The Masculinization of Gender Equality: How Efforts to Engage Men May “Throw Women’s Emancipation Overboard”

Author(s):  
Iris van Huis ◽  
Cliff Leek
2021 ◽  
Vol VI (I) ◽  
pp. 165-172
Author(s):  
Shazia Noareen ◽  
Asmat Naz

Women liberation and efforts to achieve equal domestic and social rights struggle hard in a patriarchal society. Feminism is strongly inculcating the idea of gender equality to avoid discriminatory behaviors. The present research aims to study the phenomenon of women emancipation during the Musharraf era. Pakistan is a patriarchal society where men exercise their power over powerless female members of the family. The current study aims to highlight women emancipation and its dire need to maintain to give importance to women. The study is qualitative in nature, focuses on the need for women emancipation. The findings reveal that 21st-century Pakistani society is still facing patriarchal pressures where women emancipation is prohibited by powerful agencies, so there must be strong efforts to be done to work for equality of rights of women. The study enriches knowledge on the phenomenon of women liberation and provides insight for future researchers to carry out significant research in this regard.


2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 643-672
Author(s):  
GERARDO LEIBNER

AbstractThis article examines the dynamics of women's participation in the Communist Party of Uruguay (PCU) from the 1920s to the 1960s. Despite its commitment to women's emancipation and to equality between men and women, the PCU's attitudes towards gender equality were often contradictory and its messages were ambiguous. Though it promoted women's participation, the Party oscillated between seeking to overcome social prejudices, upholding principled and dogmatic positions, and accommodating the conservative habits prevalent among the working class. Women were encouraged to take part in activities but not to assume leadership positions. The 1960s, ironically a period characterised by openness and political success, was a decade of regression in gender equality that stood in contrast to the Uruguayan Communists' long trajectory concerning women's rights.


Author(s):  
Ruth Phillips

This chapter analyses the ‘empowerment paradigm’ that informs many gender equality policies and programmes. The discussion draws on the findings of a global study inquiring into women’s NGOs; their understanding of empowerment and gender equality and how these inform their work. The chapter explores how concepts of gender equality and empowerment can be seen as emancipatory and how they are understood and applied at a global social policy level. Furthermore, given the intrinsic relationship between women’s emancipation and feminism, the chapter also explores the contemporary role of feminism within women’s NGOs. The data supports a critical analysis of the way that the concept of empowerment has become simultaneously subverted and yet highly influential within gender equality policy and practice.


2019 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Patrizia Gabrielli

Sinopsi: A ridosso del 1917 per molte socialiste e successivamente per le comuniste, Il Paese dei Soviet si afferma quale modello politico da imitare anche per quanto concerne la parità di genere. Un ruolo che l’Urss mantiene ben saldo esercitando, anche sotto questo profilo, un indubbio fascino sull’emigrazione femminile antifascista. Partendo da queste premesse, il saggio si articola in due parti.Il primo e il secondo paragrafo delineano le principali coordinate del dibattito sull’emancipazione, si soffermano sui caratteri del nuovo modelo femminile e sulla fondazione di una nuova tradizione femminista che trova nel simbolo dell’8 marzo la propria legittimazione. Il terzo parágrafo si concentra, invece, sulla circolazione e l’assimilazione del modello femminile sovietico da parte delle militanti. Le lettere dall’Urss, in special modo, confermano una fedele adesione all’immagine della donna nuova che si riflette sull’autorappresentazione delle militanti, le quali spesso ancora ignare delle condanne subite negli anni del Terrore staliniano, informano entusiaste familiari e amici sulle opportunità e sulla autonomia acquisita. L’esperienza migratoria ebbe però in molti casi risvolti tragici e molte militanti finirono nella fitta rete della repressione staliniana.Parole chiave: mito soviético, stampa femminile socialista e comunista, emancipazione femminile, emigrazione femminile antifascista, lettere.Summary: Just prior to 1917, for many socialists and later for the communists, The Soviet Country was a political role model to be emulated, even in terms of gender equality. Not only did the USSR continue resolutely to exercise this role, but it also harboured an undoubted fascination on women’s antifascist emigration.Starting from these premises, this essay is divided into two parts. It starts by articulating the main topics of the debate on emancipation. This focuses on the features of the new women’s status and the constitution of a new feminist tradition that finds its legitimacy in the symbol of 8 March. It then moves to focus on the spread and the assimilation of the Soviet women’s model among activists. In particular, letters coming from the USSR confirm a faithful adherence to the image of the new woman which is reflected on the self-representation of militants. Communist and socialist women, who were often unaware of the sentences suffered during the years of Stalinist Terror, enthusiastically inform relatives and friends about the opportunities and independence acquired. In many cases, however, migration led to tragic consequences, and several militants were victims of the Stalinist repression.Key words: Soviet myth, Socialist and Communist women’s Press, women’s emancipation, women’s antifascist Emigration, letters.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Ursula Froschauer ◽  
Kevin Durrheim

The white wedding is a traditional ritual, governed by heteronormative conventions, which (re)produces stereotypical and patriarchal gender norms. In this study 10 white, South African, middle-class, heterosexual, newlywed couples were interviewed about their wedding ceremonies. The interviews were analysed using Parker's (2005) framework for discourse analytic reading. This helped us analyse two related discourses, the “fairy-tale” and “bride's day” discourse that allowed couples to justify gender unequal practices. The findings suggest that wedding discourses encourage (1) the objectification of women and their treatment in a benevolently sexist manner, (2) the unequal distribution of wedding labour between the bride and groom and, ultimately, (3) the perpetuation of women's subordination in heterosexual relationships. Participating in the rituals of the white wedding maintains taken-for-granted heteronormative discourses that undermine gender equality and, ultimately, women's emancipation.


Author(s):  
Lotika Singha

This chapter interrogates the ‘need’ to outsource domestic cleaning, alongside implications for gender equality and relationship quality in the outsourcing household. It argues that ‘need’ is not directly related to affluence or status enhancement. The analysis of division of household labour when cleaning is outsourced shows that there is still plenty of housework for service-users to do themselves, particularly tidying up or ‘picking up’ after others. Sharing of this task could aid in progressing gender equality despite the outsourcing of cleaning. In this, if (middle-class) women do not see cleaning as their work, they will not expect (middle-class) men to undertake it either. The chapter concludes that claims of outsourced cleaning pitting the liberation of one class/race of women against that of another risk reducing women’s emancipation to freedom from housework and naturalising housework as women’s work.


1990 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-127
Author(s):  
Vicki S. Helgeson
Keyword(s):  

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