M.A. (Politics) / This purpose of this study was to analyse the nature of women’s involvement in peace-building in Sierra Leone. The various dimensions of peace-building as set out in the African Union’s Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development (PRCD) programme, adopted in June 2006 by heads of governments in Banjul, The Gambia, served as the framework for analysis. The PCRD emphasises the incorporation of women in all peace-building efforts (and the mainstreaming of gender in all policies), and sets out a range of areas in terms of which women are required to be included. These are: political transition, government and democratisation; security; human rights, justice, and reconciliation; humanitarian emergency assistance; and socio-economic reconstruction and development. The analysis of the nature of women’s involvement in peace-building in Sierra Leone in these areas is structured in terms of efforts made by the government in complying with the PCRD, the efforts made by women’s groups (local, national, provincial, regional) in the country and the involvement of international organisations in partnership with either the government or women’s groups to provide assistance to female victims of violence. This study found that the government had many policies and laws which provided for women’s inclusion in peace-building efforts in the country (i.e. de jure commitment). However, its de facto commitment is questionable, since very few of these policies have in fact borne fruit. Women, for example, were not included in the 1996 Abidjan and 1999 Lomé Peace Accords – in both these agreements they were portrayed as victims needing protection, rather than as agents of change. Moreover, female representation in parliament over the past 12 years has not exceeded 14.5 per cent; the DDR programmes was largely gender-blind; the transformation of the security sector (such as the police and military) did not result in women’s inclusion in decision-making positions within these institutions; and, finally, despite the fact that the government specifically emphasised the importance of resuscitating economic activities among women in the 2005 Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, there was no concrete strategy to achieve these goals. This has affected women’s involvement in the economy, since obstacles in the form of male attitudes towards their role in the economy continue to persist. However, women’s groups, on the other hand, were actively involved in facilitating women’s inclusion in peace-building efforts in the country. Groups such as the 50/50 Group have been active in mobilising for the implementation of the 30 per cent quota for women’s representation in parliament. It also conducted capacity-building workshops and training programmes to empower potential female candidates for both local and general elections. The Sierra Leonean chapter of the Forum of African Women Educationalists (FAWE-SL) played a pivotal role in addressing the trauma caused by sexual and gender-based violence. Further efforts by women’s groups include: providing capacity-building programmes to empower women (including female ex-combatants) excluded from the DDRR programme; addressing the psycho-social needs of female survivors of war (in collaboration with international organisations); providing financial and medical assistance as well as trauma counselling and healing programmes to female and child victims of domestic violence and rape; running skills training centres and other educational activities in order to increase literacy and education among women, and building emergency schools for girls whose schools were destroyed during the conflict as well as providing educational information at entry points to female returnees on their rights; and, finally, providing micro-credit loans (by the Sierra Leone Market Women’s Association (SLMWA). This has been an important aspect of the efforts of women’s groups to resuscitate economic activities among women.

Women representation in management positions is described as a fundamental human right and an important means of fair democratic representation. This study intended to investigate the factors determining women upward mobility and their promotion to management positions. Included as variables were traditional gender roles, access to education and lack of mentoring and role models. The study followed the qualitative approach using snowball sampling and conducting semi structured interviews with ten Controlling Officers from different ministries and department of the Malawi Public Service to find out whether the variables under investigation indeed affect women upward mobility. Empirical evidence shows that traditional gender roles e.g. being mothers affect women upward mobility. Similarly, limited access to education is another factor that limits women access to managerial positions. Lack of mentoring and role models, especially where there are already few women at the top also affects women’s upward mobility. The study recommended that Malawi government should help women get scholarships that provide for their children. Furthermore, the government should provide flexible working hours especially for mothers. Women themselves should meet for a cup of tea where they can empower each other on the most important aspects of their job as chief executives; that is delivering a speech, making presentations and forming networks.

