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This article’s objective is to place the modern history of Iran in relation to nonviolent struggles within the optic of the role of women within them, and to link these episodes with the feminist struggle in Iran. It will cover the years that span from the 1870s until 2021 by placing at the centre of the discussion the role of women in civil resistance struggles. Of particular interest will be national governmental changes, from the monarchic era to a theocratic republic; the presence of Britain and Russia, and later the United States; the mass mobilizations during the end of the nineteenth century and the Iranian Revolution; and gender equality campaigns, as well as more individual acts of resistance through cyber feminist campaigns. This paper aims to show the role of women in these struggles as interconnected with the Iranian feminist movement both inside Iran and in the diaspora. Various episodes in Iranian modern history, such as the Tobacco Protests at the end of the 19th century, the Constitutional Revolution at the beginning of the 20th century and the Iranian revolution of 1979, as well as uprisings that preceded it between 1977 and 1979, have been studied within the civil resistance literature. All of these events showed that ordinary people had the power to topple authoritarian rule in their country through the use of nonviolent strategies. One of the most important references in nonviolent action studies, Gene Sharp, has suggested that 198 methods exist to efficiently overthrow dictatorial regimes around the world, and that these methods and techniques had to be collectively put into practice in order for them to be successful (Sharp, 1973, 2005). Various studies, mostly based on quantitative analysis and historical documentation, have demonstrated that nonviolent strategies have been in many instances much more successful than violence in achieving freedom from authoritarian rule (Chenoweth and Stephan, 2011; Chenoweth, 2021). In the Iranian socio-political context, the three aforementioned civil resistance struggles managed to establish a constitution and the creation of a parliament at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the ousting of an autocratic leader in 1979. All of these episodes are considered to be examples of civil resistance techniques that have managed to topple the authoritarian regimes present at that time in Iran. All of these struggles included the nonviolent participation of Iranian women, even though that participation has not sufficiently been brought to light in the Iranian history scholarship. The Tobacco Movement and the Constitutional Revolution represent the origins of a feminist conscience in Iran, and of women’s engagement with gender politics (Mahdi, 2004). Policies relating to women’s health, education, work and public life in general were present in both Pahlavi monarchies. However, whilst attempts were made to democratise the image of women, as well as their status, the Pahlavi regime did not achieved gender equality in Iran due to the strengthening of the class divide and its intensification by the persistent presence of British and American interests in the country. With the installing of the Islamic regime in Iran in 1979, the advances in women’s rights that had been accomplished during the previous decades, thanks to the increased presence of women in public life, disappeared in the blink of an eye. The very many risks, nonetheless, have not prevented Iranian women from fighting for their rights through campaigns such as the One Million Signatures Campaign (1MSC) (2006-2009), or more recent internet gender campaigns such as My stealthy Freedom and White Wednesdays. Studies that have connected civil resistance struggles in Iran to women’s rights (see Beyerle, 2008; Davoudi Mohajer et al., 2009) have begun to pave the way for further developments and it is from this standpoint that the paper wants to make its contribution. The field of Resistance Studies where the subfield of civil resistance is located has been getting wider and deeper, incorporating different meanings and types of resistance acts, where collective as well as more individual stands have been taken into consideration. Poststructuralist, postcolonial and feminist outlooks have expanded the subfield of civil resistance, and the Iranian case clearly shows that the civil resistance scholarship can be applied to situations that involve the toppling of authoritarian regimes, internet gender equality campaigns, and also to those perspectives that take into consideration the transnational field. By placing attention on the links between nonviolent action and the Iranian feminist movement this article also shows the continuities and discontinuities of the participation of women in the civil resistance struggles in Iran, which in turn have to do with the different historical circumstances. As the paper will show, one key aspect has to do with the role of Iranian feminists in the diaspora who have supported and sometimes created civil resistance movements for gender equality in Iran. Sharp took the role of third parties into consideration (1973) within civil resistance movements, but it was not until Andrew Rigby’s study on the Palestinian diaspora and civil resistance (2009) that actors such as diasporas have been placed under increasing interest as supporters of civil resistance movements in their countries of origin (Dudouet, 2015; Stephan and Chenoweth, 2021). Part 1 locates the arguments within a theoretical framework that links the subfield of nonviolent action with feminist perspectives from the fields of International Relations and Resistance Studies. Following this first section, the paper is divided into another five sections. Part 2 deals with the civil resistance struggles at the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, as well as the role of women in them and the feminist movement. Next, part 3 of the article centres itself on the Pahlavi Monarchy that preceded the Islamic Revolution by looking at the position of women in Iran as well as the Iranian feminist movement. Part 4 looks at the nonviolent orientation of the Iranian revolution and the role of women therein, while part 5 locates the discussion on civil resistance within a more recent period and the conjunction with the Iranian diaspora. The article ends with a section dedicated to concluding remarks where future research lines will be suggested.

