Spotted Goddesses: Dalit Women’s Agency-narratives on Caste and Gender Violence

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.”

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A Political Culture of Feminist Resistance: Exploring Women’s Agency and Gender Dynamics in Yemen’s Uprising (2011 – 15)

Yemen and the Search for Stability ◽

10.5040/9781350989887.ch-002 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

K Strzelecka

Keyword(s):

Political Culture ◽

Women's Agency ◽

Gender Dynamics ◽

Women’S Agency ◽

And Gender

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Introduction

Women Rising ◽

10.18574/nyu/9781479846641.003.0001 ◽

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.

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Gender and Education in AfricaLessons from Mount Kilimanjaro: Schooling, Community, and Gender in East Africa by Amy Stambach. New York: Routledge, 2000. xv+206 pp. $80.00 (cloth). ISBN 0‐415‐92582‐7. $19.99 (paper). ISBN 0‐415‐92582‐5.Women’s Agency and Educational Policy: The Experiences of the Women of Kilome, Kenya by Mutindi Mumbua Kiluva‐Ndunda. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press, 2000. xii+194 pp. $18.95 (paper). ISBN 0‐7914‐4762‐6.

Comparative Education Review ◽

10.1086/340478 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 46 (2) ◽

pp. 234-241 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Edith Mukudi

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Educational Policy ◽

East Africa ◽

Women's Agency ◽

Gender And Education ◽

Mount Kilimanjaro ◽

Women’S Agency ◽

And Gender

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Driving Campaigns

Women Rising ◽

10.18574/nyu/9781479846641.003.0038 ◽

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.

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