The development of accessible and inclusive public spaces has been proposed as a means to address this gender inequality and promote social inclusion. However, there is a lack of specific analysis on the interactions and integration of Kurdish migrant women in European cities. This study explores the social integration of Kurdish migrant women in European urban settings, with a focus on Vienna and Cologne. It investigates the role of urban public spaces in Kurdish women’s (...) social interactions and integration into host communities. The study analyzes the sociodemographic characteristics of Kurdish women in both cities and examines the nature of interactions, sense of safety, meaningful social activities, and barriers in public spaces. The results show that frequenting public spaces and engaging in meaningful social activities correlate positively with social inclusion, while feelings of safety and barriers do not show significant correlations. The study highlights the importance of considering the unique context of each city and improving access to public spaces and community activities to promote social inclusion. The findings contribute to strategies for promoting social inclusion of immigrant women based on their interactions in urban public spaces. (shrink)

Anthropological work on Kurdish women has hitherto adopted western stereotypes of power, representing it as non-existent, as women being deprived of agency in everyday practices, or totally politicized. In order to challenge prescriptive gender stereotypes, moving beyond objectification to subjectivity and offering a more complex analysis of gender relations, this study examines the position of women within their family and wider social structures in Şırnak in Turkish Kurdistan based on a sample of local women who (...) are not employed in paid work, and their children. The implications of the results are discussed in order to enable understanding of the social structures that make it possible for women in Şırnak to exercise informal decision-making authority or to be part of the social power structures as subjects, highlighting their importance in household management and showing that ‘power’ does not necessarily equate straightforwardly with western understandings. (shrink)

This article studies the conceptions of social justice of women active in transnational migrant politics over a period of roughly 20 years in the Netherlands. The novel focus on migrant women reveals that transnational politics is almost completely male-dominated and -directed. Two of the exceptions found in this article include a leftist and a Kurdish women organization supporting the communist cause in the 1980s and the Kurdish struggle in the 1990s in Turkey, respectively. In both (...) organizations gender equality was subordinated to broader ideologies of political parties in their homeland. Leftist activists in the cold war era supported a narrow definition of the "politics of redistribution," while and Kurdish activists, combined classical features of the latter with those of traditional identity politics. (shrink)

While women in Turkey and around the world are commonly engaged in civic activism for peace and violence reduction, they are seriously underrepresented in formal politics; thus, not much has been written about their potential to affect decisions made to reduce violence in their societies. This study aims to understand how women politicians view violence in general and their solutions for two specific types of violence in Turkey: the increasing levels of violence against women, and violence created (...) through the Kurdish issue in Turkey. Turkish politicians have become increasingly concerned about both of these issues in recent years and have designed many policies and strategies to address them. This study argues that studying the women parliamentarians’ linkage between the two types of violence will help understand what accounts for the differences among women MPs in their understanding of different types of violence and their solutions to them. (shrink)

Iraqi Kurds have been involved in a liberation movement since the very beginning of the establishment of the Iraqi state by European colonizers. With the proliferation of communism in the 1960s and 1970s among liberation movements in the third world, the Kurdish liberation movement also adopted popular Marxist, Leninist and Maoist jargons. However, after the 1991 Kurdish uprising successfully liberated some areas of Kurdistan, the leftist rhetoric almost completely disappeared in the dominant Iraqi Kurdish discourse. I argue (...) that, even from the 1960s to the 1980s, the adoption of Marxist rhetoric by the Iraqi Kurdish leadership was inauthentic; it was neither rooted in nor tailored to Kurdistani society. Moreover, unlike the Kurdish liberation movements in Turkey and Syria, as well as Iran to some degree, the Kurdish movement in Iraq failed to recognize gender equality. Thus, while Kurdish women in Turkey and Syria took active roles in the liberation movement, their counterparts in Iraq remained marginalized. (shrink)

Informed by sociological standpoint, intersectional, and gender regime theories, we examine perceptions of a diverse sample of Iranian Kurdish women in the city of Sanandaj about their legal status and social positions. We find perceptions of injustice, oppression, male control, and lack of opportunity associated with both the family and broader society. Kurdish women are socially located in structures and institutions of both private and public patriarchy. At the same time, their growing educational attainment and knowledge (...) of possibilities for change enable them not only to articulate grievances but also to aspire to, and sometimes engage in, collective action for women’s rights. By focusing on an under-studied region, this article contributes to the wider literature on Kurdish women, underscores the continued salience of intersectional and standpoint approaches, and expands gender regime theorizing beyond Western cases. (shrink)

