Guardiola 1

Jorge E Guardiola Jr

Professor Powers

English 1302-219

3 March 2023

Annotated bibliographies

Amuchastegui, Ana, et al. “Politics, Religion and Gender Equality in Contemporary Mexico:

women’s sexuality and reproductive rights in a contested secular state” Third World

Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 6, 2010, pp 989–1005. EBSCOhost,

DOI:10.1080/01436597.2010.502733

In this article, Ana Amuchastegui argues about the different changes circling around the

women’s rights movement and how progressively it has changed over time. It starts by addressing

the different aspects taken into the changes and how political figures started to speak out on this

movement and how that brings lower votes to those candidates. We get to look at the political side

of how corruption runs thru the government and no big changes are made due to presidents

restricting changes. A religious side is also mentioned in the article and how the catholic church

intercepts a lot with these movements, especially with the abortion and sexual health policies “the

Catholic Church, and a number of PAN politicians appealed to the Supreme Court against it” (993).

We lastly see how the movements have proven good outcomes and how churches, politics, and

feminist groups fight over rights with different laws and protests. The church wants to remain holy

by avoiding corruption while the government makes changes by deceiving people finally the

women’s movement groups want change yet the interference of the church and government has

made that impossible.

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Coleman, Liv. “Will Japan "Lean In" to Gender Equality?” U.S.-Japan Women's Journal, No.

49, University of Hawai'i Press on behalf of International Institute of Gender and Media,

2016, pp. 3-25. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.com/stable/26401934

In the article, Liv Coleman goes into detail about the different movements Shinzo Abe has

done in his administration in response to the women’s movement and how perception has changed.

Shinzo Abe at the time of his second administration contrasted many of his ideas of how women

should stay home and be “good housewives” and that confused many women in Japan as he in his

new administration was trying to elevate women’s status with international norms “he women

tapped reflected Abe's choice to maintain continuity with the family values and maternalist

priorities of his first administration” (14). New support in marriage and pregnancy was seen by the

first minister, Mori Masako, in charge of the gender equality countermeasures "support for

marriage, childbirth, and pregnancy to try to boost the birthrate” (14). Arguments occurred

between genders and how women should not be like men and many women in a survey aligned

with the idea that women should stay with their children until certain age even though new progress

was being made for their movements. The government wants to make changes that benefit the

companies through social policy instead of regulatory reform, so more women are seen in the

workplace as well as getting promoted. Lastly, we see reports of women leaving the workplace

leading to a search for factors in why this is happening “o change within companies, too, as long

as most women continue to report in surveys that they leave the workforce because of "push"

factors such as a stalled” (16). Reforms in government have been put in place in various ways to

help women get into the workplace and have more representation however efforts have shown to

last just as the benefits start to fade away and then women start to leave the workplace as a result

of insufficient support from companies.

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Fuszara, Malgorzata. “Between Feminism and the Catholic Church: The Women's Movement in

Poland” Czech Sociological Review, Vol. 41, No. 6, 2005, pp. 1057-1075. JSTOR,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/41132243

In this article, Malgorzata Fuszara covers several topics about how religion has a big

influence and how men have grown aware of women’s limited participation in government. The

subject takes place in Poland and more topics grow as the article starts expanding on education,

feminist groups, the communist era, and religion. We see how women have been out of politics

since the communist era and how now in modern Poland people are starting to follow the feminist

movement “men are increasingly coming to share the view that the level of women's participation

in the public sphere is too small” (1059). Polls in Poland show that women should be put in

different roles in government ranging from parliament to judiciary roles although a high education

follows those roles according to people “opinions on women's participation in government and

their level of education. The higher the level of education, the higher the percentage of respondents

who believe that there should be more women in positions of authority than there are now” (1060).

We lastly see how the catholic church has created nationwide organizations to help women see

these struggles through the eyes of religion with “educational and informational activities,

including religious instruction, preparation for family life, and guidance in methods of natural

family planning” (1072).

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Gouws, Amanda. “Feminism in South Africa today: Have we lost the praxis?” Agenda:

Empowering Women for Gender Equity, No. 83, Feminisms today, 2010, pp. 13-23.

JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27917331

In this article, Amanda Gouws starts by addressing the start of the feminist movement in

South Africa and how alliances to “getting women into government” started to come up to get

the right ideas. Different methods are listed, and different practice of feminism is mentioned and

how they go about relating to the topic “For radical feminists, consciousness raising was the

method” (15). Consciousness is a core aspect of some of these feminist groups to become more

open towards the various problems presented “core aspects of a feminist praxis are an ethic of

openness, honesty and self-awareness” (15). This system and its aspects can lead to oppressing

other women because it relates to their empathy towards other women. These movements are lost

when feminists move on to politics and the parliament “the link with women's organisations

were lost, and the focus shifted to institutional politics, law reform and a discourse around

gender rather than feminism” (16). After taking over politics, feminist activism started to fade

away and the struggles started to become silent just as feminists had argued before women got

into the parliament “silence around important feminist issues such as very high levels of gender-

based violence, the sexual harassment of lesbian women, attacks on women for not adhering to

"cultural codes", and the misogynistic behaviour of male politicians in positions of power”
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Htun, Mala. “Puzzles of Women's Rights in Brazil.” Social Research, Vol. 69, No. 3, The Status

of Women in the Developing World, 2002, pp. 733-75. JSTOR,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971571

In this article, Mala Htun depicts the several advancements of women in opportunities

and the increasing labor force participation even though low representation in politics. Various

public names are mentioned and are mentioned to make an exception for the low numbers that

Brazil has demonstrated. “Women are slightly more numerous among senior public servants in

Brazil, but their representation at the top is still massively disproportional to women's overall

participation” (734) even though many women are among the senior public representation at a

low percentage. Brazil after having one of the biggest waves of feminism movements and groups

started to arise to fight oppression and to extend connections to other groups. Feminist groups

have also worked with state officials to get recognition and to make further changes relating to

law “Brazilian feminists have also worked with state officials to pioneer some of Latin America's

most advanced legislation and innovative mechanisms to advance women's rights” (736). Many

women’s police stations were created to facilitate cases relating to abuse and rape and over 250

stations were created in response to the results “Created to facilitate the reporting, investigation,

and prosecution of cases of domestic violence and rape, these stations are largely staffed by

women police” (738).

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Iversen, Torben, et al. “The Dilemma of Gender Equality: How Labor Market Regulation

Divides Women by Class.” Daedalus, Vol. 149, No. 1, Women & Equality, 2020, pp. 86-

99. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/48563034

In this article, Torben Iversen argues about the lower value that women get when

represented in the labor market. As women most of the time find themselves in low-income jobs,

we get introduced to some factors, such as how many hours of work in a day and commitment to

the job. Promotions are seen more in men than in women since men stay later on the job to show

their commitment to the boss and rather women sometimes have children or rather assigned duties

implemented by society “working long hours today poses a particular problem for women, given

the time-consuming extra home duties that society assigns by gender” (88). Hour regulations on

women hurt managerial positions in getting promoted or getting that position even though it helps

non-managerial positions. Countries with less strict regulation on hours have resulted in having

more women in managerial positions “countries with less restrictive hours regulations–France,

Ireland, and the United Kingdom–have relatively more women in managerial positions” (90).

Lastly, we see how women face gender discrimination in different cultures. Even though U.S and

Danish firms operate in Denmark a single norm on women can harm the promotions and hours

they could get. Firms in Europe leave aside women for higher jobs even though some firms have

shown improvement with females in higher-ranking jobs and all because of the “macho culture”

(97), “European firms with at least three women on their executive committees outperformed their

rivals both in average return on equity and operating profits” (97).

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Lee, Aie-Rie, et al. “The Women's Movement in South Korea.” Social Science Quarterly, Vol.

