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Literature on women's economic empowerment argues that women's income builds resilience and leads to reduction in intimate partner violence (IPV). We challenge this by showing a positive (statistically) insignificant link between women's economic status and IPV, but significant positive links between women's economic contribution and IPV, and men's intergenerational violent behaviour and IPV. Based on a sample of 553 married women drawn from Nepal, we find that paid or precarious work is positively but insignificantly associated with IPV. Findings however reveal that after controlling for other factors, women contributing equally or more to household income are significantly at higher risks of IPV. Similarly, if a man has witnessed domestic violence while growing up, he is more likely to commit violence within his own marriage. We therefore argue for the need to transform men's attitude and behaviours through targeted programmes to break the cycle of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past research on domestic violence in India recurrently highlight women's economic empowerment as a major deterrent to domestic violence. That said, this paper tries to understand what is the nature of relationship between women's empowerment and their experience of spousal violence? In doing so, it specifically explores how this relationship is interceded by regional specificities. Based on an analysis of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 data in India, this paper observes that the relationship between women's empowerment and domestic violence is contentious. However, women having some education and using mobile phones are less vulnerable. Hence, this study concludes that mobile phones and Internet-based applications as well as community-based interventions could be the effective measures to end domestic violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's invisibility in political spaces is a glaring reality, particularly in patriarchal polities characterized by misogynistic attitudes towards feminine leadership. This article unpacks the socio-cultural variables that hinder women's participation in politics and other masculinized spheres of influence. The article focuses on the advocacy efforts of Women's Institute for Leadership Development in Gwanda, Zimbabwe. The article also details the successes and challenges scored by the lobbying effort. The article uses a qualitative research approach. It discusses the extent and effectiveness of women's involvement in local governance and how their participation relates to Sustainable Development Goal 5. It was established that the project has greatly improved ordinary women's participation in local governance in Gwanda Central. Capacity-building strategies implemented improved participation, competence, confidence, and effectiveness of women's local governance processes. Women are increasingly participating in leadership at various levels. The training and mentorship programmes inspired some women to contest in the 2018 elections. We recommend the government of Zimbabwe and civil society organizations facilitate the implementation of structural reforms that address systemic and institutionalized gender-based discrimination.00263 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globally, marriage breakup or divorce has become a significant issue, and Bangladesh is no exception. The divorce rate among urban women has dramatically increased in Bangladesh, particularly in Dhaka City. This study aims to uncover the factors contributing to the rising divorce rate among women in Dhaka. Utilizing desk-based research and expert interviews, it critically examines the causes of marriage breakdown. The study argues that industrialization, women's empowerment, and feminist movements have fostered a rise in individualism among women in Dhaka, making them more educated and empowered compared to those in other Bangladeshi cities. This individualism serves as a deterrent against physical and mental abuse, extramarital affairs, authoritarian attitudes, and other forms of discrimination traditionally faced by women. Women's sense of individualism also fosters intolerance toward unhappy marriages, allowing them to pursue independent lives due to their financial solvency. Additionally, the study identifies other factors negatively impacting divorce-seeking behavior, including drug addiction, marital dissatisfaction over infertility or impotence, extramarital affairs due to partner absence, and the influence of social media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being an agrarian economy, food insecurity is pervasive in Pakistan. This study examines the impact of multiple dimensions of household vulnerability and socio-economic resilience on food insecurity. The results of ordinary least squares and Logistic regression based on data from Pakistan Standard and Living Measurement Survey (2018–2019) and Food Insecurity Experience Scale showed that vulnerabilities like age and employment dependency, household size, and gender composition play a significant role in food insecurity. The key policy interventions that can prevent households from experiencing food insecurity would be investments in human capital, empowering women, and reduction in rural–urban disparity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite numerous international and national policy documents promoting girls' and women's empowerment and participation in community sports, the actual access to sport for women and girls is still restricted in several countries. This paper explores the situation in Ghana. Through the analytical lens of Cooky and Messner's theory of 'the unevenness of social change', we analyse the cultural and structural barriers that prevent girls and women from participating in sport in Ghanaian communities. The data material is document analysis, focus groups and semi-structured interviews with male and female officials representing state-funded regional and district sports organisations as well as non-state sports organisations in Ghana. The findings reveal that cultural barriers, rooted in deep-seated cultural norms and structural hindrances that undermine gender-inclusive policies, contribute to the limited participation of girls and women in community sport. Furthermore, the interplay between these cultural and structural factors leads to gender-specific practices and fewer women in leadership positions. Based on our analyses, we suggest that structural changes (enforcing and implementing gender policies) can result in cultural changes (positive gender equality outcomes) over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poverty has become the main focus of development in almost every country. Several related studies have discussed poverty alleviation recently, especially concerning the world's pandemic phenomenon. This article aims to analyze the literature relating to programs, opportunities, and challenges in poverty alleviation in the world. PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) was used