Women's Freedom Research Articles

Destroying Patriarchy: Struggle for Sexual Equality in Mexican‐American Corridos and Anglo‐American Ballads

Rosita, no me desaires,iLa gente lo va notar! Pos, digan lo que quieran,Contigo yo no he de bailar. Alvirez (trad.)Rosita, don't scorn me,The people are going to notice! Well, let them say what they'll say,But with you I will not dance! conversation took place on the dance floor in Saltillo, Mexico, in the year 1900. After Rosita refused to dance, Hipolito drew his pistol and shot her three times. The townspeople painted Rosita's house with her blood, so that everyone would know of her untimely death.The corrido of Rosita Alvirez may be one of Mexico's most famous, but why is the story so violent? What is the song really about? The conversation between Rosita and Hipolito reveals the man's anxiety about his own reputation. The conversation between these two characters can be understood as debate about the relative social statuses of men and in Mexican society and the unequal power each group had at its disposal. The song tells us that at the time of its setting, girl would have had little to make her own choices, not even to choose with whom she would dance. Although Rosita overstepped the boundary of permissible behavior, the severity of punishment is out of proportion to her crime. The song can be interpreted as token of misogyny and male domination prevailing in Mexican society (Nava 137).Feminist scholars of the Anglo-American ballad tradition have identified similar problem of textual analysis. Appalachian ballads present misogynist stories which indicate a cultural fear of women's sexual freedom (Hastie 117). Scholars of both the Mexican-American and Anglo-American traditions have focused on murder ballads in which beautiful young woman is murdered by her lover or her husband (Cohen; Hamessley; Nava). Such ballads and corridos can be understood as didactic tools to instill obedience in young (Herrera-S ob ek).However, in Mexican-American music, the male-centered corrido has lost its dominance since 1973, when Contrabando y Traicion became famous hit song of Los Tigres del Norte (Ragland 142-66). The song narrates the adventures of young woman who shot and killed her unfaithful lover. Recently, scholars have begun to analyze corridos centered on protagonists who are tough women who turn the tables on abusive men (Altamirano; Ramirez-Pimienta; Tatar). Similarly, scholars of the Anglo-American and Scottish ballads have written about warrior women and other heroines who challenge patriarchal norms of behaviors (Dugaw; Hixon; Stewart; Wollstadt). A textual analysis of ballads reveals that the changing portrayals of in balladry, in fact represent changes in gender roles in the wider society.This article examines lyrical narratives from Mexican-American corridos and Anglo-American ballads, to demonstrate how changing portrayals of are indicative of changing social norms of male and female behavior. What appear to be traditional ballads do not in fact reflect unchanging patriarchal ideals of behavior. Instead, ballads represent the efforts of individuals and communities to adjust to patterns of social change attached to the rise of modernity (Cohen; Hastie). Murder ballads, in particular, present modern concerns about the conflicts between patriarchy and the men and who struggle against it. Traditional lyrical images can be manipulated to challenge the established norms of community (NajeraRamirez, Unruly Passions 193). In the Mexican-American tradition as well as the AngloAmerican ballad tradition, the emergence of songs featuring powerful female protagonist reflects the transformation of society away from the dominance of traditionalist, patriarchal norm toward modern society in which gender power is more equally distributed.How is it possible to learn about processes of social change through analysis of song lyrics? First, song lyrics help to reveal ideology, set of deeper understandings about why power is unequally distributed between and men. …

The question of autonomy in maternal health in Africa: a rights-based consideration.