88, No. 5, Special Issue on Women in Global Society, 2007, pp. 1205-1226. JSTOR,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/42956240

In this article, Aie-Rie Lee introduces the different successes that the women’s movement

has had in Korea. We start by depicting images of women in government and how democracy has

helped women grow in the movement even though representation is still missing “Korea has been

regarded as one of the most advanced Asian nations in terms of women's legislation, despite

women's extremely low representation in elected decision-making bodies” (1206). We get

introduced to how women leaders start to get involved in politics as a result of them working

closely with the government and the new parties that appeared “women's groups in Korea were

successful after democratization not because they operate conventional forms of institutional

politics, but because they chose to work with the new institutions and parties” (1209). Even though

getting involved closely with the government has been a great step; women’s representation has

changed or stayed the same for several years “women have been elected to less than 0.9 percent of

National Assembly seats from 1948 through 2004” (1209). Tactics such as getting public opinion,

swcontact with government officials, and strikes have been used to their advantage to gain

awareness. Groups have flourished in introducing democratic ideas to women, yet the government

has failed by appointing very few of them to government positions.

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Meyers, V Susan. “‘They didn’t tell me anything’: women’s literacies and resistance in rural

Mexico” Gender and Education, Vol. 23, No. 7, December 2011, 857–871. EBSCOhost,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2010.549110

In this article, Susan V. Meyers argues about the lack of education and opportunities

women have in rural Mexico. Using the term “machismo” in connection to Mexican norms

followed by Mexicans in modern day. Introduces to us many theories by feminist groups and how

education leads to many opportunities and how the lack of information leads to not knowing the

basic rights of the body. Living in Villachuato, Michoacan helped look into research and hear

about cases in which women have been oppressed in that rural area of Mexico. Even in the absence

of men, women are still tied to the social norms and traditions that have been going on for years

“traditional social patterns that keep women working at home while men go out to work in the

fields” (861). The article goes on with three different cases addressing the role of education and

literacy and how that could have changed their lives further in life while also looking at the

different desires women had during their youth. It concludes with the progression of further young

women going into further education levels and how just having an open education to everyone is

not enough but also having a safe space for studies taken into notice by the community.
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Salah, Omnia. “Middle Eastern women, media artists and ‘self-body image.’” Technoetic Arts: A

Journal of Speculative Research, vol. 15, no. 1, 2017, pp.61-74. EBSCOhost, Doi:

10.1386/tear.15.1.61_1

In this article, Omnia Salah gives us an insight into the struggles that women throughout

the middle east face. Relating many problems with society, religion, and the media, Salah explains

the different ways women have expressed themselves through art. Starts off with several mentions

of how women are treated in several regions and one that is remarked on is Egypt showing how

women have rights but they are hard to enforce when people don’t recognize those rights “women

have several rights in Egyptian law, but in the culture of Egyptian society they are treated as

second-class citizens.” (63). Moreover, Salah presents us with different artists and the work they

have done and how their work represents more than just the constant changes the female body goes

thru but also implicates the emotions they perceive “. They also represent an idea of ‘woman’ and

of ‘female’ emotions such as fear, anger, love and jealousy” (68). Ends with the media problems

women face such as not having the freedom of doing work they like as family members get

involved and put their opinions forward on them. The article depicts how constantly middle eastern

women are changing and how they are challenging their traditions through the use of art by sending

a message beyond words.

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Shannon, J Kelly “‘I’m glad I’m not a Saudi woman’: the First Gulf War and US encounters with

Saudi gender relations” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2014 Vol. 27, No. 3,

EBSCOhost 553–573, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2012.678296

In this article, Kelly J Shannon demonstrates how American servicewomen reacted to the

conflicts and laws going on in Saudi Arabia at the time of the Gulf War. It is highlighted that

servicewomen looked to the alliance as a poor one because of the treatment going on with women.

Women could not drive at the time of war and that clashed with women in the military along with

the dress code in the country “Many servicewomen chafed at the restrictions related to dress and

transportation imposed on them by Saudi authorities or by the US military, which aimed to show

sensitivity for Saudi culture.” (560). Reporters had the same issues and were even more enforced

since they were not in the service of the military while information was limited to some topics and

only some access was granted to reporters while having also a military scanner for their reports.

“They especially focused on the status of 562 women in Saudi Arabia and the difficulties

American servicewomen faced when interacting with Saudi men” (563) while reporting on the war

many broadcasts centered on the problems women faced in society. Furthermore, many feminist

groups and protests were spread out as more information was given to the public along with the

spread of awareness more intentions of getting involved were seen by Arabian and U.S women.