as a procedure for this systematic review. Twenty-two articles were selected as primary data collected from the Scopus and WoS database. Using thematic analysis, this study found that poverty alleviation programs are implemented in urban and rural areas and through women's empowerment. In addition, social, economic, and environmental benefits are determinant factors of the implications of poverty alleviation programs. One of the opportunities for poverty alleviation is to increase household income and create community welfare through empowering women. Meanwhile, the incompatibility of program targets, lack of funding, program synergy, gender gaps, and the environment are challenges for stakeholders that must be considered in the future. Recommendations and study implications of this study are also highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socially ascribed gender norms are a significant barrier for women of the fishing communities in coastal Bangladesh. These norms limit women's income autonomy, access to productive resources, decision making capacity and mobility, which negatively affects their economic empowerment and overall well-being. The article delves into the topic of women's empowerment in these communities. The study employed a mixed method approach to collect data from ECOFISH II project intervention villages. Pro-WEFI, which is a modified and refined version of the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) was utilized for fishing community to determine women's empowerment and disempowerment status across three domains of empowerment (3DE): intrinsic, instrumental, and collective agency. The findings revealed that men experienced fewer inadequacies than women, with a weighted average 3DE score of 0.75 for men and 0.57 for women, and only 14% of women and 37% of men were found to be empowered. The Gender Parity Index (GPI) score was 0.79 and households with gender parity made up 31% of the total. This study developed a comprehensive set of Pro-WEFI indicators applicable for assessing and comparing women's empowerment across cultures in fisheries-related projects. Utilizing the disaggregated scores of each Pro-WEFI indicator, it is possible to identify areas of disempowerment for both genders and prioritize project interventions accordingly. Furthermore, employing the Pro-WEFI tool in a longitudinal panel design can capture the changes in women's empowerment over time in any fisheries project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study seeks to analyze the effect of women's empowerment on household food security in northern Ghana. Employing Random Effect and Generalized Estimating Equations on the two rounds of Feed the Future dataset, 2012 and 2015, the study measured women empowerment as the comparative years of schooling and decision making by women. Multivariate Decomposition was used to explain whether variations in food insecurity between gendered household types are due to differences in explained and/or unexplained variations. The study showed significant differences in food insecurity levels between male and female headed households. The finding revealed that improving women decision making at the household level will reduce food insecurity by 45%. The study therefore recommends that Ministry of Gender, Children and Social protection should educate male partners on the need for women's decision making and also ensure the establishment of social groups for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older female celebrities are increasingly visible in popular media culture, but what kinds of representations are being offered? By deploying a feminist intersectional perspective and adopting Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), this article interrogates how British Vogue's Non-Issue communicates ideas and values about ageing and how the magazine constructs discourses through which women's ageing is understood. The analysis shows that the Non-Issue represents older women as radical and empowered subjects. The rhetoric of freedom and choice, central to postfeminism, is prominent in the magazine and aligns with neoliberal discourses of successful ageing. Such discourses encourage women to confine themselves to never-ending, rigid forms of self-surveillance, self-monitoring and self-disciplining that ultimately subject the older female body to a 'new' set of bodily inscriptions and prescriptions that reinforce patriarchal standards of beauty. These standards of beauty are, however, challenged in the magazine through a recuperated do-it-yourself discourse of punk spirit rebellion that works to commodify women's empowerment, yet still reduces women to how they look. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategies for revitalizing marginalized neighborhoods often include participatory innovations. According to the participatory bias argument, however, participatory governance arrangements benefit the privileged rather than the poor. In the present article, the validity of this argument is examined by analyzing how individual resources and social positions relates to recruitment to, participation within, and outcomes derived from participation in a most-likely case of bias in participatory neighborhood governance. Although the privileged were overrepresented in recruitment, the pattern was less clear regarding influence within the processes, and quite the opposite regarding certain outcomes of participation. Also in a most-likely case for bias, participatory neighborhood governance may induce empowerment among poor. Based on the observation that participants that differ with regard to available resources and social positions also have different motives for participation, a mechanism-based account regarding why and how bias in early phases under certain conditions may produce empowering outcomes is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by W. E. B. Du Bois's notion of double consciousness, Yeison F. García López assumes multiple identities: Afro-Colombian and Afro-Spanish. This multiplicity allows García López to assert a politically active citizenship, articulated through his migrant journey, his Afro-descendant and Colombian heritage, and his connection with Madrid society. This conversation delves into how García López's body of work as a poet, theorist, activist, and cultural agent contributes to an emerging Spanish, global, and transatlantic LatinX Latinity (LatinXness) from the Spanish capital. Overall, García López's efforts shine a spotlight on Spain's present-day plurality, highlighting the contributions of Africans and Afro-descendant people. He establishes connections among migrant communities of Latin American, Afro-descendant, and Asian origin as well as migrants from Eastern Europe descent, and Roma people and subverts Eurocentrism, colonialism, and white supremacy. García López's publications and cultural initiatives serve as a platform to amplify the voices of Madrid's migrant and racialized people, promoting culture as a form of resistance, healing, and empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Stakeholder