‘No Thought of Gender’: Bodily Norms in Swedish Rescue Services Incident Reporting

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) play an increasingly important role in the preventative and planning work carried out by rescue services, but to date there has been little research investigating how these technologies may be involved in the gendering of the organization. In this study, I seek to complement existing analyses of the gendered rescue service by focusing on a web portal used to collect, process and publish data about accidents in Sweden. Through the figuration of the ‘modest witness’ I suggest how an apparent absence of gender in the accident reporting process may actually be part of a wider organizational process of gendering in which only certain bodies are allowed to be visible and allowed to witness officially.     

Inclusions and exclusions in law: experiences of women with disability in rural and war-affected areas in Sri Lanka

Broad and inter-disciplinary inquiry into disability is at a nascent stage in Sri Lanka. This paper looks at the intersectionality of disability and gender in the specific contexts of ‘the rural’ and the armed conflict-affected areas of the country, particularly the interaction with the law. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were conducted among rural women with disabilities in the North Central and Eastern provinces, including women who acquired disabilities resulting from the internal conflict. Legal literacy, administrative discretion in disability-related welfare programmes, and transitional justice and reconciliation emerged as the most prominent themes in the interviews. We analyse these issues using a rights framework in an attempt to highlight some of the vulnerabilities of women with disability in the rural and war-affected contexts. The paper also reflects on a few instances where those vulnerabilities have been overcome through collective action.     

The Cost of a Calling? Clergywomen and Work in the Church of England

This article explores the work of clergywomen in the Church of England within an analysis of the Church as a gendered organization. We highlight the sex discrimination they often face, at the same time as satisfaction with their work and the need to follow their calling regardless of the difficulties. This is explained through an analysis of the significance of religious calling and the requirement for ‘sacrifice’ on their ability to endure their work and to challenge discriminatory treatment.     

From leprosy to The Willow Tree: decoding disability and Islamic spirituality in Iranian film

The lack of attention in academic discourse to representations of disability in films from the Middle East has led to an incomplete picture of representations of disability in global cinema. For instance, the diverse meanings of disability in Iranian cinema and the influence of disability on the emergence of Iranian New Wave cinema have been almost completely ignored by scholars. A number of award-winning films from Iran have featured disability as central to their narratives – such as The House is Black (1963), Taste of Cherry (1997), The Color of Paradise (1999), The Willow Tree (2005), and The Painting Pool (2013). Disability in these films serves alternatively as a symbol of spiritual possibility, a mark of marginalization, and a covert social critique. These films examine the emotional, physical, and social implications of disability, while celebrating the cultural power of film to challenge social, religious, and artistic barriers.     

Gendered forms of responsibility and control in teenagers' views of alcohol

There has been a shift in the most recent UK Government's Alcohol Strategy (2012) from personal responsibility towards a model of shared responsibility for young people's drinking. On closer examination of the strategy, however, it appears that rather than exonerating young people from blame, governance is merely extended to include wider partners. Using findings from nine focus groups with young people in Liverpool, UK, we explore who they believe are responsible for their drinking behaviours and how they learn to become ‘good drinkers’. Our findings show that while teenagers were aware of dominant alcohol-related messages and maintained a moral position as responsible citizens; they also negotiated and resisted norms about teenage drinking. Although both boys and girls agreed that parents were the primary responsible authority for regulating their drinking, there was gendered disagreement about personal responsibility. The girls described how they were ultimately responsible for any adverse consequences if they drank too much whilst the boys considered a wide range of partners who would be implicated. However, unlike the girls, the boys described a willingness to either abstain or moderate their alcohol intake in order to remain in control and avoid any alcohol-related trouble or harm.     

‘Leave no one behind’ and the challenge of intersectionality: Christian Aid's experience of working with single and Dalit women in India

The principle of ‘leaving no one behind’ is strongly emerging as a defining aspect of the new development framework under negotiation in 2015. This stems from an acknowledgement of the failure of the Millennium Development Goals in securing benefits for the most marginalised groups, those suffering from economic deprivation and discrimination as a result of intersecting inequalities. As the new development framework takes shape, national-level experiences of tackling intersecting inequalities can provide lessons on the shifts required in policy and practice to address the specific needs of women experiencing deprivation, violence, and discrimination because of their gender and other identities. This case study illustrates lessons learnt from Christian Aid's programmatic experience in several states of India in support of Dalit women and single women as they individually and collectively struggle to gain dignity and realise their rights.     

Gender,poverty, and inequality: a brief history of feminist contributions in the field of international development

This paper provides a brief history of feminist contributions to the analysis of gender, poverty, and inequality in the field of international development. It draws out the continuous threads running through these contributions over the years, as the focus has moved from micro-level analysis to a concern with macro-level forces. It concludes with a brief note on some of the confusions and conflations that continue to bedevil attempts to explore the relationship between gender, poverty, and inequality.     

Looking within the household: a study on gender,food security,and resilience in cocoa-growing communities

Many West African cocoa households experience a ‘lean season’ before the cocoa harvest, leaving them vulnerable to various events and issues which potentially cause stress – most notably food insecurity. This study, relying primarily on qualitative data from Côte d'Ivoire, examines how income allocation and intra-household dynamics affect household resilience during the lean season. Its findings indicate that in contexts in which women and men's income are separate and destined for different purposes in the household, the fact that men's income is often earmarked for individual spending creates particular problems for households in the lean season. Women's empowerment within the household is essential to improving intra-household resource allocation for resilience. In many contexts, this translates into development programmes supporting women to increase their production and ability to control income independently of men. However, a context of individual gendered agricultural production, and gendered spending obligations, such as West Africa, calls for a slightly different approach. Enhancing agricultural productivity is critical, but in addition it is important to encourage co-operation between women and men in households to result in joint decision-making in the interests of the household.     

What if gender became an essential,standard element of Vulnerability Assessments?

Vulnerability Assessments (VAs) can be useful tools for providing key insights for non-government organisations and other development actors, including governments. Not only can they provide an extensive, ‘landscape-wide’ understanding of vulnerability and its underlying causes in a specific context, but this understanding can be jointly owned by all participants. They can thus be used for designing risk reduction and resilience-building measures, programmes, or projects that affect specific groups within a community or the landscape. Beyond that, VAs can provide a platform that promotes interaction among otherwise disconnected stakeholders, as well as the evidence and argumentation for community groups to engage in advocacy with local and municipal/district authorities. This article draws on our combined experience as development practitioners, and considers what we have learnt about the importance of integrating gender issues into VAs.     

The food insecurity―obesity paradox as a vicious cycle for women: inequalities and health

Poverty and income inequality undermine women's health in a myriad of ways. This article discusses findings from the Full Plate Project, which addressed women's experience of food security, obesity, and chronic disease in Atlantic Canada. Through first-hand accounts, it identifies a vicious cycle surrounding the food insecurity–obesity paradox. The cycle's core elements included experiences of poverty, food insecurity and nutritional deprivation, weight gain leading to obesity, stress, and experiences of chronic illness. These mainly qualitative findings provide a vivid and multi-layered analysis of the effects of inequalities on health. A majority of Full Plate participants were lone mothers and unattached women, and existing outside of a two-adult member household framework. The vicious cycles experienced are intertwined and cannot be addressed by compartmentalising elements of health or social services. Evidence indicates that policies must respond fully to the social determinants of health and multiple inequalities related to poverty, gender, age, mobility, disability, location, culture, coping skills, and other dynamics.