- Table View
- List View
Women as War Criminals: Gender, Agency, and Justice (Stanford Briefs)
by Izabela Steflja Jessica Trisko DardenWomen war criminals are far more common than we think. From the Holocaust to ethnic cleansing in the Balkans to the Rwandan genocide, women have perpetrated heinous crimes. Few have been punished. These women go unnoticed because their very existence challenges our assumptions about war and about women. Biases about women as peaceful and innocent prevent us from "seeing" women as war criminals—and prevent postconflict justice systems from assigning women blame. Women as War Criminals argues that women are just as capable as men of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. In addition to unsettling assumptions about women as agents of peace and reconciliation, the book highlights the gendered dynamics of law, and demonstrates that women are adept at using gender instrumentally to fight for better conditions and reduced sentences when war ends. The book presents the legal cases of four women: the President (Biljana Plavšić), the Minister (Pauline Nyiramasuhuko), the Soldier (Lynndie England), and the Student (Hoda Muthana). Each woman's complex identity influenced her treatment by legal systems and her ability to mount a gendered defense before the court. Justice, as Steflja and Trisko Darden show, is not blind to gender.
Women as Wartime Rapists: Beyond Sensation and Stereotyping (Perspectives on Political Violence #1)
by Laura SjobergVery few women are wartime rapists. Very few women issue commands to commit sexual violence. Very few women play a role in making war plans that feature the intentional sexual violation of other women. This book is about those very few women. Women as Wartime Rapists reveals the stories of female perpetrators of sexual violence and their place in wartime conflict, legal policy, and the punishment of sexual violence. More broadly, Laura Sjoberg asks, what do the actions and perceptions of female perpetrators of sexual violence reveal about our broader conceptions of war, violence, sexual assault, and gender?This book explores specific historical case studies, such as Nazi Germany, Serbia, the contemporary case of ISIS, and others, to understand how and why women participate in rape during war and conflict. Sjoberg examines the contrast between the visibility of female victims and the invisibility of female perpetrators, as well as the distinction between rape and genocidal rape, which is used as a weapon against a particular ethnic or national group. Further, she explores women's engagement with genocidal rape and how some orchestrated the ethnic cleansing of entire regions. A provocative approach to a sensationalized topic, Women as Wartime Rapists offers important insights into not only the topic of female perpetrators of wartime sexual violence, but to larger notions of gender and violence with crucial cultural, legal, and political implications.
Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex, and the Media
by Kelly OliverEver since Eve tempted Adam with her apple, women have been regarded as a corrupting and destructive force. The very idea that women can be used as interrogation tools, as evidenced in the infamous Abu Ghraib torture photos, plays on age-old fears of women as sexually threatening weapons, and therefore the literal explosion of women onto the war scene should come as no surprise. From the female soldiers involved in Abu Ghraib to Palestinian women suicide bombers, women and their bodies have become powerful weapons in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. In Women as Weapons of War, Kelly Oliver reveals how the media and the administration frequently use metaphors of weaponry to describe women and female sexuality and forge a deliberate link between notions of vulnerability and images of violence. Focusing specifically on the U.S. campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, Oliver analyzes contemporary discourse surrounding women, sex, and gender and the use of women to justify America's decision to go to war. For example, the administration's call to liberate "women of cover," suggesting a woman's right to bare arms is a sign of freedom and progress. Oliver also considers what forms of cultural meaning, or lack of meaning, could cause both the guiltlessness demonstrated by female soldiers at Abu Ghraib and the profound commitment to death made by suicide bombers. She examines the pleasure taken in violence and the passion for death exhibited by these women and what kind of contexts created them. In conclusion, Oliver diagnoses our cultural fascination with sex, violence, and death and its relationship with live news coverage and embedded reporting, which naturalizes horrific events and stymies critical reflection. This process, she argues, further compromises the borders between fantasy and reality, fueling a kind of paranoid patriotism that results in extreme forms of violence.