Over the past years, particularly during 2018, Chilean society has experienced a robust feminist movement led by high school students. At the same time, mainstream society and researchers claim that Chile is experiencing a youth civic and citizenship education crisis, particularly among young women. I address this apparent contradiction by challenging the futuristic approach in citizenship education taken in the country and exploring how young women are currently politically engaged and challenge gender oppression within their high schools and their activist spaces. I have used a post-human and post-colonial feminist theoretical framework to answer the following research question, How do female public high school students in Chile who identify as feminist or politically active produce their gender/political subjectivities in the 2018 context of contentious feminist politics? And, sub questions; How do they do this while engaging with feminist discourses and practices in and outside of school? How do they do this while engaging with historical narratives? Finally, how do they do this while engaging with formal political education in school? A context of contentious feminist politics will be understood as a context where feminism is prevalent in public discourse, which forces people -in this case students- to take a stance concerning this subject. To answer the research questions, I conducted a critical ethnography, observing classes and other activities at Edelbina González High School, a Chilean all-female public high school with an active group of high school feminists. During my fieldwork, I invited six 12th-grade participants to be my focal group of observation and to take part in individual testimonios interviews and collective art-based testimonios workshops. Through these methods, I produced fieldnotes of observations, transcriptions and audio-recordings of the interviews and workshops, and photographs of the school space and students’ art pieces. I analyzed the data through a three-layer process using thematic coding analysis, narrative structural and content analysis, visual analysis, and “plugging in with theory” analysis (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012). This study engages with lengthy discussion regarding education and reproduction of gender regimes; it explores how oppressive systems transform but remain, particularly in regards to citizenship and formal political education through neoliberal discourses of girl empowerment. It also shows how feminist female high school students communally and creatively respond, theorize, and re-imagine political engagement within these frames, providing insights into what is, and what can be education for democratic citizenship and gender justice. The Feminist students in this study produced themselves as nomadic mestiza bodies engaging with pre-existing political frameworks but at the same time built something more. The students assembled themselves within an antagonistic us/them framework within the Chilean Student Movement, which considers the state and school as adversaries attempting to oppress them. Their high school attempted to reproduce them as feminine, successful, conflict-free neoliberal girls. Regardless, the feminist students displaced both the antagonistic and neoliberal model producing their gender/political subjectivities as nomadic, ever-shifting, vulnerable and strong, and connecting themselves with collective memories and historical narratives. The production of the feminist students’ gender/political subjectivities through “affectivism,” resistance, and political caring rendered the participants as nomadic mestiza bodies, always becoming, collectively connected and empowered by one another to produce political change.

In the history of opposition to white supremacist rule in South Africa, the 1950's stand out as a period of intensive legal resistance by black political bodies on an unprecedented mass scale. Undoubtedly, for all its weaknesses and difficulties, the Congress Alliance, with the African National Congress its senior partner, was the major source of opposition faced by the apartheid state in this period. More than is generally realised, however, the 1950's were also a decade of mass political action by black women in South Africa, that section of the population which a 1956 pamphlet aptly described as "the most oppressed, suffering and downtrodden of our people". At the centre of this outburst lay the Federation of South African Women (FSAW), an organisation that was linked to the Congress Alliance. It is the history of this organisation that forms the subject matter of this thesis. Little historical work has been done on women in South Africa, politically or otherwise: for this reason, the scope of this study is broad and, in addition to material on the history and make-up of the FSAW itself, several chapters have been devoted to background developments to the establishment of the FSAW in 1954.

