Gender and Nation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Thinking Gender, Thinking Nation: An Introduction
South Asian History and Culture , 2018
The introduction to the Special Issue ‘Thinking Gender, Thinking Nation’ traces how feminist scholarship has worked on mainstreaming the category ‘gender’ as central to any discussion on both nations and nationalisms. It examines how the imaginary of the body-politic is almost always masculine, where only men can be citizens, and women are confined to their biological roles. It further seizes the contemporary moment as a historical juncture, which is witness to a heightened contradiction. On the one hand, there has been a resurgence of nationalism with the coming of a Right-wing government in 2014 that deploy images of women as nation-mother (Bharat Mata) to legitimize violence. On the other hand, we are increasingly seeing an assertion of rights, legal reforms, as well as an expanding presence of young women in movements that demand changes in both cultural and political spheres. Thus, this introduction asks questions on the nature of the gap between the democratic modern state’s commitment to gender equality, and in contradiction , the mediation of this relation by the family, community, and the market.
Introduction: A special issue on gender and nationalism
Journal of Gender Studies, 1992
This issue of the Journal takes up the problematic relationship between gender and nationalism. The ambiguity of this relationship derives mainly from the two-sided character of nationalism. The feminist struggle is one for liberation from gender oppression; to the extent that it stands aside from other struggles against oppression (bourgeois feminists who ignore class oppression, white feminists who ignore racism), it becomes limited and partial: that is, it fails to recognise the gendered ways in which racial and class oppression operate, and thereby accepts the oppression of some women. Similarly, foreign domination and ethnic oppression also affect women in specific ways, and a feminism which stands for the liberation of all women cannot be neutral: it has to take a stand against oppression and for liberation.
Women Speak Nation: Gender, Culture and Politics
Routledge India, 2020
Women Speak Nation underlines the centrality of gender within the ideological construction of nationalism. The volume locates itself in a rich scholarship of feminist critique of the relationship between political, economic, cultural, and social formations and normative gendered relations to try and understand the cross-currents in contemporary feminist theorizing and politics.The chapters question the gendered depictions of the nation as Hindu, upper caste, middle class, heterosexual, able-bodied Indian mother. The volume also brings together interviews and short essays from practitioners and activists who voice an alternative re-imagining of the nation.
Special Issue: Thinking Gender, Thinking Nation
South Asian History and Culture , 2018
This Special Issue takes on board feminist reckonings of discourses on nationalisms which deploy gender as a central category to the discursive constructions of nation and nationalism. Women’s bodies emerge as the site of contesting cultures; in fact, women were almost always cultural transmitters as well as cultural signifiers of the national collectivity. The cartographical deployment of the woman’s body onto the nation’s territory ensures that now the nation is no longer a geographical space but an affective one. This Special Issue is a step towards articulating feminist politics and solidarities at a time when the relationship between gender, culture and politics is rearranging itself; where women are increasingly ventilating, voicing, censuring the ideological construction of the nation. Our contributors provoke questions on whether these utterances spell the death of the nation (imagined as the Hindu, upper caste, middle-class, heterosexual, able bodied Indian mother) or lead to its re-imagination? This issue will bring to the forefront and spur further discussions on the ubiquitous and tenacious relationship between gender and the nation.
How is nationalism gendered?, 2020
This article intends to assess gender and nationalism and explain how the two are inextricably interlinked. It will argue that gender, sexuality, and nationalism are three intersecting entities. An analysis of gendered roles within nationalism will be provided along with a succinct overview of the part women play in reproducing the cultural, social, and symbolic practices of a nation. A case study of the Irish experience of nationalism from 1922 will be provided which will serve as an intellectual basis to explain some of the fundamental aspects of gendered nationalism. The extent of the vital role that Irish women played in solidifying nationalist expectations will be examined in detail. This essay endeavors to contribute to sociological interpretations of how nationalism is gendered. It will provide an informed rhetoric for academics interested in a socio-historical analysis of gender and nationalism; this is a relevant topic as feminist discourse on nationalism is becoming increasingly popular in modern academia.
Nationalism, a popular topic in the 20th century social sciences field, had not been examined through a feminist point of view although there has been a great accumulation of studies on various aspects of nationalism. Studies regarding the interaction of women with nationalist theories and practices, and the sexist codes embedded within these, have only begun in 90’s, very recently. While there had been some research focused on the relation between nationalism and militarism, they also addressed the issue from a gender-deficient perspective until it was revealed that nationalism is a “brotherhood project”. After that, nationalist projects orchestrated by governments started to be examined with a new perspective which tries to understand and reveal the gender roles, participation of women and their interaction within the construction of patrie, citizenship, nation and nation-state. This new approach created a new interdisciplinary perspective in academic literature. In this study, nationalist projects and their types of construction will be investigated rather than discussing what nationalism is. Nationalism is not just a political ideology (it is even controversial whether it is an “ideology”) but also a weltanschauung, a comprehension which remodels every aspect of life according to its own values, “so, it is obligatory to shift our paradigm from political sphere to the cultural one” (Ayşe Gül Altınay, 2011, s.17). None of the nationalist projects is free from cultural ties, even nationalism itself is a project of “inventing nationalist culture”. The concepts nationalism takes interest in such as patrie, family or new generations, interact with both the existing cultural codes and the newer cultural codes reshaped according to nationalist values. The tension between the existing and the projection mostly affects the transition period. The feminist critique on nationalism and feminist studies that aim to understand nationalism’s own construction can be examined in various ways. The purpose of this study is to evaluate feminist/queer critiques and nationalist construction process through nationalist and militarist elements in discourse and theory. This evaluation accepts that feminist approach has a great effect on the form of nation-state of today, but the transition has not finished yet. The national construction based on gender and the obligations enforced by this construction are the main elements of nation-states from the very beginning, therefore this network of relations includes everyone who was born into this system and enforces everyone to “fit” into their roles. Individuals are still enforced to pursue their lives according to these measures imposed by nation-states, so it is necessary to criticize the structure of nation-state, the national projects and the concept of citizenship for recalling of intrinsic value of humanity. Because of their unhealthy effects on individuals, criticizing these matters is a real “duty” for everyone who is concerned about the world.