Women At The Center: Grameen Bank Borrowers After One Decade
by Helen ToddThe Grameen Bank of Bangladesh has successfully lent small sums to poor women for income generation. This empirical study examines the programme's long-term influence and argues that credit alone can create fundamental change, even in an environment distinctly hostile to women's autonomy.
Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance
by J Dianne Garner Rosemary Sarri Josefina Figueira-McdonoughA compelling look at the crisis of disadvantaged women This powerful document takes a sobering look at the phenomenon of marginalized women pushed to the edges of society, holding on with the barest of hope and extraordinary bravery. Handicapped by the increasing societal inequality they face as an everyday fact of life, these women (and in many cases, their children) have been disconnected from the mainstream for reasons of age, race, gender, health, incarceration, domestic abuse, unwanted pregnancy, unemployment, and economic circumstance. They are poor in an affluent society, powerless in a powerful nation, and the suffering caused by their exclusion is poignant and troubling.Eloquently illustrated with poetry, art, and prose created by marginalized women, Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance makes a compelling argument for social change. The book offers a no-holds-barred look at how economic restructuring, welfare reform, neo-conservative ideology, and institutional exclusion have locked women into subservient, substandard roles, stripping them of their citizenship and rendering them expendable. Diverse authors track the life cycle of marginalized women, from teenage pregnancy to the lonliness of older women in poverty or prison.Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance addresses: the effects of welfare reform the forgotten group: women in prison and jail low-income women and housing women marginalized by substance abuse, poverty, and incarceration teenage pregnancy children and their incarcerated mothers recidivism and reintegration women, law, and the justice system and much more!Women at the Margins: Neglect, Punishment, and Resistance acknowledges the long history of the inequality faced by women living in exclusion but focuses on the present with a hopeful but realistic eye toward the future. It is an indispensible resource for sociology, social work, legal and penal system professionals, and academics, and an essential read for everyone.
Women Behind Bars in Romania
by Annie SamuelliIn 1949, Annie Samuelli and her sister were seized by the Communists in a mass arrest of Romanians working for US and British legations. After nearly 12 years in separate prisons, they were released into exile on payment by a relative in the United States. This is her story.
Women, Borders, and Violence
by Sharon PickeringWomen at the Border analyzes border policing practices currently informed by paradigms of securitization against unauthorized mobility and explores the potential for a paradigm shift to a more ethical regulation of borders. By focusing on the ways women have sought to cross borders in 'extra'-legal fashion, the book shows how border enforcement differentially impacts on some populations and makes the case that unauthorized migration requires management rather than repulsion and criminalization. When facing the emerging and future challenges of unauthorized mobility, border policing must be recast as a function of human rights that results in greater human security at the border. Examining gender and border policing across Europe, North America and Australia, this book enhances our understanding of the gendered determinants of 'extra'-legal border crossing, border policing and the changing dynamics of unauthorized mobility.
Women Build the Welfare State: Performing Charity and Creating Rights in Argentina, 1880-1955
by Donna J. GuyIn this pathbreaking history, Donna J. Guy shows how feminists, social workers, and female philanthropists contributed to the emergence of the Argentine welfare state through their advocacy of child welfare and family-law reform. From the creation of the government-subsidized Society of Beneficence in 1823, women were at the forefront of the child-focused philanthropic and municipal groups that proliferated first to address the impact of urbanization, European immigration, and high infant mortality rates, and later to meet the needs of wayward, abandoned, and delinquent children. Women staffed child-centered organizations that received subsidies from all levels of government. Their interest in children also led them into the battle for female suffrage and the campaign to promote the legal adoption of children. When Juan Pern expanded the welfare system during his presidency (1946-1955), he reorganized private charitable organizations that had, until then, often been led by elite and immigrant women. Drawing on extensive research in Argentine archives, Guy reveals significant continuities in Argentine history, including the rise of a liberal state that subsidized all kinds of women's and religious groups. State and private welfare efforts became more organized in the 1930s and reached a pinnacle under Juan Pern, when men took over the welfare state and philanthropic and feminist women's influence on child-welfare activities and policy declined. Comparing the rise of Argentina's welfare state with the development of others around the world, Guy considers both why women's child-welfare initiatives have not received more attention in historical accounts and whether the welfare state emerges from the top down or from the bottom up.
