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1. Advancing SVRI’s Work on VAC and CSA to Strategically Contribute to the Field

Author:
Ayesha Mago, Anik Gevers, and Elizabeth Dartnall
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Abstract:
The SVRI is a global south based, women-run organisation, focusing on supporting practitioner research partnerships for evidence-building around the issue of violence against women (VAW) and violence against children (VAC), committed to building a gender equitable world, where we can all live free from violence driven by gender inequality. Through our strategic plan we contribute to regional and global evidence building on what works to end violence against women and violence against children, with a focus on low and middle income countries (LMICs) where the burden of gendered violence is greatest, yet where the least resources are available for research and evidence based response and prevention efforts.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Gender Based Violence, Violence, and Sexual Violence
Political Geography:
Global Focus

2. Girls’ Education and Women’s Equality: How to Get More out of the World’s Most Promising Investment

Author:
Shelby Carvalho and David Evans
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Global Development
Abstract:
To hear talk of it, you might think educating girls is a silver bullet to solve all the world’s ills. A large and still growing collection of research demonstrates the wide-ranging benefits of girls’ education. Recent research has nuanced some of those findings, but the fundamental result stands: Educating girls is good for girls and good for the people around them
Topic:
Education, Gender Issues, Feminism, and Equality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Funding Ethically: Better Funding for Violence Against Women and Violence Against Children Research in Lower and Middle Income Countries

Author:
Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Abstract:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) has, over the last 12 months, been involved in several processes that address the issue of more and better funding for research on violence against women in all their diversity and violence against all children in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). For SVRI, ‘better’ funding for research is grounded in feminist principles, acknowledges, and addresses power dynamics, involves honest, transformative relationships between donors and grantees and creates accessible and equitable processes that support priority driven research in LMICs conducted by LMIC researchers. Throughout 2020 we co-facilitated in a participatory process that culminated in the launch of the global shared research agenda (GSRA), which will be used to advocate for more resources to be put towards building the knowledge base and addressing key research gaps in the field of violence against women (VAW). Simultaneous work is being carried out to identify streams of funding that can be utilised to resource this research agenda and analyse key issues with existing funding mechanisms. These two pieces of work deal with what needs to be funded and where the money is for this.1 We hope the guidance note for funders on ethical and coordinated funding for research on VAW and violence against children (VAC) in LMICs - will be a contribution to advocacy on how resources need to be allocated.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Gender Based Violence, Violence, and Sexual Violence
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Paving the way to the Security Council: NGOs’ activism on women’s and children’s issues

Author:
Yamya Rocha Rebelo
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
Abstract:
The relationship between the United Nations Security Council and Non- Governmental Organizations has scarcely been considered in scholarship on international security. This lack of academic interest contrasts with accounts on the engagement of NGOs in the production and advancement of UNSC discussions on women and children. By drawing on international relations and social movements’ theoretical contributions, the paper traces NGOs’ strategies to participate in UNSC thematic debates. By looking at the actions of the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict and the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace, and Security, the analysis finds that NGOs have built coalitions among themselves and maintained networks with friendly countries and UN specialized agencies to capitalize on favorable political and institutional opportunities and expand the access to the security sector.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, United Nations, Children, Women, and NGOs
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. From Seeds to Roots: Trajectories Towards Feminist Foreign Policy

Author:
Alice Ridge and Liz Gill-Atkinson
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
International Women's Development Agency (IWDA)
Abstract:
Since 2014, Sweden, Canada, France, Luxembourg, Mexico and Spain have adopted and declared feminist foreign policies (FFPs) and/or feminist international assistance policies (FIAPs). In doing so, all six countries are embedding gender equality as the central purpose and key goals of their foreign policy commitments. Appetite for this approach at a global level is growing and scholars and advocates have called for greater evidence and awareness of how and why these policies have come about. In response, IWDA implemented a multi-country qualitative research project, From Seeds to Roots: Trajectories towards Feminist Foreign Policy. The purpose of the research is to improve understanding of the trajectories towards adoption of FFPs/FIAPs and deepen knowledge of the factors and conditions that have influence the adoption of these feminist policies.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Gender Issues, Feminism, and Equality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Funding Feminism: Grantmaking for Women’s Rights

