Fathers' rights, women's losses

Recent international moves to defend the family, protect and enhance the rights of men. For example, state proposals to redefine illegitimacy extend men's rights in marriage to unmarried men. Women are losing the choice to bring up children on our own, or together, without men.The position of men in the family is not based upon equality with women. Fatherhood is not the equivalent of motherhood, nor the support for it. The particular right of fatherhood is the right of men to take up a social position of authority over women and children. This is not an interchangeable position, for fatherhood is accrued solely to men. Social policies which encourage the presence of men in all families, and support the ‘role’ of father, perpetuate sexual inequality and discrimination against women.     

Pregnancy dismissals and theWebb litigation

Conclusion It is generally accepted that women have the right to participate in the workplace, although only if replicating the traditional male mode of working. To this extent, the right to formal equality with men is generally agreed to be a legitimate goal for legislation. However, where the limitations of such assimilation to a male norm come into sharp focus, as they do in the context of pregnancy, the restrictions placed on improving the position of women are evident. The courts seek to accept the arguments of employers that some limitation on the rights of women to participate fully in the workplace is necessary, with the unarticulated assumption that pregnancy constitutes a real difference between the sexes, incompatible with their notion of (formal) equality. Thus, it is argued, that the advances so far gained in the relation to pregnancy dismissals do not represent a cultural shift in attitudes towards accommodating pregnant women and women with children into the workplace. They have been adopted only reluctantly by the UK courts and legislature, with limitations still being placed on their effect particularly in respect of dismissals on account of pregnancy-related illness. The rights of women not to be discriminated against solely on the basis of their biological ability to give birth must continue to be advocated and given attention; complacency will likely see those rights progressively restricted.     

高校女教师劳动权的法律保障研究

我国现在已经建立了以宪法、劳动法和妇女权益保障法为核心的比较完整的对妇女劳动权进行保护法律法规体系,但对高校女教师这一社会群体来说,还是存在着女教师与男教师不同龄退休、职业性别隔离、男女劳动待遇不平等等侵害劳动权的行为。产生这些问题,既有意识上的原因,也有立法不完善、执法不力等原因。可以从加大男女劳动权利平等内容和意识的宣传和教育、完善相关的立法,以及加强执法等方面来保障高校女教师的劳动权。     

Restricted to Half the Sky: Unwanted Girls,Battered Wives and Inglorious Women

The proverb ‘women hold up half the sky’ was created by the Maoist government 64 years ago in order to show that women in ‘New China’ have equal power and rights to their male peers. I selected three photographs for my FLaK zine and called them ‘unwanted girls’, ‘battered wives’ and ‘inglorious women’. To examine the relevance of the proverb in Modern China, I will discuss three women-related problems behind these photographs and analyse their cultural and legal causes. By doing so, I aim to achieve two purposes—first, to help the reader have a better understanding of the problems of women in the region where one-fifth of the global population lives, and second, to argue that seemingly gender neutral law and policy can produce new and greater restrictions on women’s freedom.     

‘The perfect equality of all persons before the law’: the Personal Rights Association and the discourse of civil rights in Britain, 1871–1885

The Personal Rights Association was established in 1871 to watch, restrain and influence legislation ‘in matters affecting the personal rights and liberties of the people’. Though initially its remit was to scrutinise legislation for terms that would be prejudicial to women, this soon extended to criticism of increasing incursions into male freedom. The PRA's membership, which comprised both sexes, included a cohort of male parliamentarians and intellectuals who took their commitment to civil liberties into the heart of government. Classified by one critic as ‘fussy busy-bodies [and] fourth-rate politicians’, this article reveals a ‘feminisation’ of these elite men hardly considered in the rhetoric of the middle-class radical.     

Gender, familism and housing: matrimonial property rights in Ireland

This article explores the gender structure of housing rights, and specifically matrimonial property law, in the Republic of Ireland as a basis for examining the means by which women gain access to and control over economic resources, or capital. Taking the Family Home Protection Act (1976) and the ill-fated Matrimonial Home Bill (1993) as examples of legislation to strengthen women's matrimonial property rights, it is argued that these have been formulated using gendered, familist, categories of reform. The State's attempts to strengthen women's entitlements have been mediated by its constitutional commitment to maintain a preference for the marital family as well as its failure to recognise the economic value of women's unpaid domestic work. This article argues that in this context, the Irish State's strategy of gender equality, which is based on the equitable treatment of different household types, is divisive, ineffective. and inequitable.     

