While significant progress has been made in improving the wellbeing of women and girls around the world, a gender gap still exists between men and women which is very evident in Ghana. Gender inequalities continue to persist in Ghana because of cultural gender norms that exalt and favor men and put women in subordinate and subservient roles. These cultural gender norms hinder women's development and widen gender inequality between men and women in different system levels of society. Therefore, there is a need to examine the influence of these cultural gender norms on women's lives using a systems framework to capture a full picture of women's experiences at these systemic levels of society. In this paper, we use Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems multilevel approach to examine the impact of these cultural gender norms on women's lives at the different system levels. We conducted a desk review of studies published in sub-Saharan Africa focused on cultural gender norms and gender inequality. The findings showed that the impact of cultural gender norms on gender inequality at the levels of the four social systems (microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem) are interconnected, creating and widening the inequality gap between men and women. Cultural gender norms influence gender role socialization in the home, which then transmits to the school and religious institutions as the mesosystem. At the school level, cultural gender norms act as a mesosystem manifest through discriminatory classroom practices, gender role assignment of school responsibilities, and gender role representations in textbooks. In Christianity and Islam, cultural gender norms create doctrines that enforce men's domination over women, and, in the workplace, cultural gender norms have gendered labor by defining a man's occupation and limiting women to domestic and low-paying occupations. The mass media is the exosystem that displays images of women to fit cultural gender norms of what is defined as acceptable for women. Finally, the macrosystem is the overall sociocultural norms that have been accepted by society that perpetuate discriminatory practices against women.
[...]a panel was organized at the international Conference "Globalisations et circulations des idées, des savoirs et des normes" [Globalization and circulation of ideas, knowledge, and norms] in September 2019 in Paris6. All the contributors to this special edition have participated in one of these events and committed themselves to continue this reflection collectively. [...]despite the variety of locations, languages (English, French and Spanish), and disciplines (sociology, anthropology, political science, and history), the papers, and their authors, speak to one another. [...]we discuss the specificity of gender knowledge as it is produced in the Global South and whether it is "different" or "similar" (Bilgin) and the limits and difficulty of reconstructing the canon from this perspective. Social Sciences and the (De)construction of Power Colonialism relied heavily on the collection of information and the production of knowledge (Said, Orientalism). [...]the formal decolonization of the Global South did not result in the decolonization of knowledge (Keim).
This paper examines the representation of gender relations in textbooks used to teach the English language in public secondary schools in Brunei. The country is currently ranked 95th in the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s 2020 Global Gender Gap Index among 153 countries analysed. This fact seems to suggest that there is a significant gender gap existing in the country. As textbooks used in schools are considered among the most potent tools for promoting gender in/equality, they deserve to be examined in detail. Using Content Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as methods of analysis, this paper seeks to address the following questions: (i) in what ways and to what extent, is gender inequality manifested in textbooks used to teach the English language in Brunei and (ii) what are the implications and pedagogical measures which may be taken to address the persistence of gender inequality? The findings of the study show that the portrayal of gender relations in the textbook is fairly balanced, which is rather surprising considering the pervasive perception of conservatism and patriarchy in many Muslim societies, including Brunei. This suggests the need for a nuanced discussion of the nation’s social, cultural, economic, and political milieu in order to obtain a true picture of gender relations in the country.