Identity politics and citizenship are often envisaged in dichotomous terms, but cosmopolitan theorists believe commitments to “thin” universal values can be generated from divergent “thick” positions. Yet, they often gloss over the ways in which the nexus of thick and thin is negotiated in practice—a weak link in the cosmopolitan argument. To understand this nexus better, we turn to women’s rights organizations (WROs) in polarized Turkey to show that women affiliated with rival camps (e.g., pro-religious/pro-secular, Turkish/Kurdish, liberal/leftist) (...) can mobilize over issues like empowerment, violence against women, and education. However, thick readings of these issues inflect upon collaboration. This has spurred pro-religious and Kurdish women to develop strategies that flag their specific concerns. As such, mutual recognition along cosmopolitan lines appears possible—and is reinforced through iterative encounters—but is not necessarily negotiated between equally empowered agents and entails complex processes of contestation and concession-making. (shrink)

In many immigrant groups, women gain less command of the host country language than the men. Using life story interviews with marriage migrants from Turkey, now living in Denmark, this article investigates this limited language learning, linking it to these women's lives as they primarily unfold in three social locations: households, workplaces and language schools. During their first years in Denmark a gendered division of work may relegate the women to the Turkish- or Kurdish-speaking home environment. (...) When they subsequently enter work, their poor Danish skills only allow them access into jobs with little host country interaction. The available language education becomes fragmented after childbirth and often remains inadequate to substantially raise the women's command of Danish. Furthermore, national legislation may unintentionally impede language learning. As a result, even women with expressed ambitions of acquiring Danish may continue living below a `language threshold' that precludes them from gaining broader access to host country resources. (shrink)

The Kurdish-led autonomous entity called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria - also known as Rojava - considers women?s liberation an imperative condition for shaping a democratic society. The practice of autonomy in NES shares strong resemblances with Non- Territorial Autonomy models; however, it introduces a novelty in the role of women as active agents in building a plurinational democracy. This paper examines the intellectual and political origins of the political role ascribed to women in (...) autonomous administrations and how the practice of autonomy in Rojava has advanced women?s rights by shedding light on both institutional implementation of women?s rights, as well as the creation of -territorial spaces of women?s emancipation within the autonomous model. The argument made is that the conceptual framework of the Rojava model goes beyond the Kurdish question and can be considered an attempt to resolve a democratic deficit of liberal democratic nation-states through bringing together solutions that address the intertwined subordination of minorities and women. nema. (shrink)

Drawing on 2 years of field research conducted between 2008 and 2010 in London’s Kurdish community, I discuss the practical and ethical challenges that confront researchers dealing with violence against women committed in the name of ‘honour’. In examining how feminist methodologies and principles inform my research, I address issues of researcher positioning and the importance of speaking with, rather than for, marginalised groups. I then explore the difficulties of operationalising this position when dealing with honour-based violence. Using (...) the interview data from the 2008–2010 study and a case study of the trial of Mehmet Goren (who was convicted in 2009 of murdering his daughter Tulay for supposedly dishonouring their family), I discuss the socio-cultural norms and values underlying honour codes, examining both the position of men and women in relation to the maintenance of family honour and the regulation of women’s sexuality and conduct. In particular, I explore the difficulties inherent in obtaining and understanding victims’ own personal narratives, especially in legal settings, while simultaneously showing how it is only through empowering women to speak for themselves that we will be able to bring about the deep societal changes needed to eradicate honour-based violence. (shrink)

Throughout Iran and various countries, the recent calls of the “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” (in Persian), “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi” (in Kurdish), or “Woman, Life, Freedom” (in English) movement call for change to acknowledge the importance of women. While these feminist protests and demonstrations have been met with brutality, systematic oppression, and internet blackouts within Iran, they have captured significant social media attention and coverage outside the country, especially among the Iranian diaspora and various international organizations. This article, grounded in (...) feminist urban theories of the Global South, analyzes the digital feminist placemaking movement in Iran. As the first counter‐revolution led by women, the movement utilizes digital art, graffiti, and protest movements to embody women’s solidarity groups and sympathy rallies. Our analysis employs various digital research methods, including social media scrutiny and the study of protest illustrations. Analyzing the digital feminist placemaking in Iran will enable us to compare the commonalities, differences, challenges, and opportunities between the minorities and majorities in the world’s countries. The outcomes of this research can help international organizations such as Amnesty International and the United Nations Agency for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (UN Women), as well as policymakers, institutions, academics, and NGOs, to highlight the various ways in which broader public participation could be encouraged in the process of digital feminist insurgent placemaking. (shrink)

