scholarly journals Gender Inequalities and the Effects of Feminine Artworks on Public Spaces: A Dialogue

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 158-167
Author(s):  
Hooshmand Alizadeh ◽  
Josef Kohlbacher ◽  
Rozhen Kamal Mohammed-Amin ◽  
Tabin Latif Raouf
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Street Art ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Social Barriers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Kurdish Women ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The City

Feminist street art aims to transform patriarchal spaces into places of gendered resistance by asserting a feminist presence in the city. Considering this, as well as women’s social life, their struggle against lingering forces of patriarchy, and relating features of inequality (domestic violence), there was a feminist installation artwork by the young Kurdish artist Tara Abdulla that shook the city of Sulaimani in Iraqi Kurdistan on 26 October 2020. She had prepared a 4,800‐meter‐long washing line covered with the clothes of 99,678 Kurdish women who were survivors of sexual and gender‐based violence. They installed it along the busiest street of the city (Salim Street). She used this piece of feminine to express her reaction to the Kurdish society regarding, the abuse that goes on silently, behind closed doors. She also aimed towards normalizing women’s bodies. After the installation, she received many controversial reactions. As her artwork was a pioneering project in line with feminist issues in Kurdistan which preoccupied the city for quite a while, the aim of this article is to investigate the diverse effects of her work on the current dialogue regarding gender inequality in the Kurdish society. To do this, we used the research method of content analysis on big data (Facebook comments) to investigate the public reactions of a larger number of locals. The Feminine effectively exposed some of the deep‐rooted cultural, religious, and social barriers in addressing gender inequalities and silent sexual violence issues in the modern Kurdish patriarchal society.

Resistance in the New Harem Era: Gendered Violence and the Power of Media in the Time of Covid-19 in Morocco

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-41
Author(s):  
Sara El Ouedrhiri ◽  
Hafsa El Mesbahi
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Movement Restriction ◽  
Gendered Violence ◽  
Fatima Mernissi ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The City

In a time of great uncertainties, the world witnesses, for the very first instance in its modern history a global lockdown spanning over all the vital spheres of economic and social life. At this point, when neither leaving home nor staying is an option, the surge to exponentially study the manner in which human life has evolved and been shaped under such circumstances gained valuable interest, especially within the circles of feminist and human rights-based academia. Respectively, researchers argue that the weight of the lockdown and movement restriction policies fall discriminately on men and women as they are interestingly leading such novel experiences in different ways. Men, by having no concern mounting to the priority of protecting themselves from being inflicted by this global pandemic and maintaining their economic roles as the traditional family providers, and women on the margin side of the picture, having to deal with the burden of surviving the dangers that the outside and the inside worlds akin dispose. Henceforth, this article is an attempt to probe the dynamics of the private sphere considering the intersections between oppression, seclusion and violence and the development of new dynamics of resistance by transposing from the early 20th century’s feminine experience of confinement and the 21st century’s global lockdown in the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. This research considers the stories presented by the renowned Moroccan sociologist and author “Fatima Mernissi”, who herself lived a different kind of seclusion behind the colossal and skillfully ostentatious walls of the harem of the city of Fez in the forties of the previous century and this shall be done mainly by reviewing the stories of resistance presented in her memoir Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood; and by considering the stories of five respondents who have shared with us their accounts through various social media outlets upon the surge of the pandemic in Morocco. The purpose here is to unravel the convergences between women’s experiences of gender-based violence (GBV) in both confinements and to foreground the value, significance and challenges these feminine insights being in them simple acts of everyday life constitute in establishing a discourse of resistance and feminine empowerment vis-à-vis patriarchy, seclusion and gender-based violence.

scholarly journals Flânerie in Valerie Tagwira’s The Uncertainty of Hope

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-18
Author(s):  
Magdalena Pfalzgraf
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Spatial Mobility ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The City

Valerie Tagwira’s debut novel The Uncertainty of Hope, set in Harare in 2005, depicts the city on the brink of collapse, characterized by the effects of economic crisis and political violence against the urban poor. Political marginalization of the working classes and gender-based violence intersect and diminish the prospects for the social and spatial mobility of the urban poor. In this article I apply the lens of flânerie to the pedestrian movements of Tagwira’s protagonist Onai Moyo, an impoverished woman who makes a living by selling vegetables on Harare’s streets. In order to make a case for Onai’s ‘flânerie against all odds’, I revisit Walter Benjamin’s theorization as well as recent scholarly engagements with flânerie in non-European settings. By giving her protagonist a gaze traditionally associated with a European middle-class urbanity of the 19th century, Tagwira expands a tradition of city writing/walking and, like other contemporary engagements with flânerie, also breathes new life into a concept often pronounced inappropriate or unproductive for readings of non-European literature. 

