Gender And Agency

Download or read book Gender and Agency written by Lois McNay and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reassesses theories of agency and gender identity against the backdrop of changing relations between men and women in contemporary societies. McNay argues that recent thought on the formation of the modern subject offers a one-sided or negative account of agency, which underplays the creative dimension present in the responses of individuals to changing social relations. An understanding of this creative element is central to a theory of autonomous agency, and also to an explanation of the ways in which women and men negotiate changes within gender relations. In exploring the implications of this idea of agency for a theory of gender identity, McNay brings together the work of leading feminist theorists - such as Judith Butler and Nancy Fraser - with the work of key continental social theorists. In particular, she examines the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Paul Ricoeur and Cornelius Castoriadis, each of whom has explored different aspects of the idea of the creativity of action. McNay argues that their thought has interesting implications for feminist ideas of gender, but these have been relatively neglected partly because of the huge influence of the work of Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan in this area. She argues that, despite its suggestive nature, feminist theory must move away from the ideas of Foucault and Lacan if a more substantive account of agency is to be introduced into ideas of gender identity. This book will appeal to students and scholars in the areas of social theory, gender studies and feminist theory.

Download or read book Gender, Agency, and Coercion written by S. Madhok and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-01-16 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on recent feminist discussions, this collection critically reassesses ideas about agency, exploring the relationship between agency and coercion in greater depth and across a range of disciplinary perspectives and ethical contexts.

Download or read book Rethinking Agency written by Sumi Madhok and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-03-21 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes a new theoretical framework for agency thinking by examining the ethical, discursive and practical engagements of a group of women development workers in north-west India with developmentalism and individual rights. Rethinking Agency asks an underexplored question, tracks the entry, encounter, experience and practice of developmentalism and individual rights, and examines their normative and political trajectory. Through an ethnography of a moral encounter with developmentalism, it raises a critical question: how do we think of agency in oppressive contexts? Further, how do issues of risk, injury, coercion and oppression alter the conceptual mechanics of agency itself? The work will be invaluable to research organisations, development practitioners, policy makers and political journalists interested in questions of gender, political empowerment, rights and political participation, and to academics and students in the fields of feminist theory, development studies, sociology, politics and gender studies.

Download or read book On Norms and Agency written by Ana María Muñoz Boudet and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on focus groups and interviews with nearly 4,000 women, men, girls, and boys from 20 countries, this book explores areas that are less often studied in gender and development: gender norms and agency. It reveals how little gender norms have changed, how similar they are across countries, and how they are being challenged and contested.

Download or read book Gender in the Mirror written by Diana Tietjens Meyers and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002-02-21 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Harmful, culturally prevalent imagery of feminine sexuality, beauty, and motherhood constrains women's self-determination. Gender in the Mirror proposes alternative imagery of feminine sexuality, beauty, and motherhood and advances an account of feminist discursive politics that takes on the challenge of neutralizing patriarchal imagery.

Download or read book Gender and Sexual Agency written by Heather Albanesi and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gender and Sexual Agency considers how heterosexual Latin American, Asian American, and Caucasian American youth negotiate sexual encounters. In particular, this book examines sexual agency, exploring the question of why some young people assertively pursue what they want in a sexual encounter, while others go along with sexual activity they do not want. By comparing both young men and young women, Heather Powers Albanesi offers a unique perspective on how an individual's emotional experience of gender informs his or her willingness to exercise sexual agency. Using interviews to support her theoretical argument, Albanesi offers profiles of eleven different types of sexual agency, ranging from having strong convictions about their sexual decisions to abdicating responsibility to their partner. As the expressers of sexual agency, the voices of these youth from primarily working-class backgrounds come through to take us into their sexual decisions as they understand and experience them within the context of their lives. Ultimately, regardless of the decision, the book shows that it is young people's experience of gender that both shapes and allows them to make sense of these sexual choices. Book jacket.

Download or read book Agency and Gender in Gaza written by Dr Aitemad Muhanna and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-12-28 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on rich interview material and adopting a life history approach, this book examines the agency of women living in insecure and uncertain conflict situations. It explores the effects of the Israeli policy of closure against Gaza and the resulting humanitarian crisis in relation to gender relations and gender subjectivity. With attention to the changing roles of men in the household and community as a result of the loss of male employment, the author explores the extension of poor women’s mobility, particularly that of young wives with dependent children, for whom the meaning of agency has shifted from being providers in the domestic sphere to becoming publicly dependent on humanitarian aid. Without conflating women’s agency with resistance to patriarchy, Agency and Gender in Gaza extends the concept of agency to include its subjective and intersubjective elements, shedding light on the recent distortion of the traditional gender order and the reasons for which women resist the masculine power that they have acquired as a result. An empirically grounded examination of the attempt to maintain the meaning of social existence through the preservation of socially constructed images of masculinity and femininity, this book will be of interest to social scientists with interests in gender studies, masculinities and the sociology of the family.