Bangladeshi Women and Gender Boundaries

2020 ◽  
pp. 118-145
Author(s):  
Alisa Perkins

This chapter analyzes how Bangladeshi American women and teenage girls in Hamtramck renegotiate conceptualizations of the public-private divide through ongoing interpretive and explorative spatial practices while referencing religious and cultural frameworks. It discusses how Bangladeshi women across generations organize the gendering of spaces within paid labor, public and private celebrations, streets, mosques, home-based religious gatherings, and schools. The analysis centers on how Bangladeshi women in Hamtramck are self-consciously and actively engaged in a process of negotiating their relationship to urban space, searching to interface with the city and its institutions in ways that maximize their sense of mobility, mastery, and centrality within public, semi-public, and domestic spaces of the city. In doing so, they advance new agendas of cultural citizenship, thus encouraging municipal environments and institutions to become more democratic spaces that represent and uphold the values of those who participate in them.

Humanities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 29
Author(s):  
Dibyadyuti Roy

Cultural constructions of passive motherhood, especially within domestic spaces, gained currency in India and Ireland due to their shared colonial history, as well as the influence of anti-colonial masculinist nationalism on the social imaginary of these two nations. However, beginning from the latter half of the nineteenth century, postcolonial literary voices have not only challenged the traditional gendering of public and private spaces but also interrogated docile constructions of womanhood, particularly essentialized representations of maternity. Domestic spaces have been critical narrative motifs in these postcolonial texts through simultaneously embodying patriarchal domination but also as sites where feminist resistance can be actualized by “transgress(ing) traditional views of … the home, as a static immobile place of oppression”. This paper, through a comparative analysis of maternal characters in Edna O’Brien’s The Love Object and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Hell-Heaven, argues that socially disapproved/illicit relationships in these two representative postcolonial Irish and Indian narratives function as matricentric feminist tactics that subvert limiting notions of both domestic spaces and gendered liminal postcolonial subjectivities. I highlight that within the context of male-centered colonial and nationalist literature, the trope of maternity configures the domestic-space as the “rightful place” for the existence of the feminine entity. Thus, when postcolonial feminist fiction reverses this tradition through constructing the “home and the female-body” as sites of possible resistance, it is a counter against dual oppression: both colonialism and patriarchy. My intervention further underscores the need for sustained conversations between the literary output of India and Ireland, within Postcolonial Literary Studies, with a particular acknowledgement for space and gender as pivotal categories in the “cultural analysis of empire”.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-93
Author(s):  
Rafia Naz Ali ◽  
Johar Wajahat ◽  
Muhammad Jan

The 3 P's, i.e., the security, promotion, and provision of fundamental rights to its people, are widely regarded as the hallmarks of an effective legal system. These 3Ps are enforced in both formal and informal legal structures. Gender-based violence (GBV) at work is the most well-known form of GBV in our culture, which is marked by patriarchy and gender segregation. When harassment occurs in the workplace, it makes a female's working experience unpleasant, harmful, and aggressive. It makes it difficult for her to obtain a legitimate position and respect in the workplace. According to a survey, 77 percent of Pakistani women employed in different occupations are unaware of their human rights in cases of sexual abuse. According to the National Commission on the Status of Women, 50 percent of women interviewed from the public and private sectors had been sexually harassed and were hesitant to report the truth. The Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act of 2010 was enacted in Pakistan's history to protect women from mischief and ensure a safe workplace. It manifested constitutional protections enlisted under Fundamental rights. Non-traditional job structures, such as farm work, domestic and home-based work, are part of Pakistan's socio-economic culture. Even on non-traditional job bases, the Act of 2010 made it possible to directly contact the Office of Ombudsperson or file a criminal complaint. This article aims to examine the current state and efficacy of workplace discrimination legislation.