Maternal mortality is still very high in Africa, despite progress in control efforts at the global level. One elemental link is the question of autonomy in maternal health, especially at the household level where intrinsic human rights are undermined. A rights-based consideration in bioethics is an approach that holds the centrality of the human person, with a compelling reference to the fundamental human rights of every person. A philosophical and sociological engagement of gender and the notion of autonomy within the household reveals some fundamental rights-based perplexities for bioethical considerations in maternal health. The right to self-determination is undermined, and therefore women's dignity, freedom and autonomy, capacities, and choices are easily defiled. This study applies a rights-based approach to maternal health and demonstrates how rights concerns are associated with negative outcomes in maternal health in Africa. The discussion is situated at the household level, which is the starting point in health care. The paper submits that beyond legal and political rights within the context of the state, rights-based issues manifest at the household level. Many of those rights issues, especially relating to women's autonomy, are detrimental to maternal health in Africa. Therefore, a rights-based approach in the social construction of maternal health realities will contribute to alleviating the burden of maternal mortality in Africa.

Islam Returns to Spain: Religious Diversity, Political Discourse and Women's Rights

On February 14, 2013, the Tribunal Supremo of Spain handed down a judgement which gave constitutional protection to the burka and which also contained important statements concerning contemporary Spanish society, its religious and cultural diversity and the convivencia of cultures and religions. Contrary to the position of the Tribunal Supremo, and showing very little variation, the political discourse is in favour of a ban, basing its arguments principally on women's rights, but with a perceptible shift towards public safety. This article will examine this bifurcated reaction to this manifestation of renewed religious diversity in Spain: the politicians’ arguments in favour of prohibition reflect the protectionist view of the French and Belgian parliamentary debates prohibiting the burka, but place them in the framework of the post-Franco rights-based society. On the other hand, the Tribunal Supremo anchors its judgement in a narrative of a free and democratic Spanish state and society in which a woman's individual freedom of choice takes precedence over all other considerations, including social norms.

Fertility Preservation for Non-Medical Reasons

Fertility-preserving measures for women are increasingly being performed for non-medical reasons in Germany. This is now a controversial matter. The authors searched the PubMed database for pertinent publications on the basis of their clinical and scientific experience and evaluated relevant data from the registry of the German FertiPROTEKT network (www.fertiprotekt. com). The various fertility-preserving measures that are available are described and critically discussed. In most cases, the creation of a fertility reserve currently involves the cryopreservation of unfertilized oocytes, rather than of ovarian tissue. Most of the women who decide to undergo this procedure are over 35 years old. According to data from the FertiPROTEKT registry, most such procedures carried out in the years 2012 and 2013 involved a single stimulation cycle. The theoretical probability of childbirth per stimulation is 40% in women under age 35 and 30% in women aged 35 to 39. If the oocytes are kept for use at a later date, rather than at once, the maternal risk is higher, because the mother is older during pregnancy. The risk to the child may be higher as well because of the need for in vitro fertilization (IVF). Pregnancy over age 40 often leads to complications such as gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia. IVF may be associated with a higher risk of epigenetic abnormalities. Ethicists have upheld women's reproductive freedom while pointing out that so-called social freezing merely postpones social problems, rather than solving them. Fertility preservation for non-medical reasons should be critically discussed, and decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis.

Impact of Demographic and Loan Size on the Probabilities of Women Freedom of Movement Empowerment

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of microfinance involvement of women’s freedom of movement empowerment. The cross sectional data for this study is collected by using questionnaires. Using random sampling, 744 households are selected from female clients of Khushhali Bank and National Rural Support Program from three districts namely district Bahawalpur, District Bahawalnagar and district Rahim Yar Kan of Division Bahawalpur, Pakistan. We used the multinomial logit model. The loan size increases women’s freedom of movement empowerment. This paper is intended to be a valuable contribution in term of socio- economic and political arena. This paper recommends that the future research should be done in other province of Pakistan, as there is cultural difference between Punjab, Sarhad and Baluchistan. In addition, the future research can examine the impact of socio cultural factors.

