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1 – 10 of 62Payal Mago, Reena Bhatiya, Nupur Gosain and Deekshant Awasthi
As a solution to these crises, bringing back the feminine sensitivity can become a welcome change. The Bishnoi community, in particular, propagated Eco-feminism for the cause of…
Abstract
Purpose
As a solution to these crises, bringing back the feminine sensitivity can become a welcome change. The Bishnoi community, in particular, propagated Eco-feminism for the cause of the environment. Therefore, this paper aims to study the community in detail along with suggesting a Bishnoi Environment Protection Model as an Indian indigenous solution to the global environmental problems.
Design/methodology/approach
The method of obtaining information was a detailed questionnaire-based interview along with multiple focus group discussions. The interviews were conducted with the women who belong to the Bishnoi community and who are actively taking forward the ethos of their community. Interviews were conducted across a span of different villages to cover a different portion of the Bishnoi population. Adding to this, multiple focus group discussions took place in the temple, wild-life protection center, Self-help group women's households, community meetings.
Findings
Religion and science are complementary and supplementary to each other in the true sense. It would be good to recall what the greatest scientist had said “Science without religion is blind and religion without science is lame”.
Research limitations/implications
The research limitation of this paper is that it is a field study-based research wherein the research findings are the outcomes of personal interviews with the village community people. The limitation, therefore, lies in the simplicity of the research arguments put forward in this paper. The implication of this research would be to challenge the dominant research paradigms in the field of Eco-feminism and Climate Change and bring grass root narratives to the forefront.
Practical implications
The practical implication of this research paper is that in Environment related policy solutions, rural women should be appointed as consultants of advisors in the high profile decision-making policy groups. It would make the process very democratic and rooted in ground-level solutions. If the Bishnoi community women of India are given their due regard they would eventually play significant roles in the decision-making groups at the national and international levels.
Social implications
Other than having a policy implication, this research paper has a social implication too. The community narratives which have been hidden for so long in the remote villages of India will come to the forefront and help as a guiding force.
Originality/value
This paper recommends that India should propagate its culturally-rooted principles such as the one in Jambhoji's commandments. India should strongly put these normative values in the international organizations and contribute to a new epistemology of knowledge in the counter effect of existing ones. This would make a paradigm shift at the level of the knowledge-power in which the developed nations manipulate the rest of the world. The new terminologies, concepts, agendas, goals should be formulated by deriving the knowledge from age-old communities in India. The people of these communities have even given their lives for the protection of the environment.
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Massimiliano Agovino, Michele Bevilacqua and Massimiliano Cerciello
While the economic literature mostly tackled discrimination looking at labour costs, this work focuses on its relation to labour productivity, arguing that discrimination may…
Abstract
Purpose
While the economic literature mostly tackled discrimination looking at labour costs, this work focuses on its relation to labour productivity, arguing that discrimination may worsen the performance of female employees. In this view, it represents a source of allocative inefficiency, which contributes to reducing output.
Design/methodology/approach
Female discrimination is both a social and an economic problem. In social terms, consolidated gender stereotypes impose constraints on women’s behaviour, worsening their overall well-being. In economic terms, women face generally worse labour market conditions. Using long-run Italian data spanning from 1861 to 2009, the authors propose a novel measure of female discrimination based on the observed frequency of discriminating epithets. Following social capital theory, the authors distinguish between structural and voluntary discrimination, and use Data Envelopment Analysis for time series data to assess the extent of inefficiency that each component of discrimination induces in the production process.
Findings
The results draw the trajectory of female discrimination in Italy and provide evidence in favour of the idea that female discrimination reduces productive efficiency. In particular, the structural component of female discrimination, although less sizeable than the voluntary component, plays a major role, especially in recent years, where more stringent beauty standards fuel looks-based discrimination.