Humanities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
Unni Langås

In this article, I discuss the combination of city life and gender performativity in two Norwegian classics, Knut Hamsun’s Hunger (2016) [Sult, 1890] and Cora Sandel’s Alberta and Freedom (1984) [Alberte og friheten, 1931]. These are modernist novels depicting lonely human subjects in an urban space, the first one featuring a man in Kristiania (now Oslo) in the 1880s, the second one a woman and her female acquaintances in Paris in the 1920s. I interpret and compare the two novels by focusing on their intertwined construction of gender performativity and urban space. Gender norms of the city life are critical premises for how the subjects manage to negotiate with different options and obstacles through their modern existences. To both protagonists, inferior femininity is a constant option and threat, but their responses and actions are different. The strategy of the male subject in Hunger is to fight his way up from humiliation by humiliating the female other; the strategy of the female subject in Alberta and Freedom is instead to seek solidarity with persons who have experiences similar to her own. Hamsun’s man and Sandel’s woman both perceive their own bodies as crucial to the interpretation of their physical surroundings. However, while the hero in Hunger must deal with a body falling apart and a confrontation with the world that depends on a totally fragmented bodily experience, the heroine in Alberta and Freedom instead sees herself as a body divided between outer appearance and inner inclinations. Both novels stage a person with writing proclivities in a city setting where the success or failure of artistic work is subjected to the mechanisms of a market economy. Their artistic ambitions are to a large extent decided by their material conditions, which seem to manipulate Hamsun’s hero out of the whole business, and Sandel’s heroine to stay calm and not give up. Yet the novels share the belief in the body’s basis as a denominator for the perception and interpretation of sensual and cognitive impressions of the world.


Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (10) ◽  
pp. 2160-2178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayra Mosciaro ◽  
Alvaro Pereira

The entrepreneurial city discourse has been adopted around the globe by policymakers, with the urban redevelopment project as one of its most representative symbols. The predominantly favourable discourse revolving around this new political economy of urban space is supported by claims that newly regenerated areas bring multiple benefits to the city and its citizens. These narratives have been used in Brazil to justify increasing reliance on an urban planning tool known as Urban Operations. This planning tool, developed in the 1990s, seeks to facilitate cooperation between public and private actors in the production of new urban spaces. While projected by some as a ‘magic formula’ that enables major urban redevelopment projects without public expenditure, the outcomes of Urban Operations often differ significantly from expectations. The cases of Água Espraiada (São Paulo) and Porto Maravilha (Rio de Janeiro) are used to demonstrate that regenerated areas, as preferred spaces for the penetration of financialised practices into the built environment, have brought forward new dynamics that are serving to reinforce pre-existing social inequalities and to exacerbate uneven development in Brazil’s main cities.


2014 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 1079-1098 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Garb

In the 1890s, restaurant and hotel waiters in Chicago formed a biracial labor organization that successfully challenged their employers. The Culinary Alliance, a rare example of biracial unionism in the late nineteenth century, was produced by, and helped to shape, a dramatic reorganization of urban space with the emergence of corporate capitalism and consumer culture in the city. The Alliance’s rise and demise demonstrates the ways urban space was a powerful force in the complex interactions between race and gender relations in urban labor markets.


Urban History ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-385 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAULA HOHTI

ABSTRACT:Historians of early modern Italy have traditionally viewed the city's public spaces, such as streets, quarters, taverns and marketplaces, as the chief locations in which claims to identity were launched into the broader urban community. Recent studies on the domestic interior, however, have shown that the distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’ in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century urban space was much more complex. In this period, private urban houses became sites for an increasing range of social acitvities that varied from informal evening gatherings to large wedding banquets. Focusing on this ‘public’ dimension of the private urban house, this article explores how the middling classes of artisans and shopkeepers used the domestic space to construct identities and to facilitate social relations in sixteenth-century Siena. The aim is to show that in providing a setting for differing forms of economic and social activity, the urban home together with its objects and furnishings may have provided an increasingly important physical location for craftsmen, shop-owners and traders to negotaite individual and collective identities within the broader communities of the city.