The photographs that circulated on social media depicting the atrocious acts committed by the Turkish military forces in southeast Turkey are indicative of an aesthetic construction of militarized masculinity that serves as a metonym for the nation‐state. As violence is aestheticized in a gendered fashion in these depictions, the Kurdish resistance movement is shamed as feminine. Gendered shaming, in this context, conjoins racialization and gendering as subjugating mechanisms of the state. Women's peace movements seek to disrupt this heteropatriarchal (...) logic of the state by countering the tripartite alignment of masculinity‐power‐domination with politicized art. In refusing the shame attributed to femininity, the shame that the state desires the Kurdish body to signify, they transfigure shame into honor and resistance. (shrink)

This article focuses on service provision for women who are involuntarily referred under the UK Mental Health Act (1983) into medium and high security care in England and Wales. We explore how physical and procedural security in such settings is prioritized over relational care (see also Fallon Report, Department of Health, 1999a and NHS Executive, 2000 – Tilt Report). We are not arguing against the importance of protecting the public from the acts of dangerous members of our society. However, (...) we are arguing that many of the women in our secure services are inappropriately placed and receive inappropriate forms of treatment and care. Rather than physical security, it is high relational care, which the women require. Further, we argue that current service provision often re-produces forms of violence and violation which have marked many of women's lives prior to their entry into the secure system. (shrink)

This history of philosophy is a history of men. Or at least, that’s how it has been told over the past several hundred years. But, over the last few decades, we’ve begun to see more and more recognition of women philosophers and the huge impact that they have had on the course of our discipline. There have always been philosophers who happened to be women. Hypatia of Alexandria was known by her contemporaries simply as The Philosopher, and hundreds (...) of young men travelled from throughout the region to attend her public lectures. Philosophers who happen to be women, then, are nothing new. But our failure to recognise them as full contributors to the subject makes them appear to us as something of a surprise. A result of this is that women are often remembered as women first: they are seen more as women than they’re seen as philosophers. (shrink)

"Golf day 2005 @ federal golf club, red hill." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (196), pp. 7.

On July 2021, the UK High Court of Justice heard the Case CO/2066/2020 on the application of Heidi Crowter who lives with Down’s syndrome, and Máire Lea-Wilson whose son Aidan has Down’s syndrome. Crowter and Lea-Wilson, with the support of the disability rights campaign, ‘Don’t Screen Us Out’, have been taking legal action against the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (the UK Government) for a review of the 1967 Abortion Act: the removal of section 1(1)(d) making termination (...) of pregnancy lawful for ‘severe’ fetal indications detected after 24 weeks' gestation. On 23 September 2021, the High Court dismissed the claim. This action came at a time when non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) was introduced into the NHS England Fetal Anomaly Screening Programme for the trisomies 21, 13 and 18. The implementation of NIPT has been heavily criticised, in particular by ‘Don’t Screen Us Out’ campaigners, for increasing fetal selection and discrimination of people living with disabilities. The case of Crowter and Lea-Wilson echoes debates in other European countries such as in France and Germany, where the introduction of NIPT in the public healthcare system has provoked equally vehement public reactions and discussions. The comparison between these three countries allows contextualising the public discourses around NIPT and the ground for termination of pregnancy in relation to different socio-cultural and political contexts. We examine how each country, and particularly England, deals with the conflict between the principles of promoting the rights of people living with disabilities and preserving women’s reproductive autonomy. (shrink)

What is a uterus to a woman and to society? This article calls for a holistic reevaluation of how we perceive and what we expect from women’s uteruses. We explore the powerful and deeply rooted cultural representations of women’s uteruses as mere receptacles and the impact of such representations on biological categories, medical practices, and current policies. Considering controversies surrounding hysterectomies, cesarean sections, and uterus transplants, we elucidate ambivalent narratives that either promote an essentialist approach where the uterus (...) is emblematic of womanhood, or imply that the uterus is a dispensable organ useless outside of reproduction. (shrink)

