Way Of Life For Women Research Articles

Women and Urbanisation in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Nigeria

This study examines women's role in the urbanisation of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. From the standpoint of feminist theory, urbanisation is believed to create expanded opportunities for the general populace as well as for women, who typically face discrimination in rural economies. However, the initial FCT master plan ended up being distorted by the dynamics and complexities of Abuja's urbanisation and growth process over time, which is driven by political and economic realities. There are drawbacks to urbanisation in civilisations with strong sociocultural norms and values, such as the fact that women must endure various forms of gender inequality, discrimination, and exclusion, particularly in the political sphere, which present significant difficulties. This study makes use of secondary data to demonstrate how the FCT's 2003 reconstruction to its original Master Plan provided chances for active participation in which women were included for both native people and newcomers. In a similar vein, the Federal Capital Development Authority's (FCDA) and other local council offices, which hired indigenous people for their departments and agencies, significantly altered the way of life for women from being rural farmers to empowered workers. In order to address the issues facing women in the FCT, empowerment must be a multifaceted process that transforms the economic, political, social, psychological, and legal conditions of the weak (women). It must also aim to demolish cultural, traditional, and social norms that devalue, disempower, and dispossess women, with a primary goal of meeting their needs.

Queering community: The affect of visuality in the Sinosphere

How do Chinese queer artists respond to the hegemony of Han-centric, patriarchal, and heterosexual norms, and how do they imagine home through a queer and activist lens? This study explores the visual representation of the queer community by veteran artist/activist couple Shitou and Mingming through an analysis of the photographs and documentaries shot by the artists and their friends since the 1990s and the author’s (auto) ethnographic interactions with them since 2004. The article articulates the construction of an affective feminist vision and its transformation into a lifestyle practice with ethics of care. It highlights three aspects of the affect of visuality: a) as an approach to autoethnographic visual work and research; b) as an illustration of a visually and epistemologically distinctive way of life for women as opposed to the reduction of women to political and social subjects within the power structure of the nation-state; and c) as a movement toward the organic organization of daily life that enables community-making without the commercialization or monetization of resources, labor and way of life, thereby rejecting the ideologies of the authoritarian state and the empire-driven logic of globalization in imagining and constructing a queer community.

Legal Control for the Safety of Cosmetic Products Application Use in Malaysia

This study discusses the legal control over the safety of local cosmetics products and the level of consumer protection in Malaysia. Basically, beauty is a way of life for women. Various alternatives are made to make the face look beautiful and perfect by using a variety of products available in the market. As a result, manufacturers are working to produce a wide range of promising products for a short period of time but use illicit substances that threaten consumers in Malaysia.The purpose of this study is to assess the level of legal control provided in the safety of cosmetics for consumers and consumer protection in Malaysia. The results of the study found that there were still many products containing prohibited substances in the market based on current issues which found that consumers experienced the harmful effects from the use of unsafe cosmetics. Therefore, the legal control laws provided can control this matter by giving fines and compounds to operators who still produce products containing these prohibited substances.

Belonging: women living with intellectual disabilities and experiences of domestic violence

Women with an intellectual disability are under-represented in domestic violence research, yet they are one of the most vulnerable groups who are at risk of violence and abuse. This article aims to contribute to the domestic violence field by reporting on a narrative dialogic performative study, which utilised a feminist poststructural perspective to explore significant relationships and the concept of belonging in the lives of women with a mild intellectual disability. Four in-depth narrative interviews were conducted. The study found that the women shared similar stories of devaluation and rejection in childhood and hence the women’s search for belonging contributed to their vulnerability to exploitation and abuse in domestic violence relationships. The paper argues that gendered discourses and constructions of intellectual disability regulate domestic violence as a personal problem or way of life for women with intellectual disabilities.

Managing the double burden: pregnancy and labor-intensive time use in rural China, Mexico, and Tanzania.

Labor-intensive work is often a way of life for women living in rural areas of developing countries. The physical exertion involved in such work may result in poor health outcomes for mothers and infants when continued through pregnancy. Using longitudinal data from China, Mexico, and Tanzania, we examine the relationship between pregnancy and four time-use outcomes, measured as hours spent in the past week on: (1) housework, (2) caregiving, (3) agricultural work, and (4) self-employment or nonagricultural work outside the home. An individual fixed-effects approach is adopted to overcome the potential time-invariant woman-level endogeneity of pregnancy status. With few exceptions, we do not find significantly different time-use patterns between pregnant and nonpregnant women. The assumption that women decrease labor-intensive work in developing countries during pregnancy needs revisiting and may have implications for both women's livelihood programming and assistance during childbearing periods.

Transnational family networks in the Somali diaspora in Egypt: women's roles and differentiated experiences

Diasporic Somalis are increasingly leading a transnational life in which family members are sustained through networks of relations, obligations and resources that are located in different nation-states. These networks and relations enable diasporic Somalis to seek safety for themselves and their relatives, minimize risks and maximize family resources. In this article, I examine three key dimensions of such a way of life, namely: migration; remittances; and transnational family care. I focus on the roles that women play in this family-based support system. For instance, women move and facilitate the movement of other family members; they remit to family members; and they provide care for children and sick relatives. But these transnational households are not free from tensions. Family members are placed in hierarchical relations shaped by age; parental authority; possession of western citizenship; financial resources; and bonds of familial reciprocity and gratitude. Women gain appreciation from relatives and a sense of self-respect for their new roles. Some of the women also make use of the family network to arrange for the care of their children and sick relatives, while they engage in transnational trading activities. However, young and single female relatives often sacrifice or delay their individual dreams because of their familial obligations. I conclude that transnationalism – as a way of organizing and sustaining livelihood, resources and relations of Somali families – is not always emancipating or marginalizing for Somali women. Rather the benefits and challenges of such a way of life for women are different, mixed and uneven.

La place de <i>La comédie des quatre femmes</i> de Marguerite de Navarre (1542) dans le discours sur le célibat volontaire comme modèle de félicité de l'Arioste à Gabrielle Suchon

In the Comedy for Four Women (1542), Marguerite de Navarre presents a dialogue among five female protagonists who express the delights and the torments that stem from the love of their suitors or husbands. This is true for all except the First Girl, who does not want to have anything to do with love or marriage. This article examines the special status of the character of the First Girl, an apparent forerunner of a new way of life for women. Specifically, it explores the potential for a sixteenth-century young woman to live a life without a suitor and, moreover, to proclaim that wilful celibacy is a source of genuine happiness rather than of the humiliating feeling of failure attached traditionally to a life outside of wedlock or religion. Moreover, in this play, Marguerite de Navarre makes a significant contribution to the idea of the dignity and happiness of wilful celibacy, while taking part in the Querelle des amies debate. Finally, this article gathers data on the historical and fictional characters that emerged before and after Marguerite’s Comedy, leading to the development of a positive view of the unmarried woman, which culminated in Gabrielle Suchon’s manifesto, Du célibat volontaire, in 1700. The data reflect a growing demographic trend, as well as a shift in the hierarchy of female values: chastity is no longer an end in itself, the supreme feminine virtue, but a means to the end of freedom and felicity.