engagement is increasingly recognized as a key component of ethical research in leading ethics guidelines. Ethics commentators have also argued that engagement has several beneficial outcomes for the field. Aim: This paper reports on the beneficial outcomes of stakeholder engagement in HIV prevention trials as perceived by stakeholders in the field. Method: We conducted 28 interviews between 2019 and 2021 with interviewees from various stakeholder groups in 12 countries and used thematic analysis to analyze the transcripts. Findings: We found three major themes - namely emPowerment where engagement is perceived to empower stakeholders, Partnerships where engagement is perceived to build equitable relationships and Protections where engagement is perceived to strengthen protections for participants and community stakeholders and to improve science. Conclusions: These findings map closely onto beneficial outcomes envisaged by ethics guidelines, however, the relationship between outcomes seen as beneficial deserves further exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based in original ethnographic research, this article examines the motivations and experiences of those seeking to forge careers in the UK's burgeoning wellness industry. As a movement-market centred around health-enhancement and encompassing a broad array of practices and products, this industry has recently grown to prominence in Britain, driven significantly by the aspirational economies of social media. While the promise of wellness is manifold – including, most obviously, that of health and well-being – here I examine its operation in relation to questions of work and employment. Drawing on interviews with those who already work or aspire to work in wellness – generally on a self-employed basis, but often operating under the sign of a more glamorised 'entrepreneurship' – I explore why women are drawn to participate in this arena in a professional as well as personal capacity. I focus in particular on the lure of wellness work among participants who had already established careers in other settings, for whom the transition entails relinquishing relative economic security to instead pursue an inherently risky pathway. This research reflects critically on existing accounts of 'passionate work' by arguing that wellness entrepreneurship functions as both an individual and collective endeavour. In doing so it grapples with the politics and potentialities of wellness entrepreneurship as a feminised mode of self-employment, situating this analysis within the continuing aftermath of feminism in an era marked by new feminist visibilities and discourses of female empowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Urban Affairs Review journal by revisiting influential articles from each decade. The first article discussed is Ralph Conant's "Black Power: Rhetoric and Reality" from 1968, which focuses on the impact of the Great Migration of Black people into Northern cities and their empowerment. Conant predicts the election of Black mayors in several cities, many of which did come true, albeit not on the timeline he predicted. The article also explores Conant's ideas on white populations attempting to thwart Black control and the tensions between integration and separatism. The discussion of race, riots, and urban politics in the 1960s is compared to contemporary discussions, highlighting the continuity of these topics over time. The article concludes by acknowledging the accumulation and advancement of knowledge on various urban political and policy topics. [Extracted from the article]

Informed by a cyberfeminist standpoint, this paper explores the role of cyberworlds and virtual tourism in providing less constrained and more liberating traveling experiences for women. More specifically, through interviews with a group of Iranian women traveling in a virtual world known as vTime, this work discusses whether and how virtual tourist experiences allow women to overcome their travel-related constraints and pave the way to forms of self-determination and emancipation. In contrast, several feminists hold utopian and dystopian views regarding the benefits of the Internet and technology for women's empowerment, and the findings of our study point to a rather complex and less encouraging scenario. Virtual tourism in cyberspace allows Iranian women to overcome constraints affecting their traveling experiences. Nevertheless, it is far from a liberating experience as women's self-expression and activities are restricted and limited by patriarchy-driven concerns about surveillance, legal consequences, harassment, social stigma, and western dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationally, there is increasing concern regarding the disengagement of marginalized students, particularly girls, from the formal education system, particularly since Covid-19. Students experiencing oppression/marginalization within urban education systems are considered at-risk from poor attendance, early school leaving, underperformance, low self-confidence, and social exclusion. In considering Paolo Freire's conceptualization of education as "the practice of freedom," this paper presents findings from an intervention, the Female Empowerment Group, a critical pedagogical approach to re/engaging at-risk female students in school. The Female Empowerment Group created a space for at-risk female students to explore complex contemporary issues shaping the intersectionality of their identities as marginalized, feminized, and politicized citizens in/outside school. Drawing on findings from a mixed methods design (quantitative surveys (n = 21 girls), qualitative interviews (n = 9 students, 7 teachers, 2 parents), Ketso (n = 9 students), this study presents the power of critical pedagogy for empowering and re/engaging at-risk students in school. Findings illustrate the powerful impact of a critical pedagogical approach for empowering students, enhancing self-confidence, motivation, empathy, and engagement with issues impacting their lives. Reported outcomes included more positive relationships with adults/peers, increased re/engagement in class and enhanced sense of belonging in school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What effect do peacekeeping operations (PKOs) have on women's empowerment? The gendered consequences of peacekeeping have long been an issue of contention. Stung by multiple cases of peacekeepers directly engaging in sexual exploitation and abuse, the United Nations took measures to mainstream gender equality within PKO goals, ranging from protection from sexual violence to the encouragement of female participation in peacebuilding processes. Yet while a growing body of research has begun to provide insights into the gendered aspects of the PKOs themselves, much less is known about the broader gendered impact of PKOs on the host countries. To better understand these effects, we examine the extent to which PKOs serve to advance female empowerment in terms of women's participation in official political channels as well as women's civil liberties