The purpose of this article was to analyse gender biases from the wider range of gender discussion written in Arabic textbooks Al-Asas volumes 1, 2 and 3, published by Sinan Al-Alamiyyah in Sudan. This research employed a qualitative approach with the implementation of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The results showed that unjust descriptions of female characters usually appear in textbooks: pictures of women as second-class and illustrations of gender bias. The pictures were always dominant among members of the community. (...) Furthermore, there were also positive images showing the position of women among men and women having the same rights. The findings theoretically highlighted the implementation of CDA to analyse the content of Arabic textbooks for non-Arabic speakers. As a practical implication, both readers and the users, either native or non-native Arabic speakers, could avoid the nurturance of gender biases in their social lives. The main conclusion would be that the users of the textbooks can consequently identify gender bias in the textbooks. Contribution: Through the findings of positive images on the position of women within society and women’s equality rights, it is hoped that this research would become a medium of increasing social awareness about the importance of achieving gender equality. The application of the study should include the improvement of the textbooks specifically referring to gender biases that would influence users of the textbooks in different countries. (shrink)

Susan Moller Okin. AFTERWORD or greater weighting of these over “masculine" values. For how are women to continue to assume all of the nurturing activities that allegedly both follow from and reinforce their “naturally” superior virtues, and  ...

Abstract: The political views of Plato on women in the Laws have been a subject of debate among scholars. The reintroduction of families and private property in his late dialogue can potentially impact the role of women in the state. Furthermore, it remains a matter of contention whether Plato altered some of his political views on women while writing the Laws. In this debate, I will analyze the inconsistencies in Plato’s Laws, endeavoring to determine whether Plato provided (...) women with equal opportunities in education, employment, and political involvement in his late work or not. I will explore what kinds of training Plato believes should be applied to both genders. Finally, I will draw a conclusion in regard to the social and political impacts of gender equality in education in Plato’s “second best state” as it is described in his Laws. (shrink)

Research on women in U.S. agriculture highlights how, despite real challenges, women have made and continue to make spaces for themselves in this male-dominated profession. We argue that, partly due to data accessibility limitations, this work has tended to use white women’s experiences in agriculture as universal. Analyzing micro-data from the 2017 Census of Agriculture, this paper offers descriptive statistics about women and race in U.S. agriculture. We examine numerous characteristics of U.S. farms, including their spatial (...) distribution, the average number of acres farmed, predominant crop types, and other characteristics to describe how white, Black, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander/Asian women farmers are faring. Our findings suggest significant differences in women’s farms by race. We argue that these are related to the history of forced and voluntary migration within the U.S. Our results indicate that understanding women’s experiences in farming requires understanding the impact of race and these broader historical patterns. Finally, because of these differences across races, we suggest that supporting “women in agriculture” may require tailored responses from agricultural policy and programming that addresses unique needs in specific communities. (shrink)

Subpart B of 45 Code of Federal Regulations Part 46 (CFR) identifies the criteria according to which research involving pregnant women, human fetuses, and neonates can be conducted ethically in the United States. As such, pregnant women and fetuses fall into a category requiring “additional protections,” often referred to as “vulnerable populations.” The CFR does not define vulnerability, but merely gives examples of vulnerable groups by pointing to different categories of potential research subjects needing additional protections. In this (...) paper, I assess critically the role of this categorization of pregnant women involved in research as “vulnerable,” both as separate entities and in combination with the fetuses they carry. In particular, I do three things: (1) demonstrate that pregnant women qua pregnancy are either not “vulnerable” according to any meaningful definition of that term or that such vulnerability is irrelevant to her status as a research participant; (2) argue that while a fetus may be vulnerable in terms of dependency, this categorization does not equate to the vulnerability of the pregnant woman; and (3) suggest that any vulnerability that appends to women is precisely the result of federal regulations and dubious public perceptions about pregnant women. I conclude by demonstrating how this erroneous characterization of pregnant women as “vulnerable” and its associated protections have not only impeded vital research for pregnant women and their fetuses, but have also negatively affected the inclusion of all women in clinical research. (shrink)

Too often Confucian women’s voices and experiences are neglected as insignificant. This paper provides a wide and diverse set of examples of traditional Chinese and Korean women who knew and practiced Confucian ritual. Though representing only a small percentage of traditional women, these examples provide clear evidence and compelling arguments that support the following three conclusions. First, that the Confucian tradition did not deny women’s ability to know and perform rituals; second, that Confucian women read, (...) learned, evaluated, decided, and contributed to re/create the conception and practice of ritual; and third, that this led at least some women and the men around them to recognize and admire not only their moral agency but also their ability to become sages. (shrink)

