Assessing the impact of women's movements

Assessing impact of social movements in general is difficult, raising questions about impact on ‘what’ (laws, policy outcomes, culture, people's lives?) and causality (is the social movement the decisive factor in change?). To assess impact, the FEMCIT project on bodily citizenship chose to focus on new public discourses constructed by the new feminist movements over the past decades. Discourses have material effects on institutions, rules, the allocation of goods and values and the formation of new identities. Focusing on two ‘body’ issues, abortion and prostitution, the project analysed how these movements contested the state and the dominant discourses on these issues in four countries: the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden. Feminist groups generally framed abortion in terms of self-determination and autonomy and made a crucial difference to abortion discourse and law. On prostitution feminist groups developed competing discourses about sex work or sexual oppression and were able to affect policy discourses and law in three of the four countries.     

The rise of Femi‐Nazis? Female participation in right‐extremist movements in unified Germany

German feminist scholars have recently come to argue that female involvement in right‐extremist causes is grounded in gender‐specific motives. They have also begun to uncover a troubling link between new patterns of female political engagement (ranging from electoral mobilisation to violent streetfighting) and their own efforts to promote an independent women's consciousness since the 1960s. This article develops a typology of New Right women, characterised here as Femi‐Nazis, evincing different levels of sympathy for, identification with, and participation in radical and extremist movements. It then explores five issue orientations distinguishing New Right women of the 1990s from the Old and New Right men of the 1940s and 1990s, suggesting that these women have developed an independent, self‐assertive political consciousness without internalising feminism's broader aims of diversity and inclusion. The article concludes with reflections on the interplay of ‘feminist’ consciousness and ultra‐nationalist qua xenophobic attitudes, and on the dilemmas Femi‐Nazi thinking poses for feminist identity in united Germany.     

More on health care paradoxes

Federal and state government efforts to improve the nation's health focus particular attention on the necessity of increasing the numbers of physicians. Yet, evidence from several studies suggest weak linkages between health and the number of physicians. The present study surveys civilian health and the number of physicians during the period of national mobilization in the U.S. in the 1940's. This period, where low physician/population ratios prevailed for several years, is unique in recent history and provides a useful reference for current health policy. Reduced numbers of physicians are shown to have had a measurable negative impact on civilian health over the period.The author would like to express gratitude to the Brookings Institution for support and to a referee for helpful suggestions.     

Educating a New Generation: The Model of the “Genocide and Human Rights University Program”

This paper examines the design and teaching of "Genocide and Human Rights," an innovative, higher education course introduced in 2002 to provide training for a new generation of scholars and teachers. The course was developed and funded by a small non-profit organization, the Zoryan Institute, in Toronto, Canada. One purpose of the course is to teach about the Armenian genocide within a comparative genocide and human rights framework. Another goal is to fill a gap in the curriculum in response to increased student interest and research in genocide and human rights. The course serves as a valuable pedagogical model including its comparative framework, teaching by invited specialists, adjusting the curriculum to reflect student interest and new scholarship, and setting up and maintaining formal and informal scholarly networks. Features of critical pedagogy include classroom dialogue and critique and respect for differences in background and opinion. For example, interactions between students of Turkish and Armenian background provide an opportunity to explore issues of stereotypes, memory, denial and reconciliation. The course provides training for a new generation in research, publications, teaching and advocacy in fields related to genocide and human rights.