Gender inequality, stereotyping, and discrimination against women are issues that continue to spark debate in many countries. Women’s rights advocates in Turkey continue to struggle to reduce gender inequalities and stereotypes in every aspect of life. Education is one of the major fields where these issues should be explored and discussed. Because textbooks are the main teaching materials in a classroom, it is crucial to examine the ways in which they depict gender. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate how gender is represented in social studies textbooks. Thus, all elementary and middle school social studies textbooks in the 2018-2019 academic year used in Turkey were examined for this study. The main research approach was document analysis as the study focused on the analysis of the textbooks. More specifically, a visual content analysis approach was employed as the main research focus was on the textbook visuals. This is because visuals are one of the best tools that can portray gender. Based on the data analysis, the following themes emerged regarding gender representation in the textbooks. The main finding was that women were underrepresented compared to men as the male visuals are approximately twice as high as the female visuals in the textbooks. The main finding was that women were underrepresented compared to men as the appearance of male figures in visuals are approximately twice as high as the appearance of female figures in visuals in the textbooks. Second, women were mostly presented as the primary person who is responsible for house chores such as cooking, cleaning, and serving houseguests. In the analyzed textbooks women/mothers were depicted as the main caregivers of children and most of the time these depictions were of a lone female figure with no father present. On the other hand, when it comes to spending time with the children for fun, the father suddenly appears in the pictures. The data analysis also indicated that women were underrepresented in the professional work arena. Women were presented as holding a limited variety of professions that were generally subordinate positions under men. Therefore, we conclude that there has not been significant changes and improvements in terms of equal representation of women and reducing stereotypical and discriminatory language in the social studies textbooks in Turkey even after a couple of curriculum reform movements in the last two decades. 1 Melis AKAY ŞAHİN is a PhD candidate in the department of Social Studies Education at Istanbul University– Cerrahpaşa, Turkey. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Social Studies (Sinop University, 2015) and in Sociology (Anadolu University, 2019). She received her Master’s degree from Adnan Menderes University in 2017 with her thesis entitled “The influence of women teachers, who graduated from the village institutes, in Turkish society”. 2 Dr. Mehmet AÇIKALIN is Professor in the Department of Social Studies Education at İstanbul UniversityCerrahpaşa. He received his Master’s Degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2002 and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2006. His dissertation is entitled “The influence of computer-supported instruction (CSI) on the principles of constructivist pedagogy in the social studies curriculum”. After he completed his studies, Dr. Açıkalın returned to Turkey and currently he is teaching undergraduate and graduate-level courses.
This study examined the influence of women in the formation of organizational climates and their effectiveness in this competitive era. Favorable climates and working conditions enhance work quality and increase organizational cohesion that develops interpersonal bonds to accomplish workplace goals. Women have faced multiple challenges in the banking industry. To address gender disparity, women leaders created initiatives to empower women and encourage society to pay attention to gender equality. Bank Presidents and Senior Managers have the responsibility of creating an organizational culture that is safer for women to participate in; organizations should be designed with women in mind. It is true that women employees appear to have a higher level of organizational commitment. They are often considered to be a key talent pool for industries. This study aimed to investigate the engagement of women in their organizational culture and to determine how this correlates with workplace conditions. The present study explored the challenges women face in maintaining positive working conditions and effective operative strategies. We collected data through a structured questionnaire with the help of convenience sampling from 124 working women of commercial, public, and foreign banks situated in Bengaluru. We analyzed the data quantitatively with the Likert scale, ranking analysis, and percentage analysis to identify antecedents of organizational climate and the role of women in building a professional environment. Results revealed that the significant problems faced by women to sustain a healthy climate in the workplace are lack of supervisor encouragement and the disparity in rewards and benefits. We further inferred that women employees shape their attitudes both in their personal and professional lives to accomplish their personal and organizational goals. They prioritize their jobs more than their personal needs to balance their personal and organizational requirements; however, they feel a lack of teamwork and require a better conflict management system.
Recommended Citation Diogo, Sara; Jordão, Carina; Carvalho, Teresa; Himi, Hana; Ashkenazi, Maya; Mešková, Veronika; and Breda, Zélia (2021). A Comparative Approach on the Relevance of National Gender Equality Legal Frameworks in Israel, Portugal, and Slovakia to Improve Equality at the Institutional Level. Journal of International Women's Studies, 22(5), 84-102. Available at: https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol22/iss5/6
This article questions the deliberate omissions of disadvantaged Dalit Muslim women, also known as Pasmandaa women, from feminist, Dalit, and subaltern discourses. To understand the multiplicative nature of oppression and discrimination that these women are continually subjected to, this article foregrounds the intersectionality framework to get a nuanced picture of intersecting vertices of discrimination. It argues that by excluding these severely disadvantaged women from their respective agenda, feminist and Dalit activists have contributed towards their perpetual marginality. Underlying such unaccounted absence of these women is an insouciant attitude of the Pasmandaa leaders towards them. Their approach towards non-representation of their women and their specific concerns raises questions about the very efficacy of the Pasmandaa movement. This article has tried to seek answers to such questions by directly interrogating women of these communities through an exploratory study. Data for this article was gathered by intensive interviews of women from the community. The article draws on data from a larger ongoing study of these women in the states of UP and Bihar.