Citizens of their World: Australian Feminism and Indigenous Rights in the International Context, 1920s and 1930s

Inter-war Australia saw the emergence of a feminist campaign for indigenous rights. Led by women activists who were members of various key Australian women's organizations affiliated with the British Commonwealth League, this campaign proposed a revitalized White Australia as a progressive force towards improving ‘world’ race relations. Drawing upon League of Nations conventions and the increasing role for the Dominions within the British Commonwealth, these women claimed to speak on behalf of Australian Aborigines in asserting their right to reparation as a usurped people and the need to overhaul government policy. Opposing inter-war policies of biological assimilation, they argued for a humane national Aboriginal policy including citizenship and rights in the person. Where white men had failed in their duty towards indigenous peoples, world women might bring about a new era of civilized relations between the races.     

Family law,family law politics and family politics

The analysis of state institutions where the state is geared towards the patriarchal family shows that it aims—in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany, at least—at abandoning women to a civic freedom where they lack protection and real rights. Women are ‘emancipated’ in the true sense of the word by the liberalisation of divorce laws, which is accompanied by drastically reducing maintenance claims of divorced women.This development which—at first glance—seems to be in men's interests only, at the same time assists in the development of conditions where women, historically placed in the position of object, can gain the position of subject and lead a fight for equal changes in a society that guarantees to them (though only on paper) legal equality. These conditions will make women fight to gain effective equality.Every effort is made through family politics and the application of patriarchal family ideology to force women to retire rather than fight. However, all these legal and ideological efforts will finally be in vain, because a family ideology that pretends protection and security, while the law systematically cuts down this protection, cannot be sufficiently strong to fool the female half of the population.     

Women's power in heterosexual sex

The ‘male sexual drive’ discourse sees men as sexually insatiable and male sexuality as naturally an uncontrollable drive. Feminist analysis denies its ‘naturalness’ and its constitution as a ‘drive’, seeing it instead in terms of the power conferred on men in patriarchy. However, seeing the penis/male power as monolithic still ends up casting women as victims. Instead this paper looks at actual heterosexual relationships and examines ‘power’ as a more complex process of negotiation. Heterosexual women often fail to recognize that men need relationships; and that women have sources of power in relationships with them; and the paper argues that this occurs through gender-differentiated positions in discourses such as the ‘have/hold’ discourse as well as the ‘male sexual drive’ discourse.     

Controlling land they call their own: access and women's empowerment in Northern Tanzania

Formal rights to land are often promoted as an essential part of empowering women, particularly in the Global South. We look at two grassroots non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working on land rights and empowerment with Maasai communities in Northern Tanzania. Women involved with both NGOS attest to the power of land ownership for personal empowerment and transformations in gender relations. Yet very few have obtained land ownership titles. Drawing from Ribot and Peluso's theory of access, we argue that more than ownership rights to land, access – to land, knowledge, social relations and political processes – is leading to empowerment for these women, as well as helping to keep land within communities. We illustrate how the following are key to both empowerment processes and protecting community and women's land: (1) access to knowledge about legal rights, such as the right to own land; (2) access to customary forms of authority; and (3) access to a joint social identity – as women, as ‘indigenous people’ and as ‘Maasai'. Through this shared identity and access to knowledge and authority, women are strengthening their access to social relations (amongst themselves, with powerful political players and NGOs), and gaining strength through collective action to protect land rights.     

The art of being “just right”: Language and gender—still a matter of power

In Norway the pioneering era in many ways is over with women in top politics and other important positions. After 25 years of explicit work towards equal opportunities for women and men, Norwegian society today seems to be characterized by “a declared equality”. Modern femininity and masculinity in a society where male dominance is illegitimate seem to be characterized by a common project: to hide the fact that men still dominate women. Women are socialized to communicate in specific ways and to choose conversational roles in interaction with men that contribute to concealing their subordinate position. This pattern may be described as the art of being “just right”.     