Women's Struggle toward Gender Unfair: A Case Study in Indonesian Novel

This study aims to describe the struggle of women's characters toward gender unfair in domestic and public sector that reflected in Indonesian's novel. The root of the problem is patriarchy system that operated through various media in all field of life in society. In order to achieve the aims of the study, a descriptive qualitative approach with feminism literature critic is used. There are thirteen novels that are used as the source of the data: Azab dan Sengsara (1920), Sitti Nurbaya (1922), Kehilangan Mestika (1935), Layar Terkembang (1936), ManusiaBebas (1944), Widyawati (1948), Burung-burung Manyar (1980), (9) JalanBandungan (1989), Canting (1986), Saman (1999), Namaku Teweraut (2000), Putri (2000), andPerempuanBerkalung Sorban (2001). Based on the data analysis there two findings are found. First, the women's struggle toward gender unfair in domestic sector is happen because the tradition of pingitan (seclude of marriageable girl) and force for marriage which restraint the women's freedom especially as daughter. As a result, women are placed in domestic roles such as taking care of husband and children, do the house chores (cooking, cleaning the house, and washing the clothes). Second, the women's struggle toward gender unfair in public sector is done in form of struggle in discrimination in education and social, struggle of subordinate in economy, human rights and society service in isolated area.

Qualifying times: points of change in U.S. women's sport

This perceptive, lively study explores U.S. women's sport through historical of change: particular products or trends that dramatically influenced both women's participation in sport and cultural responses to women athletes. Beginning with the seemingly innocent ponytail, the subject of the Introduction, scholar Jaime Schultz challenges the reader to look at the historical and sociological significance of now-common items such as sports bras and tampons and ideas such as sex testing and competitive cheerleading. Tennis wear, tampons, and sports bras all facilitated women's participation in physical culture, while physical educators, the aesthetic fitness movement, and Title IX encouraged women to challenge (or confront) policy, financial, and cultural obstacles. While some of these points of increased women's physical freedom and sporting participation, they also posed challenges. Tampons encouraged menstrual shame, sex testing (a tool never used with male athletes) perpetuated narrowly-defined cultural norms of femininity, and the late-twentieth-century aesthetic fitness movement fed into an unrealistic beauty ideal. Ultimately, Schultz finds that U.S. women's sport has progressed significantly but ambivalently. Although participation in sports is no longer uncommon for girls and women, Schultz argues that these of change have contributed to a complex matrix of gender differentiation that marks the female athletic body as different than--as less than--the male body, despite the advantages it may confer.

Feminist Jurisprudence in India with Reference to Individual Freedom of Women vis-a-vis State's Duty to Protect Them

In the history of mankind ‘equality' and ‘freedom' evaded women in comparison to men. Women always suffered subordinate status and were assigned a purely functional role in every society or civilisation of the world. Over the period this unequal status of women being offensive to human dignity and human rights steered to develop feminist jurisprudence. This research paper reflects the perspective of feminist jurisprudence with reference to individual freedom of women, its expansion under other various issues and State's / employer's duty to protect women's individual freedom and to empower them. This research paper exclusively deals with that feminist jurisprudence which has been developed by judicial decisions in India.

‘Freedom to’ and ‘freedom from’: A new vision for sex-positive politics

While the sex-positive movement has made a significant contribution to the advancement of women's sexuality, much of this work has emphasized ‘positive liberty,’ that is, women's freedom to expand sexual expression and sexual diversity. This work has largely ignored women's freedom from oppressive mandates and requirements about their sexuality, that is, ‘negative liberty.’ Drawing upon anarchist theories from the 19th and 20th centuries, political theories of positive and negative liberty, early radical feminist arguments, and the infamous ‘sex wars’ of the 1980s, the fundamental tension between women's freedom to do what they want, and freedom from doing what others require of them, proves a critical juncture in feminist understandings of sexual freedom. To illustrate this, I examine seven key examples where women are caught between joyous celebrations of sexual progress and disturbingly regressive attacks on their sexual empowerment: orgasm, sexual satisfaction, treatment for sexual dysfunction, rape and sexual coercion, body hair as ‘personal choice,’ same-sex eroticism, and sexual fantasy. Ultimately, I argue that the sex-positive movement must advance its politics to include a more serious consideration of the freedom from as it relates to the freedom to. In doing so, tensions around the ‘sex wars’ could evolve into a more cohesive and powerful feminist movement.