Author(s):  
Bartosz Pokorski

In my paper I try to trace and understand the reasons for the birth of the 24/7 world as it is described by Johnatan Crary in his book 24/7 Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. He proposes a grim vision of late capitalism in which sleep deprivation and the disintegration of public and private spaces will become a market necessity. My attempt to understand is supported on two other authors. First, Hannah Arendt provided me with an analysis of origins, transformations and somewhat present version of the relation of private and public spheres. Second, Fredrich Schiller delivered an interesting theory on the aesthetic ideal, art, beauty and human experience of beauty. These three analyzes stand as basis for my attempt to present a proposal to overcome the crisis described by Crary and the answer is related to the issue of aesthetic experience of street art in urban space.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 228
Author(s):  
Sabrina S. Fontenele Costa

Este texto apresenta um panorama da presença das mulheres em seus espaços domésticos e sua interação com o espaço urbano de São Paulo em meados do século XX. Período que passaram a usufruir de maneira mais intensa da vida urbana, ampliaram sua formação educacional e entraram no mercado de trabalho. Nos anúncios e textos do período, a imagem da “mulher moderna” está vinculada a figura que circula livremente pela cidade, como também aquela que é responsável pela organização das atividades domésticas. Buscando discutir a dimensão e as contradições dessa representação foram utilizadas como fontes de uma pesquisa qualitativa histórica os anúncios de jornais e revistas, os desenhos e fotografias dos projetos de alguns edifícios e estudos sobre a presença feminina na metrópole.*This text presents an overview of the mid-class women’s presence in their domestic spaces and their interaction with the urban space in the middle of the 20th century in São Paulo. The period when they began to enjoy more intensely the urban life, expanded their education and entered the labor market. In the advertisements and texts of the period, the image of the “modern woman” is linked to a figure that circulates freely throughout the city, as well as that which is responsible for the organization of domestic activities. Looking to discuss the dimension and the contradictions of this representation were used as sources of qualitative historical research the advertisements of newspapers and magazines, drawings and photographs of the projects of some buildings and studies on the female presence in the metropolis.