and active involvement in civil society participation. Examining these linkages from 1970–2013, we find that multidimensional PKOs are conducive to growing levels of women's empowerment, though such growth decreases considerably after the conclusion of the PKO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Manosphere' has become a popular term used to make sense of the growth of online masculinist subcultures and the rise in misogynistic discourses in digital environments. In this emergent field of research, a twofold gap exists: first, in exploring the local Spanish manosphere, as the majority of studies on the manosphere are set in Anglo-Saxon contexts, and second, in understanding women who also inhabit these spaces. In this article, we address this gap by carrying out a digital ethnography focusing on a group of women who partake in the Spanish manosphere organised under the hashtag #TeamAlienadas. We understand #TeamAlienadas as producing an affective anti-feminist ideology that enables women to legitimise men's claims to victimhood under feminism and construct themselves as carers of men through specific digital practices. We argue that this affective anti-feminist ideology leads to the production of specifically anti-feminist gender knowledge, underpinned by a postfeminist sense-making, which mobilises ideas of empowerment. Drawing on Foucault's theorisation of 'regimes of truth', we argue that #TeamAlienadas' development of an affective anti-feminist ideology works to produce a kind of truth, which delegitimises feminism and aims to dismantle feminist politics in ways that could lead to accentuated female subjugation to patriarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the differences in the content of commentary reports that the United Nations (UN) addressed to Islamic countries in the Stereotypes section. A significant association was found between types of violations and the level of the state's economic development. For high-income level countries, the commentaries addressed social perceptions violations. For low-level income countries, the commentaries focused on physical practices violations. Hence, the Islamic character of the country was found to be a minor factor in comparison with the state level of development. The UN's approach to gender stereotypes in low-income countries involves simplification and reduction, as it treats the symptoms rather than the causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines gender-based helping behavior from a social dominance perspective. We focused on the interplay between the gender of a prospective donor and the gender of the recipient in shaping donation decisions in contexts that either empower recipients or not. In two studies (N = 866), male (but not female) donors chose to donate less often (Study 2) and to give lower amounts (Studies 1–2) to women in need than to men when donations were made in a potentially empowering context – a business context (e.g., donating to a person whose shop burned down), than in a nonempowering context – a domestic context (e.g., donating to a person whose house burned down). Lack of empathy for the female recipient among men partially mediated this gender–donation bias effect (Study 2). These findings suggest that men are less likely to help women in situations that empower women and challenge the existing gender hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women's empowerment (WE) is one of the main challenges to economic development in African countries. Scholars have criticized national development initiatives to focus on well-being issues and treat women as the passive beneficiaries of welfare-enhancing assistance. This study uses panel fully modified least square and vector error correction model to investigate the impact of interactive effects of WE and financial development (FD) on employment and economic growth based on the World Bank income group as follows: upper-middle-income countries (UMIC), lower-middle-income countries (LMIC), and low-income countries (LIC). The findings show that the interactive effects of WE and FD on output and employment is not significant in the long run in LMIC and LIC. Despite the significance of these interactive effects in UMIC, the coefficient is less than one. Also, the causality result in the UMIC shows feedback between WE and economic growth. And that FD has a direct influence on growth in LMIC, while WE has a direct influence on employment in LIC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about femisocial capital : a type of gendered political capital tended towards facilitating greater intra-female collaboration. Unlike its similar conceptual counterpart of homosocial capital that typically reinforces male dominance in politics, femisocial capital, at least within the scope of legislative activity, highlights a positive function of gender and politics. By examining the bill sponsorship networks of multi-term female legislators in South Korea, this article finds that the institutional legacy of the progressive party in South Korea and its female lawmakers sharing associational membership in feminist organizations (hence, the prefix 'femi'), enables such gendered political capital to function in their favor. In contrast to research agendas that seek to find gender working in explicit ways (i.e., whether more women in office leads to greater empowerment for women in politics), this article shows that while gender does matter, it may matter in much more discreet and less obvious ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The FIFA Women's World Cup disseminates ideas about gender, women, and sport to a global audience. I report on a short-term ethnography involving participant observation at the 2019 Women's World Cup and in-depth interviews with fan attendees to examine the gender discourses produced through the tournament and fans' responses to them. Integrating the concept of neoliberal postfeminism with an affective lens, I illustrate how discourses of empowerment and the progress of women's sport circulate positive affects in order to bring fans into neoliberal postfeminist ideas, ultimately presenting tournament organizers as benevolent supporters of women. While fans sometimes produced these discourses themselves, finding them emotionally resonant, they also championed a discourse of inequality that was skeptical about organizations' true commitments and circulated an affect of frustration to call public attention to gender inequality. Fans' simultaneous embrace and rejection of empowerment and progress discourses reveal both their reflexive agency and the powerful emotional pull that these discourses present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Lifting Voices" is a reflection on both my own identity journey and that of several Black women educators as a means of examining how schools can be more intentional in supporting the identity development of their Black female students. By drawing connections across the educational experiences of the Black women I interviewed and putting them in conversation with the issues