Master's thesis. / Format: PDF. Bibl.

The study was conducted throughout November 2021 in the township of Langa, in the Western Province of Cape Town, South Africa. The purpose of the study is to explore the menstrual health literacy of adolescent boys through collecting data capturing knowledge, experiences and attitudes. The ambition is to locate the findings within the Human Rights Framework, and explore how they may have implications for the ability of girls to realise their right to education. 32 learners between the ages of 13 and 17 years participated in focus group interviews and 8 informant interviews were held. The findings illustrate that adolescent boys have inadequate knowledge about menstrual health, and how their menstrual literacy is shaped by observations from girls in school, and puzzling together informal pieces of knowledge and  experiences. The potential implications this illiteracy may have for girls are practical and social, where the lack of infrastructures responsive to distinctive needs of female learners deprives the right to education. At the same time, the educational context in South Africa is characterised by inequality and learners from the low-income settings are behind the national curricula, making it unreasonable to expect menstrual literacy being prioritised, given its stigmatised connotations. It concludes highlighting how menstrual literacy matters for altering the patterns of unequal development, and for recognising distinctive realities lived by adolescent boys and girls throughout the world.

No description available.

The thesis examines how the social construction of African women in development discourse transformed from the 1970s to the 2000s, focusing in particular on the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). From the 1970s to the 1990s representations of African women were based on women’s economic potential. The mainstreaming of gender in the 1990s resulted in women being represented as agents of change. This approach gave women an opportunity to play roles in decision-making but led to policies that failed to challenge the established institutions. The emphasis on women as agents of change opened doors to some African women but with implications for the women’s movement. Only some middle-class women appear to benefit but their gains have been marginal in comparison to the gender inequalities that persist. The thesis uses secondary sources and interviews with development practitioners in Ottawa to understand the representation of African women as agents of change.

The purpose of the essay is to discuss the power narration has over our gender roles. John Fiske and Pierre Bourdieu´s theoretical texts have been used to discuss the connection between power and culture in A.S. Byatt’s novel Possession: A Romance. Possession demonstrates how male academics take part in shaping knowledge about the past and the present from their perspective. Byatt uses allusions to myth and folktales to emphasise both the romance theme of the novel and how the past has formed us and continues to affect us in our relationships and social roles. The novel reveals how women are trapped by cultural myths about women’s roles in society. The female characters’ fates demonstrate the complexity of heterosexual relationships for independent women in a society where women are supposed to be taken care of by men. The roles imposed on women in romance stories in particular can be seen as a reductionist patriarchal view of women. Byatt emphasizes how women who at varying levels do not collaborate with men are punished for their chosen lifestyles and how some, like homosexual women, have been removed or have chosen to remove themselves from society in different ways. Byatt attempts to demythologize social myths concerning women and men by rewriting traditional myths and fairy tales. Still, Possession does not ultimately challenge the importance of the heterosexual relationship or the male and female characters’ gender roles.

Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob und inwiefern Mikrokreditprogramme zum Frauenempowerment beitragen. Diese Frage wird anhand des Fallbeispiels des türkischen Grameen Programms im westanatolischen Eskişehir mit qualitativen Methoden empirisch untersucht. Die theoretischen und methodischen Annäherungen an das Konzept des Empowerment bedienen sich dabei des Capability Ansatzes, des soziologischen Konzepts der alltäglichen Lebensführung sowie der Literatur zu Gender und Entwicklung und zum Patriarchat in der Türkei. Im empirischen Feld identifiziert die Arbeit drei unterschiedliche Zugänge zum Frauenempowerment durch Mikrokredite, die miteinander verglichen und diskutiert werden: Neben den Perspektiven der Kreditnehmerinnen selbst, deren Empowermenterfahrung als verbesserte Lebensführung definiert wird, steht zum einen das Empowermentverständnis der Autorin, das auf einer feministisch-liberalen und gleichzeitig globalisierungskritischen Perspektive fußt, und das Empowermentverständnis der Mitarbeiter des Mikrokreditinstituts, die dieses Verständnis an die Kreditnehmerinnen weiterleiten. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Kreditnehmerinnen die Mikrokredite trotz für sie problematischer Aspekte eher mit positiven Erfahrungen in Zusammenhang bringen. Des Weiteren betrachten die Mitarbeiter das Programm unkritisch, nach ihrer Ansicht bedeutet Frauenempowerment die Stärkung der Frauen, damit diese die Bedürfnisse ihrer Familien besser erfüllen können. Aus der Perspektive der Autorin bedeuten die Ergebnisse hingegen eine überwiegend unveränderte Fortdauer der Geschlechterungleichheit, die durch die Marginalisierung der Frauen auf dem Arbeitsmarkt und in der Gesellschaft gekennzeichnet ist. / This thesis deals with the question whether or not and to what extent microcredit programmes contribute to women’s empowerment. A qualitative analysis of the Turkish Grameen programme in Eskişehir, Western Anatolia, provides the empirical case study to address the question. The theoretical and methodological approaches to the concept of empowerment adapt and build on the capability approach, the sociological concept of ‘conduct of daily life’ and on the literature on gender and development and patriarchy in Turkey. In the empirical analysis, the study identifies three different approaches to women’s empowerment through microcredits that are compared, contrasted and discussed. In addition to the perspective of the participants themselves for whom empowerment is defined as an improved conduct of everday life, there is the author’s understanding of empowerment which is rooted in a perspective that is liberal-feminist yet critical of globalization. The third perspective is that of employees working for the microcredit institution who transmit their understanding of empowerment to the participating women. The results show that participants overall connect microcredits with positive experiences in spite of a number of problems that arise in the course of the programme. Moreover, employees see the programme very uncritically as women’s empowerment from their point of view consists primarily in enabling women to better provide for their families’ needs. From the author’s perspective, however, the results indicate a largely unchanged persistence of gender inequality marked by women’s marginalization on the labour market and in society as a whole.

