Gender and Femenism

Along the last years of Franco’s dictatorship, social and political conflicts extended beyond main industrials areas of Spain and took strength also in the outlying regions, where low intensity conflicts had been characteristic until then. On August 1974 Tarragona burst into the Spanish strike scene as the second province in number of non-worked hours. The main reason was the conflict in Valmeline’s textile company. Leaded by young workingwomen, that conflict overtook the factory-frame and moved into the city, achieving a local dimension and becoming a public order problem. The strike in Valmeline became a local emblem for workers’ mobilization in the years to come. It was a female-construct role model, which was adopted by most of the androcentric labour movement in Tarragona.

Durante los últimos años de la dictadura franquista, la conflictividad social y política se extendió más allá de las principales zonas industriales del Estado y tomó fuerza en los centros periféricos, hasta aquel entonces caracterizados por movilizaciones de baja intensidad. En agosto de 1974 Tarragona irrumpió en la escena huelguística española como la segunda provincia en número de horas no trabajadas. El motivo era la huelga en la empresa de confección textil Valmeline, un conflicto protagonizado por jóvenes obreras que sobrepasó el marco de la fábrica y que lo trasladó a la ciudad, convirtiéndolo en un problema de orden público y tomando una nítida dimensión local. La huelga de Valmeline se convirtió en un referente local para la movilización obrera de los años siguientes; un referente construido en femenino que hizo suyo el grueso del androcéntrico movimiento obrero tarraconense.

In 2011, in the wake of Egypt’s uprising, an Egyptian self-styled feminist by the name of Alia El Mahdy decided to post pictures of herself nude on her Facebook page in an act of ‘freedom’. This bellow for ‘freedom’, and the subsequent outcry against it, allowed her to put forward an application for ‘political’ asylum in Sweden which was swiftly granted.

In the comfort of Sweden in 2014, Alia El Mahdy posted pictures of her nude body once again, bleeding on the flag of the Islamic State. This latest expose was part of El Mahdy’s work with Femen, the Ukranian based feminist group.
Both instances are part of the continued fascination of Western feminism’s desire to liberate individuals of a lower racial hierarchy as an act that defines both the ‘political’ and as a corollary ‘freedom’. In this liberation the West is rendered as the guardian of ‘freedom’. In that instance a racialized other that lacks ‘freedom’ and ‘political’ awareness is performed. El Mahdy’s body becomes an articulation of how this freedom is imbricated with the West’s own contradictions when it comes to balancing rhetoric of openness and the question of Arab refugees.
Yet El Mahdy’s interprelation of the ‘political’ and ‘freedom’ is not germane nor is it as seamless as the West makes it seem, contrary to Sweden’s asylum standards which do not include Syrians or Iraqi fleeing the region. This paper traces the infrastructure that is necessary for such an interpellation and the repression of other cases of ‘freedom’ such that this instance become possible. By looking at the operation of the foreign donor community in Egypt, local comprador NGOs and missionizing Western development practitioners a material infrastructure is revealed that is invested in repressing other cases of ‘freedom’ such that El Mahdy’s appear as indigenous.

Naked, Protesting and Ready to Challenge You

The recent surge in nudism in feminist protest: regress or progress?
Here is some red meat for thought, as nudist activists say.

On the occasion of the presentation (or Unveiling) of the nude photo of Golshifteh, we would like to take this opportunity to shed light on and evaluate the features of nudist movement.
 
Published by Iranian.com on January 11, 2015.

This thesis contains a presentation and reflection on my MFA project Valluse which contains a written fairy- tale with eight accompanying paintings and two painting installations. The work process and the theoretical and artistic studies that was the inspiration to write and illustrate the saga are also described.

The main theme of this thesis is about a categorization of four different reproductive theories and how they have been supposed to affect different types of societies and family structures throughout history. A central concept is ”womb envy” and how the concept in relation to the theories presented has a decisive significance for how the development from matriarchal societies to patriarchal societies emerged according to the au- thors referred to in this work. The concept of womb envy has an important role both for the artistic and the written components and I can also relate to the concept in my own life. I also write about my insight of what the concept of the Christian god is and why all the other gods and goddesses must be forbidden in the Abra- hamic religions. In my fairytale Valluse it is shown how the patriarchal doctrine with the help of religion strengthens a male hierarchy. All in all, I mean that these different inputs are related to each other. This has motivated me to create this MFA project Valluse in which I want to share these ideas and insights.

