Struggle For Equality Research Articles

À l’épreuve du patriarcat : le corps féminin comme facteur de réorientation des codes sociaux dans La nuit est tombée sur Dakar d’Aminata Zaaria et Des fourmis dans la bouche de Kadi Hane

Abstract. If the age-old problem of the status of African women is still a subject for reflection in the third millennium, it is because male hegemony has still not yielded to the weight of the many struggles for equality that have been waged since the 1970s. Victims of a social configuration that keeps them in a position of subalternity, African women are subjected to patriarchal domination that denies them any autonomy. In French-language black African novels, this balance of power has been represented in a number of ways. While some women resign themselves to, or even indulge in, their reification, others, on the other hand, who are considered rebels, opt for transgression and denunciation of a regime they find oppressive by putting their bodies on show. Mots-clés : Confiscation, corps féminin, déconstruction, patriarcat, résistance. Keywords: Confiscation, female body, deconstruction, patriarchy, resistance.

Social Justice in Higher Education

This research explores the deep-rooted social injustices within higher education, focusing on marginalized groups such as backward classes and marginalized classes. Conducted as part of a social justice course, the study aimed to highlight the inequities these communities face in educational institutions. Through interviews with students and teachers, we sought to understand how systemic discrimination, lack of resources, and social hierarchies affect their access to education. Our goal was to uncover the ongoing struggles for equality and justice that the historically and socially marginalized community face in these academic environments. The findings revealed significant gaps between policies like reservations and their real-world impact. Students from marginalized communities reported experiencing stigmatization and a lack of institutional support, which hindered their academic progress. Educators also faced challenges in effectively teaching social justice concepts, with many citing a lack of student maturity and understanding. The curriculum, though evolving, was noted to inadequately address the specific needs of marginalized underprivileged groups, and the influence of media, both positive and negative, was identified as shaping social justice awareness. This study highlights the urgent need for educational reforms, particularly in the integration of social justice and human rights into the curriculum, especially for teacher training. It emphasizes that while policies like reservations are crucial, they must be accompanied by a broader, more empathetic approach to dismantle systemic barriers. The research calls for an inclusive educational environment where educators are empowered to address these issues and foster equity and awareness in their students. Themes identified include: Discrepancy Between Policy and Practice, Stigma Surrounding Reservations, Need for Enhanced Faculty Training, Social Exclusion and Discrimination, Collaborative Solutions for Improvement.

Federalism and the Madheshi People: A Struggle for Equality and Inclusion

Federalism and the Madheshi People: A Struggle for Equality and Inclusion

Movie Review “Hana,” Resilience and Empowerment of Papuan Women in the Face of Systemic Injustice

ABSTRACT The review of the film HANA examines the resilience and empowerment of Hana Kristina Agasar, a young Papuan lady confronting systematic injustice. The video highlights obstacles faced by indigenous Papuan women, especially in school and employment, as a result of persistent racial discrimination. Hana’s narrative, rooted in socio-economic challenges , underscores both individual and communal hardship. Her perseverance in pursuing a better life demonstrates personal emwerment, self-efficacy, and community support. The review shows how oppression can be confronted through agency and societal support, utilizing resilience, empowerment, and cultural identity. Hana’s narrative symbolizes Papua’s broader struggle for justice and equality.

Strategic Imperatives of Muslim Leadership in Post-War Sri Lanka: Citizenship, Rights and Reconciliation

This study examines how a few selected mainstream Sri Lankan Muslim civil organisations have been responding to the Sinhala Buddhist ideological paradigm in post-war Sri Lanka. The ideology perceives that Sinhala Buddhists are true citizens of Sri Lanka while minorities are “others” or “guests”. Hence, the ideology plays a structural role in generating anti-Muslim sentiments in post-war Sri Lanka. Contrary to prevailing wisdom which argues that minorities attempt to deconstruct the majoritarian ideological foundation in their struggle for equality, dominant and mainstream Muslim civil society organisations in Sri Lanka have chosen to reconcile with it while resisting only its practical implications upon the community. Even though this strategy brings self-contradictory elements into play on theoretical grounds, Muslim civil society organisations think that it is a practically reasonable strategy given the developing socio-political context of the state. Based on primary and secondary data and the thematic qualitative analysis, this study builds an argument by analysing discourses of the selected mainstream Muslim organisations that minorities pick strategies for their struggle against majoritarian state and ideology taking their political and other demographical realities into account. Hence, their choices are not static but rather dynamic.

