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This article seeks to examine the representation of masculinities and femininities in the renowned South Indian drama film The Great Indian Kitchen. The research construes the manner in which the two dominant genders promote and/or modify patriarchal norms within the institution of family. The functioning of women as ancillary members of patriarchy, the interplay between masculinities and femininities, their evolution in contemporary times, etc., are also critically engaged in the paper. The paper argues that the movie The Great Indian Kitchen not only illustrates different masculinities and femininities but also reconstructs the patriarchal family structure which institutionalises gender inequality. It further argues that the movie proposes an alternative image of the family based on gender equality, where men and women live with mutual respect and complementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the under-representation of women in STEM education in Bangladesh, and proposes ways to boost their participation to help achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of ensuring quality education for all. The key argument of this paper is that while celebrating Bangladesh's success in reducing the gender gap in primary and secondary education, the persistent gap between women's participation in general education and their representation in STEM subjects receives less attention. Although women students' enrolment at the tertiary level has increased, their representation in STEM fields remains low for various reasons – societal perceptions, inadequate infrastructure, prejudice, etc. While Bangladesh has taken steps to promote gender equality in education, measures directly targeting increased participation of women in STEM education are lacking. However, in addition to implementing institutional policies to increase women's participation in STEM education, the paper recommends tackling the socio-cultural obstacles that discourage women from doing so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines urban and well-educated Taiwanese women's resistance to the dominance of the valorization of female appearance, providing ethnography of undoing beauty in East Asia's era of post-developmentalism. Findings reveal the importance of the factor of time in their resistance to bodily grooming. First, participants have a "holistic" understanding of "doing beauty"; they consider this set of gender inequalities "chrono-normativity," which serves as a vector of social control. Second, the burden of long-term sustainability of aesthetic investment often turns into an unbearable weight that includes an endless quest for extreme slenderness, the exhausting immaterial labor of enacting cuteness and hetero-likability, and the difficulty of long-term financial affordability. Third, due to a bleak economic outlook and strong gender inequalities, disapproval of the quest for beauty showcases women's rejection of pursuing market success based on an aspirational and future-oriented temporality. Participants' "lying down" attitude and their emphasis on "assured little happiness" are witness to an anti-aspirational temporality, since women seek a present-focused and non-dominated experience of temporality. I argue that this anti-aspirationalism should be seen as an alternative configuration of neoliberal rationality where the care of the self and its ethos of individualism eclipse the pursuit of economic productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores teenage girls' responses to general advice, and formal prevention messages, designed to reduce sexting-related risk and prevent harm. We conducted workshops with seven groups of girls (28 in total), aged 16–17 years, in a New Zealand city. Each group participated in a series of three workshop sessions. Drawing on a Freirean 'problem-posing' approach, we designed the workshops as spaces in which girls were invited to observe and critically discuss norms related to sharing nudes as well as harm prevention messages. Girls noticed the problematic gender and sexual politics that shape abstinence-based models that target girls (implicitly) to not send nudes, but which leave boys who distribute or otherwise misuse them out of the picture. Participants navigated a careful path between attending to risk and protection on the one hand, and endorsing their right to freedom of expression on the other. We argue for a subtle, but significant, shift away from a focus on sexting safety to a focus on the prevention of image-based sexual coercion, harassment and abuse. This reframing would help to direct prevention efforts to the gendered drivers and dynamics of harm perpetration, and the ways in which they are problematically socially ignored or condoned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change threatens hard won progress in the education and life outcomes of adolescent girls in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by compounding the harmful effects of gender inequality and poverty. In recent years, there has been a rise in global advocacy for gender transformative education for climate justice that addresses the underlying gender inequalities driving climate vulnerability for adolescent girls in LMICs. But, has the international development and education community responded to this call? This paper seeks to establish a baseline for answering this question through a landscape analysis of actors working on issues of gender and climate change with youth, especially girls, as well as a landscape analysis of publicly available curricular materials on climate justice and gender equality. We find that although there are many nongovernmental efforts focused on different entry points into the nexus of gender, education, leadership, and climate change, there is much more room for aligning gender equality and climate justice programming for girls. This paper highlights the gaps and opportunities for doing so and offers a taxonomy of programming approaches to guide actors and their collaborators toward more intersectional educational programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment in the transport sector has historically proven to be male-dominated, even in countries like Tunisia which have evidenced public policy narratives and legal employment frameworks promoting gender equality. This paper presented the findings from a grounded research study examining women's employment experiences in blue-collar roles in the transport sector of Greater Tunis. Drawing on extensive interviews with both female and male transport employees, as well as field observations, it demonstrates that familiar sectoral narratives of transport work as 'too rough, too hard and too dirty for women' can be understood through the broader political economy of the country and the transport sector within it. The research evidences the sustained and mutually-constitutive relationship between patriarchal cultural norms and capital's development through successive periods of populist welfarism and neo-liberal governance, indicating that progressive advances in women's employment rights are not socio-economically embedded and suggesting that future research would be usefully informed by feminist social reproduction theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Market economies are often characterised by a failure to self-regulate. One of the most enduring of these 'market failures' is the ability to maximise the entrepreneurial potential to generate growth. Within this context, gender remains one of, and probably, the most prevalent dimension of this perceived failure to maximise entrepreneurial potential. Feminist political economy