Lean Back: Lessons from Woolf

A while back, a colleague and I were rehashing the anticipatory buzz and backlash inspired by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's then forthcoming Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will Lead. My colleague, knowing that I work on Virginia Woolf 's writing, speculated, It's kind of like A Room of One's Own, right? In part be polite but mostly conceal my embarrass- ment at having no clue what she meant, I more or less agreed: Yeah, that's really interesting. What exactly she had in mind, I am still not sure. But the notion that Woolf 's manifesto for women's creative freedom could have anything in common with what I imagined be Sandberg's postfeminist information age success manual stuck with me, so much so that I preordered Lean In despite my anxiety about supporting a cause with which I was pretty cer - tain I would not be on board. Having now read it, I cannot help but think that my co-worker was onto something. Sandberg's feminism kind of like Woolf 's feminism—at least a point. As I probably should have realized off the bat, both Woolf 's and Sand - berg's feminisms are constrained by in complex and sometimes problematic ways, and for this and related reasons each writer been charged with elitism. Queenie Leavis's scathing review of Woolf 's other feminist classic, Three Guineas , exemplary in this regard. Woolf, Leavis observed, is quite insulated by class and, by her own account, has per- sonally received considerably more in the way of economic ease than she humanly entitled to (1938, 203-4). Sandberg similarly acknowledges her own economic ease, admitting that it somewhat limits her scope: Parts of this book will be most relevant women fortunate enough have choices

The legal recognition of personality: full-face veils and permissible choices

AbstractA woman's freedom to develop her personality or identity as she sees fit is supposed to be legally protected in twenty-first century Europe. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) provides a right to respect for one's private life in Article 8 which has been judicially interpreted to provide a right to identity or personality development. Additionally, Article 14 provides for non-discrimination and Articles 9 and 10 for freedom of expression, including that which is religious. Arguments are examined of some different interpretations of the overall purpose of human rights law − to respect human dignity and human freedom. These are examined by reference to the recent criminalisation of wearing face coverings in public places in certain European countries where the intention is to prevent the wearing of the Islamic full-face veil.1It is argued that each woman's identity is legally recognised when the concepts of human dignity and human freedom are interpreted as empowering and self-determining rather than constraining and paternalistic. Legally banning full-face veils, in liberal democracies in situations where an adult woman says she has freely chosen to wear such a garment, misrecognises her and disrespects her identity or personality: as a human being, as a member of a religious or cultural group and as an individual person capable of subjectively interpreting her own identity or personality as she sees fit.

Non-pharmacological methods for pain relief during labor: integrative review

2 ABSTRACT This integrative review aimed to search available evidences on literature about non-pharmacological methods for pain relief during labuor. The database used were LILACS, SCIELO, BDENF e PUBMED. Among the reviewed literature, 19 studies published between 2003 and 2013 were included and evaluated: percutaneous electrical stimulation, breathing exercise technique, walking or changing position, massage, muscular relaxation, hydrotherapy, cryotherapy and doula assistance. The results showed that the use of percutaneous electrical stimulation is more frequent during beginning of the first phase of labor; other associated methods (lumbosacral massage, breathing exercise and relaxation), hydrotherapy and cryotherapy propitiated the reduction of pain scores in the active phase; doula participation was also considered important for transmitting security and confidence to the parturient. Thus, these methods bring to the conclusion that valuing women's freedom, offering alternatives and comfort measures, is an important way on assisting the parturient during labor.

