Dignity Of Women Research Articles

At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power

The case for a long civil rights movement could use the history of what Danielle L. McGuire calls the crusade for black women's dignity. McGuire's passionate, prize-winning book At the Dark End of the Street broadens the mid-twentieth-century civil rights narrative by anchoring the freedom struggle in “a decades-long struggle to protect black women … from sexualized violence and rape” (p. xvii). This focus represents a significant departure from civil rights orthodoxy; McGuire is correct to observe that “analyses of rape and sexualized violence play little or no role in most histories of the civil rights movement, which present it as a struggle between black and white men” (p. xix). Civil rights historians find political meaning and causal power in violence against black males, such as the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, but have neglected violence directed at black women and girls. The result, according to McGuire, has blinded us to the ways “sexual violence and interracial rape became one crucial battleground upon which African Americans sought to destroy white supremacy and gain personal and political autonomy” (ibid.). Fannie Lou Hamer said it best: “A black woman's body was never hers alone” (p. xviii).

Beyond Emancipation: Subjectivities and Ethics among Women in Europe's Islamic Revival Communities

This article addresses the complex reflections regarding gender relations expressed by women active in the contemporary Islamic revival movements in Europe (especially France and Germany). Much recent research conducted among these groups aims to counter the rather negative accounts prevailing in public discourses on gender and Islam. This literature notably argues that women's conscious turn to Islam is not necessarily a reaffirmation of male domination, but that it constitutes a possibility for agency and empowerment. However, when faced with certain ‘traditionalist’ positions defended by these women, even this well-meaning literature seems precarious, left in a state of uncertainty. Taking this puzzlement as a point of departure, this contribution aims to think about the dilemmas involved in articulating a language for women's dignity and self-realization, which competes with dominant languages of equality, individual rights and autonomy. This project is rendered even more intricate by the fact that these pious Muslim women socialized in Europe have also been partly fashioned by the liberal discourses against which they want to position themselves.

Women's Access to Justice: Texts and Contexts

Law can be the site through which women's dignity and equality can be expressed and pursued. Speaking the language of rights translates one's needs from private interests to public claims through words and concepts that the community – local, national and/or international – have already validated. Law can therefore offer a medium to confront the injustices and unfairness built into other systems of political, social and economic ordering. Women's rights advocates have won significant victories through law and have generated gains for women's dignity and equality. However, law can also be a place where women's rights are not only silenced but where social, economic and political power structures are replicated and work against women's rights. This paper argues that effective rule of law programming focused on women's rights and democratic governance must begin with a clear definition of the rule of law, a careful analysis of the causes of women's inequality and the context in which it is perpetuated and sustained, coupled with an ability and desire to harness law as an instrument of social change that is tempered by a sober understanding that law is unpredictable and complex in its results.This paper proceeds in several parts. First, it identifies the key issues relating to women's democratic governance, women's rights and the rule of law. The second part identifies the importance of normativity and power relations for feminist theorizing around the rule of law. Feminist conceptions of the rule of law recognize that law is shot throughout with social and economic power and that harnessing women's emancipation to law is fraught with uncertainties and complications. At the same time, feminist theorizing around the rule of law also recognizes the importance of using law to speak truth to power and to gain access to the sites in which social relations are defined, evaluated and consolidated. The final sections of this paper discuss the different barriers to access to justice that face elite and marginalized women, the possible roles that NGOs can play in the realization of women's rights, and the possible mutually interdependent and reinforcing roles that women in various positions of power can play in promoting women's rights more generally. The very last section sets out areas for further research and analysis. While scholars and advocates have significantly advanced the thinking about and harnessing of law in support of women's needs and interests, much conceptualization, implementation and assessment or evaluation work remains to be done.

