Global Contestations of Women's and Gender Rights
Global Contestations of Women's and Gender Rights
October 2020 - July 2021
In recent years, women's and gender rights have increasingly been called into question and attacked. This is especially evident in the renewed debates about abortion rights, marriage for all, early sexual education or in the hostility towards feminists and gender studies. Forty years after its adoption by the General Assembly of the UN, most states have ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), but none has fully realized gender equality. By contrast, gender has been globally reinforced as a category of structural, institutional and cultural inequality. This divide between legally guaranteed gender equality principles and the empirical continuation of gender inequality is the starting point of the research group's work programme.
The research group's fundamental assumption is that human rights and equality principles have never been universal, never inclusive. This was reflected in recent celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 2018. However, the group's primary concern is the recent development towards the increasing contestation of gender equality principles across the globe. The presumed normative consensus about equality principles has become disputable in various nationalist political arenas. The demonization of gender politics and rights claims as 'gender ideology' functions as a rhetorical tool in the construction of a new 'common sense' against gender equality. Discourses on gender equality have become a resource for global right-wing alliances and function as socio-cultural instruments for symbolic boundary-making, rather than as resources of social solidarity and cohesion. Meanwhile, the growing neo-liberal permeation of all spheres of life is carrying on apace in the background; it reinforces gender as a constitutive dimension of the un-equal distribution of material and socio-cultural resources. By contrast, neo-patriarchal, authoritarian regimes question whether gender equality principles are part and parcel of the hegemonic global liberal order and instrumentalize religion against equality rights.
Hence, the group's research object is the transformation of the notion and semantics of rights into a shared 'language of contestation' in three empirical arenas in which the contestation of gender equality is particularly manifest:
- the gendered division of labour
- the instrumentalization of religion
- gendered citizenship regimes and sexual rights.
The group will examine, from various disciplinary perspectives and in select local contexts, the social processes in which the semantics of rights (have) become contentious in these arenas. The group assumes that it is not clear how the issue of women's and gender rights has evolved into a contested understanding of gender. Accordingly, the research group aims to develop an empirically and theoretically based framework of the various dynamics and mechanisms which effect the manifold contestations of gender equality in diverse contexts across the globe.
Central questions are:
- In what ways are gender rights currently being contested and notions of gender inequality being reconfigured?
- To what extent is the contestation of gender rights across the globe reflected in the empirical reality of multiple local perceptions of equality and related rights cultures?
- To what extent are social solidarities beyond multiple contestations of rights and colonial legacies possible? What are the prerequisites for the necessary transcultural exchange on (in)equalities and the global contention of equality norms?
Publications
- All Publications
Dietze, Gabriele; Roth, Julia (Eds.) (2020): Right-Wing Populism and Gender. European Perspectives and Beyond.
Bielefeld: transcript.
Durueke, Onyinye/Kombo, Brenda: ‘Working in the ZiF research group gives you an understanding what your blind spots might be’.
Interview with Manuela Lenzen, University Bielefeld, 29 June 2021. Online available: https://aktuell.uni-bielefeld.de/2021/06/29/working-in-the-ZiF-research-group-gives-you-an-understanding-what-your-blind-spots-might-be/
Gärtner, Christel; Winkel, Heidemarie (Eds.) (2021): Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism. Sociological Approaches.
Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Kerner, Ina (2020): Der Körper als Provokation. In Iris Marion Young (Ed.): Werfen wie ein Mädchen. Ein Essay über weibliches Körperbewusstsein. [Was bedeutet das alles?].
Ditzingen: Reclam, pp. 49-70.
Kerner, Ina (2021): Achille Mbembe - Kritik der schwarzen Vernuft.
In Samuel Salzborn (Ed.): Klassiker der Sozialwissenschaften. 111 Schlüsselwerke im Portrait. 3. Auflage 2021. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 418-423.
Kerner, Ina (2021): Machtvolle Differenzen. Zur Produktion von Ungleichheit.
In ogsa A. G. ogsa AG Migrationsgesellschaft (Ed.): Soziale Arbeit in der Postmigrationsgesellschaft. Kritische Perspektiven und Praxisbeispiele aus Österreich. Weinheim: Juventa Verlag, pp. 24-36.
Mayer, Stefanie; Ajanović, Edma; Sauer, Birgit (2020): Man, Woman, Family. Gender and the Limited Modernization of Right-Wing Extremism in Austria.