Author:
Sydney Wise
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Cairo Review of Global Affairs
Institution:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, American University in Cairo
Abstract:
Anne Firth Murray, founding president of the Global Fund for Women, chronologizes a lifetime of harms faced by women and posits community as a remedy.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Women, Feminism, and Equality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Gender discrimination in Football. Building a Toolbox Toward Gender Equity in the Beautiful Game

Author:
Rachel Davidson Raycraft, Rebecca Robinson, and Jolena Zabel
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Dejusticia
Abstract:
As the most popular sport worldwide, football (or soccer) may be the poster child for lingering gender disparities in sport. The importance of gender and gender-based categorizations cling to the world of sport like no other realm of culture or society in the twenty-first century. While presented as natural, logical, and innate, the differential treatment of men and women and boys and girls in the world of sports is largely the product of over a century of global socialization intent on preserving sport as a male-dominated pastime, lifestyle and avenue of opportunity. This report describes the various manifestations of gender-based discrimination that shape the game of football today, the role that the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) plays in perpetuating this discrimination and the existing avenues for remedy (or Lack thereof). The report concludes with key takeaways from the fight for gender equality to date with an eye toward building a more just world of sport in the years to come.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Sports, Inequality, Discrimination, Football, and Soccer
Political Geography:
Global Focus

8. Women, Voice and Power: How transformative feminist leadership is challenging inequalities and the root causes of extreme vulnerability

Author:
Emily Brown
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
The evidence can no longer be ignored: when women and feminist activists are able to use their collective power to challenge inequalities, they are having a transformational impact. From women’s rights organizations and movements breaking down harmful social norms, to political leaders advancing highly progressive policies, there is a growing body of evidence from feminist organizing across the world that when decisions are made more equally and inclusively, and are rooted in locally-owned, intersectional feminist movements and political agendas, they have immediate and long-term human development benefits for all.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Women, Leadership, Feminism, and Civil Rights
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. From Female Engagement Teams to Engagement Platoons: The Evolution of Gendered Community Engagement in UN Peace Operations

Author:
Gretchen Baldwin
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
The military components of UN peacekeeping operations have used engagement teams (ETs) to conduct community engagement activities since at least 2015. While ETs were initially ad hoc initiatives, the UN has recently begun to institutionalize gendered community engagement, including through an ongoing shift from ETs to engagement platoons (EPs). Yet despite a general recognition that ETs have been beneficial, they have not been consistently understood or defined, making it difficult to assess how they have been used and to what effect. This policy paper fills this research gap by presenting data on the prior activities of ETs and the experiences of those deployed to them. It aims to help decision makers align policies and guidance on ETs and EPs with evidence of what has and has not worked and to establish a baseline against which EPs can be measured over time. The paper draws on extensive interviews with members of ETs and policymakers, as well as a questionnaire distributed to military peacekeepers in six peacekeeping missions. Overall, this research found broad support for the ongoing rollout of mixed-gender EPs. It concludes, however, that to effectively implement ETs and EPs, leaders in missions and in national militaries must address the institutional barriers that preclude women’s full participation in peace operations and perpetuate gendered stereotypes. Toward this end, it offers several recommendations to troop-contributing countries and the UN: Provide training on the skills required for community engagement to men and women across all levels of the military; Shift the burden for gendered community engagement off of women; Improve internal reporting and analysis by ETs and EPs; Coordinate between ETs and EPs and other mission components; Build the capacity of missions to engage with communities; and Avoid reinforcing gendered assumptions and stereotypes through the activities of ETs and EPs.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, United Nations, Peacekeeping, and Women
Political Geography:
Global Focus