Uma Chakravarti in her book, Gendering Caste, states, "Caste and gender, as we have been arguing, are so closely tied that regarding them as two discrete systems have been our limitation, a limitation of our scholarship-as systems they are inextricably tied and almost impossible to disentangle." The argument has more weightage than the literal meaning. While the scholarship available on the two institutions is enormous, their relationship is often left unexplored. In this paper, an attempt would be made to historicise the relationship between caste and gender. In order to understand their intricate relationship, a survey of seven works would be considered. The selected authors are Uma Chakravarti (2003, 2013), Prem Chowdhary (2001), Varsha Joshi (2002), VS Kadam (1988), Nandita Sahai (2006), Dilbagh Singh (2003). Due to the dynamic nature of caste and gender norms and the wide geographical extent of the Indian subcontinent, it is difficult to study both institutions as uniform and monolithic. Moreover, the scope of the paper would be limited to geographical regions of Haryana, Rajasthan and Maharashtra during the period from 17th to 19th century CE.

El presente artículo reflexiona críticamente en torno al carácter interrumpido que ha experimentado el feminismo en Chile como movimiento social en el transcurso del siglo XX. Heredando tareas pendientes en materia de clase, raza y género que confluyen en la problemática de la mujer latinoamericana, las cuales serán abordadas a partir de la década de los 70 por prácticas artísticas de las Artes Visuales y la Performance. Para ello se identifican y analizan ciertas operaciones artísticas que emplean el cuerpo como soporte y recurso de expresión emanadas desde los espacios marginales de creación. Concluyendo que en Chile, irrumpe un postfeminismo cuyos sujetos y agentes políticos subvierten mediante las artes visuales y performance las identidades de clase, raza y género predominantes.

In the epoch of modern globalization, knowledge economy has become a prolific approach in the 21st century because of its self-sustaining capability to survive in the coming global economic battle and its growing importance as one of the key sources of growth in the global economy where organizations and people acquire, create, disseminate and use knowledge more efficiently for the greater aspect of economic and social development as well. It has a unique role to restructuring at the latest stage of development considering its core philosophy towards the sustainable global economic challenge. Here, the core idea of the knowledge driven economy is not merely a demonstration of high tech industries; it means something more than of its traditional concept, a set of new sources of competitive advantage which can easily be applied to all sectors, all companies and all regions at the same time to establishing its feasibility in an effective manner.
“Knowledge Economy”, the phrase was popularized by Peter Drucker as the title of Chapter 12 in his book “The Age of Discontinuity”. But, the initial foundation for the knowledge economy was introduced in 1966 in the book “The Effective Executive” by Peter Drucker. In this book, Drucker described the subtle difference between the manual worker and the knowledge worker. According to him, the manual worker works with his or her hands and produces goods or services. In contrast, a knowledge worker works with his or her head, not hands, and produces ideas, knowledge and information.
Peter Drucker also emphasizes that knowledge economy is a relative concept; a vague definition of knowledge which creates the key problem in the formalization and modeling of knowledge. Because, it is not proper to consider information society as interchangeable with knowledge society; information is usually not equivalent to knowledge as their use depends on individual and group preferences which are "economy-dependent". Here, due to the recent triumph of ICT, all traditional economic patterns have been changed now; a new concept of knowledge economy has been introduced which is playing a pregnant role to meet up the today’s challenge of globalizing and to keep the world beyond our imagination.

This article examines the story of the death of Rachel (Genesis 35:16-19) and argues that the matriarch died of breech delivery. But a mistranslation of the Hebrew text by standard English translations has obscured this diagnosis, resulting in the failure of readers to identify this fatal obstetrical complication that caused the death of the young woman.