Women, Children and Social Transformation in Myanmar
by Makiko TakedaThis book explores the need for deep-seated social change in Myanmar if the country’s democratic transition and peace process is to deliver tangible benefits for those that have long faced profound vulnerability and marginalisation. Drawing on detailed case studies, it showcases a range of initiatives taking place in Myanmar aimed at strengthening women’s and children’s rights, improving education provision, and promoting respect for ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity, as well as the challenges these initiatives face, and the foundations still needed for a more equal and socially cohesive society. The timely and insightful analysis presented in this book is a key read for those interested in understanding the challenges facing Myanmar and other highly diverse, and divided, countries.
Women, Civil Society and Policy Change in the Arab World
by Nasser Yassin Robert HoppeThis book examines the ways in which Arab civil society actors have attempted to influence public policies. In particular, the book studies the drive towards a change of policies that affect women and their well-being. It does so through the lens of women civil society activism and through analysis of cases of policy reform in three Arab countries namely: Lebanon, Morocco and Yemen. The book addresses the tension between policy change and state repression; between Islamic traditional/religious values and civil/secular ones; between the formal and the informal channels for policy-making. One of the first books to reflect on the capability of Arab civil society actors to influence change, it traces recent policy evolution from before the Arab Uprisings in 2011 until the present day, and describes the limited ability of civil society actors to induce change and substantiate it over recent decades. The book explores the use of policy theories in the analysis of cases, and reflects on the possibility of applying and “adapting” those concepts, largely applied in the Western world, to encompass policymaking in the Arab world without conceptual 'overstretch'.
Women, Civil Society and the Geopolitics of Democratization (Routledge Advances in Feminist Studies and Intersectionality)
by Denise M. HornOver the past decade, democratization and civil society promotion became key variables in preserving global security and the liberal economic market. This book examines the prevalence of democratization policies as a hegemonic geopolitical tool; these policies represent a concerted political effort in which civil society organizations are manipulated through funding strategies. Denise Horn offers a fresh, innovative feminist-constructivist perspective by arguing that Western gender norms—i.e. those norms that determine degrees of participation within civil society—inform the policies of hegemonic powers and transform the foundations of civil society in transitional states. This powerful volume will be of interest to students and scholars in Gender and Women’s Studies, Political Science, and International Relations.
Women, Culture, and Politics in Latin America
by Seminar on Feminism & Culture in Latin AmericaThe result of a collaboration among eight women scholars, this collection examines the history of women’s participation in literary, journalistic, educational, and political activity in Latin American history, with special attention to the first half of this century.
Women, Culture, and Society: A Reader (Fifth Edition)
by Barbara J. BalllietThis book encourages students to rethink and revise the connections proposed in this reader, and make anew the significance of these texts in their own lives. These big concepts should encourage discussion, debate, and thought. Full text of major essays Contemporary issues including: masculinity studies, disability studies, war, terrorism, prisons, fear of feminism, and gay marriage Classic essays and documents from first and second wave feminist thinkers Critiques of how the history of feminism has been written Artilcles Include: Becky Thompson - Multiracial Feminism: Recasting the Chronology of Second Wave Feminism Judith Lorber - The Social Construction of Gender Ruth Frankenberg - The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness Anne Fausto Sterling - The Five Sexes, revisited"
Women Defendants and International Law: Feminist Dialogues (Feminist and Queer International Law)
by Sheri LabenskiThis book addresses the largely neglected place of women defendants in contemporary international criminal law, beyond the construction of women as victims, and asks what the analysis of women perpetrators, defendants and suspects reveals about international criminal law, the media and feminism.The book uses the topic of women perpetrators, defendants and suspects as a way to explore the concept of legal subjectivity via a gender analysis. It highlights how women perpetrators, defendants and suspects are constituted through three spheres, namely the areas of international criminal law, the media and feminism. In examining the relationship between women perpetrators, defendants and suspects and each of these spheres, the book exposes embedded gender biases and structural gender fractures. These reveal that problematic assumptions about how gender operates in conflict are embedded in the very foundations of legal imaginations. Ultimately, the book argues that this has far reaching consequences, beyond its impact on current understandings of armed conflict. Rather, these assumptions should be a concern for us all, even in times of peace.This book will be of use to legal academics and practitioners interested in gender within international criminal law, as well as those concerned with contemporary feminist approaches to law.
Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice
by Devaki JainIn Women, Development, and the UN, internationally noted development economist and activist Devaki Jain traces the ways in which women have enriched the work of the United Nations from the time of its founding in 1945. Synthesizing insights from the extensive literature on women and development and from her own broad experience, Jain reviews the evolution of the UN's programs aimed at benefiting the women of developing nations and the impact of women's ideas about rights, equality, and social justice on UN thinking and practice regarding development. Jain presents this history from the perspective of the southern hemisphere, which recognizes that development issues often look different when viewed from the standpoint of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The book highlights the contributions of the four global women's conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing in raising awareness, building confidence, spreading ideas, and creating alliances. The history that Jain chronicles reveals both the achievements of committed networks of women in partnership with the UN and the urgent work remaining to bring equality and justice to the world and its women. Devaki Jain is a development economist and activist. She graduated in economic from Oxford University and taught at Delhi University for six years. Her academic research and advocacy, influenced largely by Gandhian philosophy, have focused on issues of equity, democratic decentralization, people-centered development and women's rights. She has been an active member of the local, national, and international women's movement and has held positions in national and international expert commissions and councils with a specialist focus on justice. Jain is coeditor (with Pam Rajput) of Narratives from the Women's Studies Family: Recreating Knowledge, and coeditor (with Diana L. Eck) of Speaking of Faith: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Women, Religion, and Social Change.
Women, Education, And Family Structure In India
by Carol C MukhopadhyayFive decades of independence have produced dramatic increases in womens’ educational achievements in India; but education for girls beyond a certain level is still perceived as socially risky. Based on ethnographic data and historical documents, this book explores the origins of that paradox. Contributors probe the complex relationships between traditional Indian social institutions the joint family, arranged marriage, dowry, and purdah, or sexual segregation and girls schooling. They find that a patrifocal family structure and ideology are often at the root of different family approaches to educating sons and daughters, and that concern for marriageability still plays a central role in womens’ educational choices and outcomes.
Women Education Scholars and their Children's Schooling (Routledge Research in Education)
by Kimberly Scott Allison HenwardThis volume offers both theoretical and research-based accounts from mothers in academia who must balance their own intricate knowledge of school systems, curriculum and pedagogy with their children’s education and school lives. It explores the contextual advantages and disadvantages of "knowing too much" and how this impacts children’s actions, scholastics and developing consciousness along various lines. Additionally, it allows teachers, administrators and researchers to critically examine their own discourses and those of their students to better navigate their professional and domestic roles. Gathering narratives from academic women in traditional and nontraditional maternal roles, this volume presents both contemporary and retrospective experiences of what it’s like to raise children amidst educational and sociocultural change.
