challenges, and possibly weakens, state feminism, but we also conclude that this discourse may also provide space for new forms of feminist action, in market terms. We coin the term FemInc.ism to denote feminist action through enterprise and we discuss a number of important challenges that research on this phenomenon is faced with.

Gender Equality Architecture: The Intergovernmental Level in Federal Systems

This article provides a first overall account of the intergovernmental components of Australia's gender equality architecture in the period 1978–2014. From the 1990s this is largely a story of institutional fragility. In explaining this, factors identified by scholars of state feminism, such as lack of political will, partisan ideologies and discursive shifts, particularly the increased influence of neoliberal approaches to governance, are taken into account. The new factor introduced is that of executive federalism, characterised by decision‐making behind closed doors. When women's intergovernmental bodies attempted to open doors to community input this proved fruitless, particularly in the area of economic decision‐making. Repeated attempts to introduce gender‐disaggregated reporting on the outcomes of Commonwealth‐State agreements were also largely unsuccessful. The article concludes that the democratic deficits associated with executive federalism – lack of parliamentary oversight or accountability and lack of community consultation – are closely related to the deficits in gender mainstreaming.

Three Decades of State Feminism and Gender Equality Policies in Multi-governed Spain

Spain’s evolution from an authoritarian regime to a well-established multi-governed democracy in a short period of time, has been accompanied by incredibly rapid social change and a varied (depending on the governmental period), but overall steady, consideration of gender equality as a political priority. This has also led to the rapid development and consolidation of women’s and equality machineries–state feminism–and well-established policies devoted to promoting gender equality over the last three decades, both at national and regional governmental levels. This article aims to present a consolidated policy area which has enough elements to survive and to keep on developing, although in an increasingly fragmented manner, among regions, despite the ongoing economic crisis and the conservative political turn. Based on theories of state feminism and discursive politics, this article analyzes four important elements for understanding this claim and the evolution of national and regional Spanish gender policies and institutions during the last three decades: women’s machinery, the relations between that machinery and women’s and feminist movements, the policy discourses present in gender equality policies, and the policy instruments used by those machineries and policies.

State feminism going global: Norway on the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission

This article examines the role played by small states in the promotion or reinforcement of new ideas and emerging norms within international society. More specifically, it examines the role played by Norway in reinforcing the normative framework of ‘women, peace and security’, with a particular view to Norway’s first period of membership in the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission. Norway is regarded internationally as one of the lead countries in terms of promoting women’s rights in relation to peace and security. The article discusses four possible reasons that may explain Norway’s apparent suitability and effectiveness as a norm entrepreneur in this particular issue-area.

Political, aesthetic, and ethical positions of Tunisian women artists, 2011–13

The work of women artists such as Safia Farhat, the only woman in the artists’ group l'Ecole de Tunis, testifies to the rupture with colonial art that began during the 1940s and that became the central orientation of art training in the Arab world since independence. This paper will show how the Arab Spring has seen an explosion of radically new artistic expression where women artists in Tunisia during the period 2011–13 and using forms such as documentary film, installations, cartoons, posters, and photographs, produce a new socio-critical discourse in the context of a ‘democratic transition’. While extending the work undertaken by pioneering women artists, contemporary creators like Nadia Jelassi, Aicha Filali, Nadia El Fani, Sonia Chamekh, and others in Tunisia, denounce both Salafi discourse and state feminism. This paper will focus on the work of several women artists to show the evolution from expressing marginal or oppositional views to political positions central to debates over the transition, as well as on the controversy and discussion that these have engendered, all of which has contributed to enriching public debate over freedom of conscience and expression in the region.

