scholarly journals Competing Allies: Legal Pluralism, and Gendered Agency in Mumbai’s Sharia Courts

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Sagnik Dutta
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Legal Pluralism ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
State Actors ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Personal Law ◽  
Gendered Agency

Building upon participant observation in a women’s sharia court in Mumbai, run by activists of an Islamic feminist movement in India, and its networks with similar alternative dispute resolution forums run by male qazis (non-state actors trained in Islamic law and Muslim personal law), this article explores the modalities of interaction between non-state actors who adjudicate Muslim personal law in India. It also delineates how gendered agency is shaped in these interactions. This article identifies three aspects of this interaction between male and female non-state actors: (1) everyday cooperation between male and female qazi despite their doctrinal differences; (2) the gradual assertion of female qazi in and through everyday cooperation with male qazi; and (3) institutional competition interlaced with everyday cooperation. I explore a range of interactions including contestation and collaborative contestation between non-state actors, a domain that has not been explored in existing scholarship on legal pluralism. I also draw attention to how we might think about women’s agency in a legal pluralist context beyond a straightforward challenge to male authority and as it is forged at the intersection of individuals, interactions, and institutions. Through a critical exploration of women’s agency, I show how women both inhabit and transform gender norms at an individual and institutional level in their interactions with non-state actors and institutions, expanding scholarship on legal pluralism and gender beyond reified “women’s interests.”

Champions of gender equality: female and male executives as leaders of gender change

2015 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Anne de Vries
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equity ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Social Constructionist ◽  
Female Leaders ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Partnership Model ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Change

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine male and female executives as leaders “championing” gender change interventions. It problematizes current exhortations for male leaders to lead gender change, much as they might lead any other business-driven change agenda. It argues that organizational gender scholarship is critical to understanding the gendered nature of championing. Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on a feminist qualitative research project examining the efficacy of a gender intervention in a university and a policing institution. Interviews with four leaders have been chosen from the larger study for analysis against the backdrop of material from interviewees and the participant observation of the researcher. It brings a social constructionist view of gender and Acker’s gendering processes to bear on understanding organizational gender change. Findings – The sex/gender of the leader is inescapably fore-fronted by the gender change intervention. Gendered expectations and choices positioned men as powerful and effective champions while undermining the effectiveness of the woman in this study. Research limitations/implications – Further research examining male and female leaders capacity to champion gender change is required. Practical implications – This research identifies effective champion behaviors, provides suggestions for ensuring that gender equity interventions are well championed and proposes a partnership model where senior men and women play complementary roles leading gender change. Originality/value – This paper is of value to practitioners and scholars. It draws attention to contemporary issues of leadership and gender change, seeking to bridge the gap between theory and practice that undermines our change efforts.

scholarly journals Sketching women: a corpus-based approach to representations of women's agency in political Internet corpora in Arabic and English

Corpora ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamran Karimullah
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
English Language ◽  
Women’S Empowerment ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
Arabic And English ◽  
Discursive Representations ◽  
Gendered Agency ◽  
Representations Of Women

In this paper, I use methods from corpus linguistics to examine patterns pertaining to the representation of women in online Arabic- and English-language political corpora. I highlight the discursive differences and similarities that characterise the two corpora. Using word sketches, I identify representational categories in each corpus that are indexed by patterns of collocation. Analysis of semantic preference and prosody in each corpus reveals the ways in which women are represented. An exploration of the representations of women and gendered agency in both corpora reveals incongruities between the message of women's empowerment that the outlets promote and the implicit discursive representations of gender and gendered agency.

Introduction

Women Rising ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Keyword(s):  
Arab Spring ◽  
Gender Politics ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Arab Spring

This chapter frames the discussion on resistance, revolution, and reform as three theoretical concepts that are addressed in this volume. The Arab Spring events brought new challenges to the fields of feminism, social revolutions, and gender politics as we know them. Editors Rita Stephan and Mounira M. Charrad deliver the voices of activists and politicians as they fight for reforms, resist oppression, and engage in protests and revolutions to change regimes. This introduction features the historical, geographical, and thematic spaces of women’s agency before, during, and after the events of the Arab Spring.

Driving Campaigns

Women Rising ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 339-347
Author(s):  
Namie Tsujigami
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Government Policies ◽  
Educational Progress ◽  
Labor Participation ◽  
Women's Agency ◽  
Women’S Agency ◽  
And Gender

A myriad of factors and negotiations contributed to the removal of the ban on women driving, including women who continuously negotiated power and space to change existing political, social, and gender norms, despite often being faced with fierce public resistance. In Saudi Arabia, women’s educational progress, increased labor participation, and enhanced networks produced substantive needs for convenient, reliable, and affordable transportation. In this chapter, Namie Tsujigami attempts to illuminate women’s agency, strategy, and accommodation by focusing on Saudi women’s fight for the freedom to drive, the backlash, and its impact on government policies.

