Women’s Activism in the Civil Resistance Movement in Kosovo (1989–1997): Characteristics, Development, Encounters

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 843-860
Author(s):  
Itziar Mujika Chao

AbstractThis article analyzes women’s socio-political participation and activism within the nonviolent civil resistance movement in prewar Kosovo between 1989 and 1997, as well as the movement’s gender dynamics. This Albanian-led resistance movement emerged during the early 1990s with the principal goal of building a parallel state, seeking independence from Serbia, and offering means of survival for the population. This project required the participation of all Albanian citizens, and although the participation of women was massive, this has gone largely unrecognized. This article will explore the principal features of women’s participation and activism within this movement, what kind of gendered dynamics were developed, and the principal forms of resistance they encountered against their full and active participation through an analysis of women’s activism both within the Women’s Forum of the Democratic League of Kosovo and within independent women’s organizations.

Author(s):  
Fardaus Ara

Empowerment of women is a universal slogan. Worldwide, several strategies are carried on by international organizations to ensure active participation of women in decision-making. Active participation at all level of politics is necessary in this regard. Likewise, the government of Bangladesh has adopted various programs and policies to ensure gender equality in all sectors of life. Relevant laws and ordinances are revised, and new provisions are incorporated in the laws where necessary. One-third seats are kept reserved for women to be elected at the urban local government. However, gender disparity is evident at this level. Women are mostly seen as reserved seat councilors. They are almost absent in the leadership positions. In Bangladesh, women's participation in local government politics is hampered due to multi-faceted factors ranging from socio-cultural to political. The male-dominating political parties can play a major role to bring gender parity in politics by nominating and supporting more women in the local government election.


2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 3175-3183
Author(s):  
Ida Wahyuni Iskandar

The struggle of women to actualize themselves in the political arena is very difficult since the situation that always accompanies is even an obstacle for them to move freely. Meanwhile, political reform which occurred in Indonesia has certainly given great opportunity to women to participate. In this study, the sampling technique is purposive sampling. The analysis technique used in this study is using interactive model analysis. The results of the research are vote casting the most basic of political participation which women are already involved in general election to vote for governor of East Kalimantan. They have realized that their vote determines the future of their region. For this the simplest form of political participation, most of the women in East Kalimantan have performed their right.The role of the participation of women activists is important in inviting women in East Kalimantan to participate in general elections. To increase activist women's participation is not only the responsibility of one party. Political education for women needs to be held more widely, not only for certain groups. Efforts to increase women's participation in politics certainly need systemic collaboration from various parties from the government, political parties, and community organizations.


2019 ◽  
pp. 298-329
Author(s):  
Shirin M. Rai ◽  
Carole Spary

This chapter addresses the questions of why women stay on in politics and why they leave it. It examines the issue of sustainability of political participation—something that is rarely focused on in the studies in representative politics. It explores the party’s support of women’s parliamentary careers by examining the re-nomination and re-election of incumbent women members of Parliament over successive parliamentary terms. It shows that pressures of work, the conditions of work, the levels of political and the institutional support available to women members by political parties and Parliament, the pressures of expectation of constituencies, travel, and life–work balance all contribute to the sustainable participation of women in Parliament. It concludes that the sustainability of women’s participation in parliamentary politics is very largely affected by party, institutional, and leadership norms, and suggests that treating the Parliament as a place of work can open up avenues for gender-based reform.


2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (7) ◽  
pp. 1043-1061 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aboobacker Rameez

Although Sri Lanka has 51% women, their participation in local governance as well as in the national parliament is 5% in total. The strong social development indicator of women in areas such as health and education has not translated into their increased political participation. As such, this study focuses on the level of women’s participation in local governance and explores why there is a low level of political participation of women in local governance. Both quantitative and qualitative methods comprising of questionnaire survey, interviews and focus group discussions were employed in this study. The findings show organized collective involvement of women was effective only in social welfare, livelihood and social security than political participation. The study also reveals that the low level of political participation by women is attributable to biological, economic, psychological, religious and political factors. Overall, it was found that although women are interested in participating in local governance, they have a lack of space for political participation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-207
Author(s):  
Brown Chomba

Issues to do with gender imbalances and inequality of women in general and single women in particular in the political arena and entrepreneurship are nowadays a burning issue in all the countries worldwide. This is a major aspect of modern democratic governance such that low levels of female participation in politics are a major concern worldwide. The steps were taken by the United Nations Convention on stopping all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and other international organizations have laid the concrete basis for the emergence of women’s participation in politics and entrepreneurship. In Lusaka, Zambia, women’s political participation is not proportional to the 50% of the country’s population which women represent, thereby not translating into equal representation in political leadership positions. The study employed questionnaires to collect data. The findings demonstrate that there exists a significant gender gap in the political participation of women in all the wards in the Lusaka district and that factors affecting their effective participation were social, economic, political, cultural, and religious-based. The study, therefore, recommended the change of perception of the people, equal representation in governance, support from everyone, and also stopping of discriminatory practices to ensure the equal and full participation of women.