The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians has since its inception, affirmed the agency of women in their theological reflection and praxis. In doing so, they have called on their male colleagues to stand in solidarity with them in forging alternative masculinities that renew culture, curb gender-based violence and mitigate HIV infection. This essay argues that there are three assumptions that form the basis of the work of the Circle theologians. Firstly, that women seek to be in (...) egalitarian relationships with men that bring dignity and respect. Secondly, women assert their agency to achieve this goal and in so doing bring healing and wholeness to both groups who are transformed through this process. Thirdly, women assert their agency in solidarity with other women as they build alternative egalitarian communities. Yet, the recent phenomenon of the #Blessed community of young women who seek out ‘blessers’, older men who engage them in transactional sex, in order to fund opulent lifestyles contradicts these assumptions. Their agency embraces non-liberative ideology and practice and chooses not to unseat the dominant ideologies of hetero- and econo-patriarchy. Contribution: The essay concludes that a lack of sustained economic analysis and engaged theological reflection on sexual ethics means the Circle is ill-equipped to respond to the challenge posed by the #Blessed community of young women. (shrink)

The perpetual decline of Zimbabwe’s socio-economic situation can be found in the country legalising prostitution, which it used to regard as an act of criminality. This legalisation promoted the trade from being an offense to a lifestyle and from being an act of immorality to a profession. Prostitutes were also advanced from being social outcasts to commercial sex workers. Although the law appeared to financially empower prostitutes, its negative impact is seen in the level it dehumanises teen girls as they (...) turn themselves into sex objects. Cases of school dropouts among teen girls and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are some of the evidences of the negative impact of prostitution, caused by their belief that ‘unprotected sex pays more’. The location of the study was Epworth Booster in Harare, Zimbabwe. Using an African feminist theology framework, this article aims to analyse how women’s theology can be used as a panacea to restore dignity and hunhu-ism to the teen girls whose bodies have been exposed to abuse by their purported fathers. The article uses both unstructured and focus group interviews to collect data from three health personnel and 10 teen girls, respectively. The article grapples with the fact that the legalisation of prostitution in Zimbabwe seriously affected both the social and religious life of teen girls as they risk their lives in order to earn a living, and African feminist theology should be applied to defend these vulnerable girls.Contribution: In the context of socio-economic depletion and laws that suppress women in the name of empowering them, rereading and application of women’s theology should protect women and offer them a future with hope. (shrink)

The history of computing usually focuses on achievements in Western universities and research centers and is mostly about what happened in the United States and Great Britain. However, in Eastern Europe, particularly in war-torn Poland, where there was very little state funding, many highly original hardware and software projects were initiated. The small number of publications available to us, especially those in English, led to the belief that technological progress was the result of research carried out in Western countries alone. (...) This article aims to fill this knowledge gap by focusing on the numerous research projects initiated in Polish universities and computer industries that unfortunately turned into dead ends as the result of socialist policies. These are references that cannot be ignored, not only for a historical reconstruction of the evolution of technology but also with regard to the social effects recorded in Poland immediately after the Second World War. The communist ideology, which pursued gender equality policies after the end of the war, encouraged women to pursue education, enabling the many female students enrolled in mathematics degree courses to specialize in “ Maszyny Matematyczne” (mathematical machines) and become, like men, experts in computer programming and design. As well as highlighting the role that Poland played in the nascent “computer science” and providing detailed information on what women contributed, this article will explain why the success of the Polish computer industry was limited due to the nonexistent coordination between the communist states (Comecon). (shrink)

This paper investigates the characteristics of firms which have underrepresented groups in top management positions and those which do not. It is argued that profiles of these characteristics will be different for firms with minorities vs. women and that these profiles will be different depending on whether representation is by board membership or through officerships. A discriminant analysis found both similarities and differences in variables that were associated with these different forms of representation. It was found, for example, that (...) size is associated with representation for both minorities and women, whereas high advertising intensity is associated with firms with women on board, but not as officers. Other findings and the implications of the study are discussed. (shrink)

This is a unique, groundbreaking collection of autobiographical essays by leading women in philosophy. It provides a glimpse at the experiences of the generation that witnessed, and helped create, the remarkable advances now evident for women in the field.