Two Mothers in Law and Fact

What is the proper balance between legislative and judicial innovation and between formal and functional family recognition once legislatures have addressed gay men’s and lesbians’ families? In the civil-law jurisdiction of Quebec, legislative reforms allow two women to register as a child’s mothers. But judges have recognized a second mother ‘in fact’ by orders sharing custody where the parties had not used the new legislative channels. Such judicial creativity is reconcilable with the civil law and comparative scholars should flag it as a valuable resource. But it risks undermining legislative choices about family recognition. Perhaps the option to give a child a second mother includes the choice for a lesbian birth mother not to do so. Once two women become thinkable as spouses and mothers, judges risk inappropriately pressing a rich range of queer kinship possibilities into standard models.     

When rights collide: land grabbing,force and injustice in Uganda

The realisation of rights and enforcement of correlative duties through practice and politics legitimate the use of force against some, to protect and fulfil the rights of others. When a conflict occurs, whose rights and which rights should take priority require clarification. Land grabs represent a conflict not just between use and exchange values but also potentially between different types of rights – such as property rights and the right to the means of subsistence. In such cases, it seems that the dictum ‘between equal rights force decides’ seems to be particularly applicable. This paper explores recent experiences of displaced people in the Karamoja and Teso regions of North Eastern Uganda in order to examine this phenomenon. A socially inclusive and just epistemic perspective requires that we extend our gaze to take account of the local political dynamics and impacts on, and voices of, people who have been displaced and how their basic rights have been affected – ‘putting the last first’. The analysis suggests that the transition to formalised property regimes based on liberal conceptions of ‘rights’ represents a case where the language of rights is usurped to serve the interests of the powerful and privileged rather than challenging social injustice.     

Challenging Unequal Gendered Conventions in Heterosexual Relationship Contexts through Affective Dissonance

ABSTRACT

In Nordic countries, intimate relationships are routinely compared against ideals of gender equality, even though equality is not always achieved in everyday life. In this article, we analyse interviews with women that lived in unconventional relationships: mid- to later-life women in relationships with younger men, and bisexual women who have had relationships with people of different genders. The women’s expectations of equality and reciprocity in heterosexual relationships collided with the lived reality of inequalities, causing affective dissonance. We identify three strategies that women use to deal with this affective dissonance. In the first strategy, unequal relationship patterns are rejected and displaced onto other people’s relationships. In the second strategy, interviewees legitimize the unequal situations in their own relationship by utilizing culturally available interpretative frameworks that circulate notions about gender and couple relationships. Both strategies provide a means for dealing with the unpleasant affective dissonance, but they make it difficult to demand change in the relationship. In the third strategy, the annoyance and hurt caused by inequality are not explained away. Confronting affective dissonance has politicizing potential: it allows women to actively challenge the inequalities in their relationships.     

Case note: Same-sex Marriage in South Africa –the constitutional Court's Judgment

Late last year the Constitutional Court of South Africa decided that the exclusion of same-sex couples from the common law definition of marriage and the statutory marriage formula was unconstitutional as it violated the rights of such couples to equality. The Court suspended the declaration of invalidity for one year to allow Parliament to enact new legislation to correct the defects, failing which certain words would be read into the legislation to accommodate same-sex marriage. A single judge dissented on the issue of remedy, finding that the Court should have developed the common law to include same-sex couples within the definition of marriage and read the necessary wording into the legislation with immediate effect. The decision is the culmination of a legal struggle by gays and lesbians for recognition of their relationships and the protection of their rights. While the scope of the right to marry may have been extended, the rights of domestic partners lag behind, often to the detriment of women in these relationships.     

Governing Legal Embodiment: On the Limits of Self-Declaration

This article presents the first empirically-based and theoretically-informed investigation of the effectiveness of the ‘self-declaration model’ of legal gender recognition in Denmark, the first European state to adopt it. Drawing upon analysis of legislative materials, as well as interviews with stakeholders in the legislative process and trans and intersex legal subjects, it contends that self-declaration is not without its limitations. By conceptualising embodiment as an ontological and epistemological process of becoming, and emphasising the institutional dimensions and effects of such processes, it demonstrates that self-declaration may not address the complexities of legal embodiment, particularly concerning restrictions on trans and intersex people’s access to health care. The article’s empirical findings are directed towards the policymakers and activists tasked with shaping reforms of gender recognition legislation in the UK and elsewhere. The analytical agenda it develops may be adopted, and adapted, by scholars working in this area and other regulatory contexts.     