provides a starting point for understanding this reproduction of inequalities via policy interventions that have sought to address perceived market failure. This paper analyses how such gendered inequalities are reproduced. Through the critical assessment of Spain's Emprendetur funding scheme, active from 2012 to 2016, 996 applications were analysed, through a content analysis, applying a gender perspective. The findings, including a decision tree analysis, demonstrate not only that women participate less as applicants in the funding scheme but are also less successful. This can be partly explained because women apply via business typologies that are less successful in relation to the dominance of ICT and technologically informed innovations. However, the barriers extend beyond these typologies; for even when controlling for critical success factors like project size, women are less successful, experiencing a double gender gap, that underlines the need for a gender lens policy approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decades have seen efforts to increase digital inclusion for women worldwide, with the ultimate aim to advance gender equality. However, progress is slow, despite important advances in moving beyond a focus on 'digital access' (as measured by network coverage and hardware) towards a more holistic understanding of inclusion that considers abilities, awareness and agency. Here, we propose a further theoretical shift that draws on social system theories (e.g., Luhmann, 1984) and on the theory of 'intersecting inequalities' (Kabeer, 2010). We propose to understand the gender digital gap, particularly in mobile and internet usage, not merely descriptively but dynamically – since even factors like agency and awareness change over time – by applying concepts of feedback loops, low-equilibrium traps, multi-dimensional exclusion and systems analysis. This paper highlights how women may become locked in a state of low-inclusion unless the feedback loops between digital, social, economic and political exclusion are addressed through policies that tackle multiple dimensions. The paper reviews research on gender digital gaps with particular focus on developing countries, and with direct implications for policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2000, girls' education has been an increasingly high-profile concern in international development policy. At the same time, there has been a trend towards the greater production and reliance on quantitative data, indicators and targets in national and international education policy. Scholars have raised concerns about the rise of 'performance-based' approaches to accountability in education, and potential counterproductive effects of this for social justice and equality. However, few studies have explored how this trend plays out in practice within international organisations, particularly in relation to the heightened focus on girls' education. This paper explores the implications of the increasing reliance on quantitative measures for policy actors and draws on a set of interviews with key stakeholders working in organisations concerned with gender and education to explore their divergent understandings of accountability processes. The paper concludes by reflecting on the prospects for a transformative approach to measuring gender equality and girls' education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether there is a gender gap in health among migrants. Focusing on migrants from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in Russia, where there are high levels of both immigration and gender inequality, this paper exploits unique data collected by the authors recording detailed information on health and migration trajectories. We find that migrant women are on average in poorer health than migrant men. This gender gap is only partly explained by gender differences in observed socioeconomic, demographic, living and working characteristics and differences in pre-migration health. We show that migrant women's health is more likely than men's to deteriorate during migration. This women's health disadvantage is sensitive to the migration profile, as it only appears after a certain time spent migrating and for migrants with a vulnerable legal status. These results call for targeted public health policies to address this gender health gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online misogyny is growing at an alarming rate, constituting a violent backlash against feminist activism for gender equality. In our paper, we analyze misogynistic discourses on Twitter generated by #MGTOW (men going their own way) using Thick Big Data. This mixed research method involved a quantitative analysis of 167,582 tweets with #MGTOW and #feminism, followed by a qualitative study of 1,000 tweets of both hashtags. Our study reveals that despite the official narrative of MGTOW as a separatist community of men "going their own way," #MGTOW's central goal is in fact the fight against gender equality. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the language, sentiment, tone, referred sources, and comparisons between #MGTOW and #feminism show that #MGTOW does not simply voice a separatist approach towards women but promotes violence against women and feminism. While feminist tweets are more oriented toward the creation of common identity by referring to shared values and having an internal focus, MGTOW tweets express opposition to "others" and emphasize an "us vs. them" mentality. Our study also shows that online misogyny is something larger than its common definition as a violent anti-women expression in digital environments. It is a defense of a patriarchal system that allows men to claim gender, race, and other kinds of privileges to which they feel entitled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Masculinity and manhood are prerequisite characteristics desired and demanded from every male individual born in Indian society. They are taught to become an 'Ideal Indian Man' from the time they are born. Critical reading of masculine attributes is an important facet of feminist discourse. Men who become a part of this quest and movement as 'women rights activists', fighting against gender inequality, are often ridiculed and discouraged. In this context, this paper brings out the narratives and struggles of being a male 'women human rights defender' in India. According to the information published on the official website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), women human rights defenders (WHRDs) are people of all genders who work, promote, defend, advance, and advocate for gender equality, and stand for the cause of human rights of women. Hence, going by the definition mentioned above, I argue that a feminist man working relentlessly on women's issues will surely fall under the category of 'women human rights defenders'. Their personal experiences and struggles as WHRDs working in their local areas voice varied forms of challenges, stigma, ostracisation, and life risks that otherwise go unnoticed, unspoken, and at times trivialised because of their gender. With an objective to bring out a broader conversation between masculinity studies and feminist scholarship, this paper analyses the challenges of being feminist male WHRDs. To examine this position as a WHRD, the paper will look into the questions of (1) being a man who is always looked upon with suspicion as a person occupying a privileged gender position; (2) a man working on gender-sensitive issues such as human/sex trafficking, child abuse, violence, conflict, and displacement; and (3) his regional location and social class. This paper will structure details of different forms