A Bridge Across the Mediterranean

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elise Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Algerian War ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Marriage And Divorce ◽  
Divorce Laws ◽  
The Future ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The Mediterranean

During the Algerian War, Nafissa Sid Cara came to public prominence in two roles. As a secretary of state, Sid Cara oversaw the reform of Muslim marriage and divorce laws pursued by Charles de Gaulle’s administration as part of its integration campaign to unite France and Algeria. As president of the Mouvement de solidarité féminine, she sought to “emancipate” Algerian women so they could enjoy the rights France offered. Though the politics of the Algerian War circumscribed both roles, Sid Cara’s work with Algerian women did not remain limited by colonial rule. As Algeria approached independence, Sid Cara rearticulated the language of women’s rights as an apolitical and universal good, regardless of the future of the French colonial state, though she—and the language of women’s rights— remained bound to the former metropole.

Women in Somalia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Safia Aidid
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
State Violence ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Somali Women ◽  
Education And Employment ◽  
The Military ◽  
Life Roles

Although Somali women have played a dynamic and important role in the making of Somalia’s history, their histories have been obscured by archival limitations and androcentric scholarship. Women in traditional Somali society—pastoralists, agriculturalists, and urbanites alike—were central to their communities for their reproductive and productive labor. They embodied social capital, as the practice of exogamous marriage that brought them to other communities also created important reciprocal relations between different kinship groups. Although a deeply patriarchal culture defined their life roles primarily as wives and mothers, Somali women used that very culture and the indigenous resources available to them to exercise agency, negotiate their positions, and carve out their own spaces. The advent of colonial rule, which partitioned the Somali peninsula between Britain, France, Italy, and the Ethiopian empire, drastically altered women’s lives. It fused traditional patriarchal relations with European ones, codified tradition and flexible communal identities, treated women as dependents of their male relatives, and created opportunities for men in education and employment that were not available to women. Though Somali women were at the forefront of the anticolonial struggle, the male elite who inherited the state after independence excluded women from the political sphere. Women’s rights took on a prominent role in the military dictatorship of General Mohamed Siad Barre, yet the repression and state violence that characterized his rule affected women acutely. The civil war that followed the disintegration of the Somali state has similarly affected women intimately. In addition to the gendered experience of violence, the increasingly conservative nature of Somali society has resulted in the loss of many gains made for women’s rights after independence. From precolonial society to colonial rule, dictatorship, and civil war, Somali women have exhibited the resilience, agency, and fortitude to make the most of their circumstances.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 187-194
Author(s):  
Christina Elizabeth Firpo
Keyword(s):  
Informal Economy ◽  
Sex Workers ◽  
Black Market ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Unintended Effects ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Vietnamese Women ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The Government

This chapter concludes that Tonkin's flourishing black market for sex during the interwar years owed its success in large part to French colonial rule. Colonial rule gave rise to sites of tension — economic disparity, an urban–rural divide, an uneven distribution of colonial law, and cultural shifts — and it was within them that the black market thrived. The colonial state's blind spots allowed this market to flourish. For one thing, colonial officials miscalculated the unintended effects of their strictly regulated “tolerance” system. In marginalizing certain colonized populations — in this case impoverished Vietnamese women — the French colonial state lost much of its ability to monitor and control them. Despite numerous regulations and ordinances, as well as exhaustive policing efforts, sex workers easily sidestepped the reach of the government and found ways to make money in an informal economy. The chapter also states that the stories of the women and girls in this book reveal a close relationship between choice and coercion. Taken individually, it is tempting to reduce these people's experiences to a binary of either agency or victimhood. But placing their stories within the context of larger historical trends such as mass poverty, migration, and cultural change reveals that this binary is misleading.

Future Fear: Prenatal Duties Imposed By Private Parties

1991 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-434
Author(s):  
Renee I. Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Pregnant Women ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Abortion Debate ◽  
The Future ◽  
Criminal Charges ◽  
Fetal Rights ◽  
Legal Right

AbstractThe national abortion debate, rising drug use and homelessness, and the return to conservatism intersect in the trend which increasingly recognizes fetal rights, often at the expense of women's rights. Pregnant women, as never before, are faced with criminal charges and physical invasions in the name of protection of fetuses. This Note examines the sociological forces creating these situations and suggests better solutions. The Note cautions against the future fear that private parties will claim a legal right to interfere with a pregnant woman's behavior, and illustrates the need to prevent it.

