promoting freedom from poverty: political mobilization and the role of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union

Contemporary social policy toward low-income women in the United States, as evidenced both by Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) and by the AFDC programme that preceded it, is in part an artefact of long-standing conceptions of the nature of citizenship. This view sees citizenship as resting primarily on civil and political rights, not on rights with respect to economic, social, and cultural matters. Drawing on scholarly literature on the development of international human rights regimes, the feminist literature that analyses social policy both comparatively and in terms of US domestic policy, and literature regarding contemporary movements among low-income persons, this paper analyses the efforts of one organization, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), to challenge US policy via international human rights law and international enforcement mechanisms. We will suggest that, despite some of the flaws of the KWRU, their approach is a promising one for low-income women. In particular, we wish to suggest that a broader conception of citizenship that takes into account economic, cultural, and social rights is necessary to create a more equitable and democratic polity for women.     

‘In the case of a woman’ or ‘the headache’: married women’s nationality and Canada’s Citizenship Act at home and Europe, 1946–50

In addition to making Canadian nationality independent of British subjecthood, the 1946 Canadian Citizenship Act made women’s nationality independent of marriage, but did not repatriate women who married aliens before 1 January 1947, when the act became law. This article examines the lobby to repatriate the women, most of them married to European allied soldiers and living in Canada or Europe, and wider contexts involved. Scrutinizing the citizenship claims made by and for ‘ordinary’ but racially privileged white women in a dominion that was both a receiving nation on the cusp of renewed immigration and a neo-colonial state vis-a-vis Indigenous peoples, it acknowledges the woman’s heartfelt sentiments and assesses the lobby against the continuing disabilities imposed on status-Indian women who ‘married out.’ The delayed reform of 1950, which fell short of automatic repatriation, and the absence of feminists from a lobby related to a long-identified feminist issue, are also addressed, as are topics in need of further research.     

‘Just Surviving’: domestic work as a form of structural violence in Sistren Theatre Collective's Domestick

This article discusses Sistren Theatre Collective's play Domestick, performed at the Barn Theatre, Kingston, Jamaica in 1981 for local audiences and then in Canada for groups of domestic workers from the Caribbean, the Philippines, Europe and the UK. The play was also performed in Grenada and St Vincent when Sistren toured those islands in 1982. It is argued that Sistren's play is still relevant to contemporary debates on domestic work and the contemporary struggles of Jamaican domestic workers as it demonstrates that paid ‘housekeeping’ is a form of structural violence against women.     

Citizens on the Shop Floor: Negotiating Class,Citizenship and National Identity in a Turkish State Factory

ABSTRACT

This paper examines discourses on citizenship and nation at shop floor level through Bak?rköy Cloth Factory – a state-owned factory in Istanbul, Turkey. Founded as a private enterprise in 1850, Bak?rköy became the State Industrial Office’s property in 1932 and of Sümerbank, the young Turkish state’s bank and industrial holding company in charge of textile production in 1933. Having survived such a drastic regime change, the factory’s first two decades under Sümerbank were shaped by the ruling classes’ zealous and simultaneous efforts of nation-building and industrialization. In the ruling classes’ popular projection, the alleged conversion of an unproductive industrial relic of the imperial past into an example of Republican hard work and patriotism provided opportunities for workers to repay their debt to the nation and its forefathers. In the context of the displacement and mediation of class conflict via nationalist discourses, this study explores how this industrial national space became the site of discursive struggles on national belonging and citizenship. Material from parliamentary debates and media coverage is linked with workers’ files to offer a micro-historical perspective on the interactions between class and nation.     

Fighting for the ‘Privileges of Citizenship’: the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), feminism and the women's movement, 1928–1945

In 1928 the YWCA welcomed the introduction of the universal suffrage by declaring that women in Britain were now entitled to the full political privileges of citizenship. This article will explore the way in which the YWCA, previously omitted from histories of the British women's movement, sought to educate and inform its members about the rights and duties of democratic citizenship. The involvement of the YWCA in citizenship education and its role in campaigning for the citizenship rights of women will be assessed, with a particular focus on workers’ rights and the appointment of women police. Despite its reluctance to be identified as overtly feminist, the YWCA was determined to ensure that women had access to social and economic rights within a democratic society. The article therefore argues that a new definition of the women's movement is required in order to uncover the full extent of female engagement in politics and public debate in the aftermath of the suffrage.     