of gender-based lived experiences of selected male WHRDs working in various districts of Assam and West Bengal, through personal interview methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The affinity for tech-driven solutions of 'smart cities' has been critiqued at length, as has the gender disparity in technology firms. This paper draws these literatures together along with our own data on Australia's innovation economy – one that includes its spaces (incubators, accelerators and co-working hubs), events ('hackathons'), and places (innovation districts). These three components are ubiquitous among smart city strategies across all levels of government. In this paper we examine the gendered landscape of the innovation economy and the strategic urban agenda to which it is tied. The paper draws on data collected through interviews conducted with women entrepreneurs around their experiences in Australia's innovation economy. Drawing from policy documents and further interviews, our discussion mirrors their vignettes with an examination of the three innovation economy components using case studies from Australian smart city planning. In doing so, we illuminate how the gendered experiences of women in the innovation economy are entwined with the smart urbanism imperatives of high-growth, technology-focus, and the attraction of 'talent'. Existing attempts to grapple with discrimination in the innovation economy are shown to reinforce gendered hierarchies, resulting in 'smart cities' designed for men. We argue that the gendered nature of the tech industries that underpin the innovation economy has implications for who the smart city is for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between the EU's current re-imagining as a global security actor and its stance as a global promoter of progressive gender norms. For this purpose, we analyse how gender and race are constitutive of the meanings of security and Europe in major EU security strategies, and how this relates to the way gender (equality) is addressed as a policy issue. We find that, in the context of waning liberal world order and manifold internal and external crises, EU security actorness is constructed through narratives of masculinisation that entail feminisation of the EU's own past as a "peace project" and "soft power"; Othering of non-EU spaces and subjects; colonial perspectives on the EU's role in the world as "White Man's burden" and the reconstruction of whiteness through notions of "neutral" masculinities associated with technocratic professionalism, superior knowledge production, and market rationality. This intersectional gendering of EU security limits the emancipatory potential of gender policy through the racialisation of Other women and the simultaneous invisibilisation of postcolonial structures of inequality. Our analysis provides the groundwork for addressing how and why the EUropean security project continues to reproduce intersectional power relations and insecurities, despite commitments to gender equality and non-discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What kind and whose security is the European Union concerned with in its gender practices in countering violent extremism? This article contributes to the scholarship on EU implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda and gender in countering violent extremism, highlighting shortcomings in the conceptualisation and practice of women's participation in the security sphere. Taking Niger as a heuristic case study, the paper explores tensions between local gender norms and EU securitised framing of women's empowerment and gender equality, arguing that women's increased participation in the security field is tacitly understood in terms of use-value. Building on feminist postcolonial scholarship, the analysis uncovers how women are included and what expectations they are deriving from their engagement, exposing the neoliberal and neocolonial framings of EU intervention and the misunderstandings of women's materialities. By ontologically flattening women subjectivities without accounting for their intersectional experiences, both patriarchy and global hierarchies of knowledge production are reiterated. In doing so, the EU co-constructs gendered and racialised subjects, thus reinforcing inequalities, silencing local pluralities, and in many cases, aggravating women's situation of insecurity in Niger. The analysis employs feminist and ethnographic methods, including semi-structured interviews and participant observation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a research project designed to understand the work experiences and career opportunities of people working in higher education institutions (HEIs) across the UK, which received formal recognition for supporting gender equity between 2015 and 2020. The findings reveal multiple intersecting barriers to women's full engagement, inclusion, support and career success in higher education, despite the implementation of organization-based gender equity plans, and institutional inter/national recognition for advancing equity. Most axes of de/privilege that are based along lines of gender, race, ethnicity and religion are enacted as everyday sexism that resist gender equality policy. Moreover, our findings suggest that 'place' is a constitutive element of intersectional dis/advantage, not merely a context within which compounded barriers to inclusion and advancement may exist. In addition, the findings demonstrate that whilst inter-categorical intersectionality is based on the notion that all social categories (such as age, race and gender) are equally salient, the degree of importance of any category will likely depend on location or context of the phenomena being examined. Our findings therefore invite further, iterative and translocational research into the impacts of the intersections of gender, ethnicity, race and religion in spaces of higher education, particularly those with colonial legacies and presence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work contributes to the political economy literature by elucidating gendered socio-cultural practices germane to everyday financialisation. The financialisation of retirement provision in the UK expects individuals to negotiate risk and reward across diverse investments. Existing quantitative research highlights gender disparities in terms of who saves and how much, often interpreted as inherent behavioural traits which cast female behaviour as irrational. Yet, this ignores the dominance of masculine norms in shaping financial capitalism and the impact of gender-normative roles on everyday behaviours. Building on insights feminist political economy, this paper examines how constructions of gender, meaning socialised gender roles and norms, shape the ways men and women deal with financial risk when accumulating assets for later life. Drawing on 105 semi-structured interviews, we find that men and women understand and respond to risk in different and contradictory ways based on constructions of gender. These distinct approaches lead to divergent investment strategies: men tend to align with the gendered role of the risk-seeking investor, while women tend to feel alienated by models of investment which do not appear to fit feminine norms. This disparity compounds the effect of structural inequalities with implications for long-term welfare under financialisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business environment reform targets inadequate business regulations, intending to remove constraints to business investment, enabling growth and job creation, and creating opportunities for international business to contribute to and benefit from this