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Woman rights are human rights essay
Rights and roles of women
Woman rights are human rights essay
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Since the early 1970’s gender has increasingly played a role in development discourse, policy and planning. Within the fields of refugee and forced migration studies however, gender analysis had been sorely neglected until the mid 1980’s. This essay will consider the origins of contemporary notions of ‘gender’ within the social sciences and argue that it is relational, concerning both men and women, and that it is a primary factor in organising social lives and argue that gender is a key factor to the access of power, as is ethnicity and class, and that these too are gendered constructs. It will then relate gender analysis to the field of forced migration, arguing that since gender is the principal factor in all forms of power relations, gendered analysis is fundamental to knowledge production and emancipatory action and that data collection has been overlooked in this regard. It will consider the history and development of gender discourse within forced migration and provide a critique of the effectiveness of gender responsive strategies. Finally, it will conclude with summary statements outlining areas of concern.
The concept of ‘gender’ in the social sciences is often confused with ‘sex’, though ‘sex’ refers to a biological reality whereas the notion of ‘gender’ is a social construct. Early gender analysis viewed ‘gender’ as relating to women only: men had no gender. Post-structuralist and post-feminist frameworks of analysis began to problematise this notion , viewing gender as a set of social and cultural ideas, symbols, practices and beliefs through which we perform and ‘know’ the world in which we live. Today, gender is concerned with the interdependence and interrelations between men and women. It is viewed as a key relat...
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...arian Issues. (1986), Refugees: The Dynamics of the Displaced (London: Zed Books).
Indra, D. (1999), 'Not a "Room of One's Own": Engendering Forced Migration Knowledge and Practice', in D. Indra (ed.), Engendering Forced Migration: Theory and Practice (New York: Berghahn Books).
Korac, M. (2006), 'Gender, Conflict and Peace Building: Lessons from the conflict in the former Yugoslavia', Women's Studies International Forum, 29 (5), 510-20.
Mahler, S.J. & Pessar, A.H. (2006), 'Gender Matters: Etnnographers Bring Gender from the Periphery Toward the Core of Migation Studies.', Internartional Migration Review, 40 (1), 27-63.
Marfleet, P (2006), Refugees in a global era (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
UNHCR '2008 Global Trends: Refugees, Asylum-seekers, Returnees, Internally Displaced and Stateless Persons', , accessed 31/10/2009.
...dward Taylor. “Worlds in Motion: Understanding International Migration at the End of the Millennium”. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.print
According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugee is a term applied to anyone who is outside his/her own country and cannot return due to the fear of being persecuted on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership of a group or political opinion. Many “refugees” that the media and the general public refer to today are known as internally displaced persons, which are people forced to flee their homes to avoid things such as armed conflict, generalized violations of human rights or natural and non-natural disasters. These two groups are distinctly different but fall ...
Knott , Kim, and Seán McLoughlin, eds. Diasporas Concepts, Intersections, Identities. New York : Zed Books, 2010. Print.
As Lorber explores in her essay “Night to His Day”: The Social Construction of Gender, “most people find it hard to believe that gender is constantly created and re-created out of human interaction, out of social life, and is the texture and order of that social life” (Lorber 1). This article was very intriguing because I thought of my gender as my sex but they are not the same. Lorber has tried to prove that gender has a different meaning that what is usually perceived of through ordinary connotation. Gender is the “role” we are given, or the role we give to ourselves. Throughout the article it is obvious that we are to act appropriately according to the norms and society has power over us to make us conform. As a member of a gender an individual is pushed to conform to social expectations of his/her group.
“Migration uproots people from their families and their communities and from their conventional ways of understanding the world. They enter a new terrain filled with new people, new images, new lifeways, and new experiences. They return … and act as agents of change.” (Grimes 1998: 66)
Until recently, emigrants in the United States longed for admittance in society's mainstream. Now these groups demand separation from society, to be able to preserve and conserve their customs and lang...
30, No. 4, New Feminist Approaches to Social Science Methodologies, Special Issue Editors, Sandra Harding and Kathryn
Tveitmoe. "Immigration and Naturalization." Making Connections: Reading American Cultures, IAH 201. Eds. Dvorak, et. al. Vol. 2. Ann Arbor: Primis, 1997. 757-59. 2 vols.
Refugees have two basic choices. They can return to their home country, or they can try to settle in another country. Most refugees, however, cannot return home because conditions in their native country have not changed sufficiently to eliminate the problems from whi...
Kendal, Diana. "Sex and Gender." Sociology in Our Times 3.Ed. Joanna Cotton. Scarborough: Nelson Thomson, 2004. 339-367
...ies that the government, which majority consists of men, does not consider it as a significant matter. In order for this to move in the right direction, I feel that policy-makers and specialists would have to address the concerns that are disregarded of gender equality in nationality such as assuring women a safe future, as well as come up with public and official resolutions. Secondly, I find that the social movement needs a great support system from the policy-makers and those who set-up projects and lastly, in turn to promote discussions, acquire information, and extend useful approaches through networks must be established. As for the women’s civil society movement, initiating responsibilities as suppliers of useful information to policy-makers on their necessities, future approach and gender discrimination might support them to get their voices being heard.
Refugees face governmental turmoil, political prosecution and natural disasters; however, women are further burdened by their female status, biological functions and lack of attention to the needs of women in refugee camps.
The relationship between sex and gender can be argued in many different lights. All of which complicated lights. Each individual beholds a sexual identity and a gender identity, with the argument of perceiving these identities however way they wish to perceive them. However, the impact of gender on our identities and on our bodies and how they play out is often taken for granted in various ways. Gender issues continue to be a hugely important topic within contemporary modern society. I intend to help the reader understand that femininities and masculinities is a social constructed concept and whether the binary categories of “male” and “female” are adequate concepts for understanding and organising contemporary social life with discussing the experiences of individuals and groups who have resisted these labels and forged new identities.
When discussing refugees, most people typically picture individuals fleeing from a country due to either a political or environmental crisis/ disaster and that eventually they will find a safer place to reside. Scholarly literature and the western media often only show the issues that men face as refugees and not what women, mothers, or even young girls face. Not only is it essential to include the plight that many women face when fleeing conflict from war-torn countries or natural disasters but it is important to continue to keep them in the narrative of refugee crises all over the world in order to possibly find alternative solutions to these problems. Additionally, adding women to the narrative of the plight
Wharton (2005:21) views gender as a ‘system of social practices’ which gives rise to gender distinctions and maintains it. What Wharton wants to say is that gender involves the creation of both diffe...