Author(s):  
Юлия Робертовна Горелова ◽  
Александра Мартановна Маматулина

Данная статья посвящена исследованию отражения образных характеристик архитектурной среды города в пейзажах художников. Анализируя индивидуальные образные интерпретации разных художников, авторы предпринимают попытку обозначить общие тенденции в отображении архитектурной составляющей городского текста в целом и в частности его отдельных элементов (архитектурных объектов и пространств) в изобразительном искусстве. При этом авторами актуализируется внимание на специфике отображения различных типов городских пространств как публичных, так и камерных. При анализе публичных пространств центральной части города, формирующих «парадный портрет города», основное внимание уделяется отражению образов так называемых «визитных карточек»: наиболее значимых в семиотическом отношении архитектурных объектов и пространств, формирующих позитивный и презентабельный образ города. Некоторые фрагменты городского пространства выступают излюбленными мотивами городских пейзажей, написанных омскими художниками. Именно эти пространства воспринимаются жителями в качестве визитных карточек города и представляют собой наиболее значимые в семиотическом отношении фрагменты городского текста. В Омске, несомненно, к таким ключевым пространствам и объектам следует отнести архитектурные ансамбли ул. Ленина (Любинский проспект) и ул. Тарской, ансамбли Соборной и Никольской площадей, здания Драматического театра, Серафимо-Алексеевской часовни и Речного вокзала и др. Можно констатировать наличие излюбленных ракурсов при изображении архитектурных пространств центральной части Омска. Одним из таких является вид из окон Дома художников на реку Омь, мост и перспективу Любинского проспекта на противоположном берегу реки. Изображение Любинского у разных художников отличается не только выбором ракурса, а более настроением и своим отношением к данному пространству. Некоторые художники в своих работах выходят на глубокий уровень философского осмысления пространства, другие – показывают его будничным и обыденным. Камерные пейзажи, как правило, изображают фрагменты городской среды, относительно изолированные от центральных городских публичных пространств. К таким можно отнести дворы, арки и др. Камерным пространствам характерна близость, интимность. Большинство камерных пространств являются анонимными. Самым ярким примером камерного городского пространства являются дворы. Мотив строчной рядовой многоэтажной застройки, характерный для большинства городских окраин, также находит отражение в работах омских художников. У некоторых художников образ окраины передается как пустынное пространство, где высотная застройка перемежается с пустынными пространствами. Другой вариант осмысления данного образа предполагает трактовку окраины как пространства привычного, обжитого, наполненного утилитарными функциями и обустроенного людьми под свои нужды. This article aims to examine the reflection of figurative characteristics of the city’s architectural environment in artists’ landscapes. By analyzing individual figurative interpretations by different artists, the authors attempt to determine global tendencies in the reflection of the city’s architectural environment in general, and in its individual elements (architectural objects and spaces) in visual arts in particular. The authors focus attention on the specifics of the presentation of different types of urban spaces, both public and private. Analyzing public spaces of the city center, which form the “grand portrait of the city”, the authors concentrate on the reflection of the city’s landmarks—the most significant semiotic architectural objects and spaces that form a positive and presentable image of the city. Some parts of the urban space are favorite topics of urban landscapes by Omsk artists. It is these spaces that residents perceive as landmarks; they represent the most valuable, in semiotic terms, parts of the urban text. In Omsk, undoubtedly, the landmarks of the city are architectural ensembles in Lenin St. (Lyubinsky Prospect) and Tarskaya St.; ensembles of the Sobornaya and Nikolskaya Squares; the buildings of the Drama Theater, of the Seraphim-Alekseevskaya Chapel and of the River Boat Station, etc. Artists have favorite perspectives in depicting the architectural spaces of the central part of Omsk. One of them is a view from the windows of the House of Artist on the Om’ River, the bridge, and the perspective of Lubinskiy Prospect, which is on the other bank of the river. Artists show Lubinskiy Prospect in different ways: due to not only the chosen angle, but also their mood and attitude to the space they depict. Some artists go to the deep level of a philosophical understanding of the surrounding space, while others illustrate it as ordinary. Private landscapes, as usual, show parts of urban environment that are relatively isolated from public central urban spaces. Yards and arches are examples of it. Private spaces usually have a close, intimate atmosphere. Most private spaces are anonymous. The most vivid examples of the private urban space are yards. Omsk artists also reflect the motif of multistorey buildings, mainly concentrated in the outskirts, in their works. Some artists depict the outskirts as an empty space, while others interpret them as a habitual, familiar space full of utilitarian functions and arranged by people to meet their needs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-93
Author(s):  
Rafia Naz Ali ◽  
Johar Wajahat ◽  
Mohammad Jan

The 3 P's, i.e., the security, promotion, and provision of fundamental rights to its people, are widely regarded as the hallmarks of an effective legal system. These 3Ps are enforced in both formal and informal legal structures. Gender-based violence (GBV) at work is the most well-known form of GBV in our culture, which is marked by patriarchy and gender segregation. When harassment occurs in the workplace, it makes a female's working experience unpleasant, harmful, and aggressive. It makes it difficult for her to obtain a legitimate position and respect in the workplace. According to a survey, 77 percent of Pakistani women employed in different occupations are unaware of their human rights in cases of sexual abuse. According to the National Commission on the Status of Women, 50 percent of women interviewed from the public and private sectors had been sexually harassed and were hesitant to report the truth. The Protection against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act of 2010 was enacted in Pakistan's history to protect women from mischief and ensure a safe workplace. It manifested constitutional protections enlisted under Fundamental rights. Non-traditional job structures, such as farm work, domestic and home-based work, are part of Pakistan's socio-economic culture. Even on non-traditional job bases, the Act of 2010 made it possible to directly contact the Office of Ombudsperson or file a criminal complaint. This article aims to examine the current state and efficacy of workplace discrimination legislation.


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