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301. Our Country, Our Peace: Why women must be included in Yemen's peace process

Author:
Shaheen Chughtai and Scott Paul
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Abstract:
The Yemen conflict has had a catastrophic effect on its people, with specific impacts on already-vulnerable women and girls. But political talks about Yemen’s future have almost exclusively been conducted by male politicians and combatants. This contrasts with the 2011 uprising, when women helped set Yemen on a path towards political reform. However, the 2011 peace initiative which followed the uprising lacked inclusivity and proved to be unsustainable. The forthcoming talks about Yemen’s future must not repeat these flaws. Ensuring women have a meaningful voice in the peace process increases the likelihood that its outcomes benefit the majority of Yemenis and enjoy their support.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Government, Politics, Political Activism, Reform, and Elections
Political Geography:
Yemen and Arab Countries

302. Courting a New Ally in the Quest for Equality: Closing the Implementation Gap between Law and Practice in India

Author:
Jasmine Wyatt
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Ambassador's Review
Abstract:
India has a long history of passing laws and signing treaties and conventions focused on eliminating violence against women and ensuring women’s equal rights. Some of the world’s most progressive laws are embodied in India’s Constitution: women had the right to vote and were considered equal citizens since the beginning of Independence—a feat even the United States and Britain did not manage to accomplish. Nevertheless, gender inequality remains a daily reality in India, sometimes with deadly consequences.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Human Rights, History, Governance, and Elections
Political Geography:
United Kingdom, India, and United States of America

303. Journal of Public and International Affairs 2015

Author:
Joanna Hecht, Sam duPont, Cynthia Barmore, Natasha Geber, Abby McCartney, Emily A. Wiseman, Jordan Dantas, Stephanie Leutert, and Lauren Dunn
Publication Date:
05-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Woodrow Wilson School Journal of Public and International Affairs
Institution:
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
Abstract:
Cynthia Barmore builds on primary survey research conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina to offer new explanations of the constraints placed on farmers by an unreformed land system. Natasha Geber addresses an underexplored policy area, looking at Russia’s geopolitical ambitions in the Arctic and offering a perspective on the chances of international cooperation on Arctic issues. Abby McCartney pulls together two seemingly disparate policies, seeing an opportunity for New Jersey to expand its successful drug court program using provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Emily Wiseman looks at how women and girls still tend to be excluded from post-disaster relief efforts, even though almost all implementers understand that this exclusion exacerbates gender inequality and retards reconstruction. Jordan Dantas analyzes the drop in piracy off the Somali coast, and finds private sector success where military solutions failed. Stephanie Leutert offers a clear-eyed perspective on the divergent narratives about the Obama Administration’s deportation policies, and analyzes how those policies have impacted immigrant communities. Lauren Dunn looks at two programs for using mobile phones to provide basic banking services—a success and a failure—and offers lessons for how the regulatory environment and existing institutions must shape program design.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, Government, Immigration, Piracy, Women, Conflict, Rural, Drugs, Land Rights, Barack Obama, and Medicaid
Political Geography:
Russia, India, Haiti, North America, Somalia, Arctic, United States of America, and Bosnia and Herzegovina

304. (Re)claiming the Body of the Somali Woman in Nuruddin Farah’s From a Crooked Rib