we address as educators who work with Black female students, I assert that our experiences do not exist in isolation—rather, many aspects of them are shared and transcend time and place. To recognize the manifestations of misogynoir still present in schools is to own that there is still work to be done without minimizing the progress that has been made. I primarily highlight representation in faculty and curriculum, educator training, and access to resources as concrete steps toward greater institutional support of Black girls and more broadly, the establishment of more inclusive school communities that nurture all students and celebrate differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is based on nine months of ethnographic fieldwork with a formalized youth hip-hop organization in Colombia whose broad work with youth included a mission of women's and girls' empowerment. Throughout this article, I show how young women, through their affiliation with this professionalized organization, utilized city spaces to articulate opposition to gender-based inequalities and marginalization, within a larger context of protracted armed conflict and everyday violence. In these spaces, women configured themselves as hip-hop " guerreras " (warriors) and " luchadoras," (fighters) to convey their fortitude while minimizing risk. I argue that they balanced "uncivic" modalities of hip-hop with a civic language of empowerment to garner support for their labor and causes. By examining women's NGO affiliations and their creative performances, I show how women simultaneously reinforced sanctioned rhetoric of empowerment while strategically carving spaces to craft media intended to challenge dominant ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study inspects controversies in the Western World about the veil worn by Muslim women in public. It merges two separate domains, Islamic Feminism and Western Feminism. These two domains need to be addressed to generate new opinions. Western Feminism believes that veil is a sign of oppression and masculinity. However, Islamic Feminists find the veil empowering and a sign of dignity. This study aims to unravel the underlying contradictions and blind spots that characterize the arguments in favor and against the veil. This juxtaposition can provide insight into new theoretical and empirical points of departure. All oppressions result from the political dynamics of the state in which the individual is living. It is utterly reductionist to criticize the choice to veil, which is an instrument of autonomy. This paper emphasizes that Islam does not oblige women to be victimized and dissatisfied. However, Islam strives to promote the autonomy of Muslim women. It is safe to say that Islam describes women as beauty with a brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last three decades, many research works have been conducted to define and measure the complex and composite concept of empowerment. However, an individual empowerment tool is still needed, to be applied for any disadvantaged group, women, youths (male or female), poor, etc., or any economic sector, and which can be more suitable for rigorous impact assessment studies. This paper contributes to the growing empowerment literature by providing a new multi-domain, survey-based empowerment measurement tool, the individual empowerment index (IEI). The IEI is unique in its characterization and construction. It combines individual empowerment scores in six empowerment domains: production, household livelihood, resources, income, leadership, and time allocation. It is a flexible and survey-based empowerment parameter that can be generated at individual, household community or country levels, or for any target social category. The IEI is constructed through a specific methodology based on a scale survey with an ordinal variable principle and a general process for construction of domain indicators. A key advantage of the IEI is that different household members (even husband and wife) can have different IEIs and statuses. Findings from applying the IEI approach to data collected from 1120 West-African lowland rice farmers show that lowland rice farmers globally achieved on average 71% of their full empowerment potential with only 40% of them found to be globally empowered. Female farmers were found to have lower control over their lives and were less than male farmers to be empowered. IEI estimates and comparison between WIEI and other women empowerment indexes estimates show reasonable correspondence despite the difference in the methodology and can hold for the validity of the IEI. The new IEI is a suitable tool and is recommended for quantitative and rigorous impact assessment and monitoring of programs and projects empowerment indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radical right-wing politics is often regarded as a populist movement for social protection against economic globalisation. As a solution, contemporary Polanyian critics often suggest reforming left parties to reorient populist movements from the right to the left by building a broad non-capitalist coalition. Through a close reading of Polanyi's works, this article offers an alternative diagnosis and prescription for preventing radical right-wing empowerment. Polanyi explains that fascists gained political power through support from capitalist elites. Political democratisation threatened the separation of the market from politics, and the war and depression resulted in the dysfunction of the market economy. In this situation, capitalist elites chose fascism – a radical measure to protect capitalism by destroying democracy. This article argues that, in order to prevent radical right-wing empowerment, we should look up, to the capitalist economy and the ruling classes, rather than only down, to welfare chauvinism and the 'people'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist engagement with fight sports is often ambivalent given the masculine history of combat and the achievement of "self" transformation at the "expense" of another, exist in tension with the possibilities of women's empowerment. Acknowledging the multiplicity of embodied meanings produced through Muay Thai Boxing (Thai Boxing), this feminist post-qualitative project seeks to do "research differently" through a generative ethos of knowledge production that is co-constituted with participants and the coach-researcher (Erin). We explore how a Thai boxing program—"fight camp"—worked through-with an affective feminist coaching pedagogy that sought to transform gendered patterns of movement mobilizing moments of discomfort and pleasure. This research practice involved attuning to the embodied dynamics of learning-coaching—the intra-actions of boxing—in terms of what these movement practices "do" and how they "affect" women in the process of becoming-fighters. We write through three provocations—"the drunk uncle," "get ugly with it," and "show and tell"—to engage readers in the affective relations entangled within the processes of coaching-researching MTB. Our post-qualitative research approach