Despite the many international human rights declarations affirming the equality of men and women, and the techno-scientific accomplishments of humanity, in many non-Western societies and indigenous cultures there are still much discrimination against women. The discrimination and violence against women on the basis of their sex and their being perceived as subservient to men by some cultures, societies and persons are morally unacceptable. Discrimination and violence against women are wrong for they offend against the ontological status of women as human beings; violate their human dignity/ rights as persons. The arguments that some persons have used to treat women as unequal to men are flawed. It is an issue of morality for it speaks of how human beings should act. This paper uses a critical analytic, hermeneutics and evaluative methods to examine the issues. The issues of gender equality will be dissected and interrogated. The value in gender equality through all these methods will be highlighted. The paper finds that there are gender inequalities still prevalent in some parts of the world. The paper concludes that all societies, cultures and persons have a moral duty to struggle against gender inequalities. This will help to create a more harmonious world.

This paper aims to highlight Joseph de Maistre's pioneering work in anthropology, which 150 years before Girard came to the same conclusions as Girard: the importance of sacrifice in human societies, the logic of violence and its resolution, and the particular character of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which comes as a fulfillment and definitive end to the logic of bloody sacrifice. This little-known aspect of the counter-revolutionary thinker gives us a better understanding of the issues of matriarchy, patriarchy and Christian patriarchy, right up to contemporary developments with gender. He also gives us an example of the application of Catholic realism, based on theology and nourished by sound Thomistic metaphysics, and how a return to this Catholic realism in the human sciences is a key to understanding contemporary phenomena.

Margaret Drabble is a famous British female writer. Her novels are based on her personal life experiences and provide a three-dimensional depiction of the modern knowledge women’s survival difficulties and development prospects from a literary perspective. It delves deeply into the women’s social identity and role positioning, attempting to find a way out for modern knowledge women in the society’s new era. Drabble’s novels construct literary narrative discourse, based on the individual development and on the growth of women’s group, always taking the search for feminist issues as the theme of creation, with a typical feminist color. From the perspective of feminism, this study deeply analyzes Drabble’s literary creation. First of all, this paper starts from Drabble’s historical background and personal experience, and probes into how these background factors deeply affect her novel creation. Secondly, in exploring the characteristics of Drabble’s novels, the study pays special attention to how she highlights feminist themes through delicate literary narration. In addition, this study also focuses on the feminist thought contained in Drabble’s novels. Drabble firmly emphasizes the importance of women’s independence and self-awareness, and advocates that women should bravely break away from the patriarchal society’s shackles and actively pursue equality and freedom.

