Browsing by Subject "Gender"

This dissertation is a thematic analysis of the concept of gender in the European Union’s Gender Action Plan III. The Gender Action Plan III (GAP III) is the European Union’s action plan on gender equality and women's empowerment (European Commission 2020). I argue that as a Gender Action Plan, gender is a crucial concept of said action plan and as such should be clearly defined. I further argue that gender should not be limited to women and men. I use thematic analysis and Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse the language and the meaning of the language that deals with gender (equality) in the GAP III. The theoretical framework of this dissertation consists of the theory and literature on Feminist Foreign Policy (FFP). FFP literature is useful because the GAP III can be analysed (and criticised) over a lot of the same themes as governmental feminist foreign policies (Aggestam & Bergman Rosamond 2018; Bernarding & Lunz 2020; Scheyer & Kumskova 2019). These themes include for instance: the concept of gender and militarism (Ibid.). FFP theory and literature aids me in finding relevant themes and issues in the GAP III. As I analyse the concept of gender in the GAP III, I find that it is defined rather insufficiently. I find that it is often reduced to women and girls. I conclude that the GAP III begins with gender but ends up with women and girls.

Gender in the military is a critical yet controversial topic both socially and scholastically. However, in review of the literature regarding servicemembers’ transitions out of the military organization, the experience of women is often excluded or generalized from the experience of their male peers. This thesis applies a gender constructivist lens to military sociology and explores the narratives of women officers who have served in the Finnish Defence Forces. It adapted the Critical Incident Technique, as well as graphic elicitation, to conduct qualitative interviews with five respondents. Subsequent analysis revealed four types of critical events that illustrate entry into and exit from the Finnish Defence Forces during a career: prompting, retaining, bridging, and affirming events. These events, as well as participants’ descriptions of identity work, cannot be understood merely through factors relating to the Institutional/Occupational Thesis, but necessitate an understanding of the negotiation of gender throughout a career in the Finnish Defence Forces. The conclusions of this work refute the simplified perspective of gender equality in Finland and demand a gender-nuanced approach to future theoretical conceptualizations of military organizations, as well as the identities of individual servicemembers.

Children’s picture books play a crucial role in the education and socialisation of the young child, giving them both critical insight into literature, and ideas about life and its possibilities outside of their own immediate experience. In this thesis I have chosen to look more closely at portrayals of so termed ‘non-traditional’ gender identities and behaviours in children’s picture books. I undertook an analysis of 8 books depicting various non-traditional manifestations of gender, covering atypical gendered behaviour, transgender identity or genderlessness along with 6 interviews with educators and parents of children under the age of 7, The thesis explores how these books and ideas fit into an English speaking, European society, in this case based in Finland. The interviewee’s and analysis highlighted areas in which the stories could be problematic within the given context. Issues such as the subject matter, the style and tone were all held to be too controversial for young readers. Looking at the stories through an intersectional lens, they showed little diversity outside of the gender topic. Overall the analysis demonstrated the disconnect between the books and the English speaking, European society in Finland. These findings made it clear that the possibility of children in this context gaining access to stories where gender is not always seen as a finite and binary concept was low. As a final conclusion I created a story of my own. With a protagonist who does not conform to any gender at all, the story was created as the product of the interviews and analysis of the original 8 picture books, with the idea that it could be comfortably read to a class of children within the European, English speaking community in Finland.

Women commit international crimes for a variety of reasons, including political and personal agendas. Still, the perceptions of female offenders are often very gendered. These perceptions vary between female offenders committing crimes solely because they are influenced by a man to female offenders being sadistic monsters. In both instances female offenders are denied their personal agency. Either they are mentally, and sexually, deranged or not personally responsible for the crimes committed. This is a factor in sentencing proceedings as gender has been proved to play a role. It can act as an aggravating factor, which is the case when women are portrayed as monsters, or as a mitigating one. International crime and criminology have also generally considered female perpetrators an anomaly. Most of the early works in these fields either ignored the possibility of a woman committing crimes or regarded female criminals as mentally deranged to separate them from ‘ordinary’ women. Women are often victimised during conflicts and the protection of these women is extremely important. This work is not to undermine the efforts to protect women but to offer a more holistic approach to women’s wartime experiences. This thesis will discuss the crimes committed by Azra Basic during the war in Bosnia Herzegovina and Lynndie England in Abu Ghraib during the ‘war on terror’. Both women served as prison guards during their respective conflicts and were accused of participating in various atrocious crimes. England quickly became the face of the Abu Ghraib -scandal, not because she was more responsible of the torture than others, but because she was a young woman. Basic and England received relatively long sentences when these are viewed in context with the sentences of the men involved. In international criminal law there is an explicit obligation to prosecute or extradite. But with the primacy having been given to national courts, sentencing practices are not cohesive and national courts may be inclined to be more lenient towards their own nationals. In the cases of England and Basic it becomes clear that, although gendered language is not present in many court decisions or indictments, gender stereotypes and narratives have an impact on how men and women and their appropriate roles are seen in a society. Thus, though gender-neutral in language, the decisions were impacted by the fact that the perpetrators were women.

