Where the female body - through its societal projections in media, art, politics and religion - has always formed the first port of women's oppression, it is necessary to consider whether attempts to reclaim it through topless protests in the public arena are more likely to defy or to reify existi
The concept of wilaya (guardianship over women) is key to discrimination against women. Debates over different interpretations of guardianship under Muslim law ultimately fail to address the key premises underlying hegemonic notions of masculinity and femininity and the institutions that propagate
Patriarchy, militarism and neoliberalism have created a matrix in which women and women’s rights can never flourish because none of them place human values and human dignity at their core. Heather McRobie reflects on the conversations at the Nobel Women's Initiative conference in Belfast.
'What they call transnational development companies. For us they represent death and destruction’, yet when it comes to the pursuit of justice through law, too often activists are on the wrong side. Jennifer Allsopp reports from Belfast at the Nobel Women’s Initiative Conference.
Speaking at the Nobel Women’s Initiative conference, Valerie Hudson argues that best predictor of a state’s peacefulness is how well its women are treated. Little analysed in international relations theory, state security and women’s security are inextricably linked.
The lack of institutional concern for epidemic levels of sexual harassment and assault in Egypt is part of the larger neglect of the issue of gender equality by the post-revolutionary powers, says Heather McRobie.
When did a political formation in theory designed to preserve our common good become a machinery of war? Or does the nation-state depend on militarism for its very existence? Jennifer Allsopp writes from the Nobel Women’s Initiative conference in Belfast.
In January 1968, young feminist antiwar activists in the U.S temporarily broke with a long tradition of protesting war as mothers. At an all-women’s protest against the Vietnam War, they symbolically buried “Traditional Womanhood” and claimed the right to protest as independent citizens. Does it m
If we want to ensure that humanity is not doomed to repeat its bloodiest century, the logical move would be to mount an international campaign to see that competent women are swiftly accepted into policy-making positions in all conflict countries, says Scilla Elworthy
The authors of the re-launched Beyond the Fragments take a feminist approach to healing a divided left. They put women’s exploitation by capital firmly on the agenda. But where is the challenge to patriarchy?
One lesson from the 1979 Iranian revolution and the 2011 Arab revolutions is that activists seeking to promote women’s rights, human rights and the transition to democracy must challenge patriarchy from within the Muslim legal tradition.
In a reply to Rahila Gupta, Celeste West argues that we can’t have meaningful feminism or a meaningful democratic project without ensuring that people have a chance to speak for themselves
