Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / There are significant social and policy changes that have been made in Saudi Arabia. Some of these changes are relevant to women’s lives. The changes related to the male guardianship system are crucial. Saudi women are restricted by the male dominant culture and face obstacles that hold them accountable to their male guardians. The male guardianship system is tied to heritage, culture, and traditionally ingrained mindsets. This exploratory qualitative study provided a more comprehensive understanding of women’s narratives by focusing on the deep meaning about the effects of the male guardianship system on women’s lives in Saudi Arabia. Sixteen women were interviewed. The finding found that the majority of Saudi women did not perceive the guardianship system as protective or helping women by any means and many had questions about its purpose and relevance. Regarding the legal concept, most women were ambivalent because of recent policy reforms that the government had promised, yet had not implemented it when the data was collected. The religious beliefs surrounding the male guardianship system also varied according to which religious interpretation women and their families followed. The traditional beliefs of the male guardianship system differed among women due to social values which differed from one family to another. This study showed the persistent need to raise awareness among women and men to deconstruct the Saudi culture and reshape the values and norms where women can be respected as individuals so that they could govern their own lives. The findings also showed that the new younger generation in Saudi Arabia are more willing to challenge the Saudi culture and tradition for a better future. They are inspired by the Saudi vision 2030 and the social changes that took place a few years ago to benefit women, extending work opportunities, education, enabling women to do government paperwork themselves, and allowing women to drive and travel without male permission. All these reforms are promising for a better future, but more work, more women voices, and more discussion is needed. / 2022-08-17

No description available.

Thesis (LL.M.). / Written for the Faculty of Law. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2009/06/17). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed June 13, 2006). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 282-302).

This thesis is based on a minor field study (MFS) with the aim of investigating what habitus and forms of capital facilitate women’s rights activism in Assam, India – a state described as highly patriarchal but also a place where women enjoy higher status than elsewhere in the country. Using the concepts of capital and habitus and elements from social movement- and feminist theory, I analyze interviews with eight Assamese women’s rights activists. I conclude that the habitus of social engagement has been embodied early in most participants and that they all possess strong cultural and social capital that enable them to act. The identity of being independent is an integrated part of the participants and it is also what they strive to implement in the communities of women they work with.

This thesis used female genital mutilation as a lens through which the effectiveness of the current laws aimed at protecting women and girls can be explored.

The present dissertation provides an analytical and comparative study of the application of Islamic law (Shari’ah) and international human rights law in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It provides an analysis of the sources of Islamic law as well as the sources of international law to set the background for analysis and defines the nature of both laws. It also tackles the subject of the domestic application of international human treaties in Saudi Arabia. In addition, it examines some reservations Saudi Arabia has entered to some of the international human rights treaties it has ratified, specifically the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). It also sheds some light on the political, cultural and religious obstacles to the realisation of norms protected by international human rights treaties in the country, and in other countries for that matter, clearly stating the impossibility of implementing the provisions of the international human rights treaties in their entirety. This is due to the various political and legal developments towards the internationalization of the concept of human rights. It observes that despite the existence of the international human rights treaties, which aim at reinforcing a universal realisation of international human rights, these rights cannot be possibly realised by all countries. To stress the importance Saudi Arabia attaches to the issue of human rights, the dissertation discusses some rights of women before Saudi courts in family matters, an issue which has been criticised by some international human rights treaties, and examines to what extent the country has managed to tackle the issue of domestic violence, particularly violence against women. It provides an overview of the major causes of domestic violence against women in Saudi Arabia, presents some cases of domestic violence before Saudi courts and sheds some light on the measures taken by the Saudi government to combat domestic violence against women. It also tackles this issue both in the international and domestic legal frameworks, clearly stating the Islamic standpoint on the issue, namely that Islamic law, and Saudi Arabia for that matter, whose laws are essentially derived from the two main sources of Shari’ah. It also discusses the common forms of violence against women in Saudi Arabia and suggests a number of recommendations towards more effective protection of women against violence in the country. The dissertation concludes by presenting a number of obstacles in the way of executing judicial decisions in the Kingdom as well as the obstacles which negatively affect the performance of the new code of law practice. It also presents some recommendations concerning personal status law obstacles and hindrances to progress and attempts to answer the research questions it has posed.