Enabling Citizenship: Gender,disability and citizenship in Australia

This paper queries the absence of disabled voices in contemporary citizenship literature. It argues that the language and imagery of the citizen is imbued with hegemonic normalcy and as such excludes disability. Feminist perspectives, such as those which argue for a form of maternal citizenship, largely fail to acknowledge disability experiences. Exclusionary practices are charted and links are made between gender, race and disability in this process. A citizenship which acknowledges disability is fundamental to re-imaging local, national and international collectivities.     

gender,migration and the ambiguous enterprise of professionalizing domestic service: the case of vocational training for the unemployed in France

This article aims to contribute to current debates about international migration and the restructuring of the Welfare state in Europe, by highlighting the specificities of the French context. It draws on ethnographic research about the training of unemployed migrant women as domestic workers in Paris to address the ambiguities that underlie the enterprise of professionalizing domestic service. The qualitative data presented in the article show how essentialist ideologies operate within training practices of domestic workers. They reveal that the training practices challenge the association of the job with domesticity, but fail to acknowledge the racist organization of domestic service. Hence, they endorse essentialist constructions of cultural difference. Training practices are also consistent with current neoliberal policies and discourses on unemployment and ‘employability’, as they are framed by the normative reference to an entrepreneurial model of society. Finally, the data suggest that migrant women's experience of domestic service as a prospective job and their scepticism about the enterprise of professionalizing radically differ from the instructors’ views.     

Public and Private Citizenship: From Gender Invisibility to Feminist Inclusiveness

Conceptions of citizenship which rest on an abstract and universal notion of the individual founder on their inability to recognize the political relevance of gender. Such conceptions, because their ‘gender-neutrality’ has the effect of excluding women, are not helpful to the project of promoting the full citizenship of women.The question of citizenship is often reduced to either political citizenship, in terms of an instrumental notion of political participation, or social citizenship, in terms of an instrumental notion of economic (in)dependence. The paper argues for the recognition of citizenship as gendered, and as an ethical, that is non-instrumental, social status which is distinct from both political participation and economic (in)dependence. What unites us as citizens, in our equal membership of the political community, need not rely on a conception of us as ‘neutral’ (abstract, universalized, genderless) individuals undertaking one specific activity located in the public realm, but can take account of the diverse ways in which we engage in ethically-grounded activities on the basis of our different genders, ethnic and cultural backgrounds and other differences, in both the public and private realms.A convincing feminist conception of citizenship necessarily involves a radical redefinition of the public/private distinction to accommodate the recognition of citizenship practices in the private realm. The paper builds on the observation that the concept of ‘citizenship’ is broader than the concept of ‘the political’ (or ‘the social/economic’), and contends that feminism provides us with the emancipatory potential of gendered subjectivity, which applies to both men and women. The recognition of gendered subjectivity opens the way to the recognition of the diversity of citizenship practices.It is not that women need to be liberated from the private realm, in order to take part in the public realm as equal citizens, but that women – and men – already undertake responsibilities of citizenship in both the public and the private realms.     

Narratives of Irishness and the problem of abortion: the X case 1992.

This article explores the ramifications of the 1992 "X Case" in which an Irish High Court rescinded the constitutional right to travel of a 14-year-old rape victim who intended to obtain an abortion in England. The article opens by noting that this decision made the subordinate role of women in Ireland painfully visible, thus allowing Irish feminists to win a degree of national and international support. The article examines newspaper coverage of the injunction to consider how this abortion issue reconstituted discourses of women's status, sexuality, and national identity in Ireland. The article provides background information on women's role in Ireland, relegated by the Constitution to the domestic sphere, and reviews the origins of the 1983 "pro-life" Constitutional amendment. Next the article considers how the discourse surrounding the child's rape and resulting pregnancy submerged the autonomy of the child in the victimhood of her family. The article continues by looking at the internal and international denouncement of the Irish state for its action and the responding Irish construct of a civilized "us" versus a barbaric "other." This was countered by appeals to "the people's" will and reinterpretations of the 1983 amendment to justify a more pragmatic approach to public policy about rape that would de-emphasize the moral status of the fetus. After showing how feminist protest extended the questions raised to embrace the issue of national identity and women's citizenship rights, the article concludes that the battle for female reproductive and sexual hegemony in Ireland continues.     