Culture and Social Movements: The Example of South Africa in the Post-Apartheid Period

This paper explores the intricate relationship between culture and social movements in post-apartheid South Africa through a critical phenomenological approach. This method focuses on the lived experiences and societal impacts of these movements, revealing how cultural symbols, narratives, religious frameworks, sports, media, and identity have shaped and sustained the struggles for justice and equality. The analysis begins by defining social movements and culture, emphasizing their interplay within the South African context. Using a phenomenological approach developed by Husserl and expanded by Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, this study undertakes steps such as phenomenological reduction, description, essence identification, and structural analysis. These steps are further enriched by combining critical theory with phenomenology, highlighting social, historical, and political dimensions. This approach allows for an in-depth understanding of how culture, encompassing cognitive, emotional, and moral components, influences the formation, strategies, and sustainability of social movements. Key findings illustrate that cultural elements have served as sources of resistance, empowerment, and solidarity, playing an essential role in shaping collective identities and actions. Ultimately, this research provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamic interplay between culture and social movements in South Africa, underscoring the importance of cultural resources in driving social change.

The Reflection of African American History and Culture in African American Literature

This paper explores the intricate relationship between African American history, culture, and literature, highlighting how African American literary works serve as a profound reflection of the community's historical and cultural journey. By examining significant historical periods such as slavery, Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, and contemporary issues, the paper delves into the impact of these events on African American identity and cultural expression. Additionally, it analyzes the representation of African American cultural elements like music, oral traditions, and religious practices in literature. Through a detailed examination of selected literary works, the paper reveals how African American authors articulate the complexities of their experiences, capturing themes of resilience, resistance, and identity. This study underscores the importance of literature in preserving and conveying the rich history and culture of African Americans, offering a deeper understanding of their enduring struggle for justice and equality.

‘The Church is against us!’ Feminist collective apostasies and the struggle for gender equality in Argentina and Spain

ABSTRACT Feminist mobilisations risen across the globe in the last few years. This is especially the case in Latin America and Spain, where social movements to claim the legalisation of abortion and to end violence against women have become key political actors. Some of these movements have adopted collective apostasies as a tool within their mobilisation repertoires to denounce the role of the Catholic Church in maintaining the patriarchal system and interfering in the state and politics. By collectively and formally leaving the Church, members of these groups bring together the fights for gender equality and for the separation of church and state. In so doing, they make apostasy a highly politicised action, far from how previous scholarly conceptualisations of institutional disaffiliation considered it an individual process of religious disengagement. Feminist groups identify the Church as an enemy of women’s rights and while they acknowledge the restricted impact apostasies may have, they perceive them as useful tools to open up public debates around the contentious intersection of institutional religion and gender. This contribution draws on interviews, ethnographic observations, and document and visual analysis of feminist collective apostasies in Argentina and Spain to unpack the discourses generated in and around them.

Kontribusi Pemikiran Tokoh Feminisme Islam

Women in Islamic studies have reached a very important position. Many gender activists have discussed this topic, especially regarding gender equality. Several prominent feminist figures in the struggle for women's rights and gender equality include Qasim Amin, Amina Wadud Muhsin, and Fatimah Mernissi. Each of them has their own views about women. This article was prepared with the aim of presenting several opinions from these feminist figures and then extracting them. The writing of this article applies library research methods by collecting library materials sourced from books, journals and online articles. Based on this study, the view is obtained that Islamic feminist thought is very influential in reconstructing the interpretation of the position of women in Islamic law. This is a form of confirmation that interpretation is a subjective matter that is greatly influenced by the interpreter. Muslim feminist thought is actually relevant to the current context where men and women have equal positions.

Backward and in Heels . . . Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald's Extraordinary Journey to Discovery at High Altitudes.