In Gabriele Dietze, Julia Roth (Eds.): Right-Wing Populism and Gender. European Perspectives and Beyond. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag (Gender Studies), pp. 101-116.
Opratko, Benjamin; Bojadžijev, Manuela; Bojanić, Sanja M.; Fiket, Irena; Harder, Alexander; Jonsson, Stefan; Sauer, Birgit et al. (2021): Cultures of Rejection in the Covid-19 Crisis.
In Ethnic and Racial Studies 44 (5), pp. 893-905.
Pető, Andrea (2020): A "Small, Local Difficulty" Is Going Global? The Fight for Academic Freedom in Hungary.
In Meltem Kulaçatan, Harry Harun Behr (Eds.): Migration, Religion, Gender und Bildung. Beiträge zu einem erweiterten Verständnis von Intersektionalität. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 149-157.
Pető, Andrea (2020): Shame Revisited in the Memory Politics of Illiberal States. I
n Ernst van Alphen (Ed.): Shame! and Masculinity. Amsterdam: VALIZ (PLURAL, second volume), pp. 103-113.
Pető, Andrea (2021): Angriffe gegen die Institutionen der Wissenschaft und ihre Instrumentalisierung im illiberalen Regime. Eine Anregung zum Überdenken der gesellschaftlichen Rolle der Wissenschaft und ihre Perspektiven.
In Sonja Angelika Strube, Rita Perintfalvi, Raphaela Hemet, Miriam Metze, Cicek Sahbaz (Eds.): Anti-Genderismus in Europa. Allianzen von Rechtspopulismus und religiösem Fundamentalismus : Mobilisierung - Vernetzung - Transformation. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 187-201.
Pető, Andrea (2021): Politics of Memory in Edith Bruck?s Three Visits to Tiszakarád.
In Katrin Huxel, Juliane Karakayali, Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck, Marianne Schmidbaur, Kyoko Shinozaki, Tina Spies et al. (Eds.): Postmigrantisch gelesen. Transnationalität, Gender, Care. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 219-234.
Plomien, Ania; Scheele, Alexandra; Sproll, Martina (2022): Social Reproduction and State Responses to the Global Covid-19 Pandemic: Keeping Capitalism on the Move?
In Antonia Kupfer/Constanze Stutz (Eds.): Covid, Crisis, Care, and Change? International Gender Perspectives on Re/ Production, State and Feminist Transitions. Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich.
Poferl, Angelika; Winkel, Heidemarie; Oloff, Aline (Eds.) (2021): Feminismus, Säkularismus, Religion.
Special Issue der feministischen studien (1_2021).
Angelika Poferl und Heidemarie Winkel im Gespräch mit Ulrike Freitag, Yael Kupferberg, Nahed Samour und Dorothea Sattler (2021): Das Spannungsverhältnis von Feminismus, Säkularismus und Religion.
In feministische studien (1_2021), pp. 104-127.
Roth, Julia (2020): Intersectionality Strikes Back: Right-Wing Patterns of En-Gendering and Feminist Contestations in the Americas.
In Gabriele Dietze, Julia Roth (Eds.): Right-Wing Populism and Gender. European Perspectives and Beyond. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 251-272.
Roth, Julia (2021): Can Feminism Trump Populism? Right-Wing Trends and Intersectional Contestations in the Americas.
Trier, New Orleans, LA: Wissenschatflicher Verlag; University of New Orleans Press (Inter-American studies: cultures, societies, history Estudios interamericanos: culturas, sociedades, historia, volume 28).
Roth, Julia; Dietze, Gabriele (2020): Right-Wing Populism and Gender: A Preliminary Cartography of an Emergent Field of Research.
In Gabriele Dietze, Julia Roth (Eds.): Right-Wing Populism and Gender. European Perspectives and Beyond. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, pp. 7-22.
Sadiqi, Fatima (2021): Feminist Daughters with Military Fathers. The Forgotten Legacy of Rural Berber Men.
New Brunswick, New Jersey: The Red Sea Press.
Sauer, Birgit (2019): Rechtsruck in Europa. Eine geschlechterkritische Perspektive.
In Volker Eick, Jörg Arnold (Eds.): 40 Jahre RAV. Im Kampf um die freie Advokatur und um ein demokratisches Recht. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, pp. 92-100.