Women, Empires, and Body Politics at the United Nations, 1946–1975 (Expanding Frontiers: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality)
by Giusi RussoWomen, Empires, and Body Politics at the United Nations, 1946–1975 tells the story of how women&’s bodies were at the center of the international politics of women&’s rights in the postwar period. Giusi Russo focuses on the United Nation Commission on the Status of Women and its multiple interactions with the colonial and postcolonial worlds, showing how—depending on the setting and the inquiry—liberal, imperial, and transnational feminisms could coexist. Russo suggests that in the early stages of identifying discriminating agents in women&’s lives, UN commissioners overlooked the nation-state and went through a process of fighting discrimination without identifying the discriminator. However, it was the focus on empire that allowed for a clear identification of how gender constructs were instrumental to state politics and the exclusion of women. An emphasis on colonial practices also generated a focus on the body and radically shifted the commission&’s politics from formal equality to a gender-based equilibrium of rights that emphasized practice rather than law. Through a multidisciplinary approach, Russo looks at the women living under colonial and postcolonial systems as the key actors in defining the politics of women&’s rights at the UN.
Women, Employment and Organizations
by Judith Glover Gill KirtonThis book brings together the latest European and North American research on a series of key topics in the field of women's employment. Drawing on published and easily accessible statistics, it sets the topics in the appropriate policy contexts and systematically appraises them from the viewpoint of the challenges for the management of human resources. The book explores: occupational segregation the pay gap work-life balance part-time working women, work and pensions women in professional occupations equality and diversity management women and trade unions. This is a highly useful book suitable for a wide range of courses including business studies, sociology, social policy and gender studies.
Women Entrepreneurs and Business Empowerment in Muslim Countries (Gender, Development and Social Change)
by Minako Sakai Amelia FauziaThis book analyzes women entrepreneurs in Muslim countries who are using Islamic values to develop and run small businesses. As a core case study, the authors are using Indonesia as it is the largest Muslim country in the world by population. The project examines supportive policies and economic programs in detail and considers their effects on the businesses of several women entrepreneurs. Additionally, the authors argue that this work-life balance is critical for the definition of a successful female Muslim entrepreneur. The monograph considers whether this new phenomenon indicates a change in the conception of ideal Muslim womanhood or whether it is a limited phenomenon with few impacts beyond Indonesia. The book will appeal to academic and practitioner audience interested in Islam, gender studies, Middle Eastern and South Asian politics, development, anthropology, and social policy.
Women Entrepreneurship Policy: Context, Theory, and Practice
by Léo-Paul Dana Meghna ChhabraThis book focuses on the importance of women’s entrepreneurship policy in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. The book’s contributions demonstrate a link between the nature of policy implications, the various theoretical perspectives used, and whether scholars’ policy implications have transformed as the field of women’s entrepreneurship study has advanced. The book looks deeper into the reasons why there seems to be a big gap between formal women’s entrepreneurship legislation and actual business support services. What can be done to close policy and program gaps? What can government policy do to foster an entrepreneur-friendly environment? What level and form of government intervention in the economy should be to attain this goal? These issues have been hotly debated for a long time, and this book seeks answers to these questions. An institutional approach to analysing government policies is encouraged because macro-level regulations, social norms, and culture influence fostering women’s entrepreneurial activities. The book and its contributions draw on gender and institutional theory to recommend policy initiatives and measures to combat the lower entrepreneurship rates among the women population. Researchers and policymakers will benefit significantly from this book since it contains ideas for improving policy measures, the entrepreneurial ecosystem for women, and areas for further research. Women entrepreneurs have different motives and goals than men when starting a business.
Women, Ethnicity and Nationalism: The Politics of Transition
by Rick Wilford Robert L. MillerWomen, Ethnicity and Nationalism asks whether societies caught in political or social transition provide new opportunities for women, or instead, create new burdens and obstacles for them. Using contemporary case-studies, each author looks at the interaction of gender ethnicity and class in a divided society. The varying experiences of women are discussed in the following countries: Northern Ireland; South Africa; the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia; Yemen; Lebanon and Malaysia.
