Women's Struggle Research Articles

When Silence Becomes Overstretched: Exploring the Loud Silence in Women's Struggle for Liberation in Contemporary Nollywood

Lots of debates, contestations and criticisms have continued to trail the subjugation of women in Nollywood narratives. Film scholars and critics, especially those who tow the feminist line, keep bemoaning the manner in which patriarchy and male hegemony take centre stage in many Nollywood movies to the detriment of women. Employing the mixed research methodology (qualitative content analysis and key informant interview), this study explores the loud silence in women’s struggle for liberation in contemporary Nollywood narratives. Three widely acclaimed and contemporary movies – Muna (2019), Omo Ghetto: The Saga (2020) and Fine Wine (2021) – were content analysed to foreground and highlight male chauvinism and hegemony as well as women’s struggle for their liberation. Though women’s silence in the movies is as prolonged as it is loud, the fierce fight they later put up against male oppression comes as a great solace. Therefore, it is concluded that Nollywood film-makers should continue to give preeminence to such issues in subsequent narratives.

Women Editors in Interwar Yugoslavia Between the Struggle to Write and the Struggle for Rights: Katarina Bogdanović and Paulina Lebl Albala

What did it mean to be a woman periodical editor in the Kingdom of SCS/Yugoslavia? What was the price of constant efforts made by some women periodical editors to reconcile the private and public, individual and collective, the desire for creative freedom or belonging to the literary community on the one hand, and feminist engagement on the other? How were their habitus and identity shaped between the struggle to write and the struggle for (women’s) rights? In this paper, I partially answer these and similar questions – which I cover more extensively in my doctoral dissertation in progress Women Periodical Editors in the Kingdom of SCS/Yugoslavia: Biographical, Literary-Historical and Typological Aspects – using the magazine Ženski pokret (Women’s Movement, 1920–1938) and the (auto)biographies of its founders and first editors, Katarina Bogdanović and Paulina Lebl Albala, as the subject of a case study. The interdisciplinary framework in which I operate consists of periodical studies, gender studies, intellectual history and literary studies.

Feminine Sensibility and Self-Affirmation of Woman in Shashi Deshpande’s “The Dark Holds No Terrors”

Shashi Deshpande’s novel “The Dark Holds No Terrors” explores themes related to feminine sensibility and self-affirmation in the context of a woman’s life.Fictional works by Shashi Deshpande depict the struggles of Indian women and build a world from the perspective of feminists. Her story presentations in That Long Silence are very real, thanks to the emotional identification and validation of self-anguishing via their difficulties. She stands in for the feminist longing for India’s rich cultural heritage and traditional practices that these women feel. She admits her fictitious art world was lacking strength and significance due to a lack of understanding of Indian women’s inner lives. Deshpande disrupts the typical matrix of ‘home and homelessness’ in the galaxy of feminist fiction by creating different narrative patterns that give her feminist protagonists adequate freedom to show their repressed sense for their motherland. Aside from the characters’ sentimentality, she promotes local sensibility via poetry, performances, ethics, and ethnic arts. In her narrative work, she has come to terms with the paradigms and commitments.

Unveiling the Struggles in Bama’s Karukku and Sangati

The feminism is the belief that women deserve socially, economically, politically and culturally equality but patriarchal social setup which is being followed in India always suppresses the role of women in all walks of life and caste system of India has made the plight of women even worst. This article discusses the projection of murky life of Dalit women in Bama alias Faustina Mary Fathima Rani’s novels Karukku and Sangati, These novels clearly depicts the lifestyle and social injustices faced by Dalit community people chiefly focus on subjugation and marginalization of women. The women of Indian society face discrimination from birth to death. Even at present the birth of a male child is being considered as an honour in Indian families. Though girl children are reared with love and care, they face the gender discrimination in each stage of their life. They face sexual exploitation, oppression and trauma but caste discrimination wound them to the core. Both the novels are autobiographical through which she has explicitly depicted the struggle of Dalit women and their emergence from the distressing plight.

