Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Radical feminist theory'

This study explores the hegemonic articulation of ‘feminist politics’ by the Swedish political party Feminist Initiative (Feministiskt initiativ) during 2014 national parliamentary election campaign. The analysis is carried out on two levels: the construction of the hegemonic project of feminist politics and the construction of an antagonist.      Deploying the discourse-theoretical approach by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe as well as the theories of radical democracy and intersectionality, it is shown how a new, broad collective feminist identity is produced by deconstructing womanhood as an identifiable and unproblematic category as well as expanding the signifying chain of feminism by including new social struggles into it. As a result, the feminist subject is conceptualized in radical-democratic terms as a citizen with equal rights, rather than an essentialized female subject. Two nodal points that fix the meaning of the hegemonic project of feminist politics are identified: one is human rights, which enables the expansion of the chain of equivalence, and the other is experience of oppression, which acknowledges differences existing within the movement and prevents it from muting marginalized voices. Discrimination, being the constitutive outside, both threatens and produces the subject: on the one hand, it violates human rights that underlie feminist politics; on the other hand, it produces the experience of oppression that gives a unique feminist perspective to each member of the collective identity. The hegemonic project thus emerges as dependent on the oppressive power of discrimination. The study suggests a critical discussion on how the constitutive outside – discrimination – empties the concept of feminism by a radical expansion of its meaning.    The research furthermore explores the construction of the antagonist of the hegemonic project. Utilizing analytical concepts from the writings of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek, it is demonstrated how social structures and norms acquire agency and become the significant Other for the feminist identity. The thesis is concluded by a critical discussion on the fundamental impossibility of identification based on opposing oneself to something that can only be expressed with a signifier that ultimately lacks any signified.

This thesis explores the structures of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy as embodied in US systems of oppression and violence both within the United States and in El Salvador. As the United States illegally funded and trained the Salvadoran military during its 1978-1992 civil war, it simultaneously transformed the domestic prison system into one of mass incarceration, torture, and social death. In examining both policies, their roots in violence, racial capitalism, and gendered oppression emerge. Furthermore, by focusing the examination within a gendered lens, the potential of such methods of resistance such as radical transnational feminist praxis come to the forefront as today’s most integrated method of tearing down such pernicious systems of violence. As this thesis connects the dots between seemingly disparate structures of exclusion and incapacitation, the global levels of both infrastructural violence and feminist resistance surface.

This thesis investigates the counter-hegemonic formation of Danish-based transnational feminist curatorial collective Kuratorisk Aktion in a single-case study. It serves as a unique example, presenting how the collective engages to overcome the existing gap between curatorial aims and the implementation through curating. Their work and approach is shaped highly by their political mindset, aiming to resist tendencies of depoliticisation, right-wing populism or neoliberalism with the means of curating. Chantal Mouffe’s theory of radical democracy and her deliberations and notions concerning agonisms, citizenship, feminism, counter-hegemonic interventions and activism through art are used in order to contextualise and discuss the possibilities and limitations of the political work by Kuratorisk Aktion. An interview with the collective conducted by scholar Angela Dimitrakaki in 2010 as well as their realised curatorial projects enhanced the argumentation. The analysis exemplified, that over the years Kuratorisk Aktion has developed their personal and exceptional curatorial paradigm, which is able to counteract hegemonic structures. This reveals their radical democratic potential and aspiration through curating and the curatorial.

The purpose of my work is to understand and examine the reasons why Ethiopia has not developed a larger decline of female genital mutilation, despite their ban on it? A ban that has been operating for ten years should reasonably have reached a greater change than the one Ethiopia has developed today. Based on two different branches of feminist theory, the liberal feminist theory and radical feminist theory, I will try to understand the potential power relationship that can be a immense reason for Ethiopia's continued practice with regard to female genital mutilation.   I will examine the liberal feminist approach when it comes to seeing the state as the source of the balance of power that generate inequality in the world between men and women. I will also apply the radical feminist theory on my case study and understand the problem of patriarchy and its already set roles for men and women that we are following in the society today, resulting in gender inequality.   The result shows that the radical feminist approach with patriarchy as essential explanation, which articulates that because of ancient traditions and the exercise of power, the amendment must be the changing of power relations between men and women in the private sphere rather than the liberal feminist approach which applies that the state repair the problem.