growth. Women-led businesses are likely to be disproportionately negatively affected by a poor business environment. However, there is a dearth of context-specific knowledge of the impact of business environment reform on gender equality. This paper offers new insights into this relationship through an in-depth analysis of the Pelayanan Terpadu Satu Pintu (PTSP) or one-stop shop business licencing reform in 2009, exploiting the variation in the extent of its implementation to examine how the effects vary, focussing on the gender of firm leadership. Our findings suggest that the reform is unlikely to have led to either unintended negative consequences for women-led firms, nor do we find any evidence of transformational change. Outside Jakarta, advances for women were achieved, while in Jakarta existing exclusions were maintained and arguably deepened. Stronger gender and inclusion outcomes would require further deepening and expanding the positive achievements identified, including general business environment improvements coupled with targeted support for sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Akoko is a Yoruba subgroup in south-western Nigeria, where people from different origins are found in clusters of autonomous communities. A common identity of Akoko is heterogeneity of its cultures. This heterogeneity is more profound in its social practices, such that there is fundamental departure from general Yoruba tradition. Drawing evidence from Akoko's social relations, this paper discusses peculiarity of social grading system in pre-colonial Isua Akoko (an Akoko community). Like many communities in this sub-group, the history of origin of Isua is shrouded in migrations and connections from different directions such as Edo and Yoruba. This diversity makes the history interesting to gender, particularly the cultural fluidity in its social grading system. The grading was crucial to Isua's identity. This paper argues that social grouping cannot be homogenised between the two sexes: while males were grouped through age, females were categorised with the parameters of marriage and procreation. However, these trajectories of female grouping created a vacuum of uncelebrated women: the infertile and childless that did not have progeny. Inculcating these women in social grouping makes this research germane. With focus on Isua, the paper advances existing scholarship by discussing intersections that knit gender and micro history. The paper is approached from historical perspective with the methodology of narration and critical analysis of data. Theory of African womanism is used to interpret gender narratives in the sources and analyse data. This study concludes that social grading in Isua reflects gendering unique to its history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paid work and gender equality are key elements of international development discourse on women's economic empowerment. New digital technologies are considered to generate paid work opportunities for the marginalised groups in Africa, particularly women. The rise of the platform economy (work digitally mediated via platforms), for example, is framed as a panacea to poverty and informality among women. Yet the evidence remains anecdotal so far. Drawing on the author's empirical research conducted between 2015 and 2021 on two kinds of digital labour (remote and place-based work) in Africa, the paper examines the job-quality outcomes among women gig workers in five African countries. The paper highlights new gender-based inequalities on platforms and the ways in which women cope with such outcomes. In particular, it outlines economic insecurities, discrimination at work, high work intensity and adverse physical and psychological impacts among women workers on platforms. It advances the cause for women's labour rights and offers policy recommendations for a gender-equitable platform economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the coloniality of gendered lives, family dynamics, social arrangements, and political structures in Indigenous communities begins with confronting and interrogating a history written largely by and for men in positions of power. The archives are limited in terms of what can be gleaned about gender equality and what existed before the proliferation of European patriarchy. Indigenous Wixárika people tread a delicate balance between a lifeworld that is organised around a ritual–agricultural cycle, and the accelerating incorporation of the imperial mode of living and the coloniality of being, into their communities and culture. The 'coloniality of gender' explains how Indigenous women and men have been drawn into and shaped through contact zones, these sites of imperial intervention that have brought social, cultural, and structural changes to gender. Problematically, this concept assumes a one-way process of domination, whereby modern European power structures were imposed on Indigenous people. A critical exploration reveals how gender dynamics and equality were influenced by a much messier process, entangled with Wixárika's cultural and religious systems as well as the leveraging of political collateral. This paper will draw on findings from a historical and ethnographic study of the coloniality of gender in Indigenous Wixárika communities. We will critically examine archival evidence alongside oral histories to suggest how social, development, and political interventions from the late 20th century challenge the idea of the 'coloniality of gender', and discuss how past and present actants collide and dialogue to bring about social change and greater gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On June 7th, 2019, Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, a transgender woman from New York, died at Rikers Island while in solitary confinement. According to officials from the Department of Corrections, Layleen's death was a result of a series of interrelated health problems.. Trans, queer, and gender non-conforming people, especially youth of colour and Black trans women, face heightened rates of homelessness, violent victimisation, barriers to housing, employment, and healthcare. These social conditions are tied to heightened engagement in survival sex work, over-policing, and surveillance of their communities. As a result, Trans and queer people are disproportionately impacted by mass incarceration, and must contend with the nexus of a system that functions on racist and colonial legal construction of gender, making carceral spaces sites of (in)visibility and death. The death of Trans people within these carceral spaces are followed by multiple discursive deaths, including the use of dead names in media, misgendering, and transphobic political debate. This paper aims to highlight and explore carceral settings as sites of death and (in)visbility for Trans and queer people and how reframing allows us to identify how (neo)liberal reforms meant to protect Trans people only entrench mass incarceration in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines women scientists' participation in Knowledge Exchange (KE) with nonacademic actors. We compare three KE types –informal engagement, formal engagement and commercialization– and find significant differences in participation depending on type. In informal engagement, women and men participate equally, but women participate less than men in both formal engagement and commercialization. We explore whether academic rank and women peers influence this participation gap. We find evidence of a levelling effect related to academic rank in the case of formal engagement and an emulating effect related to women peers in the case of commercialization. The implications of the emerging