Women as Active Citizens: Glasgow and Edinburgh c.1918–1939

This article examines evidence of active political engagement by women in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the inter-war years of the twentieth century. While discussing the wider context of women's political activities in this period, in terms of party politics and the range of women's organisations in existence, it focuses in particular on Women Citizens’ Associations, Societies for Equal Citizenship and Co-operative Women's Guild branches. Comparing interventions by such women's organisations in the two cities around the selected themes of political representation, housing, ‘moral and social hygiene’, and contraception, the article demonstrates that women's organisations participated in public debates and campaigns to advance what they perceived as women's interests. Temporary alliances around issues such as the regulation of prostitution and provision of contraceptive advice brought together a range of women's organisations, but class differences in perspectives became increasingly apparent in this period, particularly in Glasgow. The issues addressed by women's organisations covered the spectrum of ‘equal rights’ and ‘welfare feminism’, although they did not necessarily identify as feminist. Common to all organisations, however, was a commitment to active citizenship, with women becoming a recognised part of local political networks in this period, although they remained poorly represented in parliament.     

The Conflicting Interests of Women's Organizations and the League of Nations on the Question of Married Women's Nationality in the 1930s

This article investigates the question of legal equality in citizenship and nationality in the inter-war years. The first conference for the codification of international law was hosted by the League of Nations in The Hague in 1930. One of the topics of the conference was married women's nationality, and international women's organizations did everything in their power to persuade the conference that married women deserved to be treated equally to non-married women and to men. Women lobbied the League, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. The study highlights the conflicting aims of a movement struggling for social and political change and the official aims of an international organization. Whereas previous research has focused on the actions of the women's organizations, this article directs its interest towards the interaction between the League of Nations and the women's organizations. In questions regarding women's rights and claims for equality the League of Nations adapted an overly cautious, even conservative, position. However, the article shows that the international discourse provided arguments and documents useful in national struggles. This will be illustrated by the debate on independent nationality in the Swedish feminist press.     

‘period problems’ at the coalface

Menstruation leave for women workers brings into the public domain of mining ongoing debates around protective legislation for women. It brings into focus the presumed tensions between gender equity and gender difference with regard to women's economic citizenship. Large-scale mining in East Kalimantan in Indonesia has offered some opportunities to poor and unskilled rural women to find formal jobs in the mines as truck and heavy equipment operators. This paper presents a case study of women in mining occupations, considers the implications of current menstruation leave provisions on the employment of women in the mines and raises serious issues related to gender equity in the workplace. The involvement of women in a non-conventional workplace such as the mine pits, providing a novel site for contestation over the rights of women workers, illuminates a less-debated area in feminist studies, especially in view of the significant ongoing changes in the Indonesian framework for industrial relations.     

At your service madam! the globalization of domestic service

This article deals with the question of new domestic servants. It sets out to describe a ‘new’ phenomenon manifesting itself all over Europe, that is the comeback of domestic workers and carers for children and the elderly in many households. It then proceeds to explain the establishment of an informal labour market in the private sector, which arises amid today's revolution of information technology.Research sources on the current situation are scarce compared to historical studies. This is particularly true for Germany and even more for the Netherlands. The present situation differs from its earlier appearance mainly in that domestic workers today are migrant women from Eastern Europe, from Asia or South America.The article aims to show how studying this phenomenon raises relevant questions both on an empirical and a theoretical level for gender studies as well as for migration studies. It pleads in favour of an intersectional analysis by taking into account class, gender and ethnic differences within the context of globalized labour markets and transnational migration movements.     

Women's Voices in Swedish Towns and Cities at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: municipal franchise,polling, eligibility and strategies for universal suffrage

This article examines women's polling and eligibility in the municipal elections in Swedish cities and towns in the decades round the 1900 turn of the century. The aim is to present the patterns of suffrage, voting behaviours and representation that emerge from statistics produced by the women's movement and to discuss how these relate to the women's movement's strategies for women's political citizenship and national suffrage. The results are furthermore analysed in comparison with eighteenth-century conditions, when legally competent women who paid taxes could vote in some elections.     

nature,nurture and nation: Nísia Floresta's engagement in the breast-feeding debate in Brazil and France

This article looks at the way the Brazilian writer and educator Nísia Floresta addresses issues of race and class within her construction of nationhood. This is achieved through a consideration of the specific subject of maternal breast-feeding as discussed by Floresta in two texts, written in Brazil and France, respectively. A comparison of these works reveals a very different engagement with race and class factors in determining women's claim to citizenship. Floresta, in common with early 19th-century European feminism, believed this claim to lie within the domestic sphere, primarily in the role of mother and educator. The article considers how, as a vital aspect of that role, she portrays maternal breast-feeding as both natural and patriotic. It also highlights the extent to which Floresta was influenced by the prevailing concerns of her contemporaries regarding the risks of wet nursing and the threat posed by household slaves, before going on to consider how this discourse leads Floresta to exclude black slave women from her vision of patriotic motherhood, while acknowledging the maternity of women of all classes in a European context. Patriotic concerns, shaped by racial prejudices, overshadow Floresta's feminism, prohibiting the kind of unifying discourse of motherhood, which she claimed to profess.     