This thesis investigates the continuance of the MeToo movement in the Swedish context via the digitalplatform Instagram, collective action and feminist organizations that are engaged to end sexual violence.It illuminates how the sisterhood impacted by the practice of challenging the rape script a conceptused to describe the discourse on how sexual violence should be like, and how victim-survivors should behave, how the engagement is made among the activists that engage to challenge the rape script and lastly, how since the MeToo movement started a discourse of rightlessness have been exposed through the sharing of experiences that the MeToo movement initiated. The ethnographic study is based on participant observation of feminist actions in real life and on Instagram as well as interviews with 13 activists from feminist organizations and with background as organisers of collective actions. It is found that the MeToo movement in Sweden is commonly practiced through an engagement in Feminist organizations that serve to keep the movement alive through continuous work to keep sexual violence on the agenda by keeping it visible, and that the engagement is driven by an experience of anger towards the societal discourse that sets the discourse on rape which affects the possibility to be recognized by the legal system. The thesis will overall suggest that there is a sisterhood built on a collective identity, and that the shared identity and oppression between non-men with an aspiration to support one another in the experience of oppression as well as organize safety nets for those who are sentenced for defamation as a consequence of speaking out.

Gender mainstreaming is a transnational policy process that has been underway for close to three decades. This paper aims to uncover “which gender is being mainstreamed in global politics” through conducting a textual analysis on twenty global policy documents. The text of the documents was coded into two categories of gender: abolitionist and affirmative. The predictions were that (1) there is a movement toward an affirmative concept of gender and away from an abolitionist one; (2) “women” are being replaced with “gender” in global policies; (3) there is a shift away from sex-based and toward gender-based provisions in global policies; (4) the affirmative concept of gender is being mainstreamed; and (5) that the abolitionist concept of gender is not being mainstreamed. It was found that, out of the five predictions, only the third one is supported by the evidence, i.e., the gender that is being mainstreamed in global politics is abolitionist. Although the results were almost entirely contrary to the predictions, it is important not to underestimate the potential implications of erasing sex-based provisions. In recasting provisions for women as “gender-based” one runs the risk of making them provisions for “femininity”, which consequently could mean limits to female political participation.