Marriage law revision—Occasion for hope?

Switzerland, which is not only internationally known for having first adopted women's suffrage in 1971, but also has difficulties in establishing equality of the sexes in the most diverse social domains and hobbles behind comparable foreign nations in this respect, is about to enact the marriage law revision introduced some time ago. The fundamental goal of the new law is to abolish the prevailing legal determination of the ‘housewife marriage’ with all its discriminatory consequences for women, and to dispense with the gender-fixed assignment of roles and tasks in marriage.Aside from presenting a legal explanation of the current and future marriage law, this article will briefly deal with the role-image of Swiss women and their reality. It will thereby become apparent that while the image of the ‘non-working’ housewife and mother portrayed in the current marriage law holds true for only a relatively small segment of Swiss women, all Swiss women are confronted with this role assignment and consequently are placed at a disadvantage.A critical assessment of the new marriage law's most important regulations underscores how essential it is to consider the interdependence of the various areas of law in order to achieve a true social equalization of men and women. The marriage law can merely do its share.     

Theorizing the Politics of ‘Islamic Feminism’

This article examines developments in ‘Islamic feminism’, and offers a critique of feminist theories, which construct it as an authentic and indigenous emancipatory alternative to secular feminisms. Focusing on Iranian theocracy, I argue that the Islamization of gender relations has created an oppressive patriarchy that cannot be replaced through legal reforms. While many women in Iran resist this religious and patriarchal regime, and an increasing number of Iranian intellectuals and activists, including Islamists, call for the separation of state and religion, feminists of a cultural relativist and postmodernist persuasion do not acknowledge the failure of the Islamic project. I argue that western feminist theory, in spite of its advances, is in a state of crisis since (a) it is challenged by the continuation of patriarchal domination in the West in the wake of legal equality between genders, (b) suspicious of the universality of patriarchy, it overlooks oppressive gender relations in non-western societies and (c) rejecting Eurocentrism and racism, it endorses the fragmentation of women of the world into religious, national, ethnic, racial and cultural entities with particularist agendas.     

Beyond suffrage: the role of Cuban women in the state-building years of a failed democracy (1940–1952)

During the first third of the twentieth century, several women joined associations to promote legal reforms. Between 1917 and 1934, the Cuban Parliament passed laws regarding women’s legal status, therefore challenging the traditional relations between state, Church and family inherited from the colonial period. Although the Constitution of 1940 incorporated these measures, Cuban women barely took part in state institutions, but their increasing presence in public affairs marked a turning point in their social status. A few women were appointed as Cuban representatives to international organizations, and political parties set up female auxiliaries. Moreover, several women’s associations worked for peace, demanded improvements in the healthcare system, took action towards enhancing education in rural areas and pushed for effective reform of the Civic Code in order to provide equal rights for men and women. African-Cuban women’s participation in these organizations was limited due to discrimination and they in turn set up their own organizations.     

Young women’s negotiations of gender,the body and the labour market in a post-feminist context

This article explores the ways the body and femininity is understood and negotiated in relation to employment. This article draws on interview data from an Australian study which aimed to explore what it meant to be a ‘young woman’ in neoliberal late modernity, and in relation to the paradoxes of post-feminism. Though there has been an unprecedented rise in youth post-secondary school participation in Australia and elsewhere, girls’ and young women’s increased investment and participation in education has not provided the same gains as for their male counterparts. All interview participants described being aware of gender inequalities and gender discrimination in the workplace, including the glass ceiling, the gender pay gap, and demands and pressures on women to balance career and motherhood, however many did not associate these issues with ‘feminism’. We explore the dynamics of notions of equality, difference and the body in participants’ discussions of work and their anticipation of motherhood and the logics by which gender inequalities are sustained.