Society

Who can afford to commodify women’s bodies?

by Kashi Syal 

In September 2017, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West announced that their third child would be carried by a $45,000 surrogate. Only, it wasn’t West with whom the news outlets and search engines associated the surrogacy; rather, it was Kardashian who dominated the headlines. Likewise in 2009, Sarah Jessica Parker — not her famous husband Matthew Broderick— was the primary […]

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    Solidaristic coalitions and ‘unbudgeable conviction in justice’ in the face of transnational anti-gender movements

Solidaristic coalitions and ‘unbudgeable conviction in justice’ in the face of transnational anti-gender movements

by Sumi Madhok

This blogpost is based on comments given at the following events: AHRC Network workshop on Transnational Anti-Gender Politics: Narratives and Resistance held at the LSE on 2 December 2022; the SOAS Gender Studies Conference 4 February 2023 and the Pathfinders grand Challenge on Inequality Panel Solidarity in Action: Countering anti-feminist trends around the globe, 13 March 2023, […]

  • photo of The Hunt by Mahasweta Devi, taken by the author
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    Book Review: Subverting the Norms and Constructs of Gender – The Hunt by Mahasweta Devi

Book Review: Subverting the Norms and Constructs of Gender – The Hunt by Mahasweta Devi

By Aadya Narain 

Mahasweta Devi (1990) The hunt. Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, 5:1, 61-79.

Photo of The Hunt by Mahasweta Devi, taken by the author

Mahasweta Devi is a political activist and author who wrote about subaltern, marginalised communities in India with a piercing feminist gaze. Her deceptively simple and accessible language in “The Hunt” reveals the complex socio-cultural realities […]

  • “Detract the decision, implement the Convention”.
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    The threats and possibilities awaiting the gender-equal democracy in Turkey after the 2023 general elections

The threats and possibilities awaiting the gender-equal democracy in Turkey after the 2023 general elections

by Didem Unal

The parliamentary and presidential elections on 14 May 2023 mark a turning point in Turkey for gender-equal democracy. As the country enters its second century, AKP (Justice and Development Party), the party in power since 2002, is facing the most consolidated opposition of the last two decades. Turkey’s six-party opposition coalition composed of the major opposition party, […]

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    When the local feminist group sounds like the far-right: Femonationalist and Islamophobic messages in Femen-France

When the local feminist group sounds like the far-right: Femonationalist and Islamophobic messages in Femen-France

by Eréndira Derbez

Femen France claims to be a radical feminist activist group. It was founded in Ukraine in 2008 by Anna Hutsol and, allegedly, Viktor Sviatsky. It is currently led by Inna Shevchenko and is based in Paris. They became internationally recognised after organising semi-naked protests in public spaces; according to their website, the group is formed by “brave topless […]

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    Nunneries of Tibetan Tsunmas in Exile as Socio-Economic Knowledge Hubs Accelerating Women’s Empowerment in the Indian Himalayas

Nunneries of Tibetan Tsunmas in Exile as Socio-Economic Knowledge Hubs Accelerating Women’s Empowerment in the Indian Himalayas

by Sourajit Ghosh

Exploring the Identity of a Buddhist Nun in a Merit-Based Economy:

The term ‘Bhikkhunī’/Bhikṣuṇī or dgeslong ma (also called Tsunma), literally translates to spiritual almswomen’[1]within Buddhism. Considering the lives and work of Tibetan Bhikṣuṇīs as well as their perceptions, I believe, can allow us to interrogate some complex issues on identity. This is especially so within the contemporary […]

Non-Obvious Connections: How Feminism Becomes Transphobic?

by Olga Plakhotnik and Maria Mayerchyk

Queer Festival in Kherson (Ukraine), 2021. Photo credit: Stanislav Ostrous. Published with permission from the author.

Why are some feminists transphobic? How did it happen that a considerable part of feminist communities aligns with the conservative anti-gender movements in producing anti-transgender public discourse? Sadly, we cannot share Judith Butler’s opinion that transphobic feminists are a minority. […]

An exercise in looking

by Anna Blus (all photography and text)

Image 1. Balloons after a celebration in front of a block of flats, South London, 2021

Image 2. Window sign, March 2020

Image 3. Outdoor exercise, Myatts Fields, 2021

Image 4. Court in session (sign reads “DO NOT RING BELL, COURT IN SESSION”), South London, 2021

Image 5. A rainy street in lockdown, 2020

Image 6. Working from home, […]

  • Permalink Protestors' placards outside the Indian High Commission in London. Photo by authorGallery

    Hindu supremacism, ‘anti-gender’ politics, and feminist resistance

Hindu supremacism, ‘anti-gender’ politics, and feminist resistance

by Kalpana Wilson

This contribution was first presented at the 2 December 2022 workshop on Transnational “Anti-Gender” Politics and Resistance, part of the AHRC-LSE project on Transnational ‘Anti-Gender’ Movements and Resistance: Narratives and Interventions.

Listening to Tooba Syed[i] speaking about the struggles in which feminist movements in Pakistan are currently engaged, the resonances with the current situation in India are inescapable. […]

The International of Antifeminists

By Leandra Bias

This essay was originally published in German on 6 June 2022 in the Swiss magazine Republik. I thank the LSE Engenderings collective for accepting to publish an English translation and for their editor Oksana Potapova’s support in editing it.

Vladimir Putin said it all himself, we just have to listen carefully. When the Russian president tried to legitimize […]

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