M.A. / The aim of the study is to implement and evaluate a women empowerment lifeskills programme in the informal settlement in Germiston (Gauteng). South African women live in poverty, deal with violence and due to their status in the past, they have been identified as vulnerable and disempowered target group in social service delivery. The research study is evaluation research often used when evaluating a social programme. The integrated model of programme evaluation (IMPE) of De Vos (1998) is selected and adjusted for the purpose of this study. The research process is initiated with a literature study on the concepts empowerment, participation and other relevant concepts to the study. The research is limited to the Delport informal settlement in Germiston, Gauteng. Data collection took place in the three phases of the research study. Phase one: Needs assessment, utilises key informants and a community forum. Phase two: process evaluation, utilises a semi-structured interview schedule. Phase three: Outcome evaluation, group administered questions are used. The target group of the study is women residing in Delport informal settlement. Results in the study indicated that the SAWEF lifeskills programme is effective in addressing the needs for lifeskills programme of semi-literate in an informal settlement. It is recommended that the SAWEF lifeskills programme should be implemented more extensively and continuously evaluated to determine whether it continues to address the needs of the target group it is intended for, being women. Results and conclusions drawn from this study can not be generalised to the broader population of women in informal settlements. Further research is needed to determine whether SAWEF lifeskills programme used in this study would be effective for women in different levels and in other communities in South Africa. / Prof. J.B.S. Nel

Studying the effect of fundamental religious belief upon attitudes toward woman's role in society, findings were: (1) persons high in fundamental belief have more traditional attitudes than persons low in fundamental belief; (2) atheists, agnostics, Unitarians, Jews, and 'others' hold more liberal attitudes than Protestants or Catholics; (3) persons who frequently attend religious services hold more conservative attitudes than persons who attend infrequently; and (4) females hold more liberal attitudes than males. Also, marital status did not affect attitudes toward woman's role. Subjects were 63 female and 38 male college students. Findings were discussed in light of effects conservative attitudes toward woman's role could have upon fundamentalists, and of the theory supporting the hypotheses.

Thesis advisor: Devin O. Pendas / Thesis advisor: Paul Breines / "Man's Duty to Woman: Men and the First Wave of German Feminism, 1865-1919" charts the modernization of gender relationships in Imperial Germany through an exploration of German men's engagement with both organized feminism and the so-called "Woman Question." An examination of German men's contributions (as well as challenges) to feminist newspapers, women's suffrage societies, women's educational and vocational organizations, and the discourse of expanding women's civil and political rights illuminates not only the ways in which German men helped shape the "first wave" of German feminism, but also the process by which German men were, in turn, shaped by feminism and women's breach of a male-defined public sphere during the second wave of the Industrial Revolution. While Germany is better known for its misogynistic intellectual legacy of thinkers like Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as the maxim of "Kinder, Küche, und Kirche" (children, kitchen, and church) used to describe the so-called "women's sphere," my dissertation demonstrates that the cause of German women's rights enjoyed a broad base of male support during the Imperial era and that women's reforms were pivotal to progressive liberal, socialist, and conservative social policies. My examination of male allies, therefore, counterbalances and critiques the longstanding view of Imperial German society and German men as fundamentally hostile to women's rights. Male allies of German feminism, I contend, were motivated by a twin mission to genuinely improve the lives of and opportunities for women in the industrial economy, and to utilize feminine energies--both spiritual and biological--for their own ideological designs. While these male allies retained some degree of principled commitment to expanding women's opportunities in Germany society over time, they were opportunistic men, as well, who sought to harness and direct the power of the "eternal feminine," a power which the moderate female-led feminist movement celebrated and deployed in their own work. My dissertation also considers the ways in which German men reconciled their own masculine identity with their support of reforms that ultimately undermined male hegemony. In the late 1870s, after female leaders took the helm of women's educational and vocational associations and began to embrace the rhetoric of maternalist feminism, men committed to women's reforms were forced to carve out new forms of pro-woman and feminist advocacy within, or alongside of, woman-led feminist organizations. As a result, male allies of German feminism developed a variety of masculinities. Although a few feminist men like Karl Heinzen, Georg von Gyzicki, and Hanns Dorn advocated a gentler, egalitarian masculinity that rejected most aspects of traditional masculinity, the majority of male friends of first wave feminism embodied a hyper-masculinity to balance their commitment to increasing women's social, economic, and (in some cases) political power. The act of becoming a "modern German man" in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century necessarily entailed figuring out how to retain one's manliness and maintain refuges of male authority in a world in which women were becoming ever more powerful and visible. Male allies of German feminism represent an essential case study in this project of modernizing masculinity. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History.