Feminist Theories and Activist Practices in Organization Studies

This piece reflects on the untapped potential of feminist theories and activist practices to address vital organizational issues and societal challenges such as inequality, sustainability and care for the environment. While we recognize and briefly review the progress on gender issues in organization studies achieved over the last decades, our focus is on identifying the critical and underutilized strands of feminist thinking offering fresh responses to these problems, including decolonial feminism, feminist ethics of care, posthuman feminism and ecofeminism. By way of illustrating our theoretical arguments, we discuss how five different papers recently published in Organization Studies address some of these issues, including the uncovering of hidden entanglements of power and performativity in a global bank and in the beauty industry by paying attention to body and affect, the underrepresented struggles of women in the Global South as they disrupt gendered practices through consciousness raising, contesting gender regimes at organizational social events and, finally, how the social media operate at the intersection of gender and occupation. We conclude by outlining future directions for research as we discuss the contributions of anti-racist feminist theory and decolonial feminist practice to completing the unfinished project of social change while making our scholarship more reflexive and inclusive.

The Struggle for Women's Rights: History, Present, and Future

This paper delves into the multifaceted journey of feminism, tracing its historical evolution and exploring its contemporary developments. The overarching goal of feminism has been to challenge and dismantle the traditional gender roles, advocating for equal rights between men and women. The feminist movement has evolved through four distinct waves, each addressing specific facets of gender inequality. The first wave focused on securing legal rights, while the second expanded its scope to include education, workplace equality, and reproductive rights. The third wave introduced the concept of intersectionality and the need to consider the experiences of women from diverse backgrounds. The fourth wave leverages technology and social media, aiming to address issues such as online harassment, body positivity, and consent. Contemporary feminism also faces challenges, including online debates between men and women, often rooted in misunderstandings of feminist goals. Despite these hurdles, the future of feminism remains bright. It encompasses key areas like achieving equal treatment of women in the workplace, safeguarding reproductive rights, improving education for women, and fostering global solidarity to combat gender inequality worldwide. The collective efforts of women from all corners of the globe signify a promising path toward a more equitable and inclusive future.

Home and Work: Struggles of Indian Women Legal Professionals Before and During Pandemic

Grappling with work–life challenges often hinder the growth of women lawyers within their profession. As women struggle with the dual problems of working long hours and managing the family they are bound in a precarious situation which marginalises them as revealed in literature. The Pandemic 2020 has made the ‘work from home’ the new normal phenomenon. The present study makes a comparative narrative analysis between pre and during pandemics work–life contexts of the women lawyers by interviewing fifty of them based in Kolkata (India). The already existing work–life challenges have been amplified exposing their vulnerabilities. The crisis is about their existence as professionals, due to prioritising home over work during the pandemic. As the women lawyers strive to create a space within the legal profession, the pandemic proved jeopardising pulling them towards their conventional roles. Their professional and private spaces are brought under the same roof, increasing the struggle of their multiple roles and sacrificing their ‘me time’.

Fragmented Bodies, Fractured Identities: Womanhood and Body Politics in Breasts and Eggs

This article employs feminist theory to explore the theme of fractured femininity in Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs. Through the three female characters in the novel, Kawakami highlights the scarring of womanhood in a contemporary, postmodern context. However, the concept of scarring follows Cixous’s metaphor in which literature becomes a liberating and transformative act that vindicates the wounding of womanhood through the imposition of repressive ideals. This is shown as each of these women comes to represent the resilience of women in the face of conventional definitions of femininity. Natsuko’s reluctant following of convention, Makiko’s pursuit of feminine body ideals, and Midoriko’s struggle with her biological self represent women's struggle to realize femininity in the 21st century. Ultimately, these women manage to sustain a level of empowerment by rejecting the socially constructed concept of femininity. Kawakami puts the concept of femininity to the test to prove that it is the result of nurture rather than nature, thus suggesting that constructing a feminine identity in a postmodern setting is much more complex than in theory.

