Taking It Virtual: A Model for Successful Co-Curricular Student Experiences in Women and Gender Studies during COVID-19

The COVID-19 global pandemic brought unexpected challenges to the curricular and co-curricular offerings of the Women and Gender Studies Program (WGST) at George Mason University. In March 2020, all courses were immediately transitioned to virtual, online experiences--none had previously been offered in a virtual format, programming ceased, and plans were quickly scrambled together to create graduation celebrations though commencement was officially "postponed." As Spring transitioned into Summer, and university officials made decisions about the Fall 2020 semester, faculty and staff of the program began to entirely rethink program offerings including courses, co-curricular programming, course recruitment, and strategies for continuing to offer a safe space. The authors argue that it is precisely the program's unique structure of integrating academics and student affairs that was pivotal in the successful transition and COVID response.

The Road to Femvertising: Stereotypes and Empowerment Analysis in Turkish Television Advertisements 1

Women have been represented by stereotypes and gender roles in the advertising industry for years. A new era of strong women representations has begun with female empowerment activities in advertising. Female empowerment in advertising is called femvertising. Femvertising activities aim to destroy stereotypes in advertisements, ignore sexuality, give pro-female messages, and represent women in an authentic way. The purpose of the study is to investigate women's representations in television advertising by analyzing stereotypes and female empowerment in Turkey. For this purpose, television advertisements, broadcasting on Turkish television channels between September 2020 and November 2020, were examined by content analysis. In Turkey, television ratings and shares were lower in Summer 2020, and started to rise after September 2020. Due to the increase in ratings and shares in Fall 2020, the television advertisements broadcasted in September, October, and November 2020 were included in the research to understand women representations in Turkish television advertising. A total of 189 television advertisements were analyzed after eliminating all repeated advertisements during this period. A coding schema was formed to examine the advertisements, and the criteria from previous studies such as gender, narrator, age, roles, characters, and empowerment activities were used in the coding schema. Findings revealed that women continue to be represented by stereotypes and shown in passive roles such as parenting and housekeeping. Female empowerment activities were used in only 28 of 189 advertisements. The research contributes to the literature of women's studies in terms of showing the latest findings related to women representations in broadcast advertising.

Ballar al carrer com a empoderament feminista. El discurs coreogràfic dels col·lectius Bellywarda i L'Armée des Roses

La reivindicado dels cossos femenins a l'espai public és una constant en els moviments socials feministes. Ja sigui ocupant els carrers en protesta pels drets i la igualtat de les dones, contra l'assetjament sexual i la violació o involucrat en altres manifestacions socials, el paper del cos femení a l'espai públic vehiculant un missatge social és reivindicat per artistes de totes les disciplines. En el camp de la dansa, algunes companyies actuen expressament en espais públics amb l'objectiu precís de conquerir-lo com a escenari per visibilitzar els cossos femenins, destacant-ne la diversitat i reclamant més igualtat i llibertat. A través d'entrevistes collectives, analitzem el discurs coreografic dels col·lectius Bellywarda (FatChanceBellyDance©) i L'Armée des Roses (cancan), dues companyies franceses compromeses amb la difusió del feminisme al carrer. Amb l'objectiu d'estudiar ľapropiació de l'espai urba, la interacció i recepció amb el públic, els vincles socials entre ballarines i la transmissio dels valors feministes, hem abordat l'observació de la dansa i les entrevistes des de la sociologia de les emocions, la fenomenologia dels espais urbans i els estudis de dones. El context de pandemia no ens ha permès fer una observació de la recepció del públic al carrer, però hem pogut abordar amb elles la situació a França de la dansa, considerada com a «bé cultural no essencial», amb la prohibició de la realització d'activitats culturals durant el segon confinament, moment en quě es realitza aquest estudi.Alternate :The reaffirmation of female bodies in public spaces is a constant in feminist social movements. Indeed, the role of the female body in public spaces and conveying a social message is vindicated by artists from all disciplines, whether by occupying the streets in protest of unequal women's rights and equality or sexual harassment and rape, or in other social demonstrations. In the field of dance, some companies perform expressly in public spaces with the precise aim of conquering these arenas as a stage to visibilise female bodies, highlighting their diversity and demanding more equality and freedom. In this article, we use collective interviews with two French companies committed to promoting feminism in the streets Bellywarda (FatChanceBellyDance©) and L'Armée des Roses (performing the cancan), to analyse the choreographic discourse related to this concept. We aimed to study the appropriation of public spaces, interactions with the public at large and their reception of these performances, social links between dancers, and the transmission of feminist values. Observation of these dances and the interview outcomes was addressed from the perspectives of the sociology of emotions, phenomenology of urban spaces, and women's studies. The context of the COVID-19 pandemic prevented us from examining the public reception of these street actions, but we were able to discuss the current situation in France in which dance is considered a 'non-essential cultural asset' during the second lockdown, when this research takes place.