scholarly journals Gender and Gender-Based Violence

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Brown Wollenberg
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Literature Review ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Grey Literature ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Organizational Level ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Action Against Hunger is an international non-governmental organization with six headquarters located around the world that focus on ending hunger in low and middle-income countries. The Canadian office uniquely provides evidenced-based technical support and evaluation for headquarters focused on implementing interventions and programming to mitigate hunger. For my practicum I worked in the International Gender Unit to support ongoing policy development and updating of the organization’s cross-network gender policy. Gender inequalities have direct causal links with malnutrition; yet, in March 2020 the Global Nutrition Report showed that global efforts to mitigate hunger by addressing gender inequalities are behind on most targets. To better capture and learn how to address underlying inequalities and drivers of malnutrition, my practicum research focused on the associations and non-associations between gender, gender-based violence, and malnutrition. This practicum placement had three objectives: 1) to provide a literature review 2) to provide a database comprised of peer-reviewed and grey literature; and, 3) to support new policy development during cross-headquarters discussions, research, and reporting. During this placement I had the opportunity to work online with individuals across five continents and twenty-one countries. This included facilitating break-out policy discussions during policy meetings, as well as semi-structured interviews that were conducted prior to providing a literature review and socio-ecological discussion on gender, gender-based violence and malnutrition. The opportunity to engage in international and cross-cultural collaborative work has been the highlight of my practicum. It has provided the opportunity to not only sharpen my reflexive praxis as a student of public health, but to sharpen my understanding of the policy process at the organizational level. It has additionally illuminated the importance of structural and social contexts in public health research and programming, especially within efforts to address gender inequalities and gender-based violence associated with malnutrition.

scholarly journals Domestic violence: Evidence-based policies before and during the pandemic in Greece

Temida ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Vasiliki Artinopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Critical Aspects

Domestic violence and gender-based violence has been studied and recognised for many years in Greece. Adequate legislation on the criminalization of domestic violence has been implemented since 2006 (Law 3500/2006 on the Confrontation of Domestic Violence). A network of support services has also operated across the country for many years, staffed with professionals trained in the gender-sensitive perspective. However, Greece still faces the impact of the economic crisis that started in 2010 and the critical aspects of the crisis from the reduction of the public budget imposed by the European institutions in the lives of the individuals, the victims and the providers of the social services have not been fully assessed yet. The COVID-19 pandemic created problems in the victims? access to social services and not only. The shadow pandemic describes the alarm on the increase of domestic violence during the pandemic and the isolation of the victims from the providers of social and psychological support. Addressing both the issue of domestic violence through a victim-centered approach before and during the pandemic in Greece and the need for the implementation of evidence-based policies are the general aims of the paper. To this, we present few findings from an original victimological online research on domestic violence during the first lockdown in the country (March to May 2020) and we justify the need for the implementation of evidence-based policies in the criminal justice system in Greece.

A LOOK AT DOMESTIC AND GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN PORTUGAL: FROM LAW TO DISCOURSES

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Marques
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
News Stories ◽  
The Social ◽  
Portuguese Society ◽  
Victims Of Violence ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Despite legislative advancements, domestic violence is still today a crime considered as "minor" by many, or often the actions that materialise it are not even recognised. The first steps in Portuguese legislation were taken by the Penal Code approved in 1982, which typified the crime of ill-treatment between spouses, and by the Law n. º 61/91 of 13th of August, which guaranteed “adequate protection to women victims of violence”. However, only in 2007, was the crime of Domestic Violence created, which shows, from 1982 until then, a long path of hesitations and slow social evolution concerning the consciousness of this crime’s seriousness. Until 2007, the crime of spousal abuse was integrated in a broader criminal arrangement, characterised by the abuse of persons. In 2009, with the typification of the crime of Domestic Violence and with the publication of the legal regime applicable to the prevention, protection, and assistance of victims, denominated as Law of Domestic Violence, a more consolidated phase was inaugurated, in both legal treatment and social intervention. Despite these evolutions, Portugal continues to witness an attitude of "social and collective consent" to some forms of Domestic Violence, oftentimes disguised in the acceptance and normalisation of gender inequalities. We have seen news stories where judgements are presented, within the scope of Domestic Violence cases, where discriminatory ideas against women and excuses for the crime of Domestic Violence are manifested. This is proof that some of the representatives of justice (the judges) do not accept what has already been legally approved in the Portuguese legal system. Similarly, recent studies on the population’s perception of domestic and gender-based violence show the abiding ideas and understandings of acceptance and normalisation of domestic and gender-based violence in Portuguese society. We intend to present the evolution of the typification of the crime of domestic violence in Portugal. Then, we intend to understand how this phenomenon has been perceived in Portuguese society. Therefore, we will be able to understand the continuities and ruptures between the legislative body and the social body in what concerns Domestic Violence and Violence against Women in Portugal.

scholarly journals Surviving Genocide, Thriving in Politics: Rwandan Women’s Power