10. La perspectiva de género en las operaciones militares. Exigencia jurídica y operativa

Author:
Javier Ruiz Arévalo
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
Institution:
Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
Abstract:
The inclusion of the gender perspective in military operations is now a legal requirement. This exigency is mainly consequence of the doption of the UNSCR 1325. But it is also an operational requirement derived from the need to take into account in decision-making processes the human factor in all its dimensions, to ensure that military actions are adapted to the reality of the scenario in which they take place. This article tries to show that, in the process of integrating this aspect in operations, decision makers tend to only consider the legal aspects of this issue, ignoring the operational benefits that it entails. The official documents of organizations such as the UN or NATO, recognize this duality but, in practice, do not develop this perspective in their operating procedures. All this creates significant problems for those responsible for integrating the gender perspective in operations and requires the introduction of regulatory changes along these lines./Integrar la perspectiva de género en la conducción de las operaciones militares es una exigencia jurídica derivada principalmente de la RCSNU 1325. Pero es también una exigencia operativa derivada de la necesidad de tener en cuenta en los procesos de toma de decisiones el factor humano en toda su extensión, para garantizar que las actuaciones propias se adaptan a la realidad del escenario en el que se desarrollan. A lo largo de este trabajo se evidencia que, en la integración de este aspecto en las operaciones, se tiende a incidir únicamente en los aspectos jurídicos de esta cuestión, pasando por alto los beneficios operativos que conlleva. Los documentos oficiales de organizaciones como la ONU o la OTAN, reconocen esta dualidad pero, en la práctica, no la desarrollan en sus procedimientos operativos, lo que supone un problema para los responsables de integrar la perspectiva de género en las operaciones y hace necesario introducir cambios normativos en esta línea.
Topic:
NATO, Gender Issues, Human Rights, United Nations, Military Affairs, and Armed Conflict
Political Geography:
Global Focus

11. El género del fin del mundo: aportes de la investigación feminista por la paz ante el mantropoceno (The Gender of the End of the World: Contributions of Feminist Peace Research in the Manthropocene)

Author:
Itziar Mujika Chao
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
El debate del denominado Antropoceno se ha caracterizado por una mirada androcéntrica, pese a que diversas perspectivas feministas como los ecofeminismos o los nuevos feminismos materialistas lleven años realizando aportes sobre la sostenibilidad ecológica y planetaria. Este artículo explora los posibles aportes que se pueden realizar desde la investigación feminista por la paz a este debate, incluyendo así en los análisis feministas sobre la sostenibilidad de la vida en el planetauna mirada crítica en torno a los conflictos y el militarismo.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Feminism, Peace, and Anthropocene
Political Geography:
Global Focus

12. Domestication and Defeminization of Female Leadership

Author:
Abeer Kapoor
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ)
Institution:
Turkish Policy Quarterly (TPQ)
Abstract:
Throughout the article, the author argues that women politicians will always be framed within the domestic context and that they will always be attached to their male family members. Then, if they are to go beyond that, they must remove their feminine identity and discard it in order to compete with men on an equal basis.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Leadership, Feminism, Equality, and Femininity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

13. Gender-Sensitive Indicators for Early Lorem Ipsum Warning of Violence Dolor Sit and Conflict

Author:
Louise Allen and Gina Chirillo
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
International Foundation for Electoral Systems
Abstract:
Conflict and violence monitoring and early warning systems can save lives. Gender-sensitive indicators help provide nuanced and complete contextual information to strengthen the systems’ predictive capacity, but their integration has been infrequent and inconsistent. Overlooking gender in early warning risks ignoring gender norms or behaviors that contribute to violence. It further risks formulating policies and responses that do not account for the differential needs and experiences of women, men, girls and boys. Simply put, we must integrate gender in early warning systems, and the alternative is dangerous.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Elections, Gender Based Violence, and Political Participation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

14. Women Labour in Call Centres: Understanding Characteristics of Work

Author:
Gulten Dursun and Hale Butun Bayram
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Rest: Journal of Politics and Development
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
This paper is concerned with the work experiences of women employees in info- service-based offices as telephone call centres. Call centres have grown rapidly in Turkey in recent years, creating a large number of new jobs. In particular, it is concerned with the question of whether call centre jobs are offering women new opportunities for career progression, or whether a more common bias is taking place in which women are being drawn into highly routinized jobs. The collection of data was carried out sourcing a heterogeneous plurality of instruments. Our research confirms that work processes in call centres are close association of surveillance technologies (technologic panoptican), exploitation and high levels of discipline, highly repetitive and heavily monitored, and that the association with the assembly line and Taylorism have dominated much of the rhetoric on call centres. In addition, we have observed that, the structure of women’s employment in the call centre industry tends to polarise.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Science and Technology, Labor Issues, and Feminism
Political Geography:
Global Focus