Women, Families, and Feminist Politics: A Global Exploration
by J Dianne Garner Suzanne CherrinWomen and their roles within families must be understood within the context of ethnic traditions, religion, and culture. Women, Families, and Feminist Politics: A Global Exploration combines all of these aspects to evaluate the similarities and differences of women around the world. Readers will learn about diverse theories relating to women and their familial roles, the different categories of feminism, and how cultures and ethnic traditions shape and sometimes restrict a woman’s identity. Using feminist and sociocultural theories to critically examine the role of adult women within their families, Women, Families, and Feminist Politics offers ideas and suggestions on what has to be done in order for all of women’s experiences and concerns to be valued and looked upon as important. In addition to providing you with an understanding of how customs and cultures contribute to societal standards set for women, Women, Families, and Feminist Politics discusses several factors that contribute to the formation of women’s roles and identity, including: the economic situation of the family and the country in which the woman lives (a developed or developing country) cultural diversity in monogamous heterosexual marriage relations and specific marriage traditions, such as dowries family structures, such as nonnuclear, extended, polygamous, mixed religion relationships, mixed race relationships, or same-sex relationships reproduction and sexual standards in relation to religion, government policies, and world population gender equity in the workplace and programs for women in global development the health care needs of women and how they vary depending on culture, political philosophies, and resources women and violence in societal and family contexts, from war rapes, female circumcision, and footbinding to battery and sexual harassmentWomen, Families, and Feminist Politics looks at the daily challenges and concerns of adult women within the context of family to help you understand the different needs of women in relation to their culture and ethnic background. Focusing on the importance of views concerning the meaning of women’s social status, power, and success, Women, Families, and Feminist Politics contains case studies and statistical data that identify critical issues pertaining to you personally and to all women throughout the world. By understanding how women’s families help shape their identities, you will be able to learn about the vast experiences of women and the inequalities we have yet to overcome.
Women for President: Media Bias in Nine Campaigns
by Erika FalkNewly updated to examine Hillary Clinton's formidable 2008 presidential campaign, Women for President analyzes the gender bias the media has demonstrated in covering women candidates since the first woman ran for America's highest office in 1872. Tracing the campaigns of nine women who ran for president through 2008--Victoria Woodhull, Belva Lockwood, Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Patricia Schroeder, Lenora Fulani, Elizabeth Dole, Carol Moseley Braun, and Hillary Clinton--Erika Falk finds little progress in the fair treatment of women candidates. The press portrays female candidates as unviable, unnatural, and incompetent, and often ignores or belittles women instead of reporting their ideas and intent. This thorough comparison of men's and women's campaigns reveals a worrisome trend of sexism in press coverage--a trend that still persists today.While women have been elected to the highest offices in countries such as England, Germany, and India, the idea that a woman could be president of the United States provokes scoffs and ridicule. The press portrays female candidates as unviable, unnatural, and incompetent, and often ignores or belittles women instead of reporting their ideas and intent. Since voters learn most details about presidential candidates through media outlets, Falk asserts that this prevailing bias calls into question the modern democratic assumption that men and women have comparable access to positions of power.
Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns
by Erika FalkWhen Hillary Clinton announced her 2008 bid for president she was the Democratic front-runner. Despite this, she received less coverage than Barack Obama, who trailed her in the polls. Such a disparity is indicative of the gender bias the media has demonstrated in covering women candidates since the first woman ran for America's highest office in 1872. Tracing the campaigns of eight women who ran for president through 2004--Victoria Woodhull, Belva Lockwood, Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Patricia Schroeder, Lenora Fulani, Elizabeth Dole, and Carol Moseley Braun--Erika Falk finds little progress in the fair treatment of women candidates. A thorough comparison of the women's campaigns to those of their male opponents reveals a worrisome trend of sexism in press coverage--a trend that still persists today. While women have been elected to the highest offices in countries such as England, Germany, and India, the idea that a woman could be president of the United States provokes scoffs and ridicule. The press portrays female candidates as unviable, unnatural, and incompetent, and often ignores or belittles women instead of reporting their ideas and intent. Since voters learn most details about presidential candidates through media outlets, Falk asserts that this prevailing bias calls into question the modern democratic assumption that men and women have comparable access to positions of power.