Author:
Helmi Ben Meriem
Publication Date:
01-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies
Institution:
Macalester College
Abstract:
Nuruddin Farah was born in 1945 in Baidoa, west of Mogadishu. In 1976, he was declared a persona non grata by the Somali president and dictator Siad Barre, who banished Farah into exile because his writings were seen as a rigorous and harsh critique of Barre, especially four of his early eight novels, which attacked the dictatorship in Somalia. However, Farah’s fiction not only attacks the dictatorship in Somalia, but it also criticizes the country’s most cherished traditions, values, and beliefs. For example, in his first novel From a Crooked Rib (1970), he breaks the homosexuality taboo in Somalia by questioning the inabil- ity to think of sex outside of the paradigm of heterosexuality, and in some of his later novels, he brings in the issues of incest, pedophilia, bestiality, and murder. Farah is one prominent figure of Anglophone literature in Africa, along with Achebe, and Soyinka. He is also con- sidered as the next most likely African Anglophone writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature after the Nigerian Wole Soyinka in 1986 and the South African Doris Lessing in 2007. Farah is described, among other things, as the “gift from Africa to contemporary world literature” (Bardolph, “On Nuruddin” 121). Farah’s fiction extends over more than eleven novels and other fictive and non-fictive writings. Most criticism of his fiction focuses mainly on four issues: the writing about Somalia in exile, the intertex- tuality between his fiction and other writers, the poetics of Farah’s fic- tion, and the feminist aspects of his fiction and how it presents a new image of Somalia. Indeed, one of the most interesting readings of Far- ah’s fiction is a gender-based one; the authenticity, with which Farah tackles the issues of womanhood and gender has pushed some of his readers to think of him as a woman, even sending him letters address- ing him as “she.” In this respect, the Nigerian scholar J. I. Okonkwo has argued that Farah is one of few others who have “done the greatest justice to female existence in his writing” (217). In a comparison estab- lished by Okonkwo, Soyinka is seen as depicting women as either a disguised or undisguised prostitute, Achebe depicting women as an appendage to men, and Farah depicting women simply as women, with all the variations and at times contradictions (216). Farah’s feminist attitudes have given him the title of “Africa’s first feminist male writer” by Kirsten Hoist Petersen (249). Indeed, Farah is well aware of his feminist attitudes; he states in his essay “A View of Home From the Outside” that he is interested in those denied their rights, be it women or men, and in the struggle behind it (qtd. in Okonkwo 217). Eventually, the women in Farah’s fiction become instruments to reconstruct Somalia and to reshape society by giving a new meaning to womanhood. In his fiction, women’s struggle for freedom and for the right to voice themselves become an allegory for a nation in search of its voice. New womanhood becomes interchange- able with a new Somalia, and eventually, Somalia becomes once more the mother, as opposed to its status as a father-land in a dictatorial system. His first novel, From a Crooked Rib, seen by Richard Dowden as “a dazzling spark” of light in the dark tunnel of silencing women (Intro- duction, vii), could be regarded as a feminist manifesto. If we were to describe this novel, we would resort to a line from “The Rights of Women” a poem by Anna Laetitia Barbauld: “Injured Woman! Rise, assert thy right” (28). From a Crooked Rib is a third person omniscient narrative about the story of Ebla, a Somali woman defying her society and escaping her family, who were forcing her into an arranged mar- riage. This novel, with its genuine depiction and voicing of oppressed women, has been widely read and acclaimed, and studied as an authentic representation of the Somali society. This paper aims at read- ing From a Crooked Rib from a Foucauldian perspective in order to highlight the forces that shape the lives of Somali women. The empha- sis will be on the relationship between the discourses used to contain the Somali woman and her body. We will try to set a link between the different discourses and the body within the dialectics of writing/(un) writing and silencing/voicing. Thus, this paper is divided into two major parts: first, a concise overview of the Foucauldian approach to discourse and power, and second, an examination of the different discourses that govern the body of the Somali woman. The second part will root the Foucauldian approach in a gender-related reading and will be divided into two sub-parts: the writing and the un-writing of the woman body.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Women, Literature, and Sexuality
Political Geography:
Africa and Somalia

305. The gender Dimension of the Authoritarian Backlash in Egypt

Author:
Liina Mustonen
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
ARI Movement
Abstract:
The campaign against the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood during its short-lived rule instrumentalized the notion of gender equality for political purposes – namely demonizing the Brotherhood and the subsequent overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi. Narratives were constructed along the dichotomy of emancipated Egyptian woman and oppressed, traditional women. However, there has been a rapid de- politicization of the discussion on women’s role in society following Morsi’s ouster. The author argues that the absence of a debate on the patriarchal structures of the political and military forces that have substituted Morsi’s rule reveals the hollowness and political nature of these gendered discourses.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Military Affairs, Conservatism, Feminism, and Oppression
Political Geography:
Africa, North Africa, and Egypt

306. Somali Solutions: Creating conditions for a gender-just peace

Author:
Siham Rayale, Ed Pomfret, and Deborah Wright
Publication Date:
08-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
This report looks at Somali women's experiences with conflict, peace, violence, insecurity and state rebuilding. It uses an approach geared towards gender-just peace-building to understand the ways in which Somali women have fulfilled their role as agents of change, while navigating the challenges posed by women's exclusion from many forms of public life (government, civil society, universities, open markets etc). Interviews and focus groups have been used to illustrate diverse perspectives and to demonstrate that Somali women have always been principal agents of change and social transformation. The report's recommendations are an acknowledgement of the role Somali women have played throughout the course of Somali history, and continue to play today, in shaping the pathway towards greater participation for women across Somali regions, and the challenges they face in so doing.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Social Movement, Women, and Gender Based Violence
Political Geography:
Africa and Somalia