In 1911, Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald (1872-1973) conducted a study in the mountains of Colorado that offered invaluable insights into how the body responds to chronic hypoxia. Researchers awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine 2019 cited her work as critical in unravelling the hypoxia sensing system. The astounding career situation in which FitzGerald found herself while conducting this study offers important insights into the challenges faced by women in science at the turn of the twentieth century. Like Ginger Rogers dancing with Fred Astaire, FitzGerald did the equivalent of everything her male colleagues did, only backward and in high heels. Although it is tempting to believe that such inequities for women are relegated to history, the career challenges faced by 2023 Nobel Laureate Katalin Karikó highlight evidence that the struggle for equality of women in science remains a significant problem.

The Mexican American Experience in Texas: Citizenship, Segregation, and the Struggle for Equality

The Mexican American Experience in Texas: Citizenship, Segregation, and the Struggle for Equality

Subversion and Reconstruction: The Classic Retelling of Margaret Atwood’s Impatient Griselda

Margaret Atwood frequently employs the technique of retelling classics, as exemplified by her innovative subversion of “Patient Griselda”, the final story in Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, with her own version, “Impatient Griselda”. Through the lens of postmodern feminism, “Impatient Griselda” deconstructs the human cultural center and the binary gender by narrating the story from the perspective of the Other of an alien. This narrative choice highlights the inherent biases and limitations of anthropocentrism and traditional gender roles. By contrasting the distinct differences and the evolution of female protagonists’ subjectivity in both the original and Atwood’s retelling, “Impatient Griselda” underscores the significance of challenging patriarchal structures and overturning conventional female values as essential steps toward women’s liberation. Furthermore, Atwood digs into the roots of gender power imbalances, particularly as they manifest in domestic violence. Through her retelling, she advocates for increased awareness and attention to the contemporary living conditions of women. By reframing the narrative and giving voice to the traditionally silenced or marginalized, Atwood not only critiques the historical context of gender relations but calls for a reevaluation of modern societal norms as well. This expanded narrative serves as a poignant reminder of the ongoing struggle for gender equality and the necessity of continued feminist discourse.

Jazz music: From black pride to political consciousness to social change in the United States

African Americans have been marginalised, discriminated against, and excluded from American society for centuries. First as slaves, but later when they gained emancipation, they remained relegated, differentiated, and discounted, in a range of areas, including in the political and economic spheres. Music has been a means to promote their greater inclusion in American society, drawing together and uniting all Americans through its power. While there have been links drawn between music and the African American struggle for equality, there has not been sufficient focus on the pivotal role that specifically jazz music has played in this regard. Jazz particularly has been a vehicle for promoting Black pride, political consciousness, and social change. This article argues that jazz has had a major effect on African American culture, society, and experience. Analysing the works of legendary jazz musicians James Brown, John Coltrane, Billie Holiday, and The Temptations, this article shows that jazz is not only as a catalyst for, but a driving force in, the fight for political freedom, as well as for economic empowerment, which is arguably still ongoing today.

Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder. Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 268 pp.

Lawrence Blum and Zoë Burkholder. Integrations: The Struggle for Racial Equality and Civic Renewal in Public Education Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021. 268 pp.

Women Lawyers in the Struggle for Gender Equality in the Bar (late 19th — early 20th centuries)

Women Lawyers in the Struggle for Gender Equality in the Bar (late 19th — early 20th centuries)

What is race? Epistemic ambiguity and liberal international order

Abstract There is increasing interest in how anticolonial actors advanced a norm of racial equality in mid-century formations of liberal international order (LIO). Less attention, however, is afforded to simultaneous epistemic conflicts over the scientific object of ‘race’ and their political effects. During postwar order-building and alongside political struggles for racial equality, there was wide and deep scientific debate on the analytical utility of race as a means to categorize human diversity. Race, I demonstrate, was rendered as epistemically ambiguous, caught between social scientists and philosophers who understood it as a social construct akin to ethnicity and natural scientists who maintained a biological basis. This split was not confined to academic debate but shaped political and normative struggles over the institutionalization of racial equality in LIO. Adopting an object-oriented approach, I argue that the epistemic ambiguity of race generated political effects, at once permitting the reproduction of colonial logics in LIO as well as providing latitude for strategies of resistance. Rather than a linear causal effect, I empirically map the work that epistemic ambiguity performed in the creation of mid-century international order.