World citizens: Australian women’s internationalist broadcasts, 1930–1939

This article examines how Australian women broadcasters used radio to claim their own voices as experts on international affairs and encourage other women to become active world citizens in the 1930s. During a decade when the Great Depression limited the ability of many to travel, and the increasing calamity of the rise of fascism and the descent into World War II brought foreign affairs to the forefront of public debate, broadcasting became a key tool used by internationalist women to educate their female listeners about the world beyond Australia’s shores. They also used the medium to encourage other women to become actively involved in international causes including feminism, peace activism and Zionism. Through their broadcasts, women such as Constance Duncan, Irene Greenwood and Ruby Rich demonstrated the value of radio as a tool for active citizenship and further opened up the public sphere to women’s voices and opinions on social and political issues.     

就业稳定性、市民化意愿与农民工消费

采用广东省 2740 份农民工调查数据,分析了农民工的稳定就业促进市民化意愿增强,进而增加 其消费的作用机理,并探讨了城市差异对其影响。研究结果显示,就业稳定性对农民工消费有着显著的正向影 响,并存在以市民化意愿为中介变量的中介效应。进一步研究发现,存在被城市差异调节的市民化意愿中介效应。 在非一线城市,市民化意愿的中介效应显著存在。而在一线城市,市民化意愿的中介效应则不存在,即一线城 市中就业稳定性并不能促进农民工的市民化意愿。因此,提升农民工的就业稳定性,在制定和实施差别落户政 策中应该对农民工开放更多机会,对促进农民工的市民化与消费至关重要。     

The domestic ideal and the mobilization of womanpower in world war II

This paper begins with an examination of domestic ideal in Britain at the beginning of World War II. The war saw a great increase in the number of women in the paid workforce, lead to the temporary dispersal of many families, and saw the State taking over some domestic labour, by the establishment of British Restaurants and of nurseries. Thus there was an attack on some elements of the domestic ideal, as women were encouraged to join the workforce and to cut down on housework.However, the domestic ideal was not abandoned during the war years. Rather it structured and influenced the development of labour policies to bring more women into the workforce. The way in which some women were brought into the workforce, and some were allowed to choose to remain out, and the way in which some women were designated as ‘mobile’ and others as ‘immobile’ workers, was very much mediated by domestic ideology. Through the development of and application of the womanpower policies, the state can be seen virtually prescribing what constitutes a ‘home’, and what should be the roles of people within it.The womanpower policies were also mediated by class and have been shown to have had a different impact upon women according to their economic circumstances.     

The politics of the agrarian question in turkey: Review of a debate

This article is a review of the major contributions to a debate between left‐wing Turkish intellectuals and political activists during 1969–71 over the character of Turkish agriculture and rural class structure and over the appropriate political strategy for the left. The crux of the disagreement, as in similar debates taking place at the same period in Latin America and India, was the extent to which feudal’ or ‘capitalist’ relations predominated in the countryside, and the implications for the class struggle ‐ in particular for the strategy of class alliances. On the one hand were those who supported a strategy for a ‘national democratic revolution ‘involving cooperation between peasants and workers and the progressive elements of the bourgeoisie to eliminate feudal relations and structures; on the other were those who argued that the Turkish countryside could in no sense be characterized as predominantly feudal, that the mass of rural producers were subject to essentially capitalist forms of exploitation and that any political strategy for socialists must recognize the predominance of capitalism in contemporary Turkey.     

UNICEF, syphilis and the state: negotiating female citizenship in the post-Second World War world

Few charitable organizations have achieved the status of global recognition enjoyed by UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, which embodies the international effort to provide for needy children the world over. Created because of its synchronicity with the United Nations' stated purpose—to maintain peace in the world—UNICEF launched its operations in 1946. Its founding, early operations and eventual restructuring reveal a great deal about concurrent political and economic events, but also provide keen insight into international ideas about who qualified for full citizenship in the post-war world. The consequences of UNICEF's policies, procedures and practices posed challenges to notions of citizenship for both women and children. It challenged citizenship not by questioning sex-specific gender roles, but by judiciously adhering to the United Nations' promise to create equality for men and women alike. UNICEF found itself in the unique position to be able to globalize definitions of what constituted full citizenship in any nation, due to its rapid expansion throughout the world. Through its programs, especially those related to health care, it not only challenged these roles in the West, but began over several decades to complicate the definition of citizenship as it became a forceful presence in Asia and Africa throughout the 1970s.