feminism

What does transforming economic power mean?

Srilatha Batliwala. Today’s targeting of women in processes of realigning economic controls is perhaps quite unique. In order to unpack and understand economic power, we must revisit the different realms in which power operates, and the various forms that it takes – visible, hidden and invisible, says Srilatha Batliwala On the eve of the 12th AWID […]

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Generations of Feminism – a reflection on AWID 2012

Posted in Sexuality on November 2nd, 2012 by

Alison Carney. Two weeks ago I attended the international Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) forum in Istanbul, Turkey. AWID hosted more than 2,500 feminists, development professionals, activists and students at a four day forum to share ideas, experiences and plans for mobilization for women’s rights. I met some amazing, inspiring people from many different countries, […]

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Where we must stand: African women in an age of war

Amina Mama. Whether one considers the direct effects of military rule and conflict on women, or the global economic implications of the US war-on-terror, militarism threatens to strip away all the 20th century gains in women’s rights, dispossessing us once more. African women must take a stand, says Amina Mama (Read this article in Italian) […]

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Reclaiming care as a fundamental end in itself

Posted in Labour & Work, The Role of the State on October 31st, 2012 by

Emily Esplen. The benefits of getting women into work have been widely acclaimed in donor circles, popularised by the World Bank’s catchy slogan ‘Gender equality is smart economics’. For feminists who have long been advocating for women’s economic independence as a fundamental cornerstone of women’s liberation, the current preoccupation with stimulating women’s income-generating capacities is […]

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Peace movements: violence reduction as common sense

CYNTHIA COCKBURN If one thing holds the overall movement of peace movements together it is the goal of violence reduction. There’s a shared conviction that violence is a choice, that there exists, much more often than commonly supposed, a more violent and a less violent course of action Can we justifiably speak of a global […]

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Brazil: “state feminism” at work

Posted in Plenary 3, The Role of the State on October 29th, 2012 by

ANA ALICE ALCÂNTARA and CECILIA SARDENBERG. How far can the flourishing “participatory state feminism” in Brazil expand into the state apparatus in order to counter the absence of women in decision making positions and redefine women’s place in society? Feminist activism in Brazil has stretched the very concept of democracy by including women’s rights in the process […]

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Visible players: the power and the risks for young feminists

Posted in Plenary 1, Plenary 2, Plenary 3, Sexuality, The Role of the State on October 29th, 2012 by

JENNIFER ALLSOPP. From the student protests in Chile, to the protests of the ‘Arab spring’ in the MENA region, the debate among young feminists about how to reclaim public space reveals tensions between an individualist model of autonomy and a collectivist reclamation of public space. Jenny Allsopp reports on day two of the AWID Forum 2012 […]

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Culture versus Rights Dualism: a myth or a reality?

Posted in Culture & Religion, Global Governance on October 29th, 2012 by

YAKIN ERTURK. Women’s human rights discourse and movements have become entangled within a culture-versus-rights dualism. Yakin Ertürk argues that this is a false dualism which serves both private patriarchy and public patriarchy of neo-liberal globalisation The 1990’s was a remarkable period in experiencing the unravelling of a world order that has characterised much of the […]

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Making visible the invisible: commodification is not the answer

MARILYN WARING. If you are invisible as a producer in the GDP, you are invisible in the distribution of benefits in the economic framework of  the national budget. As feminists we must embrace an ecological model if we are to transform economic power, and the market and commodification must be seen as the servants of […]

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Decoding the “DNA of Patriarchy” in Muslim family laws

Posted in Culture & Religion on October 24th, 2012 by

Why and how did verse 4:34, and not other verses in the Qur’an, become the foundation for the legal construction of marriage? Why areqiwamah and wilayah still the basis of gender relations in the imagination of modern-day jurists and Muslims who resist and denounce equality in marriage as alien to Islam? How can we Muslim women reconstruct the […]

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