Book Review: Let it Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters

Book Review: Let it Shine: Stories of Black Women Freedom Fighters

Truly humanitarian intervention: considering just causes and methods in a feminist cosmopolitan frame

In international law, ‘humanitarian intervention’ refers to the use of military force by one nation or group of nations to stop genocide or other gross human rights violations in another sovereign nation. If humanitarian intervention is conceived as military in nature, it makes sense that only the most horrible, massive, and violent violations of human rights can justify intervention. Yet, that leaves many serious evils beyond the scope of legal intervention. In particular, violations of women's rights and freedoms often go unchecked. To address this problem, I begin from two basic questions: When are violations of human rights sufficiently serious to require an international response of some sort? What should that response be? By re-orienting the aim and justification of international law to focus on individual autonomy rather than on peace between nations, I argue that women's rights violations other than genocide and mass rape can warrant intervention. Military intervention is often counter-productive to the aim of achieving autonomy, however. I suggest a range of responses to human rights violations that includes military intervention as one end of the spectrum, and combine this with a greater understanding of the scope of human rights violations that require international response.

The New Woman (Which is Not One) in Githa Sowerby's Rutherford and Son

Githa Sowerby's 1912 Rutherford and Son is a play in which no one utters the phrase “New Woman”. Yet there is little doubt that this is indeed a “New Woman” play (at the time, the Vote—the newspaper of the Women's Freedom League—suggested that this was a “suffrage” play, though no one used this word either, presumably because it was loaded). Moreover, as this sort of “New Woman” play, Rutherford and Son is curious as it features (unusually for the time) not one, but two New Women: Janet and Mary, respectively the daughter and the daughter-in-law of the family patriarch and tyrant John Rutherford. In a double sense, therefore, there is the New Woman which is not one in Githa Sowerby's Rutherford and Son. As this way of putting it might imply, the idiolect, as well as the feminist theory, of Luce Irigaray—notably, her work in “This Sex Which Is Not One”—is employed throughout this essay as a means of opening out Sowerby's play for discussion, specifically as a form of women's writing. The play itself, successful in its own day but now rather neglected, is seen as an astonishingly forward-thinking work of the Georgian theatre.

Women's running as freedom: development and choice

To what extent does increasing African women's freedom in one domain, distance running, help to foster other economic, social or political freedoms? This study addresses this question by focusing on the ways in which elite-level female runners in Kenya have influenced the lives of non-athletes who live and work around them locally. Studies of Kenyan running have helped to explain the rationale for elite Kenyan running success; however, this is the first attempt to analyse its impact on the lives of market women for whom running has helped to foster certain economic and social changes. Primary source data obtained from fieldwork during 2010 and 2011 are situated within Amartya Sen's framework of freedom as development and support Sen's critique of the preference framework aspect of social choice theory. The implications of this study contribute to development theory and policy, not only emphasizing the Kenyan case but also offering comments that may apply more generally.

Sexual Messages in Black and White: A discourse analysis of Essence and Cosmo

The research presented employed critical discourse analysis to examine advice columns on sex and women's sexual freedom as expressed in two popular women's magazines, Essence and Cosmopolitan, over a three-year period. Essence has a Black female audience, Cosmo a predominantly White female audience. Critical discourse analysis is concerned with language as a primary force for the production and reproduction of ideology and belief systems that come to be accepted as common sense. The study asked whether and to what extent sex talk in these two magazines mirrored tenets of sexual liberation as set forth by “second-wave feminism.” Findings showed that while both magazines reinforced women's right to sexual pleasure and to ask for what they wanted, Essence came closest to mirroring the tenets of women's liberation by advocating women's right to say no to men's bad behavior and to be their own persons. By contrast, Cosmo advised women to be innovative in exciting and keeping their men and to be more flexible in managing men's less than desirable behavior.