Decolonising knowledge production in disaster management: a feminist perspective

Purpose>This paper focuses on how feminist research seeks to integrate the inclusion of women in society for them to be active participants in disaster management, and goes on to prove how crucial it is for disaster research to collaborate with feminist research to arrive at a cohesive, interwoven, interdisciplinary field and methodology, while at the same time giving the agency in the hands of local agents for them to bring about change through traditional methods interwoven with broader methodologies. To hand over the process to local agents would result in decolonisation of knowledge production and implementation.Design/methodology/approach>The paper was written using secondary sources, mainly in the form of books, journal articles and news articles. Reports by international organisations were used to augment data and other theoretical frameworks and references in the paper. The secondary sources were selected keeping in view one of the primary objectives of the paper, namely “decolonising knowledge production”. Analysis by postcolonial authors from the global South has been included. Research and literature based in local contexts form an important part of the sources consulted throughout this paper. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been used as a case study to highlight how disasters are still “gendered”;it opens up space for further research on the topic.Findings>Even though women are increasingly recognised as agents of positive change in prevention, mitigation and post-disaster efforts, very little is done at the policy and implementation levels to include their experiences and benefit from them. There is an urgent need for systemic, gender-aware changes at socio-economic and political levels so that hazards may be prevented from turning into disasters by reducing the vulnerability of populations.Originality/value>The importance of this research lies in its interdisciplinary approach and the integration of three fields of study disaster management, feminist/gender studies and decolonising knowledge production. The attempt is to analyse the interdependence of these fields of study to understand the lacunae in planning and implementation of disaster management policies, and to pave the way for further research by way of this integration.

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION

JFSR [Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion] and CoLaboratory will begin curating related information from the organization's history, including retrospective contributions such as roundtables, lists of editors and board members from the very beginning, etc." Peter Sabo and Rhiannon Graybill's article, "The Bible and Margaret Atwood's The Testaments," continues the twin themes of misogyny and reimaginings in examining how Atwood's novel subversively draws upon the Bible to suggest the liberatory power of infinite interpretations in rewriting stories replete with "misogynist representations of gender, violence, and patriarchy," and whether such an approach is successful (132). Haruka Umetsu Cho takes us to Japan in her analysis of writings from the 1970s by female Japanese Christians, who simultaneously relocate-an interpretive act-"the oppression of women in the church within the larger issues of Japanese colonial legacy" (185) and are blinded by reflection on race, bringing us full circle to the deep connections between colonization and racism also drawn in several of the reflections in the roundtable.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Transnational Feminism-Contexts, Collaborations, Contestations: Toward A Liveable Planet: Select Papers from the 7th World Conference on Women's Studies

According to Margaret A. McLaren (2017), transnational feminism results in 'decolonizing feminism' and Sylvanna M. Falcón (2016) calls it a 'Paradigm for Decolonizing the Practice of Research.' Two research questions are discussed in the paper: "What motivated the teachers in the cases to teach digital literacy?" And "What made teachers in the cases think the digital skills gender divide exists?" "The Sexual Politics of Manusmriti: A Critical Analysis with Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights Perspective," a research article by N.M Naseera and Dr. Moly Kuruvilla discusses the law codes of the ancient legal text Manusmriti, that have a significant role in creating the Brahmanic patriarchy and the heteronormative structures in Ancient India. The contributions to this JIWS Special Issue witness and underline practices of women's voices/movements around the world and gender justice across national boundaries, which in turn contribute to the transnational social change processes. 3 Tamanna Arora holds Double Post Grad Degrees in Law (LL.M) with one specialization being in International Human Rights Laws from the City, University of London, United Kingdom, and the other one being in Corporate, Banking, and Insurance Laws from Amity University, Noida (India).