gender patterns are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing the gender gap in poverty remains a priority for South African policymakers. Using the 2018 General Households Survey (GHS), this paper examines gendered multidimensional poverty in post-apartheid South Africa. The analyses draw on Alkire-Foster multidimensional poverty methodology to present multidimensional poverty measures for men and women. The dimensions and indicators used in this paper are slightly adapted to reflect the socioeconomic realities and circumstances that are unique to South African households and individuals. The results show a persistence in multidimensional poverty among women, as the magnitudes of multidimensional poverty measures remain higher for women than for men. Further findings show that the economic activity and health dimensions contribute substantially to poverty among men and women. Notably, contributions of unemployment and the presence of chronic disease(s) indicators for gendered multidimensional poverty are more considerable for women than for men. In order to further reduce gendered poverty, this paper recommends strengthening a social policy review that strongly promotes more job creation, health-enhancing interventions and potent 'gender sensitive' ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Gero's (1985) germinal article on gender inequities in archaeology, feminist archaeologists have theorized that research processes are gendered: fieldwork is masculine-coded, and lab and museum work are feminine-coded. Goldstein and colleagues (2018) revealed that while more men submit grant applications to the National Science Foundation (NSF) overall, both men and women submit more post-Ph.D. proposals for field-based than for lab-based projects. This paper expands on these data by presenting an analysis of NSF-funded project abstracts (1955–2020) focusing on 1) methods employed, 2) primary regions where research is conducted, and 3) genders and organizational affiliations of principal investigators. We demonstrate that in this dataset, the gendered lab/field divide is not statistically significant; however, there are significant correlations between the genders of PIs and the regions they study. We conclude that the gendering of archaeological methods is in flux but that inequities and gendered patterns continue to shape archaeological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how workers in the women-dominated public sector in Sweden speak about and make sense of gender and intragroup conflict and the consequences of this way of thinking and acting for gender equality at work. Using qualitative interviews with 26 first-level managers and employees, we introduce an analytical framework that employs critical discourse psychology and the conceptualization of a postfeminist sensibility at work. We identified three competing meanings (postfeminist storylines) of gender and intragroup conflict: Supporting the gendered meanings of conflict, Unawareness of conflict's gendered meanings and Counteracting the gendered meanings of conflict. The welfare workers acknowledged the role of gender in intragroup conflicts but, paradoxically, constructed their own workplaces as gender neutral, without inequalities related to gender. We interpret these three postfeminist storylines as coping strategies; that is, as ways to make sense of the false promise of gender egalitarianism that characterizes the Swedish labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With reference to postcolonial intersectional scholarship, this article examines working life narratives of Iranian immigrant women before and after migration to Norway in relation to questions of equality along gender and racial lines. This interview-based study asks, 'How do Iranian immigrant women who have resettled in Norway narrate their work experiences in their home and host countries, and how does this inform us about processes of othering and discrimination in both contexts?' To what extent these othering processes can be understood in terms of the intersectional dimensions of gender and race. The study shows that although the move from a state considered repressive to one considered a model of gender equality entails positive experiences at work along gendered lines, these positive experiences are often encountered by the processes of racial and ethnic sorting, thus leading to distress and alienation. Accordingly, the interviews show a nuanced picture of working life in both countries, with both positive and negative stories of work in each context. Overall, the paper addresses a need to move beyond reductionist interpretations of migration that portrays immigration to the West as an unproblematic journey towards a better life in the accounts of immigrants coming from the East. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Viewpoint considers the rise of lads' mags and wider lad culture between 1996–2006 as a historically illuminating period that marked a shift in societal perceptions of gender equality and contributed towards a hostile perception of feminism. Themes of pornification, hypersexualisation and postfeminsim are explored within the context of recent debates on the representation of gender and sexuality in British popular culture. The key issue emerging from this analysis is that there has been a rebranding of sexism through a postfeminist discourse, referred to in this paper as the 'postfeminist masquerade', which has resulted in a wider politicisation of feminism concerned with representations of the female body. This politicisation has eroded debates on gender representation into a reductive binary, the 'exploitative-liberating dichotomy', and has consequently delimited contemporary engagements with feminism. Lads' mags and wider lad culture are thus analysed as having perpetuated this binary and serve as a historical symbol of how the state of gender relations have been subjected to contestation amongst feminist activists, media commentators and academics since the turn of the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban food policies are increasingly considered central instruments for the promotion of food systems sustainability. As for their social sustainability, justice and equity are expected to play a central role, but gender equity remains not fully developed. In order to explore how gender relations can be addressed in the context of urban food policies in global North settings, in this paper we analyze the drafting process of the Urban Food Strategy of Zaragoza (Spain), self-identified as agroecology-oriented and which aimed at introducing a gender-sensitive approach. Based on empirical insights from this case study, we show that a lack of reflection and empirical development exists on the food policy-gender equity nexus, while at the same time there is an emergent body of specific proposals to be obtained from feminist and agroecological reflections on urban lifestyles. Indeed, our paper shows that agroecological and feminist approaches converge in claiming for the visibilization of food-related care work, and in its de-privatization through community-based infrastructures. The paper also unveils limiting conditions which may hinder the transformative potential of agroecology and feminism in urban food policy co-production processes, such as top-down approaches to food policy production, weak participatory processes, and gender-blind decisions among city officers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change impacts are distributed unequally, despite affecting the entire world and its inhabitants. Economically, socially and culturally deprived groups are more vulnerable to climate change impacts. Women comprise