Manto's writings are hardly as controversial and ground-breaking as his series of short stories about Bombay's prostitutes and the world surrounding them. My paper aims to give at least two readings of the story of Saugandhi and “the insult” she receives when being rejected by a client. Her burst of pent-up rage, helpless but terrible, can be interpreted either as a positive act of realization of her own condition or as a reaffirmation of powerlessness in the face of the dominant. Using the tools of the canonic and original concept of the subaltern, with Gramsci (1916) and Spivak (1985) delimiting its oppressed (non)identity, Saugandhi's consciousness of herself becomes the voice which the subaltern cannot utter. Manto's essays (1955) show major concern with the desperate state of sexual workers, and it is through his feminism that this paper will discard the abstract notion of subalternity and highlight how gender makes “the woman who didn't have a father's shelter, had no education, ...a broken pebble from the pavement” (Manto, 2014: 204). The short story is not, as it may seem in abstract terms, empowering; it is a wretched cry that ends in silence —there is nothing to be done.

This paper looks into four plays by Chilean playwright Carla Zúñiga. It specifically analyses gender deconstruction, as it is very relevant in all the selected plays. The text also identifies and reflects on the camp (Sontag) features that the plays and their mise en scenes exhibit. It is relevant to this aspect to consider Camp features being specifically localized in the Latin American context. One last aspects that will be un folded in the text is the aesthetic and political links between the plays and Chile’s historical and cultural background.

The increasing embeddedness of the jihad feminist within the Islamic State’s (ISIS) operations is eliciting works on the role of women in terrorism. However, there is yet to be a more constructive analysis that adequately accounts for the luring of Muslim women into the ISIS as a justification of the patriarchal beliefs and oppressive social systems. This paper is among the first attempts to draw on the Jihad Feminism Theory (JFT) to develop a conceptual discourse that explains the causal relationship between jihad feminist fighters and promotion of patriarchal practices and beliefs within the ISIS. Far from standing against any forms of Western feminization- as espoused by the ISS- , the paper argues that jihad feminism has further subverted Muslim women to sedentary roles within the ISIS as a way of sustaining the organisations’ operations and existence.

In this article, we argue that the gender policies implemented by the Government of Rwanda have been introduced in order to strengthen the democratic credentials of the regime in the eyes of international donors. In order to do so, we have structured the paper in three parts. First, the article examines the political structure of Rwanda, highlighting the dominance of the RPF and the criticisms of its authoritarianism. It also explores the narrative constructed by the RPF, focusing on the portrayal of Tutsi as victims and Hutu as offenders, and the impact of this narrative on international aid. The second part of the essay explores the feminist movement in Rwanda before and after the Genocide, emphasizing the reconfiguration of gendered power relations and the emergence of grassroots women organizations. Finally, it analyzes the implementation of gender policies in Rwanda, considering the tension between transformative feminist goals and the increasing authoritarianism of the state. The main conclusion we have arrived at is that the gender policies applied by the RPF have lacked a transformative impact and that, rather, they have been used as a public relations strategy to disguise the increasing authoritarianism of the government.

In this paper, from the perspectives of feminism, through the analysis of Li Bai’s inheritance and innovation of palace-style poetry in his creation, the author puts forward two techniques and their symptom in the three poems of Qingping Tune: inheriting the sensationalization of palace-style poetry and innovating in the mythological and legendary techniques of palace-style poetry. Based on these two techniques, the unconsciousness of the fetish and goddess mythological fantasy is revealed from the “blankness” of the image itself, so as to achieve the research effect of a comprehensive analysis of the female discipline ideology in the aristrocrats’ patriarchal courtly literature.

In this paper I want to focus on the feminist Lorena Cabnal from Guatemala. I want to do so through her words in various spaces: videos, conferences, conversations with her, and her writings. My final goal is to engage with Cabnal’s ideas/actions not only as feminist thought, but as philosophical formulations, even though they are not presented as they are usually presented in traditional academia, and they are not formulations involving universal categories. I want to talk with/from the concepts she develops in/with her experience in the same way as we usually engage with concepts formulated by an intellectual recognized as such by academia. My conversation with Cabnal will be grounded in my particular experience as a mestiza woman philosopher from Colombia (Diana Milena PATIÑO, 2021).

