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“I’m Different from You but Very Much Like You”: Religious Women Activists and their Father Figures
Get PDFThis study examined activist women in religious society in Israel in order to gain in-depth insights into their lived experience and coping strategies in advocating for change in their society. The article is based on thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with fourteen such women. Contrary to the expectation that there would be a dominant mother figure influencing the activists’ lives, the findings show that the influence of mothers was marginal and even an impeding factor, while father figures were the most significant in these women’s childhood and development into activists. All religious activists perceived their fathers as highly influential, in three contexts: the father as a pioneer, the father as an extraordinary figure, and a strong attachment to the father. Based on these findings, we believe it is important to involve and integrate men in programs that act to promote and empower religious women in Israeli society on both the political and occupational level
We Deliver: The Condition of the Woman Academic in India Today
Get PDFThis auto-ethnographic essay draws upon Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge to discuss the condition of Indian women in the Humanities in academia today. While acknowledging the encouragingly gender-inclusive projections in India’s National Education Policy vision statement from 2020, I argue for more probing engagement with the concrete reality of being a woman teacher and researcher in the increasingly competitive and corporatized milieu of higher education. My methodology has been a close reading of the NEP’s vision statement to analyze recurrences of terms and concepts as pointers to its discursive field. I argue that this policy statement implicitly envisions an empowered new-age Indian woman teacher, notionally mother to all her pupils, aiding their awakening intuitively from the very heart of her experiences, skills, and memories. Against this somewhat idealized feminine ecology of the NEP in principle and spirit, I juxtapose the actual everyday choices and struggles of women in academic positions. Does the decolonization of education in spirit also impart actual transformative agency to women academics? Will women be listened to? Not one essential woman, but heterogeneous women—women across different strata, identities, professional spaces, and ideologies? Above all, my essay probes the challenges and dividends of transitioning to a more home-grown teaching and research methodology derived from current Western academic models. For instance, what forms and lines of interdisciplinarity could best serve the interest of quality control in research and teaching? In the third and last section, I argue that women are equal contributors in the discourse of academics in the future. We are committed stakeholders that can help enhance collective performance and efficiency in ways that are commensurate and compatible with our particular needs, contexts, restraints, aptitudes, and encumbrances. I conclude my essay by urging colleagues in academia, women and men, to recognize that we can truly deliver on this challenge only in a spirit of intellectual, ethical, and interpersonal collaboration and collegiality
A Gendered Historical Discourse of the Naxalbari Movement
Get PDFThis paper analyzes the Indian English novel The Lowland (2012) by Jhumpa Lahiri and examines its representation of the Naxalbari movement’s (1965-1975) gendered history to locate women, their roles, their marginalized position, and the growth of their individual independent identities. The Naxalbari movement is the first major peasant protest within 20 years of Indian independence. Though the first actions of the movement were in a village of North Bengal, this paper mainly concentrates on the movement’s activities after it was urbanized and joined by the middle class. It, therefore, tries to locate the position of middle-class women within the movement. In the endeavor to engage with the different narratives regarding the roles of 20th century Bengal middle-class women in the movement, the paper historically views and assesses two contradictory perspectives regarding the involvement of women. While a few narratives stress how the participation of women enabled them to attain a certain degree of emancipation from the confinement of the patriarchal society, my detailed study revealed a counter-narrative that stresses the androcentric underpinning of the movement. Hence, this paper analyzes how Lahiri’s novel The Lowland engages with this problematic and contradictory location of women within the Naxalbari movement. Though there have been few studies on the gendered historical narrative of the Naxalbari movement, as discussed briefly in the following sections, its representation has not yet been significantly explored within the scholarly studies of Indian English Literature. I address this gap by analyzing the text through the lens of the movement’s gendered historical narratives to foreground the representation of women’s experiences in it. Thus, my goal is to analyze women as a subversive force within the movement who represent both the dissenting voice of the Naxalbari movement as well as the critical voice against the gender hierarchy within it