This thesis examines how the diversity of gender and sexual orientation is represented in a recent English as a foreign language (EFL) textbook series, New Insights, intended for general upper secondary education in Finland. As the series has been created with the intention to follow the current National Core Curriculum for General Upper Secondary Education (NCC), this thesis additionally seeks to find out whether the contents of the textbooks conform with the NCC in terms of its assertion of upper secondary education recognising the diversity of gender and sexual orientation. Although the curriculum does not explicitly dictate the contents textbooks should include, the materials are nonetheless expected to reflect its key contents and values. Acknowledging the central part textbooks play in the teaching process as well as learning, it is necessary to research the framework these materials provide to their users, especially considering the potential influence textbooks may have on the knowledge and attitudes learners take on. The theoretical background of this study is based on the fields of applied linguistics in the matter of textbook research, as well as gender studies regarding gender and sexuality in language. Previous research on EFL textbooks has observed problematic portrayals of LGBT+ topics and a lack of representation of these minorities, which is highly concerning given the harmful consequences such invisibility has been shown to have on LGBT+ students. Additionally, in the language classroom themes related to everyday life and human interaction are already a constant, which is why including not only diverse but fair representations is important. The material for the study consists of two electronic copies of the printed textbooks, New Insights 1-2 and New Insights 3, as the following textbooks in the series are yet to be published at the time of conducting this study. A combined methodology of qualitative content analysis and discourse analysis is employed in order to to examine the manner of representations within the textbooks. The study is solely concerned with the written and visual texts, and any audio-visual or spoken materials are disregarded. The found instances are categorised into three types. Regarding gender, those categories are direct representations of gender diversity, gender-exclusive vs gender-inclusive language, and third person singular pronouns; in terms of sexual orientation, the categories are direct mentions of sexual orientation, references toward romantic relationships, and diversity of sexual orientation in family structures. With these methods, the study seeks to answer the following research questions: 1) How is the diversity of gender represented in the New Insights series? 2) How is the diversity of sexual orientation represented in the New Insights series? 3) How do the findings of questions 1 and 2 correlate with the general objective of recognising the diversity of gender and sexual orientation mentioned in the current NCC? The results of this study are in accordance with previous research, as limited representation of diversity is observable in the contents, and while certain positive portrayals are also present, several instances nonetheless contain problematic characteristics. Hence, the most obvious finding to emerge from the results is that while New Insights includes some references that suggest a progressive direction in terms of recognising the diversity of gender and sexual orientation, several instances that disregard that notion altogether are simultaneously present. A combination of contradicting contents and limited representation throughout the textbooks provides support for the conceptual premise that while New Insights attempts to be more aware of and acknowledge this diversity, the incoherence leads one to speculate whether the textbooks genuinely advocate for inclusivity or if such contents have been included merely to fulfil the standards set by the NCC. All in all, it seems that there is still much room for improvement for the forthcoming textbooks within the series as well as future EFL textbooks in general. Acknowledging the findings of this study, it is necessary to note that those responsible for producing textbooks need to challenge the implicit heteronormativity and gender normativity in their materials. The present study provides additional evidence regarding how diverse genders and sexual orientations are represented in educational materials along with adding to a growing body of literature within the field gender studies regarding gender and sexuality in language.