has implications for the provision of physical cultural practices and alternative coaching pedagogy more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While parent involvement has been shown to have positive academic outcomes for their children, for structural changes to be made, parents have to go from being active to taking on a more activist role, thus "stoking the flame" of the norm. Parent advocacy and empowerment groups play a vital role in the transformation of parent activists, yet their contributions are often overlooked in the literature on parent involvement. Using Yosso's Community Cultural Wealth Framework, findings from this qualitative study examine how a parent empowerment group embraced the cultural assets and strengths of Black parents, served as the spark to engage them in the educational reform process, and built a platform for them as activists. This research expands conceptualizations of parent involvement to include activism and asserts parent advocacy and empowerment groups as vital stakeholders in educational change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization in low and middle-income nations is characterized by economic and demographic shifts largely understood to be beneficial to women's empowerment. These changes include increased education and wage-labor opportunities, a disruption of traditional patrilocal residence systems, and reductions in spousal age gap and fertility. However, such changes may drive a "violence backlash," with men increasing intimate partner violence (IPV) in efforts to challenge women's shifting status. To date, tests of this idea primarily relate to women's changing economic status, with less known about the demographic correlates of IPV in urbanizing settings. Addressing this, we conducted a cross-sectional study of IPV behavior and attitudes in an urbanizing community in Mwanza, northern Tanzania (n = 317). Consistent with a violence backlash, IPV was reported more often among women educated at higher levels than their husband, and women earning similar, rather than lower, wages to their husband were more likely to report that he condones IPV. These findings were independent of women's absolute education and income. Furthermore, less frequent paternal kin contact, and relatively small spousal age gaps, generally understood to boost women's empowerment, were associated with an increased risk of experiencing IPV. Less frequent paternal kin contact was also associated with an increased likelihood that a husband condones IPV. Contrary to our predictions, relatively lower fertility, generally linked to higher women's empowerment, did not predict IPV behavior and women with high, rather than low, fertility were more likely to report that their husband condones IPV. Overall, our results support the notion of a violence backlash corresponding to economic changes for women that accompany urbanization. In contrast, demographic changes associated with urbanization have more variable relationships. Drawing on these results, we suggest future research avenues for better understanding the vulnerability of women to IPV in urbanizing settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conditions under which women's national football teams do better or worse in international tournaments remains an open question. Using data from 116 countries worldwide, we have examined three arguments accounting for the gender gap in international football success, focusing on positive externalities from economic development and women's empowerment, and the active policies promoting women's football. Our findings show that the international performance of women's national football teams compared to men's national football teams increases with women's empowerment and in countries committed to the promotion of women's football, while economic development is not relevant. The general question we address is whether gender gaps disappear because of economic and social development, or if active policies promoting women are required to achieve gender equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media offered new opportunities for politicians to engage with the public. However, little research has explored public perceptions of women politicians and their role in women's empowerment, especially in non-Western contexts. This study used a qualitative methodology to explore how young Emirati women made sense of gender and other identities in their discussions of Emirati women politicians on social media. Drawing from intersectionality theory, the study looked beyond gender, exploring other identities that may play a role in Emirati women's perceptions. The results offered insights into the family and ethnic identity as they interacted with gender. The findings also highlighted the challenges of personalizing messages in a patriarchal society. This study contributes to international political communication research and practice by understanding the complexity of women's sense-making of social media and women politicians in a non-Western context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the use of Participatory Narrative Inquiry (PNI) in evaluating development interventions by contributing to the debate of using participatory narrative methods. Stories on personal experience are used to evaluate the project's effects as with similar methods such as Most Significant Change and Sensemaking. To the authors' knowledge, this is one of the early applications of PNI to the evaluation of international development programmes. The study discusses advantages and limitations, and provides a scholarly reflection based on an application of PNI in the evaluation of gender and women's empowerment in Niger. The study concludes that PNI is a powerful alternative to existing qualitative and participatory narrative evaluation methods. Within mixed-method approaches, PNI allows for greater inclusion of project beneficiaries in the evaluation process, while helping to elaborate a thorough theory of change, understand the complexity of the context, identify and assess outcome pathways, and provide an evidence-based evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the representation of female athletes in Gatorade's Sister in Sweat (2019) and Adidas’ Reimagine Sport (2020) Femvertising campaigns. Adopting a critical feminist lens, this study examined verbal and visual strategies and the post-feminist elements that sports brands apply to communicate female-empowering messages. Guided by Fairclough's framework of critical discourse analysis and Kress and van Leeuwen's visual grammar, a multimodal critical discourse analysis was conducted to analyze verbal–visual strategies and semiotic resources used to construct/challenge the gender relations in sports. Also, following Gill's post-feminist media culture, recurring themes that characterize female athlete representation are identified. These themes include femininity as a bodily preoccupation, sexualization, individualism and choice, self-surveillance, and intersectionality. Results reveal that, despite the sports brands’ support of gender equality and female empowerment through femvertising, gender stereotypes still exist within the campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This academic theory incongruously aligns with the political philosophy of Xi Jinping which asserts both that school leaders are patriotic role models and gender equality is a worthy ambition in China's Rise ([34]). Combine these beliefs with the fact that female empowerment may be growing unstoppably in China due to sheer weight of numbers and it looks certain that Chinese women will be very influential as China continues to Rise. If the participants in our research project about Chinese school leadership and role modelling gender equality are to be believed, then China is well along the path to attaining those goals. The fifth goal of the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development Goals is gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls. [Extracted from the article]