The majority of women's health nurses in this study work in generalist community health centres. They have developed their praxis within the philosophy and policies of the broader women's health movement and primary health care principles in Australia. The fundamental assumption underlying this study is that women's health nurses possess a unique body of knowledge and clinical wisdom that has not been previously documented and explored. The epistemological base from which these nurses' operate offers important insights into the substantive issues that create and continually shape the practice world of nurses and their clients. Whether this represents a (re)construction of the dominant forms of health care service delivery for women is examined in this study. The study specifically aims at exploring the practice issues and experience of women's health service provision by women's health nurses in the context of the provision of cervical cancer screening services. In mapping this particular group of nurses practice, it sets out to examine the professional and theoretical issues in contemporary nursing and women's health care. In critically analysing the powerful discourses that shape and reshape nursing work, the study raises the concern that previous analyses of pursing work tend to universalise the structural and social subordination of nurses and nursing knowledge. This universalism is most often based on examples of midwifery and nursing work in hospital settings, and subsequently, because of these conceptualisations, all of nursing is too often deemed as a dependent occupation, with little agency, and is analysed as always in relation to medicine, to hospitals, to other knowledge forms. Denoting certain discourses as dominant proposes a relationship of power and knowledge and the thesis argues that all work relations and practices in health are structured by certain power/knowledge relations. This analysis reveals that there IX are many competing and complimentary power/knowledge relations that structure nursing, but that nursing, and in particular women's health nurses, also challenge the power/knowledge relations around them. Through examining theories of power and knowledge the analysis, argues that theoretical eclecticism is necessary to address the complex and varied nature of nursing work. In particular it identifies that postmodern and radical feminist theorising provide the most appropriate framework to further analyse and interpret the work of women's health nurses. Fundamental to the position argued in this thesis is a feminist perspective. This position creates important theoretical and methodological links throughout the whole study. Feminist methodology was employed to guide the design, the collection and the analysis. Intrinsic to this process was the use of the 'voices' of women's health nurses as the basis for theorising. The 'voices' of these nurses are highlighted in the chapters as italicised bold script. A constant companion along the way in examining women's health nurses' work, was the reflexivity with feminist research processes, the theoretical discussions and their 'voices'. Capturing and analysing descriptive accounts of nursing praxis is seen in this thesis as providing a way to theorise about nursing work. This methodology is able to demonstrate the knowledge forms embedded in clinical nursing praxis. Three conceptual threads emerge throughout the discussions: one focuses on nursing praxis as a distinct process, with its own distinct epistemological base rather than in relation to 'other' knowledge forms; another describes the medical restriction and opposition as experienced by this group of nurses, but also of their resistance to medical opposition. The third theme apparent from the interviews, and which was conceptualised as beyond resistance, was the description of the alternative discourses evident in nursing work, and this focused on notions of being a professional and on autonomous nursing praxis. This study concludes that rather than accepting the totalising discourses about nursing there are examples within nursing of resistance—both ideologically and X in practice—to these dominant discourses. Women's health nurses represent an important model of women's health service delivery, an analysis of which can contribute to critically reflecting on the 'paradigm of oppression' cited in nursing and about nursing more generally. Reflecting on women's health service delivery also has relevance in today's policy environment, where structural shifts in Commonwealth/State funding arrangements in community based care, may undermine women's health programs. In summary this study identifies three important propositions for nursing: • nursing praxis can reconstruct traditional models of health care; • nursing praxis is powerful and able to 'resist' dominant discourses; and • nursing praxis can be transformative. Joining feminist perspectives and alternative analyses of power provides a pluralistic and emancipatory politics for viewing, describing and analysing 'other' nursing work. At the micro sites of power and knowledge relations—in the everyday practice worlds of nurses, of negotiation and renegotiation, of work on the margins and at the centre—women's health nurses' praxis operates as a positive, productive and reconstructive force in health care.

Trafficking in human beings and prostitution is an increasing occurrence within the EU. However, vast differences in legal frameworks regarding prostitution can be detected among member states.The Netherlands is an example where prostitution is regarded a legal activity. In other member states legal standings toward prostitution remain ambivalent, where Sweden here serves an example. Finally, Lithuania is among member states where prostitution is considered illegal.The purpose of this paper is therefore to study underlying attitudes and approaches that these three countries have in this rather delicate political question. By interpreting the content and quoting parts of propositions, an ideology analysis is constructed.The theory chapter consists of Rousseau’s theories, Objectivism, Radical Feminist Theory, and Sex-positive Feminist Theory. A model with the most important features of these theories is constructed and works as a base for the analysis.The general results suggest that the Government of Lithuania consistently uses arguments pending towards Radical Feminist Theory and Rousseauan values, with catholic morality as an additional important feature in the argumentation against prostitution. The Government of Sweden also views prostitution with predominantly Rousseauan and Radical Feminist theories. The Government of the Netherlands arguments greatly differ from these viewpoints. Instead, individualistic and sex-positive arguments remain dominant here.