Unveiling Lady Audley’s Secret: Navigating Femininity, Autonomy, and Societal Constraints in Victorian Literature

The paper analyzes Lady Audley's Secret in the context of Victorian gender inequality. During this era, women faced societal expectations rooted in domesticity, limiting their access to education and public life. Braddon's novel challenges these norms, portraying a complex heroine, Lady Audley, who engages in criminal activities to navigate the constraints of her gender and social expectations. The novel explores themes of economic dependence, the limitations of marriage, and the use of madness as a societal tool. Lady Audley's character embodies paradoxes, reflecting the tension between societal ideals and individual desires. Braddon's portrayal of ordinary women's struggles provides a nuanced perspective on femininity, challenging the prevailing stereotypes of the time. The analysis examines the societal implications of madness and the consequences of resisting prescribed gender roles. Lady Audley's Secret emerges as a subversive work that addresses the invisible lives and personal conflicts of ordinary women, contributing to the broader discourse on female autonomy in the Victorian era.

The Struggle of Ukrainian Women for the Right to Higher Education: Historical and Philosophical Receptions of Liudmyla Smoliar

Abstract The article examines the conceptualization of the struggle of Ukrainian women for the right to higher education by the Ukrainian historian Liudmyla Smoliar. In the book The Past for the Sake of the Future, she analyzed this topic in a socio-political and cultural context. The researcher noted that under the influence of the social movement of the early 1860s, women were allowed to study at the universities of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa. Achievements and victories of the pioneers of this field were interspersed with obstacles and new prohibitions. Economic dependence on parents, and then on husbands, outdated legal norms, and political discrimination forced women to look for ways of self-realization. Summarizing the circumstances in which women had to assert their right to education, the researcher concluded that women gradually achieved convincing success, overcoming numerous obstacles at each stage of the arduous struggle for their rights to higher education.

The Negative Relationship Between Social Media and Body Image of Women

Nowadays, women are plagued by body anxiety, and social media is gradually destroying women's confidence and deepening women's body image. It's not just teenage women, adult women are also suffering from body images. On social media, women are always troubled by body image and attacked by the outside world. The purpose of this paper is to determine how social media affects women's body image and to identify the types of women who are most influenced by it. This article provides the background information about social media and body image, and also consider the factors that social media influence women in daily life. The paper finds that most of female is struggle with body image and suffer from the body sham. It is clear that social media and body image force many women struggle with poor mental health, and even affect their physical health, in the end of the article, the solutions about addressing the body image in social media, family and individual are provided. Through this article, women's mental health and body anxiety will be paid attention to, and hopefully more women will come out of body anxiety. Future research should focus more comprehensively on women's body image, such as life habits, age, interests and hobbies.

Analysis of the Main Female Characters in the Melur for Firdaus Web Series and Their Implementation in Learning

This study aims to describe the analysis of the main female character in the web series Melur untuk Firdaus and its implementation in learning at SMP Negeri 23 Pontianak. The methods and forms of research used are descriptive methods and qualitative research forms, and use a feminist approach. The data in this study are in the form of words and quotes that contain the roles and positions of women, gender injustice, and women's struggles in the web series. The data source used in this study is the Melur web series for Firdaus which aired on Slot Lestary TV3 on May 27 2022 with a total of 28 episodes. Data collection techniques used in this research are documentary study techniques and observational techniques. The data collection tool used by the researchers themselves as the main instrument and data card and assisted by observation guidelines. The data analysis technique used is content analysis technique. The results of the analysis obtained from this research are the role and position of women as children and also wives, gender injustice in the form of marginalization, stereotypes, and violence, as well as women's struggles in maintaining their household and its implementation in learning at SMP Negeri 23 Pontianak. The roles and positions in Melur's web series for Firdaus are divided into two. First, it describes the role and position of women as children who carry out their obligations to help with household chores, respect and care for their parents. Second, the role and position of women as wives who carry out their obligations, namely respecting, caring for, fulfilling and serving the needs of their husbands. There are three forms of gender injustice, namely marginalization that women are considered insignificant in making decisions and are only used as sex slaves, stereotypes limiting women from interfering and labeling in the form of insults, as well as physical and non-physical violence and its implementation in learning at SMP Negeri 23 Pontianak.