Author(s):  
Ishaq Ahmad ◽  
Shahida Aman

This study aims to evaluate the religious and the alternate discourses on women’s political rights in Pakistan; such debates were heightened and intensified as a result of General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization vision and policies implemented between 1977 to 1988. Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization is argued to have polarized women’s participation in politics and challenged the standing of feminist groups, Islamic feminists, and secularists, which made Islam and women’s political participation the subject of debates that are still relevant in the case of Pakistan. The paper argues that Pakistani state’s Islamic disposition in general and Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamization in particular provoked religious conservatism and promoted gender-based discrimination that deeply affected women’s political participation. This study seeks to reconcile the different perspectives of Islamic and secular feminism for realizing the goals of effective participation of women in politics. The paper uses a qualitative research method concentrating on thematic analysis, which employs for identifying and analyzing patterns or themes within qualitative data analysis approaches. The findings suggest that in the case of women rights, Islamic feminism and secular feminism are compatible and complementary, and a synthesis of both is imperative to realize the effective participation of women in politics.


MUWAZAH ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Nurbaity Prastyananda Yuwono

Women's political participation in Indonesia can be categorized as low, even though the government has provided special policies for women. Patriarchal political culture is a major obstacle in increasing women's political participation, because it builds perceptions that women are inappropriate, unsuitable and unfit to engage in the political domain. The notion that women are more appropriate in the domestic area; identified politics are masculine, so women are not suitable for acting in the political domain; Weak women and not having the ability to become leaders, are the result of the construction of a patriarchal political culture. Efforts must be doing to increase women's participation, i.e: women's political awareness, gender-based political education; building and strengthening relationships between women's networks and organizations; attract qualified women  political party cadres; cultural reconstruction and reinterpretation of religious understanding that is gender biased; movement to change the organizational structure of political parties and; the implementation of legislation effectively.


Author(s):  
Ruth Rubio-Marín

This chapter explores how human rights law has contributed to the shift towards participatory gender equality by legitimating the adoption of quotas and parity mechanisms to ensure women’s equal participation in decision-making. Since the adoption of CEDAW, human rights law has moved away from formal equality notions that simply affirm women’s equal political rights. Instead, we see growing endorsement of substantive equality doctrines that validate the adoption of gender quotas, initially as temporary special measures to ensure women equal opportunities, and, more recently, as permanent measures targeting the gender-balanced composition of an ever-expanding range of public and private governance bodies. The chapter explores how human rights law connects this participatory turn to issues of pluralism, calling attention to the need for public bodies to represent the full diversity of the population, and calling on state parties to increase the participation of women from ethnic minorities, indigenous groups, and religious minorities.


Author(s):  
Aisha A. Upton ◽  
Joyce M. Bell

This chapter examines women’s activism in the modern movement for Black liberation. It examines women’s roles across three phases of mobilization. Starting with an exploration of women’s participation in the direct action phase of the U.S. civil rights movement (1954–1966), the chapter discusses the key roles that women played in the fight for legal equality for African Americans. Next it examines women’s central role in the Black Power movement of 1966–1974. The authors argue that Black women found new roles in new struggles during this period. The chapter ends with a look at the rise of radical Black feminism between 1974 and 1980, examining the codification of intersectional politics and discussing the continuation of issues of race, privilege, and diversity in contemporary feminism.


2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 879-893 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sirianne Dahlum ◽  
Tore Wig

Abstract We investigate whether female political empowerment is conducive to civil peace, drawing on global data on female political empowerment over a 200-year period, from the Varieties of Democracy database. We augment previous research by expanding the temporal scope, looking at a novel inventory of female political empowerment measures, attending to reverse-causality and omitted variable issues, and separating between relevant causal mechanisms. We find a strong link between female political empowerment and civil peace, which is particularly pronounced in the twentieth century. We find evidence that this relationship is driven both by women’s political participation—particularly the bottom-up political participation of women, e.g., in civil society—and the culture that conduces it. This is the strongest evidence to date that there is a robust link between female political empowerment and civil peace, stemming from both institutional and cultural mechanisms.


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