Corporeal Dimensions of Gender Violence: Ladina’s Self and Body in Eastern Guatemala

Based on 30 in-depth interviews with Ladina women and field work conducted in a rural town in eastern Guatemala, I examine the physical expressions that violence can take on the women's bodies, such as common physical ailments that result from emotional distress as well as sicknesses that are caused directly by the conditions in which they live. A central theme in the discussion is the embodiment of violence as it is expressed in the control of the women's body in the social milieu, such as the control of their socializing and visiting. I use a sociologically- and anthropologically-informed lens to situate corporeal questions within structures of social inequalities and human suffering and, thus, this examination contributes to debates about the relationship between body and society, macro and micro processes in the social world, as well as explorations between the women's lives and their rights. As such, this examination permits to unveil embedded structures of violence that assault the women's dignity and provoke suffering, as well as those instances in which gender solidarity is created. This examination allows us to explore implications for gender-based social justice.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Gender Justice in South Africa

AbstractThis article critically explores the extent to which corporate social responsibility in South Africa contributes to the quest for gender justice in the world of economy. It fi nds that business has avoided the notion of responsibility in favour of investment and philanthropy, and that meaningful and constructive approaches to gender ideals have not as a result been forthcoming. e article argues for a renewed understanding of and commitment to responsibility with special attention given to underlying perspectives impeding this approach, but sees much promise in the role that churches with their theology and partners could fulfil in assisting the public discourse on women's human dignity, equality and freedom amidst various economic challenges.

THE HAJJ AND PLURALISM

The hajj celebrates a multiplicity of cultures, lifestyles, views, and interpretations. Through imagination, pilgrims awake to “constructive possibilities” that counter absolutism. Pilgrims are to contemplate the inner meaning of the rites and apply the significance of those rites beyond the hajj to their everyday lives. For example, God's commentary on women's dignity is nestled within the hajj rituals honoring Eve and Hagar. Eve's role as the mother of mankind is celebrated silently, as is Hagar and her example of faith. Race, gender, and class are man-made divisions; during the hajj, all pilgrims stand united in a single act of worship, equal before God.

Women's Dignity Scorched in Palestine: When Clean Water Is Cut Off

Anthropology NewsVolume 48, Issue 2 p. 10-10 Women's Dignity Scorched in Palestine: When Clean Water Is Cut Off Nefissa Naguib, Nefissa NaguibSearch for more papers by this author Nefissa Naguib, Nefissa NaguibSearch for more papers by this author First published: 29 December 2008 https://doi.org/10.1525/an.2007.48.2.10AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume48, Issue2February 2007Pages 10-10 RelatedInformation

Sex, politics, and money

Women and girls, men and boys bear an unacceptable burden of sexual and reproductive ill health, and the raw statistics that illustrate this burden are shocking. Women and girls bear the brunt of the load. A quarter of women in developing countries suffer illness, injury, or disability, often hidden, as a result of pregnancy and childbirth. They are denied their sexual and reproductive health rights and subjected to appalling gender inequalities. Neema's story is just one example. 1 Mwanamke U Faces of dignity—seven stories of girls and women with fistula. Women's Dignity Project, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania2003http://www.womensdignity.org/Face_of_Dignity.pdf Google Scholar Neema is a 17-year-old Tanzanian girl who was raped when she was 15. Her family arranged for her to marry the rapist—in exchange for six cows. Neema soon became pregnant. After a long, painful labour she had a caesarean section but the baby was stillborn, and she developed a fistula and was leaking urine. Her husband no longer wanted her, but accepted her back after surgery to repair the fistula. He started beating her when he could not immediately resume sexual relations, so Neema ran away. Now she sells vegetables in a market, and sleeps there at night, making her vulnerable to physical and sexual assault.

Religion and violence: the suffering of women

abstract This briefing discusses the insidious links between patriarchy, violence and Christianity and their effects on women as seen through the prevalence of domestic violence in South Africa. Patriarchy, as the rule of the father/male over women, is in itself a form of violence because of its effects on women's dignity and place in society. Using the thought of Rene Girard, the links between violence, the sacred and sexuality are established. Christianity, as a patriarchal religion, does violence to women through its preponderant use of male language for God, its traditional teaching on women's inferiority, the Household Codes in the New Testament which mandate the subordination of women, and its hierarchical structure. Hope for the future is seen first, in the growing awareness in South African society of the need to reverse the epidemic of domestic violence and second, in utilising resources in the Christian tradition such as the example of Jesus and his His teachings on love and respect and the use of more inclusive images of the church from the New Testament. Church leaders are challenged to break the silence and to speak out forcefully against domestic violence.