The Alliance of Antifascists Intellectuals for the Defense of Culture represents one of the most important institutions for the understanding the antisfacist discourse during the Spanish Civil War. This paper explores the position of women in the group and her image in the group’s magazine: El Mono Azul. A journey through the idea of the feminine in the first women’s groups of the 20th century is traced to finish with a study of the texts published in the aforementioned magazine, in connection with the other antifascist magazines such as Hora de España or Mujeres Libres.

Feminism, motherhood and the media - historically close relations in review – We start from the premise that motherhood is a social construct increasingly linked to communication processes, especially in the voluptuous offer of advice and guidelines of what is to be a mother. Taking on from this idea, this paper seeks to situate such debate. Based on the main approaches about motherhood in feminist studies, the paper presents a state-focused approach of this research in Brazil, bringing attention to three thematic-theoretical axes and to potential topics yet to be explored in media and motherhood studies.

The paper discusses the issue of sexual violence against women during the past military dictatorships in Latin America, especially in Argentina, and some consequences in the current practice of their sexual and reproductive rights. It analyzes the extent the exercise of sexuality has a connection with the exercise of power, which organizes, manages, and prioritizes behavior depending on a political, social and cultural project, in a context of time and space. This means that the public and private, power and sexuality depend on the idea of the nation, class, race and religion, and consequently implies the political control of reproduction and the family model, including expressions of gender sexual violence. The paper discusses feminist theoretical concepts, such as the concept of gender and nation from an intersectional perspective (Yuval Davis), the idea of post colonialism and decolonization of feminism (Mohanty), and the relationship between gender and globalization (Fraser). Este artículo debate el tema de la violencia sexual contra las mujeres durante las últimas dictaduras militares en América Latina, especialmente el caso argentino y sus efectos en el ejercicio actual de los derechos sexuales. En él se analiza cómo el ejercicio de la sexualidad tiene una relación con el poder, el cual organiza, gestiona, y jerarquiza conductas según un proyecto político, social y cultural, en un contexto determinado. Lo público y lo privado, el poder y la sexualidad en relación a los conceptos de patria, clase, raza y religión, y con ello el control político de la reproducción y del modelo de familia, y de la violencia sexual. En el análisis se discuten concepciones teóricas feministas, como el concepto de género y nación desde la perspectiva interseccional de Yuval Davis, la idea de postcolonialidad y descolonización del feminismo de Mohanty, y la relación entre género y globalización de Fraser. DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2611061

Recent studies and reports reveal that young people have a distorted concept of gender-based violence and their tolerance towards it does not decrease. There is a context of institutional concern about prevention and eradication of gender-based violence in Spain. In this context, this paper reflects on gender-based violence in order to compare the collective adolescent-young imaginary and social messages sent by the media on this problem. We will analyze this concept based on theoretical feminist definitions, the legal national an international framework and data about the presentation of this problem on the media. We will conclude that gender-based violence is transmitted in a very simplistic and reductionist way, a way too far from feminist frameworks, so adolescents and young people find identifying and rejecting it difficult. Los últimos estudios e informes revelan que la juventud tiene un concepto distorsionado de la violencia de género y sus niveles de tolerancia hacia las agresiones violentas por razón de género no disminuyen. En un contexto de preocupación institucional por la prevención y erradicación de esta violencia, el presente trabajo reflexiona sobre el concepto de violencia de género con la finalidad de emprender una comparación entre el imaginario colectivo adolescente o joven y las conceptualizaciones y transmisiones sociales, en este caso por parte de los media, que se hacen de este problema. A partir de un estudio conceptual basado en las descripciones teóricas feministas de las violencias que sufren las mujeres, una revisión de los marcos legislativos definitorios del problema (tanto a nivel nacional como internacional) y de datos sobre su representación en los medios de comunicación, se concluye que este problema es transmitido de modo simplista y reduccionista, muy alejado de los marcos de interpretación feministas, lo que dificulta su identificación y rechazo por parte de las personas jóvenes y adolescentes. DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2612467