15. A Gender Framework for Arms Control and Disarmament

Author:
Chantal de Jonge Oudraat and Jana Wattenberg
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Women In International Security (WIIS)
Abstract:
I n recent years, gender has come up in arms control and disarmament deliberations. Ireland, for example, submitted working papers on gender to preparatory committee meetings of the Nuclear Non-ProliferationTreaty (NPT) Review Conferences. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) emphasizes that nuclear weapons use affects men and women differently and calls for equal representation in disarmament negotiations. However, such references to gender are so far the exception rather than the rule in arms control and disarmament talks. We argue that a systematic inclusion of gender perspectives advances arms control and disarmament deliberations and negotiations in four main ways. First, a gender lens calls attention to the human and gendered consequences of the development and use of weapons. Second, it exposes arms control and disarmament agreements that lack gender provisions. Third, a gender lens highlights the absence of diversity in arms control and disarmament communities.3 Fourth, gender perspectives help reveal hierarchical power structures and encourage critical reflections on the legitimacy of established processes and agreements. In sum, the inclusion of a gender perspective produces more humane, effective, legitimate and sustainable agreements.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Gender Issues, Nuclear Weapons, Treaties and Agreements, International Security, Women, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:
Global Focus

16. The evolving gender gap in labor force participation during COVID-19

Author:
Simeon Djankov, Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, Lisa Hyland, and Eva (Yiwen) Zhang
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics
Abstract:
Despite many significant gains by women in the paid workforce in recent decades, the percentage of women participating in the labor force has remained lower than the percentage of male participants. Now, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the global economic downturn it precipitated, the gap in labor force participation between men and women in some economies has actually widened, with potentially damaging repercussions for women’s career prospects and pay. The pandemic has disproportionately affected sectors employing more women, such as retail stores, restaurants, and the hotel and hospitality business. An increase in family caregiving responsibilities because of school and childcare closures has also fallen on working mothers' shoulders. Both factors have pulled women out of the labor force. The authors track trends in male and female labor force participation in 43 countries and find substantial differences across countries in the way women’s participation has been affected relative to that of men. In some countries, such as Colombia, Chile, and Cyprus, the gender gap in labor force participation widened the most during the pandemic. The gender gap also widened in the United States, driving 2.5 million women from their jobs in what Vice President Kamala Harris called a “national emergency” for women. In other economies, such as Luxembourg and Lithuania, the gender gap in labor force participation, unexpectedly, shrank during the early period of the pandemic. On average, female employees have fared better in countries where women are less concentrated in the services sector, less likely to be employed as temporary workers, and where laws supported greater equality at the onset of the crisis. Greater government expenditure on childcare in the pre-COVID-19 era, however, does not appear to have insulated female workers from the damaging repercussions of the pandemic.
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, Services, COVID-19, and Empowerment
Political Geography:
Colombia, Chile, Cyprus, Global Focus, and United States of America

17. A UN for All? UN Policy and Programming on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Expression, and Sex Characteristics

Author:
Albert Trithart
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
Sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC) have been on the UN’s agenda for more than twenty-five years. Many of the earliest developments took place in the UN human rights mechanisms and Human Rights Council. Increasingly, however, UN agencies, funds, and programs are also integrating SOGIESC into their policy and programming. This paper explores what these UN entities have been doing to respect, protect, promote, and fulfill the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) people. It looks at how the UN’s work on SOGIESC has intersected with its work on human rights, global public health, development, humanitarian affairs, peace and security, and gender. It also assesses what has been driving forward policy and programming on SOGIESC and the barriers that have held back further progress. The paper concludes with recommendations for the UN Secretariat, UN agencies, funds, and programs, supportive UN member states, and LGBTI activists across five areas: Building the human resources needed to institutionalize the UN’s work on SOGIESC; Making the UN a safe and accepting workplace for LGBTI people; Mainstreaming and coordinating work on SOGIESC; Strengthening partnerships between the UN and other actors; and Continuing to expand policy and programming on SOGIESC into new areas.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Human Rights, United Nations, Inequality, Sustainable Development Goals, LGBT+, Peace, and Transgender
Political Geography:
Global Focus