Covid- 19 and gender inequality: A critique of the working woman's struggle

There has been a dramatic change in everyday life due to COVID-19 around the world. The lockdowns, closure of schools and universities, and the loss of jobs has placed a lot of pressure on the family, particularly women. One of the main outcomes of the pandemic in Jordan has been the increase in the workload of women outside and inside the home. Despite the efforts made to empower women throughout the years, they continue to struggle and gender inequality remains overlooked and even normalized in Jordanian society. The aim of the study is to unfold the way Covid- 19 has disrupted women's lives and made gender equality less achievable, and explore the challenges they have faced in terms of the added paid and unpaid work they have been forced to do during the pandemic and to this end, in-depth interviews were carried out with 20 working mothers who were selected using purposive sampling. The study is largely informed by feminist standpoint theory whose main concern is the female voice and making it a valuable instrument in the process of knowledge production. The findings show that most women suffered from traditionally prescribed gender roles imposed by society, pressure and discrimination at work, and a lack of understanding and empathy at home and the workplace. Very few shared responsibilities with their husbands and their burdens with coworkers and employers, and an even smaller number was able to use the pandemic to their advantage and found ways to regain female power and self-assertion. The findings indicate that serious changes in policies need to be made to protect women's rights at work and in the domestic world, and the institution of marriage reconstructed within the Jordanian imaginary, and gender roles redefined.

Representasi Perempuan Abad 21 Dalam Novel Jalan Panjang Menuju Pulang Karya Pipiet Senja Kajian: Feminisme Eksistensialis

The purpose of this study is to describe the characters and characterizations, as well as to describe the representation of the existence of 21st century women in the main character in the novel Jalan Panjang Menuju Pulang by Pipiet Senja. This research is a qualitative descriptive study using the documentation method. Data analysis techniques used reading techniques and note-taking techniques, then the results of data analysis were presented in descriptive form. The theory used in this study is Simone de Beauvoir's existentialist feminist theory. The source of the data in this study was a novel entitled The Long Way to Go Home by Pipiet Senja. The total data findings in this study found 95 data, namely 40 data from characters and characterizations and 55 data from the representation of 21st century women in the novel Jalan Panjang Menuju Pulang by Pipiet Senja. The results of the analysis of the novel Jalan Panjang Toward Home by Pipiet Senja can be concluded that the main female character, Fatin, can realize her existence from the oppression she has experienced. The results showed that the forms of oppression experienced by Fatin's character were verbal violence (5 data), non-verbal violence (18 data), and sexual harassment (7 data). Fatin's character experienced verbal and non-verbal violence due to the actions of Rimbong who was her husband and also her new boyfriend Frankie whom she met in the Netherlands, while Fatin experienced sexual harassment due to the actions of Hans, a white man who stayed at the Tiara Hotel where Fatin worked, and was also carried out by Frankie . The representation which implies meaning and ideology as a symbol of the 21st century women's struggle against oppression as a form of existence, is carried out by the character Fatin. As for the form of the Fatin character's struggle against oppression as a form of her existence, namely by daring to fight (12 data), trying to rise from oppression (9 data), and working (4 data).

Women's Resistance to Marginalization in Oka Rusmini's Novel Tempurung: A Study of Feminist Literature

This study aims to describe women's struggle against marginalization in the novel Tempurung by Oka Rusmini with a feminist literary criticism approach. The research method used is qualitative descriptive with data sources for the novel Tempurung by Oka Rusmini published in 2018 by PT. Grasindo. The data collection technique used is a human instrument in the form of reading and recording techniques. The results of this study show that in fighting marginalization (1) women make efforts to work hard to improve economic conditions; (2) women make efforts to become intellectuals; (3) women’s efforts to show their existence; and (4) women's efforts to fight Balinese customary law. The resistance carried out by Saring, Sipleg, Jinah, Putu, and Pidagda as Balinese women who experience patriarchal shackles is a representation of the struggle against the marginalization of women.

Feminist Interpretation and the Struggle for Women's Rights in Public Space

Issues regarding gender never end, such as leadership issues and the role of women in the public sphere. Some interpretations of the Qur'an show views that do not fully recognize the human dignity of women. The push to reinterpret verses relating to gender to realize gender justice was carried out by Muslim intellectuals with feminist views. Among them, Amina Wadud Muhsin was challenged to fight for the reinterpretation of this problem using the hermeneutic method. The research was carried out by collecting library data, especially Amina Wadud's thoughts on feminist interpretation. Amina Wadud interprets the leadership and polygamy verses to mean that the concept and role of leadership in Islam are not limited to a particular gender. Polygamy is not an ideal form of marriage because it does not allow for the creation of a mutualistic relationship. The methodology used by Wadud critically considers the socio-historical context in which the verses of the Koran were revealed and provides space for a feminist perspective to fight for women's rights.