Abstract The purpose of this article is to analyze the feminist foreign policy as a modern phenomenon in light of the particular features and challenges of Brazil’s reality. But first, the article contextualizes where the idea of a feminist foreign policy comes from. Even though womens make up half of the world’s population, gender parity in many spaces of power, such as diplomacy, is still not a reality. Thus, the so called feminist foreign policies aims, among others, to increase the number of female diplomats, grant them more visibility and place them in positions of power. Since this situation is happening worldwide, the paper aims to contribute on how we can think of the possibility of engendering a feminist foreign policy specific to Brazil.

This paper dwells on the challenges of globalisation and the hegemonic power structures that govern the relationships between the north and the south, and how it is possible to stablish epistemological and practical alliances between decolonial feminism and queer theories. Furthermore, the plethora of views on the topic allows us to construct connected theoretical frames, that gives us the ability to create non hegemonical and emancipated politics. This research analyses the main theses of decolonial feminism to establish a connection with other theories and to provide answers to the current global needs.

From Antiquity to Modernity, the topic of the Amazons questioned the relationships between men and women, triggering a series of anthropological, social and cultural issues. In the wake of the second-wave feminism of the ’60, resonating with the Women’s Liberation Movement, several authors revisited this topos: Monique Wittig, Les Guérillères (1969), Joanna Russ, The Female Man (1975), Marge Piercy, Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), Joan Slonczewski, A Door into Ocean (1986). In this paper I focus on Joanna Russ’s “polytopia”, and Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time, the only utopia (to my knowledge) in which the ideal society is situated not in a different space or time, but in the (delusional) mind of the protagonist. My thesis is that, in these texts, the Amazones’ utopia is a “thought experience”, a demonstration by the absurd warning against the dangers of perpetuating a society that discriminates women.

Introduction. Sexuality and equality education are considered areas of relevant pedagogical research and intervention within current educational contexts in view of the violence and inequalities derived from the patriarchal system. Aims. This paper presents the main results of a research study that seeks to analyze the competence in sexuality and equality of university students during teacher training in Spain (Castilla la Mancha University). Method. For this, the study used a quantitative methodology and administered a nine-dimension questionnaire to 371 students. Results. The study revealed the weak acquisition of competence in sexuality and equality and the persistence of stereotyped images of sexualities. Furthermore, these findings show that future teachers have a weak equality-based professional practice due to an educational approach that lacks a gender perspective. Conclusions. The main conclusions highlight the evident formative needs in sexuality and equality and the absence of transforming feminist knowledge. All this can affect the development of quality education in sexuality and equality in students’ future educational practices.

In light of advances in research on nonformal education (NFE), this paper examines the experience of Mayan women from the community of Canicab, in the municipality of Acanceh (Yucatán, Mexico). The objective was to understand the levels of shared agency in an NFE activity performed in a context characterized as an attempt to produce conditions of critical interculturality. The research employs a methodology of feminist-activist ethnography. The NFE activities that the women involved took part in dealt with issues relating to women’s rights, education, and heritage, and led to the organization of the First Meeting of Mayan Women in Canicab. The findings show a high level of shared agency among women from Canicab and their external partners. The results were discussed with the women who participated in order to help them improve their educational and organizational endeavors

In this paper, I start by pointing out that despite their differences, Slavoj Žižek and Karen Barad share an understanding of the notions of relationality, processuality, and immanence as central tenets of materialist philosophy. As I argue, however, it is collectivity that acts in both Žižek’s and Barad’s works as a safety valve that lends immanence, processuality, and relationality their materialist quality. To support this argument, I demonstrate that certain forms of collectivity underlie the passage from Werner Heisenberg’s uncertainty to Niels Bohr’s indeterminacy in Barad’s interpretation of Bohr’s ‘philosophy-physics’. I call those forms of collectivity "collectivity as ontological necessity" and "collectivity as methodological necessity" respectively. However, I claim that there is a further form of collectivity, which I call ‘collectivity as inclusive and holistic overdetermination’, that Barad overlooks and that conditions the indeterminability of indeterminacy. As I argue, the latter also has implications for political agency. I conclude by briefly sketching out how these forms of collectivity can determine the production of subjectivity and, as a consequence, shape the subject’s collective action.