18. UN Peacekeeping Operations and Gendered Threats to the Protection of Civilians

Author:
Laura Cuzzuol and Welmoet Wels
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
International Peace Institute
Abstract:
The intersection between the protection of civilians (POC) and gender has been addressed in Security Council resolutions on POC and on women, peace, and security (WPS) since the late 1990s. Nonetheless, understanding how POC and gender converge, and translating this convergence into implementable action plans, are challenging tasks for peacekeeping missions. One challenge is that neither UN policies on POC in peacekeeping nor UN policies on making peacekeeping gender-responsive focus on the intersection between POC and gender. Likewise, the language in peacekeeping mandates does not always include firm and clear language related to gendered POC threats. At the mission level, POC strategy documents vary greatly in the extent to which they mention gender mainstreaming, and few provide concrete guidance. Accordingly, most missions do not undertake a structured, gendersensitive analysis of threats. When they do, they often focus on sexual and gender-based violence against women, with less attention to other gendered POC threats or POC threats to men, boys, and girls. Moreover, many missions do not systematically disaggregate POC-related data by sex, age, and other relevant demographic factors. Another challenge is the lack of coherence within the UN and between the UN and other stakeholders in conceptualizing and responding to gendered POC threats. While there are conversations on gendered POC threats within missions, and, to some extent, with interlocutors outside of missions, these usually amount to a relatively shallow form of coordination. To ensure the sustainability of their efforts to address gendered POC threats, missions also have to work with national and local actors. While there are many examples of missions grounding their POC work in local structures, it is difficult for missions to sustainably address gendered POC threats that are culturally grounded. To address these challenges, UN peacekeeping missions could consider developing “safeguarding frameworks” on the intersection of POC and gender. These frameworks could provide more detailed guidance that challenges the conflation of “gender” and “women” and the association of gender-related protection primarily with sexual violence. They could also dictate that missions need to assess the gender aspects of every threat and could help move missions from coordinating to integrating their work on POC and gender.
Topic:
Gender Issues, United Nations, Peacekeeping, and Civilians
Political Geography:
Global Focus

19. Gender Gaps in Employment, Wages, and Work Hours: Assessment of COVID-19 Implications

Author:
Maryna Tverdostup
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:
The COVID-19 pandemic has highly asymmetric effects on labour market outcomes of men and women. In this paper, we empirically investigate the dynamics and drivers of gender gaps in employment rates, wages and workhours during the pandemic. Relying on Estonian Labour Force Survey data, we document that the pandemic has, if anything, reduced gender inequality in all three domains. Our results suggest that, while the evolution of inequalities mirrored the infection rate development – rising as infections mounted and declining as the first wave flattened – overall, the pandemic did not exacerbate gender gaps in 2020. The cyclical increases in gender disparities were largely driven by parenthood, as child-rearing women experienced a major decline in their employment rate and workhours, as well as gender segregation in the most affected industries. The higher propensity to work from home and better educational attainments of women deterred gender wage gap expansion, as wage returns to telework and education rose during the pandemic. Our results suggest no systematic expansion of gender gaps, but rather short-term fluctuations. However, labour market penalties for women with young children and women employed in those industries most affected by COVID-19 may last longer than the pandemic, threatening to widen gender inequality in the long run.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Employment, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus

20. Patriarchy is the Constraint: Resolution 1325 Two Decades Later

Author:
Seema Shekhawat
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Two decades ago, history was made as far as gender security is concerned. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) led a revolutionary policy change by passing Resolution 1325 – also known as the women, peace and security (WPS) agenda – on 31 October 2000. The resolution marked the United Nations’ (UN) full-fledged attention to gendered aspects of peace and conflict. This was revolutionary: advocacy for placing women at the centre of peace processes – not merely as victims, but as peacebuilders. The resolution called for the full participation of women in all efforts towards conflict prevention, resolution, peacemaking and post-conflict reconstruction. This resolution is considered a crucial international document for advocating gender equality in all processes of peacebuilding, both during conflict and post-conflict.[1] It brought into focus the official endorsement of the involvement of women in formal peace processes.[2] This article[3] argues that since we recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of UNSC Resolution 1325 in Africa, and elsewhere, a reality check is in order.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Gender Issues, United Nations, Peacekeeping, Feminism, and Equality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

