Gender Studies

Across different cultural and national spaces, the meanings of citizenship, nationalism, modernity, colonialism, and sovereignty are being negotiated in debates about antihomosexuality in Europe. In this text we analyze and discuss a poster campaign aimed at youth produced by the national lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersexual (LGBTI) rights organization in Finland (Seta), and a discussion at a seminar on rainbow youth, where the poster was addressed. We pay close attention to one poster in particular, which displays an image of a woman, who is marked as Muslim, kissing
another woman who is marked as Finnish. The image conveys a colonialist savior motif whereby European patriarchy shows itself saving a brown woman from brown hetero-patriarchal masculinity. Spivak’s postcolonial deconstructive approach implies a critique of certain forms of masculinity studies which are blind to the ways in which rescue narratives may be racist.

Gay-friendliness and gender equality have been taken as signs of modern Western superiority over other cultural spheres and geographical spaces, particularly those of the Muslim world. In a similar manner, the promotion and defense of gay rights has become the crucible of othering discourses in relation to Africa. Across different cultural and national spaces, the
meanings of citizenship, nationalism, modernity, colonial- ism and sovereignty are being negotiated in debates about anti-homosexuality on the continent. The focus of this article is the politics of mapping anti-homosexuality legislation in Africa in Swedish daily newspapers.
Drawing on the work of Jasbir Puar and other feminist and queer scholars theorizing race and sexuality in relation to processes of nation-building, the authors analyze the mapping of the regulation of homosexuality in Africa as an instance of imaginative geographies. They investigate how journalistic rhetoric about homophobia on the African continent in Swedish daily newspapers relies on a politics of homonationalism and sexual exceptionalism in ‘gay liberation’ discourses.

Although Judith Butler's theorization of violence has begun to receive growing scholarly attention, the feminist theoretical background of her notion of violence remains unexplored. In order to fill this lacuna, this article explicates the feminist genealogy of Butler's notion of violence. I argue that Butler's theorization of violence can be traced back to Gender Trouble , to her discussion of Monique Wittig's argument that the binary categorization of sex can be conceived as a form of discursive violence. I contend, first, that Butler starts to develop her notion of " gender violence " on the basis of her reading of Wittig, and second, that Butler's more recent writings on military violence and the ethics of nonviolence build on her early interpretation of Wittig. On the basis of my reading, I suggest, in contrast to recent criticism, that Butler's later critique of violence is not at odds with but rather expands upon her prior work on violence.

This working paper analyses ten in-depth interviews on domestic workers, class and gender roles with ten young, politically inclined and often adamantly feminist women from the upper end of the Indian class spectrum. It aims to deepen the understanding of employer-worker relations and gendered domestic roles in contemporary Indian households. Previous literature on the middle- to upper- class employers of domestic workers in the subcontinent has tended to emphasize the uncritical attitude most exhibit towards their employment practices. Distance from physical domestic work has been noted as a key site of class distinction, and a commonality for the otherwise fractured “middle” classes. The maid is hired for the reproduction of not just everyday life but, importantly, of class. Further, since Indian men are largely removed from the sphere of domestic work, and the domestic workers are mostly women, the problems around maids have come to be seen as socially second-rate “women’s issues”. In India, maids play a central role in the age-old issues around reproductive labour.

My findings corroborate previous research and also go on to provide a perspective of potential change. Far from just accepting what has been termed an Indian ‘culture of servitude’, my interviewees exhibit a deep reflexivity and often highly critical attitude towards the idea of employing maids, as well as towards the domestic assumptions put on themselves. Generational change, the desire for democratization and increasing expectations on male partners are central themes in my participants’ discussions. At the same time, the interviewees also display an often anxious ambiguity as to whether or not they are able to resist social and parental pressures, and to live up to their own ideals. My findings emphasize the existence of a critical, progressive, highly self-reflexive yet often politically pragmatic twenty-something-year-old, largely overlooked in discussions on the ‘new Indian woman’.

Keywords: Domestic workers, Delhi, Class, Gender roles, Reflexivity, Social change, Family

... ja rakkaudenkohdettaan. Dedans'issa isähahmo on keskeinen: romaanin ensimmäinen osa keskittyy kuolleen isän muistelemiseen ja korvaamiseen mielikuvituksellisella kaikkitietävällä ... kahden Jacques'in, Lacanin ja Derridan tavoista käyttää kyseistä sanaa. Derridan ...