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerise Herndon ◽  
Shirley Randell
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Formal Education ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
The Public ◽  
Women's Power ◽  
Women In Parliament ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The Public Sphere

Rwandan women have given their nation new status as a world leader in gender equality, having achieved a 56 percent majority in Parliament. Women have reached this level of political power for many reasons, including the current government’s political will and women parliamentarians’ conscious decision to emphasize pre-colonial traditions of leadership as an alternative to prevailing patriarchal notions of women’s capacity. Highlighting women’s historical roles as behind-the-scenes advisors effectively promoted gender equality in the public sphere. Not only have women in Parliament taken leadership in promoting laws that protect women against gender-based violence, but also civil society organizations have participated in rebuilding and unifying the country following the trauma of horrific sexual violence and killing during the 1994 genocide. Interviews conducted in Kigali and Butare in 2009 and 2010 inform this study of perceptions of women’s power at the parliamentary and the grassroots levels. Women’s visibility in national government has not immediately translated into empowerment in the home, in agriculture, in the office or in social life. Formal education is key to providing girls and women the tools to analyze and dismantle remaining obstacles to gender equality in the professional, social and private spheres, building on their political achievement.

Addressing Rape Culture through Folktale Adaptation in Malaysian Young Adult Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-133
Author(s):  
Sharifah Aishah Osman
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Young Adult Literature ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Rape Culture ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Female Agency ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
The Public ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Rape culture is a provocative topic in Malaysia; the public discourse on it is plagued by gender stereotyping, sexism, misogyny, and rape myths. Recent literary works aimed at Malaysian adolescent girls have interrogated rape culture more pointedly as a means of addressing gender-based violence through activism and education. In this article, I discuss two short stories, “The Girl on the Mountain” and “Gamble” as retellings of Malaysian legends and feminist responses to the normalization and perpetuation of rape culture in this society. Through the emphasis on female agency, consent, and gender equality, these two stories reflect the subversive power of Malaysian young adult literature in dismantling rape culture, while affirming the significance of the folktale as an empowering tool for community engagement and feminist activism.

scholarly journals 2020 Syndemic: Convergence of COVID-19, Gender-Based Violence, and Racism Pandemics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazilla Khanlou ◽  
Luz Maria Vazquez ◽  
Soheila Pashang ◽  
Jennifer A. Connolly ◽  
Farah Ahmad ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
News Media ◽  
Public Health Issue ◽  
Gender Inequalities ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Systemic Racism ◽  
Rapid Reviews ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Abstract Objective To conduct a rapid knowledge synthesis of literature on the social determinants of mental health of racialized women exposed to gender-based violence (GBV) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We adapted the Cochrane Rapid Reviews method and were guided by an equity lens in conducting rapid reviews on public health issues. Four electronic databases (Cochrane CENTRAL, Medline, ProQuest, and EBSCO), electronic news media, Google Scholar, and policy documents were searched for literature between January 2019 and October 2020 with no limitations for location. Fifty-five articles qualified for the review. Results Health emergencies heighten gender inequalities in relation to income, employment, job security, and working conditions. Household stress and pandemic-related restrictions (social distancing, closure of services) increase women’s vulnerability to violence. Systemic racism and discrimination intensify health disparities. Conclusion Racialized women are experiencing a 2020 Syndemic: a convergence of COVID-19, GBV, and racism pandemics, placing their wellbeing at a disproportionate risk. GBV is a public health issue and gender-responsive COVID-19 programming is essential. Anti-racist and equity-promoting policies to GBV service provision and disaggregated data collection are required.

scholarly journals Sari, Femininity, and Wall Art: A Semiotic Study of GuessWho’s Street Art in Bengaluru

Tripodos ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 111-130
Author(s):  
Benson Rajan
Keyword(s):  
Gender Discrimination ◽  
Street Art ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Resistance ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Historical Monuments ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The City

Graffiti has been conversing with the public for millions of years. In India, this art form is prominent in spaces like historical monuments, schools, colleges, classrooms, public bathrooms, benches, desks, and local transports. With the coming of the Covid 19 pandemic, this art from the streets has come alive in people’s smartphones. This paper explores and interprets the works of GuessWho, a prominent stencil graffiti artist working in the city of Bengaluru, Karnataka, and originally belonging to Kochi, Kerala. This study seeks to understand how the discourse around graffiti can help empower women in their struggle to claim the streets. By focusing on Instagram as a medium of social resistance, the paper explores the role of graffiti and social media in challenging the patriarchal status quo. Semiotics is used to understand the ways in which the production and consumption of forms of street art and graffiti are increasingly shaping the way Bengaluru city negotiates with gender. GuessWho’s graffiti symbolically targets and contests gender discrimination and particularly challenges some of the existing classist, racist, or sexist biases by subverting the use of sari, technology, and gender roles in the artwork.

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