21. Going Beyond the Add-and-Stir Critique: Tracing the Hybrid Masculinist Legacies of the Performative State

Author:
Amya Agarwal
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Uluslararasi Iliskiler
Institution:
International Relations Council of Turkey (UİK-IRCT)
Abstract:
A West-centric knowledge bias has plagued International Relations (IR) for some time, prompting many non-West scholars to develop indigenous knowledge systems. In doing so, there is, however, a risk of both essentialization of certain cultures/histories; and reproducing the hierarchic and exclusionary structure of knowledge production. Moving beyond the add and stir critique style of non-Western approaches to IR, this paper explores the significance of connections and hybrid histories to understand gendered state practices. Through a case study of state performance in Kashmir, the paper traces the hybrid masculinist legacies (colonial, Brahminical and Kshatriya) derived from both Western and non-Western histories.
Topic:
International Relations, Gender Issues, Governance, State Building, and Masculinity
Political Geography:
Global Focus

22. SVRI Knowledge Exchange: The Power of Language and its use in the BGV field

Author:
Elizabeth Louis
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Abstract:
This Knowledge Exchange focuses on language with the understanding that it’s a tool of communication, an exchange of perspectives, and can be a sacred form of expression. Language and terms have been reclaimed by individuals and groups to ensure that their narratives are authentically voiced and portrayed appropriately. The writers recognize that this piece is written in English and it brings in a bias in the ways we communicate information. Language bias can be defined as words or phrases that may make certain individuals or groups feel excluded or underrepresented. In our own awareness of the importance of meaning through language, we must not forget that continuous efforts must be made to decolonize language. To rid language of colonial influence that has shaped the lens we use in our gender- based violence work. The writers intend for this piece to be disseminated to a wide audience of practitioners, researchers, advocates, survivors, and those with lived experiences of violence driven by gender inequality to reflect and discuss the ways language is used and its implications. We strive to attain language justice that focuses on equity, shared power, and inclusion of voices that have been misrepresented or undervalued in the field of GBV. It is our hope that dialogues, critical analysis, and renewed commitment to intentionally unpack, revise, and retrieve all forms, dialects or translations gives rise to language that is wholesome, validates and honours within diverse beloved communities.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Communications, Inequality, and Language
Political Geography:
Global Focus

23. COVID-19 and the Exacerbation of Gender Inequality: How the Pandemic Disproportionately Affected Women around the World

Author:
Jennifer Dikler
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP)
Abstract:
The gender wage gap, or the idea that women have historically and consistently earned less than men, has been widely studied and accepted over the past few decades. This gender wage gap exists globally and serves as a powerful indicator of the gender inequality experienced by women. As of 2019, according to data amassed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), South Korea’s gender wage gap among full-time employees is the largest among the countries that make up the OECD, coming in at 32.5%. Japan was second at 32.5%, followed by Mexico, the United States, and Canada at 18.8%, 18.5%, and 17.6%, respectively. Notably, in countries with higher levels of racial diversity, the gender wage gap is usually significantly exacerbated for women of color. Despite narrowing in recent years, the gender wage gap is extremely stubborn, and very much existent, as is the general global gender inequality that it reflects. In the past 18 months, the world's population and the global economy have been significantly upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus has affected virtually every country in the world, especially nations with fewer resources to help combat its spread. Studies are also beginning to confirm that COVID-19 has had a disproportionate economic effect on women in many countries, amplifying the gender inequality that persisted in the global economy even prior to the pandemic. For example, as outlined in a study published by McKinsey in July 2020, “Women make up 39 percent of global employment but account for 54 percent of overall [COVID-19- related] job losses” (Madgavkar et al. 2020). However, the widening of the gender gap during the pandemic has been far from universal, with some countries seeing the opposite results. This brief seeks to provide an initial exploration, specifically highlighting how variably the pandemic has affected the United States, South Korea, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, the Honduras, Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany. When it comes to global gender equality, where progress is so essential and yet so slow, it is extremely important to explore the economic setbacks created by the pandemic. If not addressed properly, these setbacks might not only slow the fight toward gender equality, but could also slow down the global economy.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Women, Inequality, Economy, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Global Focus