Poor People's Experiences of Health Services in Tanzania: A Literature Review

This literature review examines key findings on poor people's experiences of health services and the barriers to access among the very poor. It was first published in 2004 by the Women's Dignity Project/Utu Mwanamke, PO Box 79402, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. E-mail: 〈wdp@cats-net.com〉 and is reprinted here, almost in full, with their kind permission.

`The Capabilities Approach', `The Imaginary Domain', and `Asymmetrical Reciprocity': Feminist Perspectives on Equality and Justice

In this article the author revisits the question of how feminist theory/theories could address questions regarding universalism, sameness, difference, and the quest for justice. She reconsiders the quest for justice and equality for women and the (im) possibilities of a feminist perspective on justice and a feminist `community'. The three feminist theorists that she discusses are Martha Nussbaum, Drucilla Cornell, and Iris Marion Young. Nussbaum is closer to a liberal defense of universal values – Cornell and Young stand critical of liberalism and focus on sublimity, dignity, and asymmetrical reciprocity. The author supports the perspective of the latter two theorists and applies these perspectives to aspects of South African equality jurisprudence. She also considers critically the extent to which the Draft Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People's Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa breaks with liberal universalism and sameness. To the end she supports a notion of` slowing down' in order to protect women's freedom and dignity, to approach each other with wonder and respect.

Inclusive Language and the Equal Dignity of Women and Men in Christ

Inclusive Language and the Equal Dignity of Women and Men in Christ

Searching for safe spaces: Afro-Caribbean women writers in exile

Prologue Natif-Natal Acknowledgments 1. Productive Contradictions: Afro-Caribbean Diasporic Feminism and the Question of Exile 2. Exiled in the Fatherland: Joan Riley and Beryl Gilroy Voice Afro-Caribbean Women in Britain 3. Enough to Work, Good Enough to Stay: M. Nourbese Philip, Dionne Brand, and Makeda Silvera and Women's Dignity in Canadian Exile 4. Remembering Ourselves: The Power of the Erotic in Works by Audre Lorde, Rosa Guy, and Michelle Cliff 5. Exile, Resistance, Home: Retelling History in the Writings of Michelle Cliff and Marie Chauvet Epilogue Return Notes Works Cited Index

Werewere Liking et Calixthe Beyala

Abstract Werewere Liking and Calixthe Beyala: Feminist discourse and fiction. — Werewere Liking and Calixthe Beyala, of Cameroon origin, are two outspoken authors of African literature. Their discourse about women's place in African society is, indeed, iconoclastic and, thus, quite new. Its ravaging impertinence unsettles many a tabu. But beyond the transgression and rebellion initiated by these two women, might their first writings not, ultimately, be works of fiction? The fight for women's dignity and against discrimination can be evoked in ways much more subtle than the world of adultery and violence encountered in their first writings. Beyala's latest novel, Les honneurs perdus, fully illustrates this.

Dignity of Women and Men at Work

Dignity of Women and Men at Work

Women's Dignity Is the Wealth of Juchitan(Oaxaca, Mexico)

Anthropology of Work ReviewVolume 10, Issue 1 p. 3-10 Women's Dignity Is the Wealth of Juchitan(Oaxaca, Mexico) Associate Professor Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, Associate Professor Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen Sociology of Development Research Centre, University of Bielefeld, Germany.Search for more papers by this author Associate Professor Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, Associate Professor Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen Sociology of Development Research Centre, University of Bielefeld, Germany.Search for more papers by this author First published: March 1989 https://doi.org/10.1525/awr.1989.10.1.3Citations: 1AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume10, Issue1March 1989Pages 3-10 RelatedInformation

"Let Us Communicate!"

The situation was startling: intellectual women leaders who have spent most of their adult lives fighting for women's rights, freedom and dignity coolly rejected arequest for advice made by two young women, Instead, they continued chatting amongst themselves about their maids and their diets.