Efforts to increase girls‘ access to quality education focus mostly on removing obstacles linked to poverty and discrimination, and often fail to acknowledge the violence many of them suffer in, around, and on the way to and from school. The objective of the present research is to examine the barriers to combating male sexual and gender-based violence in schools at the community level, and to consider community and expert-issued suggestions on removing these obstacles in the Ghanaian context. It does so through the lens of the Gender and Development approach and uses the Ecological Model of Gender-based Violence. Inspired by the standpoint feminist approach to research, data collection in Awaso and Accra involved classroom observation in four (4) Junior high school classes, 19 qualitative interviews with government and civil society personnel, and four (4) focus group discussions with parents, students and teachers. The findings show that barriers to eliminating male sexual and gender-based violence in Awaso include lack of knowledge of girls‘ rights to protection from violence, of consequences of violence against women and girls and of reporting mechanisms. Other barriers identified were lack of resources at the family and government levels, traditional values of family, community and religion, and social perceptions of both gender hierarchies and violence against women and girls. Gendered power dynamics underlie these barriers and hinder progress on the issue of girls‘ protection from violence, but groups of Ghanaian women, girls, men and boys are challenging these dynamics and finding ways to make schools safer for girls. Their strategies for change are also featured in the present research.

The thesis examines how the social construction of African women in development discourse transformed from the 1970s to the 2000s, focusing in particular on the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). From the 1970s to the 1990s representations of African women were based on women’s economic potential. The mainstreaming of gender in the 1990s resulted in women being represented as agents of change. This approach gave women an opportunity to play roles in decision-making but led to policies that failed to challenge the established institutions. The emphasis on women as agents of change opened doors to some African women but with implications for the women’s movement. Only some middle-class women appear to benefit but their gains have been marginal in comparison to the gender inequalities that persist. The thesis uses secondary sources and interviews with development practitioners in Ottawa to understand the representation of African women as agents of change.

Efforts to increase girls‘ access to quality education focus mostly on removing obstacles linked to poverty and discrimination, and often fail to acknowledge the violence many of them suffer in, around, and on the way to and from school. The objective of the present research is to examine the barriers to combating male sexual and gender-based violence in schools at the community level, and to consider community and expert-issued suggestions on removing these obstacles in the Ghanaian context. It does so through the lens of the Gender and Development approach and uses the Ecological Model of Gender-based Violence. Inspired by the standpoint feminist approach to research, data collection in Awaso and Accra involved classroom observation in four (4) Junior high school classes, 19 qualitative interviews with government and civil society personnel, and four (4) focus group discussions with parents, students and teachers. The findings show that barriers to eliminating male sexual and gender-based violence in Awaso include lack of knowledge of girls‘ rights to protection from violence, of consequences of violence against women and girls and of reporting mechanisms. Other barriers identified were lack of resources at the family and government levels, traditional values of family, community and religion, and social perceptions of both gender hierarchies and violence against women and girls. Gendered power dynamics underlie these barriers and hinder progress on the issue of girls‘ protection from violence, but groups of Ghanaian women, girls, men and boys are challenging these dynamics and finding ways to make schools safer for girls. Their strategies for change are also featured in the present research.

Efforts to increase girls‘ access to quality education focus mostly on removing obstacles linked to poverty and discrimination, and often fail to acknowledge the violence many of them suffer in, around, and on the way to and from school. The objective of the present research is to examine the barriers to combating male sexual and gender-based violence in schools at the community level, and to consider community and expert-issued suggestions on removing these obstacles in the Ghanaian context. It does so through the lens of the Gender and Development approach and uses the Ecological Model of Gender-based Violence. Inspired by the standpoint feminist approach to research, data collection in Awaso and Accra involved classroom observation in four (4) Junior high school classes, 19 qualitative interviews with government and civil society personnel, and four (4) focus group discussions with parents, students and teachers. The findings show that barriers to eliminating male sexual and gender-based violence in Awaso include lack of knowledge of girls‘ rights to protection from violence, of consequences of violence against women and girls and of reporting mechanisms. Other barriers identified were lack of resources at the family and government levels, traditional values of family, community and religion, and social perceptions of both gender hierarchies and violence against women and girls. Gendered power dynamics underlie these barriers and hinder progress on the issue of girls‘ protection from violence, but groups of Ghanaian women, girls, men and boys are challenging these dynamics and finding ways to make schools safer for girls. Their strategies for change are also featured in the present research.