This paper presents a comparative study between two religions – wicca and candomblé – whose rituals and practices enable women’s empowerment and promote the Sacred Feminine. The ethnographic field research conducted in Belem, Brazil, between 2011 and 2015, reveals that these religions’ worldviews contain elements that promote their members’ feminist practices. The paper explores the gender relations and family patterns built within these two religious groups in order to show how their practices contribute to the empowerment of women. The ethnographic analysis serves as the basis for a preliminary discussion on whether or not it is possible to analyze these religions using the concept of feminist spiritualities.

This paper explores the atavistic and feudal historical fantasies that structure Isak Dinesen’s 1937 memoir, Out of Africa. It analyses the imagery and symbolic logic of the memoir in conjunction with Dinesen’s letters from Africa in order to examine how Dinesen derives an idiom to speak of Africa that synthesizes the social structures of European feudalism, the discourse of the noble savage and the aesthetics of the sublime. The paper seeks to unpack the conundrum that fashions a modern, emancipated female subjectivity from the anachronistic paradigm of feudalism and within the framework of imperial domination and colonial occupation. The paper explores how Dinesen’s feudal idiom extends the genre of European pastoral to the colonial milieu and places it in the service of a larger search for a discourse of legitimacy. I argue that this is an abiding preoccupation of colonial literature. I analyze in detail the specular logic through which the narrator confronts Africa as a space that alternately panders to or challenges the psycho-political narcissism of the settler. Dinesen’s memoir reveals the myriad operations of the narcissistic structure through which the narrator strives to fill the copula of the question, “What is Africa to you or you to Africa?”

Abstract This paper presents the criteria, methodology, and main results of a recently published research that surveyed and analyzed testimonies made by women who fought against the military dictatorships in Brazil and Argentina, in a time frame that begins with the enactment of the Amnesty Law (1979) and ends with the release of the final report by the National Truth Commission (2014).◊

The global threat to democratic ideals and fundamental rights and freedoms requires that citizens critically assess the diff erences between consensual forms of persuasion and non-consensual, manipulative, and propagandistic forms of persuasion in order to make free and informed choices.Based on an ethnographic work with a Portuguese women’s rights organization during six months (January-June 2021), this paper analyses the intersection of activist public relations and organized persuasive communication within feminist campaigns. Propaganda appears a multi-layered sociological phenomenon and the communication campaigns analyzed in this study indicate that, in principle, feminist activist communication can operate within the realm of strategic consensual persuasion and not on propaganda. Findings also illustrate the possible contributions of public relations for social mobilization, civic participation, and democratic adhesion. Observations showed that not all types of persuasion are harmful or false, and that propaganda does not only serve to change opinions but often intends to maintain dominant trends and the status quo.

The short novel entitled The Cheated Cautious Man has often been regarded as an example of a comic and farcelike fiction close to the Italian novellieri’s style: after having tested the instructed women’s evilness, Don Fadrique is cheated by the innocent astuce of a very young girl which don Fadrique had kept ignorant by thinking that her stupidity would make her more loyal than instructed woman. This paper tries to qualify the last interpretation by supporting on two different types of poetic analysis: on one hand, the comical tone is balanced by a serious and even pathetical register which reminds readers of Zayas indignation about women’s harassment by men in most of her remaining novels. But, overall, the precise study of narrative voice adopting alternatively the male and female point of view, tends to create an echo between the novel and womens’s quarrel.