Comment la nudité peut-elle encore être subversive, alors que les corps dénudés se sont très largement banalisés dans la publicité et à la télévision ? C’est sur cet étonnement que s’ouvre le livre d’Hubert Prolongeau, écrivain et journaliste, qu’il publie après le succès de son récit d’une « randonue » dans Le Nouvel Observateur [1]. « Nudiens », solidarnue », « non-textiles », de nombreux néologismes jalonnent l’ouvrage, où le lecteur découvre tout un vocabulaire propre à l’univers du naturisme et de la nudité militante, le premier étant un mode de vie, le second un moyen d’action contestataire. Ce lexique n’est pas sans rappeler la circulation du néologisme « manufestation » lors des rassemblements, en 2012, contre la hausse des frais de scolarité dans les universités québécoises, durant lesquels les étudiants déambulaient partiellement dénudés. Ces événements illustrent un mouvement plus global : depuis quelques décennies, la pratique contestataire consistant à se mettre à nu se généralise et s’internationalise dans les manifestations. Dans quelle mesure poser ou manifester nu est-il une nouvelle forme de militantisme ? Quelles normes juridiques et sociales régissent ces pratiques ? Que nous disent-elles de l’évolution du rapport au corps dans notre société ?

Estamos en tiempos de globalización y de crisis. Pero también estos son tiempos en donde la ciudadanía se ha venido imponiendo con formas de protesta y de tomar la calle, bien creativas.Hoy la contracultura adquiere nuevos signos de representación y de acción. Desde esta corriente nueva emerge el movimiento político FEMEN, en Ucrania. Apenas tiene cuatro años de existencia, haciendo política creativa. ¿Hasta dónde llegará?

The aim of this article is to present the main lines of postcolonial feminism, which is articulated today as a theoretical critical alternative to the hegemonic or ethnocentric feminism. We analyze the main
conceptual and epistemological advances that have crystallized in this postcolonial feminism, paying particular attention to African feminism. Criticism of bivalent logic, methodological ethnocentrism and
colonialist spirit of the European Enlightenment Modernity articulates the systematic exposition of the various proposals derived from the «peripheral feminisms». Ultimately, a redefinition of the fundamental
categories of feminist thought is proposed, while broadly outlined an alternative view of politics, human rights and social emancipation.

The film Levantinit by Rafael Balulu is a deeply insightful look at the life of an inspirational Levantine Author, Jacqueline Kahanoff. She was a deep thinker, and for her time was able to see the shared aversities, and probable future struggles, of the Mizrahi, and Levantine diasporas, both abroad and in Israel. The documentary redefines the parameters of legitimate history by changing the source material examined. Instead of working from state records, official statements, politicized speeches, and nebulous figures, the director chose to use interviews, and the social history of her contemporaries, and those of her peers. This work thus marks a step toward a holistic exploration of the various ubiquitous struggles of the Levantine people, examined through the lens of the life of Jacqueline, who was a notable member of the community, an international icon, and arguably the most insightful author writing about these themes during her time.

The majority of people in Thailand are devout Buddhists, with over 95 percent of the country following Buddhism and its entailed traditions and practices. Buddhism therefore, of course, plays an integral part in the culmination of Thai cultural identity. Buddhism is a part of every aspect of life in Thailand, from giving alms in the morning to the monks and children saying Buddhist prayers in the morning and the majority of Thai men being a monk at least for a short period of their life; Buddhist traditions are seen and felt everywhere in Thai society; As is the presence of the male dominated monkhood.

La ciudad islámica, en su origen, es una ciudad hecha por y para Agar, la mujer esclava, exiliada y marginada. En otras palabras, la ciudad y la civilización islámicas, en su germen, han sido formadas por y para las minorías en el proceso de "devenir-minoritario". Las clases vulnerables de la sociedad como las mujeres, los esclavos, y las marginadas, construyeron su devenir-refugio/ciudad, fuera del alcance del poder mayoritario establecido. Siguiendo la idea de Gilles Deleuze y Félix Guattari, se puede decir que la formación de la ciudad islámica, tuvo una intención de "devenir-mujer", "devenir-minoritario" y "desterritorialización" de la mayoría patriarcal (Deleuze y Guattari, 1987: 291). La ciudad islámica ha sido escenario de un proyecto revolucionario de las minorías, impulsado por Muhammad, pero que, como cualquier otra revolución, a lo largo de la historia humana, ha sido traicionada y confiscada por el poder mayoritario.

Neste trabalho, observamos a utilização da imagem do corpo feminino como uma estratégia recorrente em ações ativistas em diferentes partes do mundo. Os elementos estético-políticos do corpo, historicamente utilizados pelas artes, tais como o nu, a dor, o erotismo e a identidade (ou o anonimato) são reconduzidos para um projeto de cultura ativa e participativa dentro das redes de comunicação digital. Nossa análise insere-se no campo da biopolítica e faz uso de três exemplos recentes: os autorretratos da egípcia Aliaa Magda Elmahdy e as ações dos coletivos Pussy Riot (Rússia) e Femen (Ucrânia).