Sauer, Birgit (2019): Rechtsruck in Europa. Eine geschlechterkritische Perspektive.
In Volker Eick, Jörg Arnold (Eds.): 40 Jahre RAV. Im Kampf um die freie Advokatur und um ein demokratisches Recht. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, pp. 92-100.
Sauer, Birgit (2020): Authoritarian Right-Wing Populism as Masculinist Identity Politics. The Role of Affects.
In Gabriele Dietze, Julia Roth (Eds.): Right-Wing Populism and Gender. European Perspectives and Beyond. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 23-40.
Sauer, Birgit (2020): Entgrenzung von öffentlich und privat. Die Bedeutung von Affekt und Geschlecht.
In Burkhard Liebsch (Ed.): Die Grenzen der Einen sind (nicht) die der Anderen. Neuere Beobachtungen. 1. Auflage. Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos Berlin (Kaleidogramme, Band 191), pp. 75–87.
Sauer, Birgit (2020): La violence der genre dans L’Etat de droit et son institutionalisation dans L’Etat-providence. Pour une réflexion sur le genre en science politique.
In Cornelia Möser, Marion Tillous (Eds.): Avec, Sans ou Contre. Critiques Queer/Féministes de l’Etat. Donnemarie-Dontilly: Edition iXe, pp. 179–210.
Sauer, Birgit (2020): La violence der genre dans L’Etat de droit et son institutionalisation dans L’Etat-providence. Pour une réflexion sur le genre en science politique.
In Cornelia Möser, Marion Tillous (Eds.): Avec, Sans ou Contre. Critiques Queer/Féministes de l’Etat. Donnemarie-Dontilly: Edition iXe, pp. 179–210.
Sauer, Birgit (2021): Rechtspopulismus und Geschlecht im Internet: Wie rechtspopulistische Parteien Geschlecht und Sexualität verhandeln.
In Johanna Dorer, Brigitte Geiger, Brigitte Hipfl, Viktorija Ratković (Eds.): Handbuch Medien und Geschlecht. Perspektiven und Befunde der feministischen Kommunikations- und Medienforschung. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 1-9.
Sauer, Birgit; Dannecker, Petra (2020): Gender und Mobilität oder Mobilität und Gender? Programmatische Überlegungen zu einem komplexen Zusammenhang.
In Annegret Pelz, Alexandra Ganser: Mobile Kulturen und Gesellschaften/ Mobile Cultures and Societies. 1. Auflage. Edited by Alexandra Ganser, Annegret Pelz. Wien: V&R Unipress, pp. 87–102.
Sauer, Birgit; Gaier, Ingrid (2020): Erhobenen Hauptes. Verhüllungspraktiken zwischen Lust und Verbot.
In Birgit Sauer, Ingrid Moritz, Asiye Sel (Eds.): Körperbilder, Körpersymbole und Bekleidungsvorschriften. Zur Repräsentation von Frauen in Werbung, Medien und Sport. Wien: Verlag des Österreichischen Gewerkschaftsbundes GmbH, pp. 12-18.
Sauer, Birgit; Siim, Birte (2020): Inclusive Political Intersections of Migration, Race, Gender and Sexuality - The Cases of Austria and Denmark.
In NORA - Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 28 (1), pp. 56-69.
Scheele, Alexandra (2021): Arbeit. Flexible Arbeit im neuen Kapitalismus.
In : In Gesellschaft Richard Sennetts. Perspektiven auf ein Lebenswerk. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 123-138.
Scheele, Alexandra (2021): Economic and Monetary Union.
In Gabriele Abels, Andrea Krizsán, Heather MacRae, Anna van der Vleuten (Eds.): The Routledge Handbook of Gender and EU Politics. London, New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 265-277.
Scheele, Alexandra; Roth, Julia, Winkel; Heidemarie (Eds.) (2022): Global Contestations of Gender Rights.
Bielefeld: transcript.
Schubert, Karsten (2020): Freedom as Critique: Foucault beyond Anarchism.
In Philosophy & Social Criticism, 1-34.
Schubert, Karsten (2020): Institutionalisierung der Freiheit im Recht. Foucault und die postmarxistische Rechtskritik.
In Steffen Herrmann, Matthias Flatscher (Eds.): Institutionen des Politischen. Perspektiven der radikalen Demokratietheorie. Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 351-378.