the majority among these vulnerable groups, and it is, therefore, crucial to stress gendered perspectives in climate change adaptation strategies that promote gender equality and sustainable development. To that end, this paper documents the adaptation strategies employed by farmers and examines gender differences in climate change adaptation practices in Yunnan Province, China. A random sampling technique was used to select 1520 household heads for the survey. We used descriptive statistics and a multivariate probit model to document four categories of adaptation measures against a set of household features, social network, financial assets and perception variables. We discovered that female and male respondents do not significantly differ in their knowledge and perceptions of climate change, but female- and male-headed household respondents did differ in adopting climate change adaptation measures. The adaptation measures of female- and male-headed households were influenced by different sets of factors. The most significant determinant for both female- and male-headed households was perception of drought events in the last 20 years, followed by access to loans, while income from non-farm-based work had positive and significant impacts only for male-headed households. Findings from this study will help to elucidate the determinants of climate change adaptation decisions for female- and male-headed households in farming communities and the strategic interventions necessary for effective adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the We the Citizens project of 2011, Ireland has begun to establish itself as a world leader in the use of national deliberative fora for considering policy change. In many ways, it marks a radical departure from the tightly-controlled, executive-dominated parliamentary politics of Dáil Éireann. Thus far, innovative deliberative processes have had a direct influence on two hugely transformative moral/social referendums: the marriage equality referendum of 2015 (recommended by the 2013–14 Convention on the Constitution) and the abortion referendum of 2018 (recommended by the Citizens' Assembly in 2017). With the extensive recommendations of the recent Citizens' Assembly on Gender Equality, there may yet be more deliberation-led social transformation to come. This paper considers the involvement and influence of women in Ireland's deliberative processes and their contribution to the country's ongoing social transformation. Particular attention is paid to the much greater descriptive representation offered by these sortition-formed assemblies compared to Ireland's electoral bodies, and their record of delivering 'woman-friendly' outcomes is assessed. Consideration is also given to the possibility that these processes may resolve some of the tension between descriptive and substantive representation through women's direct participation in deliberative decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how useful measurement and indicators are in developing insight into a problem as complex as gender injustice and education. It poses the question about what we ought to evaluate with regard to individuals, institutions, discourses and countries when we make assertions about gender inequality in education and how to address this. The paper provides a way of thinking about gender and education that highlights how inadequate existing measures are. It sets an agenda for future work outlining the AGEE (Accountability for Gender Equality and Education) Framework. This draws on the capability approach and identifies domains where indicators can be deployed. The discussion highlights how multiple sources of information can be used in a well-organised yet adaptable combination, taking account of the complexity of the processes in play, to develop guidance on practice for transformational and sustainable change that can support work on women's rights and gender equality in education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Platform labour, especially when it comes to its flexible schedules, may represent a job insertion possibility and a source of income for many women. However, such opportunities are not exempted from gender bias. This article inspects how the expansion of the platform economy affects gender inequalities by focusing on two platform occupations: ride-hailing and delivery services. First, it investigates gender gaps in terms of working hours and earnings via linear regression as well as their determinants. Second, qualitative data further deepen the analysis of female riders' and drivers' experience in male-dominated territories, exploring how it is perceived and endured by workers. This paper is based on qualitative and quantitative data collected in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires between 2019 and 2021. The analysis suggests that the gender-differentiated economic performance of riders and drivers is associated with demographic and on-the-job characteristics, implying restrictions for women workers in terms of how long, where, and when they can work. Algorithmic management further reinforces these initial female disadvantages, through tools such as scoring systems, dynamic pricing, and selective work allocation. The article concludes by providing some insights into a gender-transformative approach to the future regulation of these activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the substantive representation of women through parliamentary speeches in Turkey with the goal of determining whether legislative behavior differs across gender. By using content analysis of parliamentary speeches given in the Turkish Grand National Assembly between 2002 and 2011, this paper evaluates who speaks more often and on which policy areas they focus. More specifically, it examines the relative participation of women as well as the subjects they choose to address. The analysis of Turkish case is important not only to further our understanding of Turkish politics but also to improve our understanding of women in parliaments with low gender parity. The results reveal that, although there is no significant difference between female and male legislators in terms of the total speeches they delivered, gender differences exist regarding the policy preferences of MPs, even after controlling for partisan, constituency and institutional factors. Female legislators are more likely than their male colleagues to prefer speaking about women's equality issues, children and family issues, and education. In contrast to previous findings, female legislators are as likely as male legislators to prioritize speaking on health care issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerted efforts to transform gender cultures within Nigerian universities have introduced formal strategies aimed at reinforcing gender equity principles and practice. This is evidenced through the creation of gender centres and the adoption of gender equity policies in some Nigerian universities. However, existing literature reveals that despite these formal measures, gender imbalance in academic leadership is still prevalent. This paper seeks to investigate why gender equity policies in Nigerian universities have failed to gain traction, especially for advancing women to academic leadership positions. Using documentary data gathered from purposively selected universities in Nigeria, this paper unveils the various ways in which the content and enactment of institutional gender policies are gendered and potentially reinforce systems of inequality. Informed by a Feminist Institutionalism and Feminist Policy Analysis framework, I analyse gender policy documents and identify areas of silence, women's