Women-friendly Funding? Conditions for Women's Organizations to Engage in Critical Advocacy in Norway

The main focus of this article is government funding for women's organizations and the ways in which funding affect majority and minority women's organizations' ability to perform critical advocacy in Norway. State feminism, as a descriptive model of a political process in which women's political mobilization “from below” meets political integration “from above”, is the point of departure, and the article discusses women's organizations' opportunities for political participation. The site of empirical inquiry is governmental support for both majority and majority women's organizations. The article explores the Norwegian state's reasons for funding women's organizations, as described in White Papers and funding guidelines, and the women activists' lived experiences of state funding. Norway is known for being a “women-friendly” society with an emphasis on political citizenship for women. State funding has been one way in which the Norwegian state has encouraged women's organizations' critical advocacy. This article suggests that state funding of women's organizations in Norway is one indication of a move from state feminism towards market feminism: minority women activists have to rely on project funding, which encourages an implementation role and leaves little room for minority women's own agendas; majority women activists are ambivalent about state funding because of low funding levels and increased professionalization. This article claims that advocacy pertaining to women's issues framed within a rights and justice discourse is weakened for minority and majority women, and that the structure of funding prevents a forceful advocacy role, in particular for minority women's organizations in contemporary Norway.

Latin Women Take the Helm

Latin Women Take the Helm

State Feminism and the Basque Women's Movement: Transforming Gender Relations in the Home

This article explores the social and historical circumstances that contributed to the institutionalization of the Spanish Basque women's movement and in turn contributed to the development of a particular type of state feminism. In this context, state feminism is defined as the relationship between government political action directed at women through public institutions and the diffusion of the women's movement at the local level. State feminism is examined in relation to systems of gender relations and the division between the public and private domains. The day to day activities of the contemporary women's association, Mother of Alava, illustrates the ways government programs combine wih the mobilization of women at the local level to promote gender equality.

“This Subject Concerns the Mass Rather Than a Group”: Debating Kemalism, Labor, and State Feminism during the Transition to a Multi-Party Republic in Turkey

“This Subject Concerns the Mass Rather Than a Group”: Debating Kemalism, Labor, and State Feminism during the Transition to a Multi-Party Republic in Turkey

Feminismo de estado emergente na transição democrática em Portugal na década de 1970

This study aimed to investigate and interpret the creation of a government mechanism for gender equality from 1970 to 1977 and to explore the key factors and players. The study drew analytically on contributions from the political process and state feminism approaches. The study questions the government mechanism's role in relation to equality, as a function of factors proposed in the literature, e. g., structures for political opportunities and mobilization, conceiving the political results as products of actions by (and interactions between) players in a specific context. A qualitative case study was prepared, focusing on document analysis and the analysis of 53 interviews with key players. The study concludes that the Portuguese political system allowed little room for integration of the gender equality policy agenda, even during the country's democratization process.

Women in Morocco

The recent political upheavals in the Arab world were marked by&#x0D; women’s significant presence in struggling for democracy alongside&#x0D; men. Muslim women activists in Morocco have particularly gained&#x0D; legitimacy in the context of the Arab Spring, which has brought the&#x0D; Justice and Development conservative political party to power. This&#x0D; has contributed to a shift from the elite liberal state feminism to a&#x0D; more legitimate religious activism. This introduces new spaces for&#x0D; contention, taking into consideration that following the 2003&#x0D; Casablanca bombings, Morocco has taken a series of measures to&#x0D; absorb the growing momentum of political Islam. One such measure&#x0D; has been to restructure the religious field by means of reforming&#x0D; and controlling the dynamics of religion in Morocco; this was primarily&#x0D; marked by the significant entry and deployment of women&#x0D; in the religious field as religious leaders and scholars. These statetrained&#x0D; female religious authorities offer spiritual counseling and&#x0D; religious instruction to different social segments. Therefore, they&#x0D; redefine parameters of religious authority and define a new model&#x0D; of activism that seeks to cultivate collective pious conduct within&#x0D; society and thus contribute to a comprehensive social reform.&#x0D; Therefore, this article explores the dynamics of female religious&#x0D; authority in Morocco in light of the current social and political&#x0D; changes. I examine how these women construct authority as religious&#x0D; leaders and how they endorse the state’s authority to control&#x0D; the dynamics of religion in Morocco and curb the voices of individuals&#x0D; or groups that operate outside of official Islam. I argue&#x0D; that despite the fact that these female religious authorities are&#x0D; viewed as instruments of state propaganda, they are gaining wider&#x0D; legitimacy and contributing greatly to the social welfare of their&#x0D; communities, which makes their “official” entry into the religious&#x0D; domain a serious step toward democracy and positive change.&#x0D;