In this work, it is observed the use of female body image as a repeated strategy in activist actions in different parts of the world. The aesthetic-political elements of the body, which have historically been used by the Arts, such as nudity, pain, eroticism and identity (or anonymity), are redirected to an active and participative culture project in the digital communication networks. The analysis is located in the biopolitics field and makes use of three recent examples: the Egyptian Aliaa Magda Elmahdy self-portraits and the actions of the collectives Pussy Riot (Russia) and Femen (Ukraine).

In the last years we are witnessing a revolution of the television shows (specially in the area of the independent fiction), that is enriching this media with some proposals that are out from the traditional narratives and contemporary mainstream concepts.

This is the case of two independent productions very different between them, with dissimilar origins and dramatic keys, that represent the emergence of new types of international narrative order, but also the contention and disruption in local markets and tv scriptwriting.

According to this, the paper we present has two case studies: the American fiction I love Dick (Amazon Prime Video, 2014-) by Jill Solloway, the creator of another transgressive show Transparent; and the Spanish one Matar al padre by Mar Coll (Movistar +), the first tv show of the film director. Both styling works create a dialect with the tv media and the modern and advanced forms of art, worth to be analized and compared.

Alguna vez, como lector, ¿se ha cuestionado algunos interrogantes como si existen masonas en la ilustración?, ¿cuáles son los ritos de las logias femeninas?, ¿cómo es la feminidad en los siglos XVIII y XIX? o, incluso, ¿las mujeres iniciadas ejecutan las mismas pautas simbólicas y/o rituales que las corporaciones masculinas? Todas estas preguntas y otras más, se irán resolviendo, de manera pormenorizada y con las fuentes en la mano, en este manuscrito. De hecho, a tenor de las investigaciones realizadas sobre el binomio mujer-masonería en la Ilustración, es posible estudiar que la primera masona —iniciada en una logia femenina irlandesa en 1732—, fuese Mrs. Aldworth, aunque existen dudas existenciales sobre su canónica iniciación como se detalla en el libro. Posteriormente, parece que no existían masonas en las corporaciones femeninas hasta la iniciación de María Deraismes, en Francia, el 14 de enero de 1882. Sin embargo, en illo tempore, surgieron un gran número de mujeres iniciadas en las corporaciones masónicas, de carácter mixto, entre las que destacan las logias de adopción o la masonería de las damas. En suma, se hace necesario presentar en la obra que en el continente europeo existe la corporación incógnita intitulada como los Mopses mientras que, en Estados Unidos, se fundó la Eastern Star que sirvieron de base para la implantación de las logias femeninas.

تابستان سال 1353 بود که زندان قصر شاهد نخستین بار دستگیر شدن زنانی بود که به جرم فعالیت سیاسی بازداشت می‌شدند. زنانی که نه تنها خانه‌ها بلکه کارخانه‌ها و ادارات هم برایشان تنگ شده بود، آنها آنقدر از گوشه‌های امن تدارک دیده برایشان بیرون آمده بودند که امنیت حاکمیت را به چالش کشیده بودند. آنقدر به صحنه آمده بودند که دیده شده بودند، دستگیر شده بودند و بخشی از تنها زندان سنتی که زندانیان سیاسی مرد را در خود داشت، به آنها اختصاص داده شده بود. این متن را به بهانۀ چهل و پنجمین سالگرد این رویداد می‌نویسم.

Llegamos al mundo como un cuerpo rechazado por el cuerpo de la madre, en el que tuvimos nuestro refugio durante nueve meses. Toda nuestra vida es un intento de demarcar nuestro espacio en este mundo inmenso. Lo único que tenemos, en todo momento, es nuestro cuerpo. Allá donde vayamos, de donde huyamos, a donde corramos, estamos con nuestro cuerpo. El espacio que buscamos, añoramos o evocamos, solo esta en relación con nuestro cuerpo. Sin él no hay espacio. Hasta que no situamos nuestro cuerpo en el espacio, no podemos trazar su dimensión psicológica, y de aquí, precisamente, surge la ciencia ficción, en un intento de encadenar el espacio astronómico con el cuerpo humano. Sin nuestro cuerpo el espacio no nos resuelta perceptible.