Denna uppsats undersöker kvinnlig könsstympning och hur fenomenet hanteras av svenska myndigheter och intresseorganisationer med ett beaktande av svensk nyhetsrapportering. Särskilt undersöks vad vi i Sverige vet om förekomsten av kvinnlig könsstympning, hur frågan hanteras av svenska myndigheter och intresseorganisationer samt hur svensk tidningsmedia belyser kvinnlig könsstympning. Metoden som har använts för att besvara uppsatsens frågeställningar är en kvalitativ innehållsanalys och det empiriska materialet består av publikationer från myndigheter däribland rapporter från forskare och Socialstyrelsen, Länsstyrelsen Östergötland och Regeringskansliet. Vi har även gjort en kompletterande undersökning av 51 artiklar från svenska tidningsmedia. Dessa undersökningar speglar tillsammans hur det svenska samhället officiellt ser på kvinnlig könsstympning och hur den bör hanteras. Resultaten har analyserats utifrån den genusvetenskapliga radikalfeministiska patriarkatsteorin i syfte att hitta samband mellan myndigheters arbete med att förebygga könsstympning och vår valda teori. Resultatet visar bland annat att svenska myndigheter och intresseorganisationer i och för sig arbetar med att förebygga, upptäcka och bekämpa kvinnlig könsstympning men att det krävs ytterligare insatser i form av kunskap hos tjänstemän och andra som jobbar med frågan för att förhindra sedvänjan i Sverige. Den radikalfeministiska patriarkatsteorin har en stor betydelse i arbetet för att förebygga, upptäcka och bekämpa kvinnlig könsstympning.
This thesis examines female genital mutilation and how the phenomenon is managed by Swedish authorities and non-governmental organizations with consideration of Swedish news reporting. Particularly, this thesis examines what we in Sweden know about the existence of female genital mutilation, how the issue is handled by Swedish authorities and non-governmental organizations, and how Swedish news reporting illustrates female genital mutilation. The method used to answer the questions raised in the thesis is a qualitative content analysis and the empirical material consists of publications from researchers and authorities including inter alia the National Board of Health and Welfare, the County Administrative Board Östergötland and the Swedish Government. We have also performed a supplementary survey of 51 articles from Swedish press. These sources reflect altogether how the Swedish society officially views female genital mutilation and how it should be managed. The results have been analysed on the basis of the gender-science radical feminist patriarchy theory in order to find the connections between the authorities' work towards preventing female genital mutilation in relation to our chosen theory. The results show, among other things, that Swedish authorities and non-governmental organisations are taking measures to prevent, detect and combat female genital mutilation, but that further efforts are required in order to increase the knowledge of officials and other people working to prevent the practice in Sweden. radical feminist patriarchy theory plays a major role in preventing, detecting and combating female genital mutilation.

Denna litteraturstudie undersöker hur gravida kvinnors livssituation påverkas av mäns våld. Datamaterialet består av tolv vetenskapliga artiklar med syftet att framföra kvinnornas egna berättelser. Artiklarna har analyserats och tematiserats och slutligen blivit fyra teman och tio subteman vilket representerar litteraturstudiens resultat. Resultatet diskuteras i relation med teorier om könsmakt, radikalfeminism och ojämlikhetens fyra nivåer för att få förståelse för kvinnans livssituation i ett större sammanhang. Diskussionen belyser hur socialarbetare kan inspireras att arbeta med kvinnor utsatta för våld under graviditet ur ett empowermentorienterat perspektiv. Litteraturstudien visar att det är viktigt att socialarbetare har en helhetsbild och förståelse för hur kvinnornas hemsituation, ambivalens, självbilder och svårigheterna med att lämna bildar en komplex livssituation där kvinnorna och deras barn behöver stöd och hjälp för att kunna agera efter sina egna behov och öka sin makt.
This literature review investigates how pregnant womens’ life situations are affected by mens’ violence. The data material consists of twelve articles which aims to present the womens’ own stories. The articles/studies have been analysed and categorised into four themes and subthemes, which represents the result of the literature review. The result has been discussed with the theory of gender power, radical feminism and the four levels of inequality for a greater understanding of the womens’ life situations. The discussion illustrates how social workers can be inspired to work with women, who are exposed to violence during pregnancy, with a perspective of empowerment. The literature review shows the importance for social workers to have an overall picture and understanding about how the womens’ home situation, ambivalence, self images and the difficultness with leaving creates a complex life situation where the women and their children are in need of support and help to be able to act on their own needs and increase their power.

Drawing on my own process of entry into local queer, lesbian and feminist public cultures, I argue that a powerful relationship between feminist and lesbian existence can be felt and that this sensibility bears influence on the way queer erotic and politicized identities emerge in relation to one another. These affective links remain frequently unacknowledged and/or are actively repudiated due to popular accounts of feminist genealogy whereby second wave lesbian-feminist positions are rendered fundamentally incompatible with contemporary queer/third wave feminist ones. I challenge this narrative by building on select early articulations of radical lesbian feminism to show that when affirmed consciously, the sense that lesbianism and feminism are interconnected constitutes a “woman-identified experience” and an opportunity to bear witness to the unrealized possibilities of second-wave radical feminism in the present. I conclude that politicized “lesbian” and/or “woman” identification remain indispensable strategic sites from which to observe and confront heteropatriarchy.