Livestock mobility and the territorial state: South-Western Niger (1890–1920)

Africa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 87 (3) ◽  
pp. 578-606 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew D. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Early Period ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
Resource Base ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Territorial State ◽  
Sufficient Power ◽  
British Colony ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Herd Mobility

AbstractColonial rule in West Africa initiated the incorporation of mobile people, particularly pastoralists, into Western territorial states. This article reports on the early period of French colonial rule of the area that is now South-Western Niger – a strategically important area with respect to territorial competition among the French colonies of Dahomey and Soudan (later the colonies of Senegambia and Niger) as well as the British colony of Nigeria. Building from the study of contemporary patterns of livestock mobility and their logics, archival and secondary literatures are used to develop an understanding of dominant herd mobility patterns at the time (transhumance for grazing and trekking to distant markets); the importance of livestock as a source of tax revenue; colonial anxieties about the loss of livestock from within their borders; and efforts of colonial administrators to reduce the potential loss of livestock from their territories. This case illustrates the limitations of the territorial state model where the state lacks sufficient power over mobile subjects utilizing a sparse and fluctuating resource base. The actions of French administrators and Fulɓe pastoralists worked as a form of ‘hands-off’ negotiation, with each group monitoring and reacting to the actions of the other. Due to the limitations of colonial state control, the existence of boundaries elicited greater monitoring of livestock movements by colonial administrators but also increased the leverage held by mobile pastoralists as the French sought to increase the attractiveness of their territory to the principal managers of its wealth (livestock). The proximity of borders to the study area complicated the task of French colonial administrators, who necessarily became increasingly focused on monitoring the movements of their subjects (labour and capital) to avoid their possible escape as they moved within the borderlands of what is now South-Western Niger. The limits of colonial power to monitor and control these movements led administrators to initiate policies favouring pastoralists.

scholarly journals Women’s Rights in Tunisia and the Democratic Renegotiation of an Authoritarian Legacy

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maaike Voorhoeve
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
The Political ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Dynamics ◽  
The Future ◽  
Legislative Outcomes

Since the 2011 revolution, Tunisia has been negotiating what it is to become, a processof rebirth in which women’s rights is key. The ongoing debates reflect a confrontation betweenthe feminist policies of Habib Bourguiba (the first president of the Tunisian republic) andalternative notions of women’s rights. In this article, I examine the debates that are currentlytaking place in Tunisia. I argue that the topic of women’s rights is crucial in the power strugglebetween the political elites within Tunisia. It is symbolic of the much wider battle over the future of the country. Moreover, the legislative outcomes of the debates are indicative for the postrevolutionary political dynamics, showing the strength of so-called secularists.

scholarly journals Elimination of Gender Equality in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-66
Author(s):  
Beatrix Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Women's Rights ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Political ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
Variable Boundary ◽  
The Future

This paper explores the elimination of equality in The Handmaid’s Tale in four areas, called the “4Ds”: distinction, dependence, division and dominance. Distinction is a biological point of view in which the Handmaids’ fertility becomes the foundation of their victimization. Dependence analyzes turning fertility into their obligation, integrating Foucault’s “socialization of procreative behavior,” leading to dependence on men. Division entails the physical division of Gilead into subgroups – Handmaids, Wives, etc. – along with the mental division created by distrust among people, harnessed to forestall rebellion. The last area, Dominance, connects the previous areas. Judith Butler’s idea that “the body is a variable boundary,” shows that the political power over the Handmaids’ bodies equals dominance over society and the future, too. The article ends with the conclusion that destruction of women’s rights eventually erases the notion of “woman.”

A Set of Prayer Outfits as a Mahar? Discrimination against Women in the ʻUrf Reality of the Archipelago’s Fiqh

Al-Risalah ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 17
Author(s):  
Endri Yenti ◽  
Busyro Busyro ◽  
Ismail Ismail ◽  
Edi Rosman ◽  
Fajrul Wadi
Keyword(s):  
Women's Rights ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
The Future

Provisions of mahar (dowry) in Islam practiced by the Prophet Muhammad and his companions are substantially used as a standard of giving dowry in a marriage. Mahar provided by the Prophet as well as those by his companions had a high economic value; unless they were fortuneless. However, what has been practiced by many recently does not reflect the deed of the Prophet Muhammad. Nowadays, people tend to provide a set of prayer outfit as a mahar, an item which could not support a family financially. Even if some people do provide high-priced mahar, yet much of it is used before akad (the marriage vow) to finance a wedding reception, rather than handing out the money directly to the wife. This article aims at evaluating this tradition, since it discriminates against women’s privilege of mahar. From the findings of the research, it is concluded that traditions; giving a set of prayer outfit to women, or using mahar as a payment for a wedding reception discriminate against women’s rights because the essence of mahar is to economically support or help the wife in the future. According to the provisions of ʻurf, this tradition does not fit in the Islamic law and is not legitimate to be incorporated into the Archipelago’s fiqh. 

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