THE FORMATION OF GENDER HISTORY AND ITS SUBJECT

Thе article aims to highlight the foundation of gender history as a discipline and to reveal the process of formation and transformations of the subject of gender history in the research of American, European and Ukrainian historians. From the beginning it was connected with the development of the movement for human rights, feminism, the struggle for gender equality and non-discrimination. The pluralism of approaches to the study of gender history and the definition of its subject is shown regarding to the diversity of approaches to the essence of history and gender, their interaction with sexuality, body, identity, race, ethnicity and nationality, colonialism, power relations, dominance and subordination, and the meaning of gender in history.

К вопросу о труде и образовании женщин на страницах журналов «Женский вестник» и «Женщина и война» в конце XIX – начале XX в.

Women’s right to work and education was formed under the influence of life realities and socio-political events of the late 19th – early 20th centuries. Women’s magazines served as a conduit for conveying the political interests of women, where they could learn about the prevalent issue of inequality in society and potential avenues for addressing it. These publications featured stories of women’s oppression in employment, wage disparities, and admission to higher educational institutions. Prior to the 1917 revolution, attitudes towards female labor in Russian society underwent numerous transformations, with working alongside men becoming a vital necessity for women. The exigencies of the First World War greatly contributed to the demand for labor, prompting many women to join the workforce and serve on the front lines as nurses and volunteers, fulfilling their duty to the Motherland. In conclusion, the narrative of women’s rights to labor and education in late Imperial Russia reflects a complex interplay of societal shifts and historical contingencies. As we reflect on this historical trajectory, it is imperative to recognize the ongoing struggle for gender equality and the enduring legacy of women’s activism in shaping the contours of society.

TINJAUAN CAPAIAN INDEKS PEMBANGUNAN GENDER (IPG) DAN INDEKS PEMBERDAYAAN GENDER (IDG) PROVINSI PAPUA TAHUN 2017-2021

Human Development Index measures the quality of development and human resources. In the gender aspect, measuring the quality of human development uses the Gender Development Index and Gender Empowerment Index. Gender equality is one of the goals of sustainable development. The aim of this research is to analyze the achievements of the Gender Development Index and Gender Empowerment Index in Papua Province the period 2017-2021. This analysis uses secondary data from the central and Papua Central Statistics Agency which is reprocessed and also through scientific journals relevant to the theme of gender equality. The analytical method used is a qualitative method with descriptive analysis to make it easier to understand the data presented. The research results show that the Gender Development Index and Gender Empowerment Index for Papua Province can still be said to be low. From the IPG and IDG measurement variables for Papua Province, they include life expectancy, expected years of schooling, average years of schooling, per capita expenditure, involvement of women in parliament, women's professionalism and women's contribution to family income which includes a comparison of men and women, there is only one variable that shows women's position is higher than men, namely life expectancy. Therefore, gender development and empowerment, especially for women, is very necessary as a struggle for gender equality and part of achieving sustainable development goals.

Voicing The Reality of Colonialized Women in The Novel ‘Belenggu’ By Armijn Pane

This study explores the representation of women's subjugation during the colonial period in Indonesia through Armijn Pane's novel "Belenggu." Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach that integrates literary sociology, feminist literary criticism, and postcolonial studies, this research provides a comprehensive understanding of how the novel reflects the author's critique of patriarchal societal structures and colonial impacts on indigenous women. The analysis focuses on the main character, Sukartini, highlighting her struggle for equality and autonomy. Despite being educated and progressive, Sukartini is depicted as trapped within socio-cultural and political constraints, influenced by entrenched patriarchal norms and colonial domination. This study reveals the dual layers of oppression faced by women, emphasizing the compounded struggles due to both gender and colonial subjugation. By examining Sukartini's character, the research illustrates how deeply ingrained patriarchal norms and colonial dominance restrict women's roles and voices. The findings contribute to Indonesian literary sociology by expanding the scope of analysis to include gender and postcolonial issues, underscoring the importance of examining literary works through multiple theoretical lenses. Moreover, the study highlights the role of literature in spreading awareness, providing social critique, and inspiring advocacy for gender equality and justice. "Belenggu" serves as a poignant critique of historical and ongoing gender inequality, reinforcing the relevance of literary analysis in understanding and addressing complex social issues. This research offers a nuanced perspective on the socio-political contexts shaping narratives, advocating for continued scholarly attention to literature as a means of promoting social change and a more equitable society.