Originality/value
The contribution of this work is twofold. First, based on contributions from social sciences different from economics, it proposes a novel theoretical framework that explores the effect of discriminatory language on labour productivity. Second, it introduces a novel and direct measure of female discrimination at the country level, based on the bidirectional link between language and culture. The indicator is easily understood by policymakers and may be used to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-discrimination policies.
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Ramy Magdy, Maries Mikhael and Yassmine G. Hussein
This paper aims to analyze the discourse of Arab feminism social media pages as a form of real-time new media. This is to be conducted culturally to understand the Westernized…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the discourse of Arab feminism social media pages as a form of real-time new media. This is to be conducted culturally to understand the Westernized character these pages tend to propagate and the politico-cultural significations of such a propagation.
Design/methodology/approach
Using visual and content analysis the paper analyzes both the written and visual contents of two popular Arab feminist Facebook pages, “Thory” and “Feminist doodles” to explore its culture relevance/Westernization via the categories of “re-employing the binary second wave feminism, the historical relevance and the Westernized tone of both pages.
Findings
The pages showed a tendency toward second wave, Westernized, anti-orient feminism. Such importation of feminism made the pages’ message not only a bit irrelevant but also conceptually violent to a large extent. Starting from alien contexts, the two pages dislocate the Arab women experiences of their situation for the sake of comprehending and adapting to heavily Westernized images.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to the ongoing debate over the gender issue in the Arab context after 2011, what it originally offers is discussing the cultural relevance of popular feminist Facebook pages claiming to represent the everyday struggles of the Arab women. In addition, it shows the impact of real-time media on identity formulation.
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This is exploratory research on the Bruneian sense of motherhood. The pre-socially established religious definition of motherhood is unformulated where; the analysis is located…
Abstract
Purpose
This is exploratory research on the Bruneian sense of motherhood. The pre-socially established religious definition of motherhood is unformulated where; the analysis is located in the inner context of experience. The Western feminist idea defined motherhood as such reality as the “otherness” whereby its common sense justifies sexuality and feminism. The religious significance gives meaning to its spiritual connection, embodying a foundational knowledge of Bruneian proper personhood – being a good, spiritual and respected person. This relates to the importance of the body as an entity of both culture and symbol that has drawn attention to its sociological significance.
Design/methodology/approach
The argument here is how religious experience influences the meaning of motherhood in Brunei Darussalam, which underwent a transformation scheme to empower women. Participants were interviewed, and the transcribed interviews were analysed using the reflexive methodology to find out the natural phenomena of motherhood.
Findings
The findings indicate that the Bruneian sense of motherhood is regulated through natural norms of femininity, an unformulated knowledge of spirituality, religion and the influence of cultural and religious rituals, such as prayers, consuming pure food, concoction and reciting holy verses from the Quran.
Originality/value
This study reveals to codify and extend the sense of religious obedience through generations. Religion rationalises the spiritual experience and provides the basis of obedience towards a proper development of personhood Bruneian. The idea of motherhood itself recreates a role to empower women, which will initiate opportunities for further studies in Brunei context.
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Lyndsay M.C. Hayhurst, Holly Thorpe and Megan Chawansky
While a growing body of literature reveals the prevalence of men's harassment and abuse of women online, scant research has been conducted into women's attacks on each other in…
Abstract
While a growing body of literature reveals the prevalence of men's harassment and abuse of women online, scant research has been conducted into women's attacks on each other in digital networked environments. This chapter responds to this research gap by analyzing data obtained from qualitative interviews with Australian women who have received at times extremely savage cyberhate they know or strongly suspect was sent by other women. Drawing on scholarly literature on historical intra-feminism schisms – specifically what have been dubbed the “mommy wars” and the “sex wars” – this chapter argues that the conceptual lenses of internalized misogyny and lateral violence are useful in their framing of internecine conflict within marginalized groups as diagnostic of broader, systemic oppression rather than being solely the fault of individual actors. These lenses, however, require multiple caveats and have many limitations. In conclusion, I canvas the possibility that the pressure women may feel to present a united front in the interests of feminist politics could itself be considered an outcome of patriarchal oppression (even if performing solidarity is politically expedient and/or essential). As such, there might come a time when openly renouncing discourses of sisterhood and feeling free to disagree with, and even dislike, other women might be considered markers of liberation.
