Introduction

Author(s):  
Carolyn Martin Shaw

This book examines the promise of feminism to empower women and bring social and political equality to both men and women in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was once celebrated by feminists and progressives in the West for its liberation ideology, which included principled stands in favor of economic justice and gender equity. While the rest of the world learned later of the dismal failure of Zimbabwe's promise, many women in Zimbabwe felt its betrayal early on. This book asks what happens to women when such promises fail. More specifically, it asks what the promises of feminism are, how a feminist outlook developed within the Zimbabwean context, and how it has led to innovation and conventionality. It considers the varied effects of feminism in Zimbabwean social life, focusing on instances that seemed to promise women a better life and led them to believe in their own potential to influence politics. This introduction explains the book's research methodology and how the author came to Zimbabwe.

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 8
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ahashan ◽  
Dr. Sapna Tiwari

Man has always tried  to determine  and tamper the image of woman and especially her identity is manipulated and orchestrated. Whenever a woman is spoken of, it is always in the relation to man; she is presented as a wife , mother, daughter and even as a lover but never as a woman  a human being- a separate entity. Her entire life is idealized and her fundamental rights and especially her behaviour is engineered by the adherents of patriarchal society. Commenting  on the Man-woman relationship in a marital bond Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her epoch-making book entitled The Second Sex(1949): "It has been said that marriage diminishes man,  which is often true , but almost always it annihilates women". Feminist movement advocates the equal rights and equal opportunities for women. The true spirit of feminism is into look at women and men as human beings. There should not be gender bias or discrimination in familial and social life. To secure gender justice and gender equity is the key aspects of feminist movement. In India, women writers have come forward to voice their feminist approach to life and the patriarchal family set up. They believe that the very notion of gender is not only biotic and biologic episode but it has a social construction.


Author(s):  
Anil Gopi

Food and feast are integral and key components of human cultures across the world. Feasts associated with religious rituals have special social and cultural significance when compared to those in any other festivities or celebrations in people’s life. In this study, an approach is made to comparatively analyze the feasts at religious festivals of two distinctive groups of people, one with a characteristic of simple society and the other of a complex society. The annual feast happening at the hamlets of the Anchunadu Vellalar community in the last days of the calendar year is an occasion that portrays the egalitarian nature of the people. While this feast is restricted within a single community of particular caste affiliation and geographical limitations, the feast associated with the kaliyattam ritual of village goddess in North Malabar is much wider in scope and participation. The enormous feast brings the people in a larger area and exhibits a solidarity that cuts across boundaries of religion, caste and community. Beyond the factors of social solidarity and togetherness, these events also illustrate its divisive characters mainly in terms of social hierarchy and gender. A comparative study of both the two feasts of two different contexts reveals the characteristic features of religious feasts and the value of food and feast in social life and solidarity and also how it acts as a survival of their past and as a tradition.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 147
Author(s):  
Misbah Zulfa Elizabeth

<p>Visual expression is something un-denayable in social life because the viasuality is the expression of the social life. This article has the purpose to explore how visual expression of women resistance toward gender inequality. Applying qualitative research with the method of documentation study this article in detail analyses the interpretation of religious text as the source of inequality and gender reality in social context. It is revealed that visual expression of the poster suggesting to treat men and women respectfully is the resistance toward religious text interpretation which is inequally treat men and women.</p>


Author(s):  
Giorgio Scalici

The Wana of Morowali (Indonesia) are nowadays a small endangered community marginalized by the Indonesian government, world religions and the other communities in the area but, according to their own mythology, they are not the periphery of the world, but the real centre of it. Their cosmogonic myth tells how the Wana land (Tana Taa) was the first land placed on the primordial waters and it was full of mythical power, a power that, when the land was spread around the world to create the continents, abandoned the Wana to donate wealth and power to the edge of the world: the West. This myth has a pivotal role in the Wana worldview, their categorization of the world and the power relationships in it. The Wana reverse the traditional relationship between centre and periphery, placing themselves in a powerless centre (the village or the Tana Taa) that gave all its power to a periphery (the jungle or the West) that must be explored to obtain power and knowledge. This relationship not only expresses a clear agency in shaping the relationship of power with forces way stronger than the Wana (Government and world religions) but also creates internal hierarchies based on the access to this knowledge; granted to men and partially precluded to women due to the cultural characterizations of these genders. Indeed, the majority of shamans, called tau walia (human-spirit), are men, and they are the only one that can travel between the human and the spiritual world, obtaining a spiritual and social power. In this article, we will see how Wana categorise the world and use religion, rituality and gender to express their agency to cope with the marginalization by the government, the world religions and the other community in the area.