Schubert, Karsten (2020): "Political Correctness" als Sklavenmoral? Zur politischen Theorie der Privilegienkritik.
In Leviathan 48 (1), pp. 29-51.
Schubert, Karsten (2020): Umkämpfte Kunstfreiheit - ein Differenzierungsvorschlag.
In Zeitschrift für Menschenrechte (2), pp. 195-204.
Schubert, Karsten (2021): Queere und schwule Theorie.
In Clemens Kammler, Rolf Parr, Ulrich Johannes Schneider (Eds.): FOUCAULT-HANDBUCH. Leben - Werk - Wirkung (2nd revised and expanded edition). Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, pp. 503-509.
Schubert, Karsten (2021): The Christian Roots of Critique. How Foucault's Confessions of the Flesh Sheds New Light on the Concept of Freedom and the Genealogy of the Modern Critical Attitude.
In Le foucaldien 7 (2), pp. 1-11.
Winkel, Heidemarie (2021): Islamic Feminism. Thinking Gender Justice as a Religious Knowledge Practice.
In Christel Gärtner, Heidemarie Winkel (Eds.): Exploring Islam beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism. Sociological Approaches. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Winkel, Heidemarie; Poferl, Angelika (Eds.) (2021): Multiple Gender Cultures, Sociology and Plural Modernities. Re-Reading Social Constructions of Gender across the Globe in a Decolonial Perspective.
Abingdon, Oxon, New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Winkel, Heidemarie (2021): Multiple Gender Cultures: Gender as an Epistemic Test Case of Plural Modernities.
In Heidemarie Winkel, Angelika Poferl, (Eds.): Multiple Gender Cultures, Sociology and Plural Modernities. Re-Reading Social Constructions of Gender across the Globe in a Decolonial Perspective. Abingdon, Oxon, New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 225-265.
Winkel, Heidemarie; Poferl, Angelika (2021): Eine Neubestimmung des Verhältnisses von Feminismus, Säkularismus, Religion. Zur Einleitung
In feministische studien (1_2021), pp. 3-16.
Zubair, Shirin (2020): Development Narratives, Media and Women in Pakistan: Shifts and Continuities.
In: Varughese, E. Dawson; Dudrah, Rajinder: GRAPHIC NOVELS AND VISUAL CULTURES IN SOUTH ASIA. London: Routledge.
Zubair, Shirin; Ahsan, Rija (2020): Subverting Patriarchy through Écriture Feminine in Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s Lahore with Love: Growing Up with Girlfriends, Pakistani Style.
In Pak. J. Women Stud.: Alam-e-Niswan (27/1), pp. 1–17.
Zubair, Shirin; Bhatti, Irun (2020): Women in Punjabi Proverbs: Cultural Models, Gender Ideologies and Stereotyping.
In Journal of Gender and Social Issues (19/1), pp. 85–98.
Zubair, Shirin; Raza Maryam (2020): Discovering Herstory and Construction of Alternative Female Identities in Fawzia Afzal-Khan’s Lahore with Love: Growing Up with Girlfriends, Pakistani Style.
In Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies (8). Available online at https://pakistaniaat.org/index.php/pak/issue/view/18, checked on 7/8/2021.
Contributions in ZiF-Mitteilungen
- Lívia de Souza Lima, Alice Farneti, Lisa-Marie Maier, Azadeh Nematy Yazdi, Holly Patch: Mapping Women's and Gender Rights as a Globally Contested Arena. Report of the Opening Conference of the ZiF Research Group "Global Contestations of Women's and Gender Rights", 7 - 9 October 2020 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University". In: Journal Netzwerk Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung NRW Nr. 47/2020, 76-79.
- Interview with Fatima Sadiqi: How to Connect Linguistics and Gender Studies. In: ZiF-Mitteilungen 1 (2021), 21-22.
- Alexandra Scheele, Julia Roth, Heidemarie Winkel: Whose Rights - Which Rights? Global Contestations of Women's and Gender Rights. In: ZiF-Mitteilungen 1 (2021), 12-20.
- Lívia de Souza Lima, Alice Farneti, Lisa-Marie Maier, Azadeh Nematy Yazdi, Holly Patch: Global Contestations of Women's and Gender Rights: In: ZiF-Mitteilungen 1 (2021), 7-11.