For the first time in the history of the WTO, women were included in the agenda in December 2017, through the Buenos Aires Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment. From this context, the question that guides this paper is: what is the contribution of the recent WTO initiative for the Feminist Economy? The main objective is to analyze the potential contribution of the initiative in light of this debate, also considered recent in academia. Through the qualitative approach, primary (official documents) and secondary sources (specialized bibliography, reports), with analytical-descriptive purpose, the text is divided into three parts. The first contextualizes the topic, the second presents most proemint international organizations addressing the topic, while the third, characterizes the work of the WTO. It is concluded that, despite the late insertion and through a non-binding initiative, it will increase the visibility of women’s contribution and challenges to the world trade. Due to its potential to inspire trade policy discussion through gender lenses without, questioning androcentric basis, it contributes to the axis of Gender Economy.

Animation and motherhood are parallel acts. There are striking overlaps between animation practices and the maternal time of maintenance and caregiving: repetitive acts and gestures, interruption, incremental and elongated time, the embodied experience of slow mundane practices, the durational drag of staying alongside something or someone. The pooled time of caregiving and maintenance, and the pooled time of animation production have a lot in common. In this paper, I want to pull apart some of the ways that an expanded animation practice-as-research shows how animation’s formal self-reflexiveness and media specific histories can start to reveal where value is placed (and not placed) on the time of their shared invisible labours. Possibilities emerge from thinking these invisible labours together, revealing the problematics of what constitutes a rightful subject or object of mothering, and what can be said to constitute animation. * Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Maintenance Manifesto, 1969! Proposal for an exhibition “CARE,” 1969.

This paper investigates how the motivations, practices and experiences of adolescents self-identified as feminists are impacted by social networks. Based on semi-structured interviews, it was investigated how such social networks, especially YouTube, impacted the process of girls’ feminist education. The work concludes that social networks have outlined a “feminization of culture”, a long historical process of cultural change in which respect for the feminine, human dignity and difference are central values

Mariasilvia Spolato was born in 1935 and died on October 31 2018. Some days later, articles in the media recalled her life, her leading role in the rising Italian homosexual movement and its following oblivion. Even today (June 2021), some web pages dedicated to her and her life still contain a lot of wrong or incomplete information, as some of the videos circulating on the internet are full of mistakes and hagiographic reconstructions. We have two different aims with this paper: 1) to describe more accurately and comprehensively all the phases of Spolato’s life, on the basis of a wide-ranging and different kind of sources (from archives, press and oral testimonies), cross-referencing them with the social and cultural transformations of Italian history; 2) to reflect on the narratives that arose after the news of her disappearance.

Recent scientific literature analyzes the increasing citizens’ claim against human references that committed in history racist or sexist aggressions. Although newspapers have clarified that Simone de Beauvoir publicly defended the decriminalization of pedophilia and was condemned and removed from teaching due to her own case, few scientific studies acknowledge it. The scientific literature almost entirely situates her as a reference in feminism, portraying four pillars: 1) she was an example of the struggle for sexual freedom against harassment and abuse; 2) she was an anti-Nazi democrat; 3) she was the creator of modern feminism; 4) current feminists learned feminism from The Second Sex. This paper analyzes to what extent these pillars and the concealment of what she did and defended have been presented to individuals currently working on gender-related issues. The methodology includes an in-depth literature review and 15 communicative interviews with feminists from the second half of the 20th century and from the 21st century trained in different social sciences. Results show that de Beauvoir was presented as one of the main feminist references during most participants’ degrees and that they learned about her anti-feminist actions and standpoints in other academic and non-academic dialogic spaces based on scientific evidence.

This paper aims to reflect upon the principal difficulties, challenges or ‘headaches’ that doing feminist research in conflict and post-conflict contexts can involve. Each of the two authors has conducted a very different study. One, on the role of local women’s organizations and activists in peacebuilding; the other, on the disarmament and reintegration of combatants and the impact of this process on the reproduction of violence. While one of us is a woman, the other is a man. While one studies feminist activism, the other focuses mainly on masculinities in the military. While one has researched in Kosovo, the other has done so in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Based on these two research processes, we reflect on debates over epistemological and practical issues such as reflexivity, positionality of the researcher, access, secrecy and silence in the research process, power relations in the field and ethical dilemmas.