Nanomedicine for Maternal and Fetal Health.

Conception, pregnancy, and childbirth are complex processes that affect both mother and fetus. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that in the United States alone, roughly 11% of women struggle with infertility and 16% of pregnancies involve some sort of complication. This presents a clear need to develop safe and effective treatment options, though the development of therapeutics for use in women's health and particularly in pregnancy is relatively limited. Physiological and biological changes during the menstrual cycle and pregnancy impact biodistribution, pharmacokinetics, and efficacy, further complicating the process of administration and delivery of therapeutics. In addition to the complex pharmacodynamics, there is also the challenge of overcoming physiological barriers that impact various routes of local and systemic administration, including the blood-follicle barrier and the placenta. Nanomedicine presents a unique opportunity to target and sustain drug delivery to the reproductive tract and other relevant organs in the mother and fetus, as well as improve the safety profile and minimize side effects. Nanomedicine-based approaches have the potential to improve the management and treatment of infertility, obstetric complications, and fetal conditions.

Patriarchy and Women's Struggle in Selected Boom and Post-Boom Novels

Women play vital roles and are essential in the progress of a nation, yet the fabrication of gender instituted by patriarchal-modeled societies trivializes, devoices, and devalues the female sex, placing them in domestic positions and subjecting them to violence. As literature becomes the mirror of women's struggle, it also exposes the threats and challenges of patriarchy on women to assert their voice and to be recognized as significant other and not the other. Employing feminism specifically Simone de Beauvoir's 'second sex' concepts, this paper explored and discussed the status of women against the depiction of patriarchy uncovering women denigration in the two boom novels, One Hundred Years of Solitude (2006) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Recollections of Things to Come (1996) by Elena Garro, and elaborating women empowerment in the two post-boom novels, The House of the Spirits (1993) by Isabel Allende, and Like Water for Chocolate (1992) by Laura Esquivel. The women characters in the boom novels are stereotyped and placed as secondary characters, whereas those in the post-boom have successfully defined themselves and are empowered to reject the patriarchal portrayal of women. Despite the unrelenting debunking of patriarchy, the status of women characters is still inferior compared to their male counterparts. In turn, the four works convey similarities in depicting the era. These narratives have become platforms for women's rediscovery and avenues to re-evaluate the position and status of women; thus, re-securing their value as contributing voice and body in the society.

Reframing Suffrage Narratives: Pacific Women, Political Voice, and Collective Empowerment

ABSTRACT Dominant narratives of women’s suffrage have been shaped in ways that marginalize Pacific women’s experiences. Such narratives have emphasized the struggles of Global North women to achieve individualized political empowerment, primarily through the right to vote, from the late 19th century. By measures of struggle, individual empowerment and temporality, Pacific women have been characterized as passive recipients of the vote in the late 20th century. In this article, we contest these narratives through foregrounding Pacific women’s political contributions, and reconsidering how suffrage is defined in Global South contexts. By revisiting the Pacific women’s suffrage story and highlighting activism that mirrors and extends the strategies adopted by suffragists around the world to claim political voice, we put forward a more comprehensive picture of women’s franchise in the Pacific. In doing so, we uncover tensions between collective conceptualizations of political empowerment and the individual rights-centred approach favoured by dominant suffrage narratives.

Reclaiming the Public Space: Critical Phenomenology of Women’s Revolutions in Dark Times

ABSTRACT In this paper, I focus on feminist protests (exemplary, in Argentina and Poland) defending women's right to access to prenatal diagnostics and abortion, which I reflect upon from the perspective of Hannah Arendt's theory of politics. After briefly referring to Arendt's difficult relationship with feminism, linking it to the struggle of Argentinian women for legalizing abortion, I look at Arendt's theorizing of the body in and beyond the private. I then argue for politicization of abortion as extrinsically enforced and rethink the role of the private in the context of abortion regulations and practices. In the closing section of my paper, I offer a micronarrative of the feminist street protests in Poland, and discuss it as an example of feminist revolutionary moment.