The Role of Pregnant Women’s Attachment Relationships in Predicting Maternal Adjustment during Pregnancy
Get PDFMaternal adjustment is a woman’s response to the challenges she experiences from the moment pregnancy is discovered until the baby is born. This adjustment is achieved gradually during pregnancy and has considerable importance. Studies in the field of maternal adjustment have mainly focused on the importance of this factor in maternal postpartum experience, whereas less attention has been paid to the identification of predictors of this adjustment in pregnant women. The aim of this study was to explain the role of pregnant women’s attachment relationships in predicting maternal adjustment during pregnancy. The methodology was correlational, and the statistical population consisted of pregnant women in the six-to-nine-month gestation period of their first pregnancy. 317 Iranian pregnant women who met the inclusion criteria were selected by convenient sampling. Before giving birth, these participants filled out the online Self-Evaluation Questionnaires (SEQ) and the form Experiencing Close Relationships (ECR-RS). The methods of the Pearson correlation analysis and linear regression were used for data analysis. The results show that higher anxiety and avoidance in attachment relationships are significant predictors of pregnant women’s low maternal adjustment during pregnancy. Likewise, a strongest linear relationship was established between maternal adjustment and anxious and avoidant attachment to a partner. All in all, the findings reveal that in the situation of the stressful transition to parenthood and the presence of an insecure attachment schema (especially to a partner), participants experienced depression and anxiety, the formation of negative attitudes toward maternity, and the development of negative conditions for the fetuses
Women Supporting Women: A Glass Ceiling for Women Politicians in Ibadan, Nigeria
Get PDFNigerian women account for almost half of the country’s population, yet they represent a minuscule percentage of elected positions. Many scholars have attributed this to the patriarchal system inherent in Nigeria. This study, however, submits that the rate at which women support women politicians during elections is a major contributing factor to unequal gender representation in Nigerian politics. The concept of the glass ceiling and postcolonial theory guided the explanatory framework for this study. The study was conducted among women within voting age in Ibadan, in southwestern Nigeria. The study adopted a mixed-method design to generalize and gain deep insights. Hence, the questionnaire was used to elicit quantitative data while the Key Informant interview (KII) was used to collect qualitative data. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS version 20 while qualitative data was content analyzed. While 87.3% of the respondents claimed they supported women politicians during elections, only 16.7% voted for them. On the reasons why women support female politicians, about 38.0% stated that they supported them because of their perceived ability to represent the interests of women better than men. However, 21.7% of the respondents felt that supporting women in politics may expose them to the danger of political violence inherent in Nigeria. Furthermore, negative stereotypes against women politicians were also found to be among the major impediments to their victory at the polls. Awareness campaigns for women’s participation in politics, therefore, should also focus on encouraging women to vote for other women during elections, as that is the major means of ensuring adequate women’s representation
Natchathiram Nagargirathu (The Star Is Moving): Challenging the Stereotypes of Dalit Women in Film
Get PDFIranian Women\u27s Movement: Political Opportunities and New Forces
Get PDFThe Iranian women\u27s movement emerged and was sustained in an unprecedented way, although neither the movement\u27s procedure nor the nature of the Iranian protesters\u27 economic and social demands throughout the course of the previous ten years made its formation plausible. While unions have traditionally coordinated many Iranian protests, the present women\u27s movement is non-union, has a national reach, and has been going strong for several months despite fierce government resistance. This study reviews the history and achievements of the women\u27s protest movement in Iran since September 2022. In the past, women\u27s activities have been severely constrained and suppressed by Iran\u27s political-religious system, and feminist causes have never received the needed attention from intellectual institutions. Now, however, Iranian women have the chance to pursue their demands owing to the current confluence of women, artists, and students, along with generational changes and the advancement of new values. Additionally, the popularity of the civil resistance strategy in celebrities\u27 and women\u27s protests reduced violence typical in conflicts between protestors and state authorities. Further, the youth and students\u27 intense feelings and passion led to a movement that was frank and responsive in expressing its demands. Two additional factors which led to the movement were the scattering of the leadership core which had a detrimental effect on the political system, and the individual protest behaviors of women and celebrities which boosted the possibility of individual activity and initiatives. Finally, the possibility of broadcasting the most recent news and events footage through online efforts of young people, students, and celebrities have also created maximum pressure for change. The political potential of the Iranian Women’s Movement brought about by popula