Attitudes of Lebanese University Students Towards Surgical Hymen Reconstruction

Many cultural and religious beliefs place virginity at a high level of social significance, in that women who lose their virginity before marriage may face humiliation, ostracism, divorce, and extreme violence. This led to an increase in the demand for virginity restoration through surgical hymen reconstruction among these cultures. However, data regarding the acceptance of hymenoplasty in societies that consider sexuality a taboo are scarce. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the effects of gender and religion on sexual attitudes towards hymenoplasty, premarital sex, and virginity in a sample of 600 Lebanese university students. Our findings showed that approval of hymenoplasty was low among participants regardless of gender (25.7 % men vs. 19.1 % women) and religious affiliations (22.5 % Muslims vs. 22.3 % Christians). Arguments for rejection were rooted in moral ethics and personal convictions: "form of deceiving and cheating" (80.7 %) and "betrayal of honesty in the relationship" (80.4 %). Reasons for acceptance included: personal belief in "women's rights, autonomy, and freedom" (72.2 %) and "physical harm and death" (63.5 %).Male participants were more likely to approve premarital coital sex than females (61.0 vs. 27.3 %). Muslims were also more likely to reject marrying a non-virgin than Christians (39.9 vs. 18.0 %). Female participants expressed more tolerance towards marrying a non-virgin male partner (78.3 vs. 57.3 %). Low acceptance of hymenoplasty among Lebanese university students was found to be related to moral ethics and personal convictions independently from gender and religious affiliation. Differences in sexual attitudes towards premarital coital sex and virginity, however, were more significantly influenced by culture and religion.

Of virgins and martyrs: women and sexuality in global conflict

Women's bodies have become a battleground. Around the world, people argue about veiling, schooling for Afghan girls, and SlutWalk protests, all of which involve issues of women's sexuality and freedom. Globalization, with its emphasis on human rights and individuality, heats up these arguments. In Of Virgins and Martyrs, David Jacobson takes the reader on a fascinating tour of how self-identity developed throughout history and what individualism means for Muslim societies struggling to maintain a sense of honor in a globalized twenty-first century. Some patriarchal societies have come to see women's control of their own sexuality as a threat to a way of life that goes back thousands of years. Many trace their lineage to tribal cultures that were organized around the idea that women's virginity represents the honor of male relatives and the good of the community at large. Anyone or anything that influences women to the contrary is considered a corrupting and potentially calamitous force. Jacobson analyzes the connection between tribal patriarchy and Muslim radicalism through an innovative tool-the tribal patriarchy index. This index helps to illuminate why women's sexuality, dress, and image so compel militant Muslim outrage and sometimes violent action, revealing a deeper human story of how women's status defines competing moral visions of society and why this present clash is erupting with such ferocity.

Unsanitized Domestic Allegories: Biomedical Politics, Racial Uplift, and the African American Woman's Risk Narrative

“Unsanitized Domestic Allegories” begins the work of recovering the complex history linking Progressive-Era biomedicalization, gender expectations, and ideologies of racial uplift within African American culture. Through a close reading of early-twentieth-century African American health care activists, including C. V. Roman, founding member of the National Medical Association (1895) and the first editor of the Journal of the National Medical Association, E. Elliott Rawlins, health columnist for the Amsterdam News, and Mary Fitzbutler Waring, chair of the Committee for Health and Hygiene of the National Association for Colored Women, Knadler's essay argues that race leaders recruited a language of health and hygiene to shape, manage, and regulate the class divisions and cultural disorientations of urban migration. But this community epidemiology was also connected to a particular biomediated image that functioned as part of a politics of risk and affect to preempt women's freedom: the (un)sanitized woman who was said to endanger the health of her family and the community at a time when many African American neighborhoods were experiencing epidemics of diseases as a result of health-care disparities and environmental racism. Knadler then turns to a close reading of Nella Larsen's Quicksand (1928) to show how its unruly, unsanitized domestic allegory exposes and destabilizes this interworking of medical language, affect, and gendered risk within racial uplift. Quicksand testifies to the complex meaning of agency in a world in which political, economic, and moral crises have been recast as the medical condition of specific “risky” bodies and doubts over their competence at maintaining sanitary self-care.