Focus on boys and men, especially as gendered subjects, has been missing in most of the mainstream development as well as in the Gender and Development (GAD) field, even if it is widely recognized that gender equality cannot be achieved without a focus on and an active involvement of boys and men in pursuing it. Where focus has been placed on boys and men in this field, attention has been drawn on masculinities, arguing that “masculinities matter” for gender equality and development. Evidence has been offered for instance of marginalized “masculinity-threatened” men resorting to “hypermasculinity” to assert themselves as masculine in the face of poverty that precludes their role as the breadwinner – which is the cornerstone for masculine identity in Kenya as well as globally. In addition to that hypermascular behavior is claimed to exacerbate gender inequality and other development issues, it is a form of “toxic masculinity” that boys and men themselves also suffer from. This study focuses on marginalized urban adolescent men explicitly as gendered beings in the context of Mukuru Kayaba slum in Nairobi. More precisely, this study aims to provide insights of the perceptions of these boys on masculinity and gender equality as well as of their lived realities as they strive to comply with the previous in the context of poverty, and challenge their way out of it. The hypothesis of marginalized urban men resorting to hypermasculinity to assert themselves as masculine serves as a backdrop of this study and a more nuanced understanding of this phenomenon is sought for in this study. The research material of this study derived from interviews with 10 adolescent boys between the ages of 15 and 19. The study was guided by critical masculinity theory which is engaged with the social constructionist view of masculinity, and gender, as socially-produced and fluid dynamics that derive their meanings within specific social contexts. In addition to employing especially Connell's social theory on masculinity, postcolonial perspectives on masculinity and effects of current globalization are also attempted to be incorporated as the context where the boys live and construct their masculinity is all, historical, local and global at once. Central findings of the study are that hypermascular attitudes, beliefs and actions were defined as the negation of “proper” masculinity in the official narratives of the boys. However, this kind of masculinity was claimed to be the most common one among boys in the slum. Adolescents did thus appear to be more prone to resort to hypermascular behaviors than adult men in the slums of Nairobi, which highlights how a fragile life situation adolescence is. The boys do not however comply to hypermasculine behavior necessarily to assure themselves as masculine per se, but either because of pure need, and/or because they are striving for hegemonic masculine ideals such as being able to provide for girls. Hypermasculinity might however also be a more hegemonic form of masculinity among the boys in the slum than the boys were willing to let be known. In any case, the boys felt stigmatized, criticized and dehumanized by people from outside of the slum, but they also took part in the same stigmatization: the social construction of slum boys as thieves – thus hypermascular. This, in turn, appeared to allow the police to use arbitrary and excessive power against them. In conclusion, my material strongly supports the view that boys (and men) should be included in considerations and pursuits to advance gender equality. However, similarly as girls and women need better opportunities at many places, boys and men living in poverty also need opportunities. The easy way forward in GAD in addressing boys and men has been to consider the problematics of masculinities. The transformation that is required to bring about the opportunities needed by both genders however is a much bigger and more difficult issue, and something that would also bring the masculinities at the top of the global hierarchy of masculinities into question and scrutiny.

This thesis focuses on examining American culture in the early twenty-first century via its popular culture depiction of German culture in the 1940s. Film is used as a means to represent, recreate, and reaffirm cultural values; it provides evidence of deeply rooted beliefs and preferences. Representations on screen reflect present realities, rather than historical fact. By showing history in a certain light, we are actually showing ourselves in a certain light. In this thesis I use the categories of witness, accomplice, and perpetrator to examine three Hollywood films from 2008 and 2009 depicting German women during the Holocaust: The Reader, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and Inglourious Basterds. I identify these archetypes as they are displayed in the films and analyze the way that history is used to reflect contemporary values, focusing on the gendered aspect of war guilt. The way that female characters are depicted in these three films says something about the prevailing expectations for women in early twenty-first century American culture, namely that they lack the agency that being responsible or guilty requires. Guilt implies full agency. If a person does not have agency, they are not guilty but instead either complicit or another victim of the real guilty party. By denying women agency, we excuse them from guilt. Prevailing beliefs about the eternal masculine and feminine are maintained when we choose to ignore the nuances of history, opting instead to reiterate simplistic binaries that satisfy audience demands.

Despite remarkable development achievements in many economies, national tax regulations and international tax policies may have worked against economic gender equality. In order to accomplish gender equality in practice, we must question gender neutrality assumptions in public policy. In actuality, most economic and social policies have a gender impact and can eliminate gender inequality if correctly implemented. Regardless of the fact that tax and transfer systems have gender implications, research on the effects of taxation on gender equality is limited. However, previous literature on the gender effects of taxation suggests that there might be biases against women in the income taxation system. Furthermore, economists have expressed repeatedly concerns about the relation between income tax and secondary earners labor force participation. Population aging, falling fertility rates, and stagnant labor force participation are all issues that most industrialized countries are dealing with. Policymakers are in agreement on that women’s labor force participation must be increased while keeping the fertility rate at a reasonable level. By using the existing literature, important perspectives on the relationship between gender equality and taxation are explored in this research. Furthermore, the purpose of this research is to combine modern optimal income tax theories into an empirical approach in order to identify critical aspects that contribute to taxation gender impacts. Rather, based on the optimal income tax literature and empirical evidence, the aim is to find out what kind of policy recommendations traditional optimal tax theories offer to the tax planner. Moreover, the characteristics of a gender-neutral income tax system are taken into account. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that income taxation has an impact on labor market equality, particularly for women. Reducing the characteristics in the income tax system that cause labor market inefficiencies could result in increased economic growth and a more prosperous society. Therefore, future research should focus on the gender implications of income taxes, based on the findings of this thesis. Furthermore, the results are consistent with earlier findings.