Dalits belong to the lowest caste in India; they are excluded from the four-fold Varna system of Hinduism, treated as fifth Varna “panchama”, and characterized as “untouchables”, and, consequently, they have historically and culturally suffered caste-based social exclusion from their civil and political rights. There are more than 200 million Dalits in India, and Dalit women constitute half of this population, which is about 16.3% of the total female population of India, and of this population, about three-fourths of women live in rural areas2. Dalit women’s problems are not only related to gender and economic deprivation but also discrimination related to caste, religion, and untouchability, which in turn leads to the denial of their social, economic, cultural, and political rights. Many scholars believe that Dalit women's problems are unique and distinct in many ways as they suffer gender bias, caste discrimination, and class deprivation simultaneously. They are considered vulnerable to sexual violence and exploitation due to their gender and caste. They face a higher degree of violence most prominently in rural areas by the upper caste Hindus. This paper analyzes Dalit women's lives and tries to explore the real factors and situations in which Dalit women become objects of sexual exploitation and violence. A sample of 210 respondents from Delhi and outside Delhi was selected for this study. Factor loading has been used to explore the factors that determine sexual violence against Dalit women. The research employs the Pearson correlation method to explore the relationships between the variables and the regression method to investigate the intersectionality of caste, class, and gender in terms of sexual violence. The data reveals a correlation between caste, class, and gender as factors regarding sexual violence against Dalit women, and it shows that caste’s influence is much greater than class on gender.
This paper explores the ways in which the idol industry portrays male and female bodies through the comparison of idol groups and the dominant ways in which they are marketed to the public. A key difference is the absence or presence of agency. Whereas boy group content may market towards the female gaze, their content is crafted by a largely male creative staff or the idols themselves, affording the idols agency over their choices or placing them in power holding positions. Contrasted, girl groups are marketed towards the male gaze, by a largely male creative staff and with less idols participating. The most dominant feature of their content is the women’s lack of agency, be it in lyrics, body movements or public interaction. Thus, it is important to highlight the need for women to gain agency over their occupation as many of their male counterparts are afforded. There are positive examples of women with agency in their creative processes, but girl group idols typically do not have the chance to portray lived female experiences or stories. This discrimination happens when the market is feminized, and employers feel they can justify their actions with incorrect arguments such as that women’s labor is casual and thus not as serious as man’s. This labor market is divided based on the gender roles Korean society assigns to either sex, giving men more freedom to operate in society whereas women are restricted to systemic patriarchal standards. In the idol industry, this appears through the infantilization of women in order to appeal to the male gaze. To de-age them to an age when they are sexually available and attractive makes them a desirable commodity to consumers. This is evident when girl group idols age or experience other life events as they exit the workforce. Contrasted, male idols are expected to continue their career, even as they age. This paper seeks to shed light on the discrimination that exists in a market currently emerging in the world outside Korea and the Korean diaspora, highlighting the need for a conversation in feminist academia
This article analyses intrahousehold decision-making in extended households of the matrilinear Luguru community in the Morogoro Region of Tanzania. Our research focuses on the participation of adult “extended” household members, mainly relatives such as in-laws, grandparents, and cousins, in household decision-making. It complements studies that conceptualise household decision-making as a bargaining process between two decision-makers. We explore whether factors such as age, education, life cycle and gender play a role in this process. As decision-making processes often vary depending on the decision-making area, we differentiate between seven broad decision-making fields which are relevant in their respective settings. Our study adopts a qualitative approach and mainly draws upon data from primary sources, including expert interviews, life stories, participatory spider diagram exercises, and participant observation. The findings underscore the complexity of decision-making in extended household structures, with some decisions taking place within sub-units and others at the extended household level. The involvement of “extended” household members also differs according to different decisionmaking domains. Participation is overall more pronounced in the areas of agriculture (particularly minor decisions), money management, and child and family matters in comparison to employment outside the household and more generally labour allocation, and access/control over land/assets. Factors such as age, education level, gender, and life-cycle position of the “extended” household member are important to consider; an intersectional perspective is necessary for studies that aim to unravel intrahousehold decision-making processes.
