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.

Feminist Activism and YPAR: Privileged Girls Interrupt Rape Culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 107780122097881
Author(s):  
Amira Proweller ◽  
Beth S. Catlett ◽  
Sonya Crabtree-Nelson
Keyword(s):  
Rape Culture ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Feminist Activism ◽  
Resistance Strategies ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

This research focuses on a community-based project that foregrounds youth-led participatory action research with privileged youth. The youth’s work involved interrogation of, and resistance strategies for, rape culture. Research findings demonstrate that youth came to see that rape culture has deep roots and disrupting it depends on naming its reality within their lives and its systemic foundations. Building on these emergent understandings, the youth took steps to educate their community about rape culture and gender-based violence, and the consequences of leaving it unexamined. They also created strategies to transform rape culture and facilitate social change within their own community.

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.

(Para)normalizing Rape Culture

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-84
Author(s):  
Annika Herb
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Young Adult Literature ◽  
Rape Culture ◽  
Heterosexual Relationships ◽  
Cultural Discourses ◽  
Abusive Behavior ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender Ideals ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Insight Into

Contemporary Young Adult literature is a favored genre for exploring sexual assault, yet rarely interrogates the social structures underpinning rape culture. In its representation of heterosexual relationships, Young Adult paranormal romance offers insight into the processes and structures that uphold rape culture. Genre tropes normalize abusive behavior and gender ideals, demonstrating the explicit and implicit construction of rape culture, culminating in the depiction of supernatural possession analogous to rape. Here, I reflect on power, control, rape culture, and girlhood in a textual analysis of Nina Malkin’s Swoon, Becca Fitzpatrick’s Hush, Hush, and Sarah Rees Brennan’s The Demon’s Covenant. A constructive reading reflects implicit cultural discourses presented to the girl reader, who can apply this to her own negotiation of girlhood.

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.

Harming Women with Words: The Failure of Australian Law to Prohibit Gendered Hate Speech

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanya D'Souza ◽  
Laura Griffin ◽  
Nicole Shackleton ◽  
Danielle Walt
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Hate Speech ◽  
Gender Norms ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Women And Girls ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

In Australia, gendered hate speech against women is so pervasive and insidious that it is a normalised feature of everyday public discourse. It is often aimed at silencing women, and hindering their ability to participate effectively in civil society. As governmental bodies have recognised, sexist and misogynist language perpetuates gender-based violence by contributing to strict gender norms and constructing women as legitimate objects of hostility. Thus, gendered hate speech, like other forms of hate speech, produces a range of harms which ripple out beyond the targeted individual. The harmful nature of vilification is recognised by the various Australian laws which prohibit or address other forms of hate speech. But as we map out in this article, gendered hate speech is glaringly absent from most of this legislation. We argue that by failing to address gendered hate speech, Australian law permits the marginalisation of women and girls, and actively exacerbates their vulnerability to exclusion and gender-based harm.

Women’s Peacemaking in South Asia

2018 ◽  
pp. 802-814
Author(s):  
Meenakshi Gopinath ◽  
Rita Manchanda
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Peace Building ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Bodily Integrity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Solid Foundation ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Gender Lens

This chapter demonstrates the complex interplay between victimhood and agency when viewed through a gender lens. Understanding the diverse ways in which women experience conflict provides a solid foundation for the production of a more inclusive dialogue on peace and security. Indeed, greater consideration needs to be given to how structural constraints and enabling spaces impact women’s capacity to participate substantively in peacemaking. As demonstrated throughout this chapter, women not only confront overt gender-based violence that strips them of bodily integrity, they also experience structural violence that exacerbates social and political discrimination. Drawing on the experience and research of WISCOMP, a South Asian initiative that seeks to facilitates women’s participation and leadership in conflict transformation and peace-building, this chapter highlights efforts by women’s civil society to mobilize and claim their rights and assert agency. It is also reveals the obstacles faced by women as they seek to claim substantive citizenship, and impact the public discourse following conflict.

Majoritarian State

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
New Order ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Indian Culture ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Business Elites ◽  
Indian State ◽  
The Media ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Majoritarian State traces the ascendance of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India. Led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP administration has established an ethno-religious and populist style of rule since 2014. Its agenda is also pursued beyond the formal branches of government, as the new dispensation portrays conventional social hierarchies as intrinsic to Indian culture while condoning communal and caste- and gender-based violence. The contributors explore how Hindutva ideology has permeated the state apparatus and formal institutions, and how Hindutva activists exert control over civil society via vigilante groups, cultural policing and violence. Groups and regions portrayed as ‘enemies’ of the Indian state are the losers in a new order promoting the interests of the urban middle class and business elites. As this majoritarian ideology pervades the media and public discourse, it also affects the judiciary, universities and cultural institutions, increasingly captured by Hindu nationalists. Dissent and difference are silenced and debate increasingly side-lined as the press is muzzled or intimidated in the courts. Internationally, the BJP government has emphasized hard power and a fast-expanding security state. This collection of essays offers rich empirical analysis and documentation to investigate the causes and consequences of the illiberal turn taken by the world’s largest democracy.

scholarly journals The Pragmatics of Domestic Violence Discourse in Uruguay

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401668537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Herrera
Keyword(s):  
Domestic Violence ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
The Public ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Gender Based

Domestic violence (DV) is a form of gender-based violence and a violation of human rights. As such, it was analyzed from the perspective of feminist theory in the dissertation this article is based on, by analyzing discourse pragmatics. Which are the socially accepted DV discourses in Uruguay? Which coincidences, contradictions, and paradoxes appear when we compare these discourses and those of everyday life? Which codes and subcodes should be modified by the sectors interested in the prevention and eradication of DV? The main hypothesis is that there are different types of opposition between the public discourse of different institutional sectors and that of everyday life. Describing these oppositions and, especially, unveiling the pragmatic paradoxes will enable us to develop a different type of discourse for the prevention and eradication of DV. As I am both a researcher and an activist on the topic, my epistemological choice was the autoethnography. This article provides some final reflections, included in the dissertation, on how the feminist movement needs to succeed in persuading decision makers and the mass media, and in building solid alliances to establish an information and monitoring system; the integration of the subject into the educational system; comprehensive legislation on gender-based violence; and new ways of communicating with all sectors, so as to create a new ideology on gender relations for the suitable prevention of DV.

Photos from the Quarter

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-112
Keyword(s):  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Israeli Occupation

This sample of photos from 16 August–15 November 2019 aims to convey a sense of Palestinian life during this quarter. The images capture Palestinians across the diaspora as they fight to exercise their rights: to run for office, to vote, and to protest both Israeli occupation and gender-based violence.

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