The Testimony of Women in the Qurʾan

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-29
Author(s):  
Huseyin Halil
Keyword(s):  
Islamic Law ◽  
Women And Gender ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Original Interpretation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Ibn Hazm

In recent years, as debates over Islamic legal interpretations have moved to the forefront, especially in places where the expanded application of Islamic law is on the agenda, the issue of women’s testimony has received particular attention. Most jurists arrived at the opinion that women were less trustworthy and less appropriate as legal witnesses than their male counterparts, and so have distinguished between male and female testimony in terms of sex. In this paper I will examine the relationship between ‘gender’ and ‘testimony’ with regard to this sex-based distinction, and as such I will explain why women are no less discerning than men as witnesses in some cases. My purpose is not, and cannot be, to engage in an original interpretation of the law or to sit in judgement on how others have understood the rules of their religion. Rather, I approach the topic of testimony, women, and gender as a student of the history of Islamic law. I argue that the Qurʾan deals with women in an egalitarian and non-discriminatory fashion in terms of testimony and legal affairs, through reference to certain verses, such as al-Nūr (Q 24:6) and al-Nisā’ (Q 4:15). While Ẓāhirisim, including Ibn Ḥazm, and Izzet Derveze follow this egalitarian approach, the four legal schools of the Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, Mālikī, and Ḥanbalī do not, and instead claim that women’s testimony cannot be accepted in some circumstances, such as cases of ḥadd, qadhf (slander), and qiṣāṣ (retaliation).

scholarly journals Islamic Law and Gender: The Collapse of The Oligarchical-Patriarchal Culture in The Konawe Region of Southeast Sulawesi

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Ipandang Ipandang
Keyword(s):  
Data Analysis ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
Analysis Model ◽  
Religious Texts ◽  
Patriarchal Culture ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Depth Interviews

<p class="abstrak">This article focuses on the efforts of women in the Konawe Region of Southeast Sulawesi who seek to gain an egalitarian position in the midst of oligarchical-patriarchal culture. Divorce claims as a trend of regional social become the main discourse on the dynamics of marriage law – in this context of Islamic law perspective. It is ordinarily for this research to use a qualitative approach aimed at forming substantive theories based on the concept of empirical data. The informants of this article were determined using a purposive technique, data collection techniques using in-depth interviews and participant observation, and the interactive model of Miles and Hubermann was used as a data analysis model. This research conclusively found that the power of oligarchic-patriarchal culture lies and legitimized by the interpretation of Islamic religious texts from the Qur’an and Sunnah. This effort also appears massive in the form of "rebellious" actions such as divorce to form an asymmetrical culture. This research examined this pattern in terms of asymmetric gender, namely the movement egalitarian of women who are incompatible with the ideals of male superiority in patriarchal-culture religion.</p><p class="abstrak"><em>Artikel ini fokus pada upaya perempuan masyarakat Daerah Konawe Sulawesi Tenggara yang berusaha mendapatkan posisi egaliter di tengah budaya oligarkis-patriarkis. Gugat cerai sebagai tren kemasyarakatan daerah tersebut menjadi diskursus utama dinamika hukum pernikahan –dalam konteks ini perspektif hukum Islam. Lazim apabila riset ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif yang ditujukan pada pembentukan teori substantif berdasarkan konsep data empiris. Informan artikel ini ditentukan dengan teknik purposive, teknik pengumpulkan data menggunakan wawancara mendalam dan observasi partisipan, dan model interaktif Miles dan Hubermann dijadikan sebagai model analisis data. Riset ini secara konklutif menemukan, keperkasaan budaya oligarkis-patriarkis ada serta dilegitimasi oleh penafsiran terhadap teks-teks keagamaan Islam </em><em>dari Qur’an dan S</em><em>unnah. Upaya ini pun masif muncul dalam bentuk tindakan “memberontak” seperti gugat cerai hingga membentuk budaya asimetris. Riset ini mengistilahkan pola tersebut dengan istilah gender asimetris, yaitu gerakan egaliter kaum perempuan yang tidak kesesuaian dengan cita superioritas laki-laki di budaya patriarkis-religius</em></p>

Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Naturalness in Speakers of Varying Gender Identities

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 2054-2069
Author(s):  
Brandon Merritt ◽  
Tessa Bent
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Speech ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
Rating Task ◽  
Gender Identification ◽  
Identification Task ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Perceptual Evaluation ◽  
Speech Training ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Speech Naturalness

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how speech naturalness relates to masculinity–femininity and gender identification (accuracy and reaction time) for cisgender male and female speakers as well as transmasculine and transfeminine speakers. Method Stimuli included spontaneous speech samples from 20 speakers who are transgender (10 transmasculine and 10 transfeminine) and 20 speakers who are cisgender (10 male and 10 female). Fifty-two listeners completed three tasks: a two-alternative forced-choice gender identification task, a speech naturalness rating task, and a masculinity/femininity rating task. Results Transfeminine and transmasculine speakers were rated as significantly less natural sounding than cisgender speakers. Speakers rated as less natural took longer to identify and were identified less accurately in the gender identification task; furthermore, they were rated as less prototypically masculine/feminine. Conclusions Perceptual speech naturalness for both transfeminine and transmasculine speakers is strongly associated with gender cues in spontaneous speech. Training to align a speaker's voice with their gender identity may concurrently improve perceptual speech naturalness. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12543158

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