exclusion, and how male dominance is perpetuated in the policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review essay summarizes recent research on the topics of gender inequalities, family obligations, and intergenerational support in East Asia. We introduce four papers featured in a special issue published in 2021 and 2022 in this journal. We conclude by highlighting the continual importance of intergenerational support and family obligations in East Asian societies. We foresee that families and gender relations in East Asia will continue to evolve with characteristics of both modern gender egalitarian values and traditional family responsibilities. We call for more research on the topics and recommend that future research should investigate the intersection of gender and other dimensions of social inequality, employ advanced research methods, and examine the impacts of recent policies on gender and family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to investigate whether there are gender differences in the livelihood capital of farming households in China. A stratified random sampling technique and household surveys were used to collect data from Dazu District, China. This paper uses capital values to compute the level of livelihood capital, while the ordinary least squares model is employed to compare gender differences in livelihood capital. The results show significant gender differences in farmers' livelihood capital. Male farmers have more livelihood capital than female farmers. There are also significant gender differences in the factors that affect farmers' livelihood capital. Education and agricultural cooperatives are the major factors influencing the livelihood capital of men, while agricultural policy support and happiness are the major factors influencing the livelihood capital of women. These results imply that specific gender-based intervention programs should be implemented to maintain farmers' livelihood sustainability and to overcome gender gaps in agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is substantial evidence in the global literature that women have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 crisis and associated lockdowns. In this paper, we use five waves of the National Income Dynamics Study - Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) to track the gendered effects of the pandemic in South Africa during the first year of the crisis. We focus here on the impact in the labour market and on unpaid care work in the home. We find that, relative to men, women were more severely affected in both spheres, yet they benefited less from the government income support provided to unemployed and furloughed workers. The evidence from the NIDS-CRAM survey from the first year of the pandemic therefore suggests that gender inequality in South Africa has risen, undoing some of the gains of the last two decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Manichaean discourse of the radical-right populist parties, both religion and gender play a role in the discursive process of 'othering'. At the same time, on some occasions, populist discourse also mobilises Christianity and gender equality against immigrants, which has been interpreted through the frames of hijacking or instrumentalization. In this paper, I advance two arguments: first, I illustrate the relevance of the literature on secularisation to finetune the analysis of the entanglements of populism, religion and gender, to overcome the 'hijacking' frame; second, I make a plea for a socio-constructivist perspective, which pays attention to how the actors make sense of their religious-political engagement and try to avoid paternalistic interpretations. Empirical analysis focuses on the discourse of the supporters of Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Italian radical-right populist party Lega Nord, on Instagram, showing the intersections of religion and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International development partnerships are characterised by inherent power relations with community partners often seen as needing assistance in fixing their problems. In this paper, we discuss the limitations of this perspective on the example of gender equality in the Pacific. We explore applied theatre tools to work with a variety of stakeholders to problematise policy issues while exploring different worldviews and knowledges. Our work demonstrates how the voices of community-based organisations can be recognised by governments and donor agencies and how practices of applied theatre can provide tools for designing, reflecting, and advocating for change in joint partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the issue of gender, particularly women's (under)representation in the video game industry, is framed in US and Finnish media. Building on the notion of stigma surrounding feminism, the article examines discourse practices as acts of managing the image of feminism. The findings illustrate five stigma management strategies that offer the possibility of maintaining socially accepted ways of discussing gender inequality and portraying women in mainstream media. Using critical discourse analysis, the paper addresses how the use of these stigma management strategies connects with different contemporary feminisms. The strategies used and their ideological backgrounds vary between the two cultural contexts. This article contributes to the understanding of the ongoing discussions between postfeminism and neoliberal feminism in contemporary society and organizations by demonstrating how the expression of feminist ideas is managed in different cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tanzanian legislation for women's rights is a product of decades of indigenous women's struggles and considered amongst the most progressive in Africa. However, implementation has been problematic and some elements in the current discourse appear to push back against gender equality with an essentialist framing of women and men as naturally different. This paper draws on the perspectives of 144 women and 144 men, in four rural communities in different regions of Tanzania, to build an understanding of how they perceive gender equality, and how their perceptions relate to decision-making, women earning incomes, women as homemakers, and control over assets. Understanding gender as a performance we contextualise our analysis through a historical overview of women's struggles to secure rights from colonial times to the present day. We find that while local discourse appears to embrace the idea of gender equality, practice remains quite different with the threat of sanctions restricting the scope for re-negotiation of gender. The paper demonstrates how the continuous performance, reproduction and renegotiation of gender takes place as part of everyday life, as women and men seek to secure their personal well-being in a context of limited cultural and economic options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dr. Knudson-Martin is a prolific researcher, educator, presenter, editor, and clinician in feminist family therapy, currently serving as Professor Emerita at Lewis & Clark College. Her work includes over 100 publications (books, book chapters, and refereed articles) and over 120 professional presentations (invited and refereed). Accolades include recognition as one of the most influential papers published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (1975–2011), the Anselm Strauss Award (with Dana Matta) for Best Family Qualitative Research (2007), and the Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Theory and Practice Award from American Family Therapy Academy (2017). Along with Douglas Huenergardt and a clinical research team, Dr. Knudson-Martin, founded Socio-Emotional Relationship Therapy (SERT), which focuses on the intersection of emotion, power, and sociocultural contexts in the micro-processes of couple interactions. This interview focused candidly on how Dr. Knudson-Martin's understanding of feminism changed over the years, her views on barriers faced by feminist researchers, and the strong influence collaborative relationships in academia have had on her career. Contextualizing her evolved understanding of feminism, Dr. Knudson-Martin reflected on her past research that divided the concept of gender into three elements (power, culture, and process) and how her own privilege initially restricted her understanding of feminism. Finally, Dr. Knudson-Martin highlighted the importance of working across disciplines to broaden perspectives, bridge theoretical divides, and begin with an intersectional lens rather than secondary consideration of identity as "an add-on." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a case study of a Spanish university that sheds light on the precarious nature of many academic posts. It looks at how women academics build their careers in the current neoliberal university, which measures scholarly output through the indexing metric. Application of this yardstick renders many academic careers all the more precarious because it fails to take into account women's care commitments. Because the issue is 'hidden', it is one that is hard to remedy. Based on a quantitative and qualitative methodology, the study's empirical data revealed that the neoliberal university discriminates against women by overlooking the care burden they bear. We conclude that needs to base itself on non-androcentric principles in which care is a key component. This would avoid academia penalizing those people who either require or provide care – especially women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender inequality encompasses a myriad of overlapping social norms, legal and cultural structures and practices that disadvantage a group based on gender (European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). 2020. Glossary and Thesaurus: Definition Gender Inequality. EIGE. Accessed April 4, 2020. https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus/terms/1182). As the development agenda moves forward across the globe, approaches to address gender inequality have expanded and become more innovative. In this research project, the Centre for Samoan Studies (CSS) collaborated with researchers in other academic units at the National University of Samoa (NUS) and spearheaded a short film training and competition on gender issues in Samoa in 2018. This paper explores the organisation of the project and issues which emerged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how European gender equality law communicates in the contemporary democratic public sphere. It will analyse several gender discrimination cases of the European Court of Human Rights as well as the Court of Justice of the European Union and how judgements of these courts communicated and defined the concept of gender equality, and redefined and broadened this concept from early cases such as Abdulaziz, Cabales and Balkandali v The United Kingdom to more recent cases such as Land Brandenburg v Ursula Sass and Leyla Sahin v Turkey. Trying to answer how the law communicates, this paper will show that the law is not a static and immutable system, independent of historical, political, social and cultural contexts. On the contrary, the legal system represents a dynamic structure, which is continuously revised, and which is socially, historically and politically constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the challenges of working on gender equality in international development research projects and institutes, and how a code of appropriate emotions and behaviours is used to silence and stifle institutional change. Using my own experience at a science research institute, I argue that while senior leaders have acknowledged the importance of equity and diversity, internal institutional dynamics, workplace culture and hierarchies make change difficult. Furthermore, due to the nature of international development work, there is an affective norm ('doing good and feeling good') that surrounds the notion of working in 'developing' countries. This affect is gendered because a masculine camaraderie is generated. However, the affect shuts out self-reflexivity, because it would disrupt the narrative of selflessness and heroism of aid. The inside activists within the institute navigate between challenging the norms and having an unspoken code of civility imposed upon them, which is used to police and discipline how inside activists should behave. When inside activists criticise discriminatory practices and values, they are dismissed as being 'angry' and 'uncivil'. The result is the depoliticisation of gender and feminist theories and practice, where people go through the motions of equity and mainstreaming without achieving meaningful change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As they are a privileged site for the (re)construction of the dominant gender order, media often contribute to naturalizing inequalities. This paper aims to critically discuss the way in which hegemonic meanings of gender have been accepted, resisted, and/or challenged in the Portuguese media context, both by professionals working in news magazines and by publics. This discussion revolves around three different topics: access, distribution, and participation in the media industries; reporting practices and media contents; and gender equality policies. The research is based on 11 focus-group discussions with 101 undergraduate students, as well as on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 15 media professionals. The collected data were subsequently submitted to a thematic analysis. The findings show that hegemonic meanings of gender were mostly (re)produced: gender asymmetries in the media industry were either taken as a non-issue, or attributed to individual-level factors. Additionally, gendered media representations, and the relationships between the male-biased news-making process and the neoliberal trends in political economy of communication were largely disregarded, as far as their impact is concerned; gender equality policies were dismissed as actions required to achieve equality, diversity, and social justice. Critical gender perspectives have rarely been endorsed by media professionals and publics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving women's agency, namely their ability to define goals and act on them, is crucial for advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women. Yet, existing frameworks for measuring women's agency – both disorganized and partial – provide a fragmented understanding of the constraints women face in exercising their agency, thus restricting the design of reliable and valid interventions and evaluation of their impact. This paper proposes a multidisciplinary framework for capturing individual agency, containing three critical dimensions: goal setting, perceived control and ability to initiate action toward goals ("sense of agency"), and acting on goals. For each dimension, the paper reviews existing measurement approaches and what is known about their relative quality. The study concludes by highlighting that future research to improve the measurement of women's agency should prioritize incorporating different contexts, age groups, and decision-making areas to ensure programming and policies are meaningful to the lives of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]