The aim of this study was to examine newspaper representations of women. To do so, the researchers examined four newspapers that were nationally circulated. The four newspapers examined were Vanguard, the Punch, The Guardian, and ThisDay. The duration of the study was three years (January 1st, 2015 to December 31st, 2017). The study sought to achieve three objectives and tested two null hypotheses. The design that was utilized to conduct the study was content analysis while data were collected through the use of a code sheet. In the analysis of the collected data, the researcher deployed simple percentages to describe and explain the outcome while a Chi-Square test of independence was used to test the hypotheses. The result showed that the volume of representation of stories related to women was poor. Additionally, the prominence of newspaper representation of women was less. The researcher recommends, among others, that journalists should improve representation of women.
This study offers insights into the barriers experienced by Breast Cancer (BC) patients from less privileged rural areas of Pakistan. We conducted in-depth interviews with 42 BC survivors, from the northern Sindh in southern Pakistan, to explore and analyse knowledge, geographical and financial barriers and how these barriers intersect and complicate BC patients’ lives. Results indicate that most of the women in this study were poor and their families’ health seeking behaviour was influenced by their socio-economic background; their knowledge about the disease was limited and they were unable to appropriately assess the symptoms for months, which caused delay. Based on the results, we underscore the need for increasing health education as who had a sound academic background, awareness about health as well as better social standing, accessed the treatment facility in time, approached quality healthcare services and were in a better position to cope with the aftermath of cancer. Extending the fold of quality healthcare services to less privileged areas and enabling women easy and inexpensive access to healthcare services will help in early diagnosis when treatment is affordable and chances of survival are better.
In India, Dalit women wrestle not only with gender and economic deprivation, but also discrimination associated with caste and untouchability, which results in the denial of their social, economic, and political rights. Today, Dalit women’s life narratives form an important segment of not only Dalit literature, but also world literature. The narration of their sufferings due to gender and caste forms the basis of these narratives. The articulation of the past, which is a "narrative strategy of reminiscence", is the most crucial aspect of Dalit women's life narratives. While narrating the past, Dalit women try to negotiate direction for the future, and their mother's story is the pedestal on which their life story depends: "...a woman writing thinks back through her mothers’” (Woolf 1929: 81). The oppression of caste, class, and gender pushes Dalit women to understand the construction of power structures. In their life narratives, Dalit women narrate their oppressive lived experiences, but simultaneously acknowledge the resilience of their mothers. They see their mothers as a source of strength as they display “tremendous strength in adverse conditions” (Collins 2000: 75). Against this background, this paper analyses the select life narratives of Dalit women: Urmila Pawar’s The Weave of My Life (2008), Baby Halder’s A Life Less Ordinary (2006), and Sujatha Gidla’s Ants Among Elephants (2017). The study underlines the mother's story as a past which becomes the 'Third Space' in Dalit women's life narratives that acts as a space of emancipation for the future generation, thus giving the marginalized voices a space to articulate and redefine the center.