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B. Tyr Fothergill, William Knight, Bernd Carsten Stahl and Inga Ulnicane
This paper aims to critically assess approaches to sex and gender in the Human Brain Project (HBP) as a large information and communication technology (ICT) project case study…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to critically assess approaches to sex and gender in the Human Brain Project (HBP) as a large information and communication technology (ICT) project case study using intersectionality.
Design/methodology/approach
The strategy of the HBP is contextualised within the wider context of the representation of women in ICT, and critically reflected upon from an intersectional standpoint.
Findings
The policy underpinning the approach deployed by the HBP in response to these issues parallels Horizon 2020 wording and emphasises economic outcomes, productivity and value, which aligns with other “equality” initiatives influenced by neoliberalised versions of feminism.
Research limitations/implications
Limitations include focussing on a single case study, the authors being funded as part of the Ethics and Society Subproject of the HBP, and the limited temporal period under consideration.
Social implications
The frameworks underpinning the HBP approach to sex and gender issues present risks with regard to the further entrenchment of present disparities in the ICT sector, may fail to acknowledge systemic inequalities and biases and ignore the importance of intersectionality. Shortcomings of the approach employed by the HBP up to March, 2018 included aspects of each of these risks, and replicated problematic understandings of sex, gender and diversity.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to use an intersectional approach to issues of sex and gender in the context of large-scale ICT research. Its value lies in raising awareness, opening a discursive space and presenting opportunities to consider and reflect upon potential, contextualised intersectional solutions to such issues.
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Cristina Figueroa-Domecq and Mónica Segovia-Perez
This paper aims to present a conceptual model that identifies and relates the different approaches and thematic areas in the research area of tourism and gender.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to present a conceptual model that identifies and relates the different approaches and thematic areas in the research area of tourism and gender.
Design/methodology/approach
The design of the conceptual model is based on a critical review of the literature and the evolution of feminist paradigms and theories.
Findings
The aforementioned theoretical frameworks are the basis for the further development of feminist studies and a gender perspective in the tourism industry research area, including research design, objectives, methodologies, analysis and result’s presentation.
Research limitations/implications
Based on literature review, is theoretical.
Originality/value
Presentation of a conceptual model around the gender perspective in tourism, that leads to the identification of important research opportunities in this area.
This paper offers a critical discussion to contribute to sociological work by emphasizing deconstruction(s) of the markers of gendered and racialized borders and epistemological…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper offers a critical discussion to contribute to sociological work by emphasizing deconstruction(s) of the markers of gendered and racialized borders and epistemological injustice(s) in theory and practice of contemporary global frames of representation and women's intersectional identities and rights. Through a postcolonial, situated feminist approach, the theoretical framework aims to scope and review literature from the South and North.
Design/methodology/approach
The research employs a mixed-methodology of a survey paper and media critical discourse analysis of media monitoring frames of Egyptian women's rights post–Arab spring. The content, layout and imageries produced by representations are assessed to explore whether there are lingering subtle and blatant hints of continued orientalism in knowledge canons.
Findings
The underlying causes for misconceptions and reductionist sociopolitical attitudes may be styled by patriarchal and orientalist imposition and are highly found to be somewhat maintained by persistent Western-centric epistemologies claiming to define or speak for the so-called other. The above-mentioned structures are evidently channelled through languages which essentialize and control women of the South, urging for further research in knowledge canons which calls oppressive frames into question.
Originality/value
More feminist contributions from non-Western gazes are needed to fill gaps in canons of knowledge and deconstruct patriarchal and colonial codes which impose inequalities on women as seen through the survey paper of theoretical representation and media politics.