In 1993, the kidnapped, tortured, humiliated, mutilated and raped bodies of women started appearing in the streets, desert and open spaces of Ciudad Juárez. This marked the beginning of a feminicidal outbreak in Ciudad Juárez which has yet to cede. The outbreak of the feminicide epidemic of Ciudad Juárez coincided with the establishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Mexico, the United States and Canada. I have approached the subject by bringing together contemporary feminist, economic, judicial and political theory. By examining how transnational, national and local processes have interacted, and as a result shaped, and re-shaped traditional gender roles in Mexico, we are able to understand how global processes that involve rapid neoliberal transformations in patriarchal societies create conditions of vulnerability and dispossession – and ultimately, a landscape that fosters gender-based violence, and feminicide, affecting not only women, but entire communities. I find that the causes of the feminicidal outbreak in Ciudad Juárez is inseparable from various forms of systemic abuse that women have been subjected to by transnational corporations operating in Ciudad Juárez. In addition, I find that the feminicides of Ciudad Juárez are a direct result of the investor privileges that have been guaranteed under the NAFTA that virtually immunize the transnational investor from accountability to harm to the employee, anticipated or not, when conducting business in Mexico.

Since its establishment, ISIS has been applying the old principles of Islamic law, by killing anyone who disagrees with its ideology, by oppressing ethnic and religious minorities, by violating human rights, by treating women as objects and by using different types of abuse. ISIS legitimizes its actions by employing the Sharia Law to justify their acts. Members of ISIS believe that they are the only real Muslims while others are infidels. This thesis discusses the rules set by ISIS concerning the female enemy and the justification for these rules as described in their online magazines Dabiq and Rumiyah. By analysing specific articles concerning the female enemy, the thesis investigates ISIS policy towards the female enemy, which involves employing different justifications from Quran and the Sunnah of prophet Muhammad. Furthermore, the thesis examines how ISIS propaganda legitimizes the use of sexual violence against women as a war tactic. Qualitative content analysis and the deductive category assignment as used as techniques in analysing the primary material. The analysis clarifies how ISIS shapes the image of the enemy by gathering evidence from the Quran and Sunnah. ISIS propaganda categorizes the enemy depending on its own made criteria and division of the faith level. Therefore, enemies are labelled as Murtaddīn (apostates), Kuffar (unbelievers), Mushrikin (polytheists) and heretics. Through the examination of the primary material, it becomes obvious, that gender plays a significant role in ISIS’ construction of enemy traits. The study of the selected articles confirms that slavery is the prominent rule on the female enemy and it is reinforced by selective examples from Islam. The thesis uses five elements to measure the level of employing sexual violence against the female enemy. The elements are derived from a number of feminist authors who focus on sexual violence as a war tactic, including Joshua Goldstein (2001), Laura Sjoberg (2013), Elisabeth Wood (2014) and Sara Meger (2016). The elements are: (1) feminizing the enemy, (2) financing war expenses, (3) attracting and rewarding fighters, (4) employing military institutionalized rape and (4) defending women as an excuse for war. Examining the feminist approach for sexual violence as a war tactic exposes that ISIS’ re-establishment of slavery gives a license to rape by feminizing the concept of slavery and confines its meaning to females only. ISIS organizes and propagates slavery to rationalize rape. The analysis on the feminization of the enemy proves that enslaving women and children serves ISIS’ goal to damage the enemy; in particular, that the failure of the male fighters in protecting the land and the nation, brings discredit upon their government or administrations. Further investigation on the use of sexual violence to finance the war expenses confirms the association between slavery and financing terrorist organizations. The element of using sexual violence to attract and reward fighters suggests that ISIS nourishes the notion of rewarding its men by legitimizing the ancient idea of looting practice (Ghanimah) of the enemy’s property. According to ISIS, looting practice includes enslaving women and children. Utilizing the “defending our women” artefact as an excuse for war suggests that ISIS employs its propaganda taking advantage of the stereotypical notion of men as defenders and women and children as symbols of the land and the nation. ISIS calls Muslim men to Jihad in to take revenge for their victimized women whose honour has been abused by the enemy. Finally, the thesis proposes more studies that study ISIS fighters, especially members who have either witnessed or have committed rape against the female enemy in order to illuminate the topic and further analyse how the use of sexual violence is employed as a war tactic.