On December 31, 2016 amidst New Year’s Eve revelry in Bangalore, India, about 700 young women faced a mass molestation. This research analyzed and compared 299 news articles (N=299) between January 1, 2017 and February 1, 2017 from three leading English language newspapers in India through a quantitative content analysis. Results indicated that there were differences in how the regional and national newspapers framed their stories. While national newspapers deployed the episodic frame in their news stories, the local newspaper used both thematic and episodic frames. The episodic frame focuses on individual events, whereas the thematic frame focuses on trends over time. Local newspapers discussed causes and attributions of responsibility more than national newspapers. National newspapers mostly used celebrity and official sources in their coverage, whereas local newspapers covered the testimonies of the victims and eyewitnesses more. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in this paper.
Nigeria accounts for a high percentage of globally displaced persons, most of whom are women and children. Health conditions of women and children in camps of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) have been topical, and so much of concern is on their access to quality healthcare services in the camps. The study adopts Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) in capturing responses of 12 officials from the Kuje and Fariya IDP Camps in Abuja and Maiduguri respectively. It also adopted the use of thematic analysis in analyzing the data. Findings showed that healthcare facilities exist in these camps, despite occurrences indicating poor health conditions of the IDPs. The study concluded that health inequities persist in both camps, and that the challenges facing the available health facilities should be adequately addressed. Among the challenges were corruption, poor staffing, poor environmental conditions, bureaucratic bottlenecks, and absence of adequate and well-trained social service professionals.
This study examined the determinants of the patronage of available primary health care services by rural women in Osun State, Nigeria. The aim of this study is to provide service delivery authorities with information on the barriers to the patronage of health services. Data for the study were collected from both primary and secondary sources. Descriptive statistics like frequencies, percentage, and mean values were used for analysis. Multiple regression was used to identify determinants, and the double-log functional form had the best fit. 45 health workers and 270 rural women were selected through multi-stage sampling. The study revealed that the pattern of patronage of primary health centres in the study area had a progressive increase over a period of five years (2014-2018) and that most of the respondents (rural women) on average reside 1.85 kilometres away from the health centres. The study concluded that age of respondents (α = 0.928), monthly income (α = 0.018), shortage of well-trained health professionals (α = -0.393), a conducive environment (α = 0.454), cleanliness of the environment (α = 0.320), interpersonal relationship of staff and patients (α = 0.325), timely diagnosis and treatment of health problems by PHC staff (α = 0.395) , ability of staff to prescribe effective drugs for treating diseases (α = 0.756), cultural beliefs (α = -0.289), and nature of the illness (α = -0.510) were major determinants of patronage of PHC services in the study area. These factors, taken together, accounted for 73.6% variation in the level of PHC patronage by rural women. The most popular health services regarded as ‘always available’ to the women were immunization (100%) and general treatment of illness (95.6%). Some of the recommendations of the study are that health facilities should be renovated regularly, and facilities that will make health visits a comfortable experience should be provided. As income was found to be a determinant of patronage, it is also recommended that rural women should be helped to increase their disposable income through private-public partnership support of enterprises.
Wife beating, a form of intimate partner violence that is used as a tool to correct wives’behavior, is not acceptable in most parts of the world. Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is a global health problem and is far more than a dilemma; it is a systemic form of abuse that is the third major cause of death around the world. Despite it being unacceptable in most parts of the world, in its different forms, wife beating is still a commonly practiced pattern of behavior that pervades all 1 , Asia Ashfaq 2 , Siti Mas'udah* 3 societies, patriarchal ones in particular. This is a problem in the patriarchal Pakistani society. The present study aims to investigate the acceptance and justification of violence (wife beating) among women. The present research uses secondary data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) conducted by the National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS) in 2012-13. The results show that attitudes towards wife beating, either justified or unjustified, vary with differing socio-demographic factors, such as age, region, area of residence, education, and wealth index. Education and wealth index variables show a highly significant relationship in determining justification of wife beating. More than half of the respondents did not justify wife beating in any given circumstance. The study divulges a significant relationship between socio-demographic factors and the justification of wife beating in different circumstances. These justifiable circumstances include: beating if a wife goes to the market or any other place without her husband’s permission; if she ignores her children; if she confronts or tries to reason with him; if she declines to have sex; and if she burns food. Attitudes regarding whether certain circumstances are justifiable or not varies with socio-demographic factors such as age, region, area of residence, education, and wealth index. More than half of the respondents do not justify wife beating under any given circumstances. The most widely accepted reason for wife beating in Pakistan is arguing with one’s husband, while the most unacceptable reason for wife beating is burning food.