From the global North to the global South, there is increasing debate on motherhood, with Brazil emerging as a fruitful field of research in this context. As a country that preserves conservative ideologies and also absorbs new technological and cultural manifestations, it displays particular phenomena that establish dialogue with foreign practices. This article explores the sociocultural conjunctures around the wealth of discussions about motherhood, aiming to find similarities and divergences between dynamics of Brazil and other countries. To do so, the paper contextualizes historical movements that have led to the current situation of women and motherhood in the capitalist West; examines the tensions in the coexistence between contemporary and historically constructed practices; and discusses to what extent the processes of continuity or rupture between them occur.

This paper sets out to analyze the presence of alternative literary representations to the classic canons of patriarchy and, specifically, search for texts where a matriarchal order is constructed as a subversive form of exercising power. The interpretive dimension of women as protagonists/participants of the literary narrative is the one that centers the analyses carried out, extracting the archetypal connotations of the characters that articulate the story and their own relationships, which constitutes a critical evidence of realities that transmit implicit knowledge to the reader about the social existence. Although literature generates a negotiated fiction, its critical reading should not be carried out outside those sociological categories that allow us to unravel the world. After reviewing some theoretical concepts on the ideas of matriarchy, patriarchy and feminist criticism, three works have specifically been selected as outstanding examples of how creative tools can serve female empowerment and the transformation of the collective imagination: Lysistrata, a comedy by Aristophanes; One Hundred Years of Solitude, the novel par excellence by Gabriel García Márquez and The Country of Women, by Nicaraguan Gioconda Belli, one of the most prominent feminist writers in contemporary literature written in Spanish. The three works are intimately connected and represent, in turn, a plausible (re) conceptualization of the feminine experience aligned with feminist theories of difference. This last issue allows us to invite the reader to return to one of the classic debates of the contemporary feminist movement: to renounce or to exalt gender, finding in it, rather than a violent and oppressive social construction, an opportunity to change the world from a new scale of values starring motherhood and care policy.

The economic discipline is characterised by hierarchical dualisms. This paper examines formal/informal and productive/reproductive binary categories by means of a dialogue between the social reproduction theory and the popular economy. A starting point is the wealth of feminist contributions that highlight both reproduction and work as the heart of socioeconomic phenomena. Based on formalization processes in Latin America, the article explores how public policy interventions focus on the productive sphere. However, upon closer examination, these policies seem to neglect reproductive activities, as well as the demands of popular sectors. We argue that the contributions of feminism are necessary to broaden the economic field.

El artículo se propone analizar como caso de estudio el proyecto «Relecturas. Itinerarios museales en clave de género», nacido en 2017 bajo la coordinación de la Universitat de València con el fin de conectar museos de la ciudad de València y de su área metropolitana a través de itinerarios que ofrezcan relecturas a sus colecciones en clave de género o feminista. Se abordan algunos antecedentes del proyecto, así como su contextualización en un momento aparentemente propicio para la paulatina entrada de las mujeres en los museos. Se exponen los diferentes objetivos y metodologías de trabajo del proyecto, así como los retos que debería afrontar en un futuro para conseguir una mayor consolidación en el panorama valenciano. Abstract This paper analyses as a case study the project «Relecturas. Itinerarios museales en clave de género». It was conceived in 2017 under the coordination of University of València, to coproduce with museums in the València metropolitan area, gendered interpretative pathways and rereadings of the collections through the lens of gender or feminism. This study presents some antecedents of the project, as well as its contextualization at a moment apparently promoting to the gradual entry of women into museums. This implies the different objectives and working methodologies developed by the team project, as well as the future challenges that should face this follow-on project to achieve greater consolidation in the València museological world.