Women Caregivers of Palliative Care Patients: The Arogyakeralam Project in Kerala, India
Get PDFPalliative care is primarily holistic care given to the patient and their family where the caregiver plays a significant role in the patient’s health and wellbeing. This research studies the perception of the caregivers on the functioning of the Arogyakeralam palliative care project in Kerala, India, in order to understand the challenges faced by women caregivers of this type of patient. In this descriptive and analytical study, the researcher used the multi-stage random sampling methodology. A structured interview schedule was used to obtain data from 54 primary caregivers of palliative care patients who were randomly and proportionately selected from two Gram panchayats (village council) in the Wayanad district of Kerala. Exploratory data analytical techniques like tables, figures, and descriptive statistical methods were used. The findings of the study revealed that a significant portion of the respondents are very satisfied with the home care services and feel they receive education and training on various aspects of caregiving. Structural problems are present, such as the unavailability of medicines and deficiency in the supply of equipment to the patients who require these elements. Another finding is that the respondents also require counselling services and vocational training. The study revealed that women caregivers undergo various physical, psychological, and social problems. The most common health concerns among caregivers are fatigue and sleep-related problems. About 70% of the respondents suffer from some illness which includes symptoms of body pain, back pain, chest pain, hypertension, diabetes, migraine, and hearing impairment. Some of the challenges faced are conflict about care in the family, lack of support for the caregiver, balancing needs of healthy and sick family members, behavioral issues among the family members and care recipient, interpersonal conflicts, and financial insufficiency. The caregivers experience many difficulties linked to lack of support, financial problems, personal health concerns, emotional challenges, patient care issues, and social instability. In the article’s conclusion, the researcher offers a few recommendations for the government, the staff of the Arogyakeralam project, and the caregivers to enhance the overall wellbeing of the women caregivers through better functioning of the project and transformative healthcare policies
Women and the Precarity of War: Reading Women Militants and Activists in Sharmila Seyyid’s Ummath
Get PDFUmmath, written by Sharmila Seyyid, navigates the sensitive topic of the precarious lives of three separate women amid the chaos of war-torn Sri Lanka. The stories of main characters Yoga and Theivanai demonstrate women’s challenges in and out of militancy. Their struggles led them to Thawakkul, a Muslim social worker devoted to the cause of rehabilitating disabled and widowed women who once served the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam). Ummath provides a powerful social critique of the conditions that aggravated the separatist conflict, the stigmatization of women who become part of the LTTE, the inexorable violence perpetrated by all sides in a chaotic and prolonged internal conflict, and the failure of rehabilitating the militants into the community. The present article investigates the precarity faced by women in the anarchic context of civil violence and internal conflicts. The article discusses the disruption of education, militancy experience, the social stigma of being an ex-militant, and the challenges faced by reformers working to build peace in post-war society. The study employs Judith Butler’s theory on precarity to investigate the social life of women militants and activists in the separatist war. Butler’s concept of precarity addresses how people’s vulnerability is politically induced, and hence different groups of people are exposed in different degrees to violence and death. In Butler’s work, she argues that those who are not considered living in the first place, or whose lives are precarious and are not ascribed great value, are not mourned when they pass away. This article analyzes the problems that women militants and social workers face as well as the social ostracization they encounter daily through the focal points of Yoga, Theivanai, and Thawakkul’s lives as narrated in Ummath. The exploration of the microcosmic experiences of the three women’s lives highlights the need to study women’s issues in the unstable context of a social uprising and the vulnerabilities they are exposed to in the context of human rights