The line between hypervisibility and invisibility appears to be blurred for Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) women in the workplace due to their race and gendered status (Lander and Santoro 2017). The intersection of race and gender exposes many BAME women to discrimination, structural inequalities, and the dynamics of tokenism, which can be a cause of intense job dissatisfaction (Stroshine and Brandl 2011). It is often the case that discussions on the economic integration of immigrants focus mainly on how the socio-economic dynamics of the host country can limit them to certain labour market sectors. While this is a key area that must be discussed, “the interaction between the internal cultural and social differences and the wider structural and ideological processes of the country of residence” must also be interrogated (Anthias 1992: viii). Such deep exploration contributes to the examination of migrant women’s experiences of the intersection of gender, identity, and social mobility within the labour market and their personal lives. In this paper, based on individual accounts and drawing on intersectionality as an analytical framework (Crenshaw 1989; Bowleg 2012; Collins and Bilge 2020), I examine the multiple and complex interlocking structural inequalities suffered by immigrant women. This paper also presents how personal narratives can illuminate often hidden complexities in the workplace and labour market at large. Based on three main themes, deskilling and downward mobility, settling for BBC2 jobs, and confronting discrimination in skilled employment, I examine the different ways migrant women engage with their stories about negotiating the labour market, which lay bare some of the limits and gaps between policies and practices in the post-industrial labour market. I present how the different ways they engage with narratives of their experiences in the workplace is very telling of the far-reaching impact their experiences have on their self-identity and well-being. As a feminist researcher, and one whose life is also marked by migration experiences, I go beyond examining the process of deskilling to exploring how participants make sense of their experiences, the impact on their lives, and their present sense of identity
Intersectionality’s enormous success raises questions about its purchase as a critical methodology outside the context of its origin, as to how it has taken on meaning and use in Global South contexts. Its widespread espousal across disciplines within Western academia itself compels one to ask whether curricula – and how these are transacted in classrooms – are informed by its analytic insight, and if so, what are the challenges in enacting it as critical pedagogy. In this paper, I bring into conversation key Anglo-American and Indian feminist scholars writing about intersectionality and reflect on my own methodological and pedagogical engagements with it in India and the UK to address these questions. I demonstrate how intersectionality has given me the lens and the language to reveal how Dalit women today not only speak differently from Dalit men and upper-caste women but that differences are emerging amongst them in terms of class and level of political consciousness. I also show how intersectionality can be and needs to be used as critical pedagogy for the urgent task of decolonising feminist classrooms in the British higher education context.
In the patriarchal milieu of Kerala, the woman’s world is overshadowed by male suppression and cowed silence; the Dalit woman, however, seems to never take it lying down. As is evident from the Channar revolt of the 19 th century, Dalit women have never been silent victims in history. This is in stark contrast to the upper-caste women who tend to succumb to caste patriarchy in silence. Drawing on the Channar or Shannar women’s historic revolt for the right to cover their breasts, this paper engages with the question of Dalit women's agency in the social reform movements during the period of the Kerala renaissance. Dalit women have been essentialized into silence in Dalit and ‘Dalitist’ writings. The writings of gendered Dalits characterize the emergence of Dalit women’s voices in literary discourses. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the newly emergent Dalit feminism in Kerala has an unrecorded and unrecognized tradition of its own in the early caste struggles such as the Channar revolt. By problematizing the elite historians’ sanctioned silence regarding the revolt, the role Dalit women played in it, and arguing how it amounts to the erasure of Dalit women’s agency in history, this paper explicates how the Dalit as female is catapulted historically into the liminality of (non-)existence. This paper seeks to rectify the erasures by surfacing the tradition of the historical assertion of the gendered caste subaltern. It is hoped that such an epistemological effort will strengthen the cause of Dalit Feminism.