Author(s):  
Abdul Jalil ◽  
St. Aminah

Language is not as a communication tool, but also as a tool for human to think in an effort to understand the world. The use of language in people's lives is a part that is reflected as a result of culture including the culture of communication. Regarding the relationship between language and gender is never separated from cultural factors, because there are factors that cause the division of roles based on sex, because a language contains concepts, terms, and symbols that indicate appropriate behavior for men and women. This treatment is different due to social behavior and appears in language symbols. Gender in people's lives gives their respective roles, as cultural ideas that define different roles in both the public and domestic spheres. The view of the universalism of dichotomy between men and women originating from nature and culture, as well as differences in domestic and public roles has been aborted by ethnographic evidences, and at the same time opened up new facts that the dichotomy between men and women is relative.


KUTTAB ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Achmad Faisol Haq

The Islamic education problems that are often criticized by the West are gender issues, Islamic education is considered west to overrule the role of women in Islamic education, whereas in Islamic education since the beginning of Islam Strongly uphold women's standing, especially in terms of inheritance and the similarity of rights and obligations in science. In modern eras of women's emancipation movement in Islam are more likely to follow the western mindset, the activists of Islamic feminism could take a pattern of the Muslim philosopher Greek Helereism, as in classical Islam the Muslim philosopher could put aside the philosophical thought of Greek Helenism that was incompatible with the teachings of Islam, as well as to take the thought of Helenism Greek that matched the spirit of Islam. This article is an explanation of the gender movements and emancipation of women in particular in Islamic education. It is important to reconstruct the fundamentals of Islamic perspectives, because Islam has a universal view and equal rights in education between men and women is the same as other aspects and gender should be the same. Influenced by Islamic spiritual, especially in the rules of education for Muslims


Author(s):  
David Brakke

Recent scholarship has undermined the traditional picture of desert monasticism as originating with Antony of Egypt and then spreading to Palestine and Syria, as consisting of the poor and uneducated, and as developing in complete separation from the world. This essay discusses key trends in the study of late ancient desert monks including: the decentring of Egypt and the turn away from single founders; philosophy as the source of and background for monastic practices and literary forms; scepticism about the myth of the desert; the engagement of monks with wider society; rethinking the concept of the holy man; and attention to women and gender. Publications of new sources (such as the works of Evagrius Ponticus and Shenoute), more theoretically aware readings of old sources, and studies of archaeological and papyrological remains have contributed to these developments.


Author(s):  
John A. Hall

This chapter explores the alienation of many modern intellectuals. Perhaps the modern world is bereft of meaning, but the affluence provided by modern science means that for the vast majority of people, the world has probably never been so enchanted. The romantic nostalgia so characteristic of modernist ideas is unlikely to have any general appeal once industrial conditions have been established. Curiously, there is very little empirical investigation into the purported misery of modern men and women, and certainly few findings to back up the view that disenchantment dominates most of social life. In contrast, there is a massive amount of evidence supporting the view of people being distracted from questions of meaning by the demands of status competition. This leads to the central point: artists and intellectuals have their own particular worries, and so may not give an accurate report on modern social conditions.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 42-48
Author(s):  
Dr Pavan Mandavkar

India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world, yet, it is notorious for its rigid caste system. This paper examines the history of suppression, condition of the suppressed and origin of Dalit writings. It includes the study of movement and scope of Dalit literature. It is widely believed that all Dalit literary creations have their roots in the Ambedkarite thoughts. The paper also dissects the stark realities of Dalit and their commendable attempts to upraise socially. This literature shows dramatic accounts of socialpolitical experiences of Dalit community in the caste based society of India.It traces the conditions of the Indian social factors that surround the Dalits and their interactions with Dalits and non-Dalits. It explores how Dalit community struggled for equality and liberty. Due to strong Dalit movements as well as hammering on upper caste society through Dalit literature by writers and thinkers, and also by implementation of welfare schemes by Government, a positive approach toward equality is seen in social life of Dalit community nowadays. Discrimination on the basis of caste and gender are banned by law. This is a journey of oppressed from quest for identity to social equality through their literature.


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