Women's Agency and Social Change

Women's Agency and Social Change
Author: Meeta Deka
Publisher: SAGE Publications Pvt. Limited
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-09-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9788132111382

Women’s Agency and Social Change: Assam and Beyond focuses on varied oppression, power relations and ideologies embedded in the complex yet interdependent social, political, economic and legal structures, and women’s subordination therein. British intervention, 1826–1947, by itself did not impact the agency aspect on women directly, but the emergence of new forces and factors sowed the seeds of women’s agency to impact social change, even if minimal. In the post-Independence period, British colonial legacy perpetuated the subordination of women through caste and class hierarchy at several levels, but an undercurrent of a feminist struggle persisted, not merely as a movement but also at individual levels. The book is written with the hope of encouraging future research on women’s experiences in the Northeastern region of India, and elsewhere, based on the belief that knowledge production is, in itself, the praxis against oppressive structures and the need to understand the historical processes that slowly transformed women to become catalysts of social transformation.

On Norms and Agency

On Norms and Agency
Author: Ana María Muñoz Boudet
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2013-04-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 082139892X

Based on focus groups and interviews with nearly 4,000 women, men, girls, and boys from 20 countries, this book explores areas that are less often studied in gender and development: gender norms and agency. It reveals how little gender norms have changed, how similar they are across countries, and how they are being challenged and contested.

Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking
Author: Maria De Angelis
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2016-01-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1443887706

This book explores women’s stories of agency in a lived experience of trafficking. The idea of agency is a difficult concept to fathom, given the unscrupulous acts and exploitative practices which define trafficking. In response to the ‘3-P’ anti-trafficking paradigm – to prevent and protect victims and prosecute traffickers – official discourse constructs agency in singular opposition to victimhood. The ‘true’ victim of trafficking is reified in attributes of passivity and worthiness, whereas signs of women’s agency are read as consent in their own predicament or as culpability in criminal justice and immigration rule-breaking. Moving beyond the official lack or criminal fact of agency, this collection of stories adds knowledge on agency constructed with, on, and by, women possessing a trafficking experience. Based on the stories of twenty-six women, agency is seen to exist in relationship to women’s victimisation under trafficking. Exploring well-being agency (women’s physical safety and economic needs), and agency freedom (women’s capacity to construct choices and the conditions affecting choice), women demonstrate agency in their identity, decision making, and actions. Acknowledging the existence of a migration-crime-security nexus in contemporary human trafficking, the narratives of fifteen anti-trafficking professionals highlight how official actions mediate women’s achievement of well-being and agency freedoms. This book will be of interest to students undertaking courses in modern slavery, human trafficking, human geography, police studies, social work, and criminology.

Voice and Agency

Voice and Agency
Author: Jeni Klugman
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2014-09-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1464803595

"The 2012 report recognized that expanding women's agency - their ability to make decisions and take advantage of opportunities is key to improving their lives as well as the world. This report represents a major advance in global knowledge on this critical front. The vast data and thousands of surveys distilled in this report cast important light on the nature of constraints women and girls continue to face globally. This report identifies promising opportunities and entry points for lasting transformation, such as interventions that reach across sectors and include life-skills training, sexual and reproductive health education, conditional cash transfers, and mentoring. It finds that addressing what the World Health Organization has identified as an epidemic of violence against women means sharply scaling up engagement with men and boys. The report also underlines the vital role information and communication technologies can play in amplifying women's voices, expanding their economic and learning opportunities, and broadening their views and aspirations. The World Bank Group's twin goals of ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity demand no less than the full and equal participation of women and men, girls and boys, around the world." -- Publisher's description.

Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Women, Voice, and Agency

Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Women, Voice, and Agency
Author: Yan?kkaya, Berrin
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2020-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1799848302

Across the world, it has remained a significant challenge for women to be heard within crucial components of society. Male domination has a vast history of restricting the visibility and voices of women in areas including economics and politics. In recent years, however, those longstanding barriers are beginning to crumble as feminism and women’s rights have become vital areas of research. Understanding the importance of having a voice and its relation to the construction of women’s empowerment, as well as existing limitations in global regions, is imperative. Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Women, Voice, and Agency is a collection of innovative research on the examination of giving voice to women’s issues in the contemporary world and their increasing impact within the various pillars of society. While highlighting topics including social change, digital activism, and inclusion, this book is ideally designed for researchers, activists, policymakers, practitioners, politicians, advocates, educators, and students seeking current research on women empowerment and the interpretation of women’s voices throughout the globe.

Development as Freedom

Development as Freedom
Author: Amartya Sen
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2011-05-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 030787429X

By the winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Economics, an essential and paradigm-altering framework for understanding economic development--for both rich and poor--in the twenty-first century. Freedom, Sen argues, is both the end and most efficient means of sustaining economic life and the key to securing the general welfare of the world's entire population. Releasing the idea of individual freedom from association with any particular historical, intellectual, political, or religious tradition, Sen clearly demonstrates its current applicability and possibilities. In the new global economy, where, despite unprecedented increases in overall opulence, the contemporary world denies elementary freedoms to vast numbers--perhaps even the majority of people--he concludes, it is still possible to practically and optimistically restain a sense of social accountability. Development as Freedom is essential reading.

The Aftermath of Feminism

The Aftermath of Feminism
Author: Angela McRobbie
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2008-11-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1446200345

In this trenchant inquiry into the state of feminism, Angela McRobbie breaks open the politics of sexual equality and ′affirmative feminism′ and sets down a new theory of gender power. Challenging the most basic assumptions of the ′end′ of feminism, this book argues that invidious forms of gender re-stabilisation are being re-established. Consumer and popular culture encroach on the terrain of so-called female freedom, appearing supportive of female success, yet tying women into new post-feminist neurotic dependencies. With a scathing critique of ′women′s empowerment′, McRobbie has developed a distinctive feminist analysis that she uses to examine socio-cultural phenomena embedded in contemporary women′s lives: from fashion photography and the television ′make-over′ genre to eating disorders, body anxiety and ′illegible rage′. A turning point in feminist theory, The Aftermath of Feminism will set a new agenda for gender studies and cultural studies.

Women, Social Change, and Activism

Women, Social Change, and Activism
Author: Dawn Hutchinson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 111
Release: 2018-11-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498574262

Through the study of local and global activism, Women, Social Change and Activism: Then and Now engages scholars interested in the artistic, economic, educational, ethical, historical, literary, philosophical, political, psychological, religious, and social dimensions of women’s lives and resistance. Through an interdisciplinary inquiry of past and present dilemmas that women and girls have faced globally, this book offers a variety of insights into multicultural issues even outside of the gender studies field.

Gender in the Mirror

Gender in the Mirror
Author: Diana Tietjens Meyers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2002-02-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 019803220X

Harmful, culturally prevalent imagery of feminine sexuality, beauty, and motherhood constrains women's self-determination. Gender in the Mirror proposes alternative imagery of feminine sexuality, beauty, and motherhood and advances an account of feminist discursive politics that takes on the challenge of neutralizing patriarchal imagery.

Global Women's Work

Global Women's Work
Author: Beth English
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 410
Release: 2018-12-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1351713477

This volume considers how women are shaping the global economic landscape through their labor, activism, and multiple discourses about work. Bringing together an interdisciplinary group of international scholars, the book offers a gendered examination of work in the global economy and analyses the effects of the 2008 downturn on women’s labor force participation and workplace activism. The book addresses three key themes: exploitation versus opportunity; women’s agency within the context of changing economic options; and women’s negotiations and renegotiations of unpaid social reproductive labor. This uniquely interdisciplinary and comparative analysis will be crucial reading for anyone with an interest in gender and the post-crisis world.