From 2018 to 2021, the "egirl" witnessed a radical shift from her origins as a sexualized slur in online gaming. Through critical discourse analysis of news media of this period, this paper interprets this transformation within two primary phenomena: (1) the growth of women game influencers who reclaimed "egirl" slurs in their self-branding and (2) the launch of "Egirl.gg," a platform for paid gaming companions. I argue that live streaming platform Twitch.tv, and the expansive ecosystems of labor its demand from streamers, were integral to this re-authorization of who can play as themselves in a patriarchal gaming culture. Here, I extend Ergin Bulut's framework of "ludic authorship" to delineate how stakeholders in game streaming industries masculinize the cultural labor of "authenticity." The ambivalent embrace of "egirling" via streaming cultural logics further complicates the work of women gamers who must work harder to realize careers in platformed entertainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, growing concern over Syrian refugee women and girl's gendered displacement experiences, including gender-based violence, has led to the proliferation of women and girl safe space interventions across neighbouring countries affected by the Syrian conflict. Though diverse in their design and implementation, some of these safe spaces aim to mobilise aspirations for feminist solidarity and collective action, where women recognise their collective power and work together to transform their gendered social conditions. Drawing on feminist ethnographic research in a safe space primarily targeting Syrian refugee women in Lebanon's Beqaa valley, I explore several vignettes that complicate dominant feminist myths underlying its mandate. These vignettes reveal that the pursuit of feminist solidarity can neither rely on myths about refugee women's identities and conditions, nor be taken-for-granted as an organic outcome of group activities. I offer several reflections on what these vignettes can tell us about better working towards cultivating feminist solidarity in safe spaces for refugee women in practice, with the hope that their generative and transformative potential be realised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses several anthropological dilemmas related to the researcher's role in community development, the scholarly responsibilities to the discipline, and the tension between activism and academic vocation. I explore these issues in the context of my research and involvement in the production of pua kumbu, a traditional Iban textile. Since 2013, I have researched Indigenous and traditional knowledge as a development tool, focusing on the pua kumbu as a central artefact which is a cultural expression of ideology around family and community but is also a product for the commercial market. It is at this juncture that I engage with the community of weavers working with the women to perform an entrepreneurial collaboration by engaging the weavers to a commercial market platform with the emphasis on the conservation of the intangible aspect of the pua kumbu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crimes against women (CAW) in India have been rising despite faster economic growth, higher education attainment, and increasing numbers of women in the economic sphere. This article explores the reasons for the incidence of reported CAW in India. We study five CAW (rape, kidnapping, cruelty, dowry deaths, and molestation), across 35 states and union territories, 594 districts, over three decades (1991–2011). We use panel fixed-effects regression models to explain crime. Our results confirm the importance of female literacy rates, female paid workforce participation, and female–male ratio in understanding crime. We find that these commonly-used socioeconomic variables have nonlinear effects on CAW. Our findings improve upon earlier results that have not explored either spatial distribution or nonlinearity in India. These findings could have significant implications for the policies aiming to reduce CAW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a decolonial and intersectional approach to production and reception of The Motherload music video (2014) in the context of heavy metal culture and how female Black bodies are displayed in media culture. We discuss the feminist dichotomic approach on the objectification of female bodies and the defence of Black female empowerment in the performances recorded. Our debate focuses on racial and sexual hierarchies in the metal music scene and in The Motherload music video, using the female Black body as a means of gaining visibility and adherence to this scene where women are often sexually objectified in its social dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study moves beyond the consensus of counting electrified households as a measure of progress in gender energy parity. Using the India Human Development Survey, we examine the effect of reliability of electrification on empowerment of women in terms of economic autonomy, agency, mobility and decision-making abilities, underscoring the labor market and respite effects of service reliability. We develop a comprehensive set of empowerment indices using principal component analysis and assess the causal effects of power outages on the indices with instrumental variable regressions while controlling for individual, household, district and caste characteristics. Results show that reliability of electricity has significant positive effects on all empowerment indices and improves women's labor market outcomes, however, the effects differ at the margin of deficiency, location, living standards and education. The study recommends policy focus on electrification from a gendered lens for cost-effective solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to study the determinants of repayment performance of self-help groups in India's Uttar Pradesh state, which has one of the highest numbers of defaulting self-help groups. The study is based on primary data collected in 2017 through a field survey covering 300 members across 100 self-help groups from the