307. Implementing the PWDVA: Safeguarding women from domestic violence

Author:
Pooja Parvati
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) is one of the most widespread, and yet the least recognized, human rights violations across the world. It can manifest in many forms, but the most common form experienced by women globally is physical violence inflicted by an intimate partner. Documenting this continues to be a challenge due to lack of reliable, timely datasets. In 2005, the government of India enacted the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (PWDVA), which came into force in 2006. Nine years later, progress in its implementation is insignificant as it remains plagued by challenges such as inadequate funds and human resources, poor coordination across implementing agencies and ineffective monitoring mechanisms. Addressing these would go a long way in strengthening the Act and making it effective. This also corresponds with the Indian government’s wholehearted commitment to ‘Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’ by the year 2030 through its adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Topic:
Gender Issues, Human Rights, Gender Based Violence, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
India, Asia, and Global Focus

308. Strategic Blindspots: Essentializing, Securitizing, and Empowering Women and Men to Counter Violent Extremism

Author:
Sahana Dharmapuri
Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Fletcher Security Review
Institution:
The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Abstract:
Today, the international community has at its disposal an underutilized tool to address the multidimensional problem of violent extremism: UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325) on Women, Peace and Security. October 2015 marked the fifteenth anniversary of the adoption of the resolution, and the first time that the Security Council recognized that gender equality is a critical component of maintaining international peace and security. It is now widely recognized that conflict and peacebuilding are highly gendered activities, and that women and men experience violence and security differently. Recognizing that the roles of women vary greatly from perpetrators or victims of violence, to their role as peacebuilders and political actors, is an important first step by security actors to take into account women’s different experiences and perspectives in international security and peace decision-making. However, basing preventative approaches to violent extremism on a narrow understanding of what it means to be male or female—e.g. solely focusing on the roles of women or men—not only limits policy options but perpetuates two strategic blindspots: essentializing women and securitizing women’s roles in CVE. Both essentializing and securitizing prevents a diverse examination of how both men and women are affected by and influence the promotion and the prevention of extremist violence in of CVE policies and programs. This is because a narrow focus on the roles of women and men excludes an examination of the context-specific, socially and culturally relevant opportunities and constraints that both men and women experience. As such, an exclusive focus on men and women’s roles obscures the entry points available to understand and counter violent extremism more effectively. UNSCR 1325 on Women, Peace and Security can help shed light on these blindspots in CVE because it requires both the participation of women and a gender perspective in policies and programs related to international security and peace. As such, the resolution offers analytical tools to help CVE practitioners analyze the complex issue of violent extremism, namely the use of a gender perspective. A gender perspective helps to reveal solutions and courses of action that would otherwise be overlooked in highly localized, context-specific, socially and culturally sensitive conflicts.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, Violent Extremism, Counter-terrorism, and Women
Political Geography:
United Nations and Global Focus

309. Politics Of Gender In The Recent Democratic Transitions In The Middle East And North Africa

Author:
Canan Aslan Akman
Publication Date:
04-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Alternative Politics
Abstract:
The weakness of a direct causality between democratic transitions and women-friendly outcomes remains a major finding of research on the gendered impacts of transition processes. In the recent Arab uprisings leading to regime changes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), women’s mobilization was a significant aspect of the regime changes. By contextualizing the gender dynamics and the outcomes of the democratic transitions in Tunusia, Egypt, Morrocco and Libya, this article analyzes and compares Arab women’s transitional politicization. It also inquires into women’s roles, demands and predicaments within the patriarchal structures of the transitional polities. These transitions presented both opportunities as well as challenges for Arab women under new constellations of balance of power in their respective political systems, which led to the rise of a new gender agenda. It is contended here that specific structural and agency-related factors have been intertwined to constrain women’s transitional mobilization and the post-transitional quest for empowerment. The fragility of the gender equality agenda in the post-dictatorship Arab world has been shaped, to large extent, by the legacies of previous state-led gender equality projects on by women’s (pro-) feminist activism, as well as by the nature of the transition processes and women’s civil society participation during and in the aftermath of the transitions.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Social Movement, Women, Democracy, and Political structure
Political Geography:
Africa, Middle East, Libya, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia

310. NATO and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda: Time to Bring It Home

Author:
Marriet Schuurman
Publication Date:
06-2015
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Connections
Institution:
Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Abstract:
The year 2015 is a year of global reflection: celebrating the seventy years of the United Nations, the twenty years of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for gender equality and women’s empowerment, the end year of the Millennium Development Goals, and the fifteenth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (UNSCR 1325). Together, these milestones urge us to reflect on what difference these groundbreak­ing international institutions and collective efforts have actually made.
Topic:
Gender Issues, United Nations, Feminism, and Diversity
Political Geography:
Global Focus