rural areas of Sultanpur and Faizabad districts. The survey reveals an overall repayment rate of about 55% with better pay-back performance seen among members of old self-help groups. The results, computed with the help of the Tobit model, show that factors such as group maturity (age of the group), ratio of family workers to household size and household income are negatively associated with the incidence of delinquency while peer group pressure and social ties associate positively with delays and overdues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I use the 2018 Guns in American Life Survey (GALS) to investigate the relationship between feminist identity, gun ownership, gun carrying, and women's empowerment. Notably, while identifying as a feminist lessens the likelihood that a woman will own a gun, of women who own handguns, feminists are more likely to carry their guns all or most of the time. Past victimization is associated with ownership and carrying, confirming genuine concern by women about their safety. Finally, findings reveal that women are more empowered by guns than are men and the relationship is moderated by age. Results are discussed in light of the current American gun culture focused on self-defense and a carry mindset that some women develop as feminist culture in action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including programme evaluation, participatory narrative inquiry, and woman empowerment.

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) has important social, economic, and public health impacts. Governments and international donors are increasing their investment in VAWG prevention programs, yet clear guidelines to assess the "value for money" of these interventions are lacking. Improved costing and economic evaluation of VAWG prevention can support programming through supporting priority setting, justifying investment, and planning the financing of VAWG prevention services. This article sets out a standardized methodology for the economic evaluation of complex, that is, multicomponent and/or multiplatform, programs designed to prevent VAWG in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). It outlines an approach that can be used alongside the most recent guidance for the economic evaluation of public health interventions in LMICs. It defines standardized methods of data collection and analysis, outcomes, and unit costs (i.e., average costs per person reached, output or service delivered), and provides guidance to investigate the uncertainty in cost-effectiveness estimates and report results. The costing approach has been developed and piloted as part of the "What Works to Prevent Violence Against Women and Girls?" (What Works?) program in five countries. This article and its supplementary material can be used by both economists and non-economists to contribute to the generation of new cost-effectiveness data on VAWG prevention, and ultimately improve the allocative efficiency and financing across VAWG programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even after enactment of the Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Act 2005, over the last 10 years, the rate of decline of prevalence of spousal violence against women has remained low in India. This study attempts to explain the experience of spousal violence using a social–ecological framework. We analyzed the National Family Health Survey 2015 to 2016 (NFHS-4) data of 66,013 ever-married women aged 15 to 49 years. Participants in the domestic violence module of the NFHS-4 reported their experience of violence committed by their husband within the 12 months preceding the survey. Multilevel logistic regression analyses were done to determine the association between spousal violence and different explanatory variables of various levels of social ecology including variables on women's empowerment. About one fourth of ever-married women reported experiencing any form of violence during the last year. The experience of spousal violence was significantly associated with social ecology at multiple levels. At the individual level, the odds of experiencing physical violence were higher among younger women, who married at a younger age, had an age gap of 3 to 4 years with her husband, and had more children. Women in vulnerable groups, with poor economic status, and members of marginalized communities had higher odds of experiencing spousal violence. Women had high odds of experiencing spousal violence if living in a social ecology with unfavorable social norms, higher rates of domestic crimes, and a higher prevalence of underage marriage. The association of spousal violence with women's empowerment remained inconclusive. The results argue for manipulating contextual factors to empower women to challenge gender-related equations and investing in education for gender sensitization at the higher level social ecologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the moderating effect of youth–adult partnerships (YAPs) on the relationship between youth empowerment in the community and youth's creative self-efficacy (CSE). A survey was administered to 2,653 youth recruited from youth service centers in Hong Kong, which measured youth empowerment in the community, perceived YAPs in youth services, and CSE. The results indicated positive associations between youth empowerment in the community and youth's CSE and between YAPs and CSE. There was also an interaction effect between youth empowerment and YAPs on youth's CSE, where the effect of youth empowerment was stronger for youth who experienced higher perceived levels of YAPs. This suggests an amplification effect of YAPs on the relationship between youth empowerment in the community and CSE. Overall, the present findings support a way for community-based youth services to empower youth and to facilitate creative developmental outcomes and initiatives among young people by enhancing YAPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender advocates have bemoaned the diatribe about women inequality at the neglect of males' vulnerability in abstract narratives. We propose that achievement of female empowerment will be complimented by empirically exploring men's vulnerability themes wrapped in "masculinity" with cultural differences. This study documented views on male vulnerability in the Ghanaian environment using mixed-method design with 189 respondents conveniently. Chi square goodness-of-fit test, and thick descriptions were applied to the open-ended questionnaire items. Indeed, 74% of the participants agreed that Ghanaian males were vulnerable with 26% expressing contrary views. With nine overarching themes generated, gender was not a significant factor in categorising male vulnerability (Σ2 (8) = 10.836, p >.05). We concluded that both sexes appear to have shared views on Ghanaian males' vulnerability issues and recommended for gender advocates to expand the equality discourse to cover males' vulnerability. Implications for adult education and guidance and counselling practices are indicated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]