The period 1954 to 1958 saw an unprecedented level of mobilisation and active political campaigning by women of all races in South Africa. These campaigns were split along lines of race and class, as evidenced in the demonstrations against the extension of pass laws to African women by the Federation of South African Women [FSAW] and the campaign against the Senate Bill by liberal white women of the Black Sash. What they had in common is that both groups of women organised their action into separate structures exclusive to women, with independent identities from the male-dominated structures of the Congress Alliance and of white party politics. This separate organisation from men was not carried out with an explicit feminist agenda or a developed awareness of women's oppression, however. Nevertheless, their existence constituted a challenge to the dominant patriarchal discourse that constructed women's role as domestic and exclusive to the private sphere. Newspaper representations of the two organisations by both their political allies and their political opponents, provide evidence of this dominant discourse on "women's place" and insight on the public perception of political activity by women at the time. Within the texts of FSAW and the Black Sash one finds tensions between accepted notions of women's primary role as wives and mothers, and an emerging self-conception of women as politically active in the public realm. To an extent, the self-representation of these texts mirrors the patriarchal representations of women found in the newspaper reports. However, there are also definite departures from the traditional formulations of womanhood that can be conceived of as "contestations" to the dominant discourse. The patriarchal discourse was, therefore, a discursive constraint, both external and internalised, on women's ability to become active and effective in South Africa politics in the 1950s. Paradoxically, through the practical process of women's mobilisation in FSAW and the Black Sash, new space was opened on the political terrain that allowed for the alteration of the dominent discourse on women's place in society, as well as for the emergence of contestatory feminist discourses in South Africa.

This dissertation contributes to understanding the political behavior of two underrepresented groups: women and ethnoracial minorities. It explores how these groups' political behavior and beliefs are associated with existent gaps in representation. Each chapter approaches a different aspect concerning this common problem. Chapter 1 inquires about the mechanisms assumed to link descriptive and substantive representation for women. By analyzing the combination of electoral data segregated by gender in Ecuador with census data and the results of an original candidates' survey, I confirm the existence of a `gender affinity vote' and the importance of the type of female candidate for understanding gender gaps in support for women candidates. Chapter 2 presents the results of two survey experiments that study how gender stereotypes affect political behavior at the mass level. It identifies a gendered `issue ownership' based on these stereotypes and tests if counterstereotypical exposures promote more engagement of those underrepresented. The findings suggest that counterstereotypical exposure is not equally effective in promoting participation for both genders. Women do not get more engaged in male-dominated issues when encouraged by other women. Men get more engaged on women's issues when other men encourage them and when the invitee is similar to them. However, the interaction between the two factors has a negative effect, suggesting that seeing someone identical to them creates a dissonance that hinders the direct effects of the two variables. Chapter 3 presents the results of an audit study of US state legislators that explores the existence of a cominority solidarity between Blacks and Latinos. The results show that Latinos are not only the most disadvantaged because White legislators are biased against them, but also because their cominority solidarity towards Blacks is not reciprocated.

Thesis (MA (Political Science. International Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / The African Renaissance, which has its origins in the 1960s during the de-colonization period of Africa, is about transformation, an African continent reinvention that pleads for renewed autonomy and Africa’s own effort to take its intellectual destiny. Africa is beset with a massive amount of problems, and the African Renaissance in general is trying to address these issues and find a solution to all these problems. It has been seen as a call for the people of Africa to work towards the resurgence of Africa, economically, sociologically, politically and spiritually. President Mbeki of South Africa sets the tone for the African Renaissance project and its implementation, but the vision is for the rest of Africa that must equally own the concept and actively fuel its realization. The African Renaissance has limitations in that not all African countries have embraced it, or are passionate as other countries are. Still, most people in the continent do not understand the concept the African Renaissance as it has found them in conditions that are still disadvantageous to them and are grappling with other issues of life. Most importantly, it is not inclusive of women despite the fact that they constitute a clear numerical majority on the African continent. There is no significant cultural renaissance that can take place while sectors of the population under transformation are victims of silencing. Looking at the position of women in Africa and their development, it is important to understand what the implication of gender is in this discourse. Also, why has the African Renaissance not included women and lastly, that can it hold as a discourse of renewal without the voice of women? The African Renaissance has come to epitomize the democratization of the African continent, therefore, the voice of women and the role that gender must play, should be of great importance.

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Since feminist approaches to international relations (IR) first made their appearance in the late 1980s, efforts to explain the 'gender gap' have proliferated. Gender studies within IR in particular have been focused on foreign policy opinion, seeking to discover whether men and women have different views on foreign policy simply due to the fact that they are of different genders. The correlate of this is that if women believe differently than men, in which way do they believe differently and if this were then taken to its logical end, what would happen if they were more equally responsible for foreign policy decision-making? As an illustration of the varying approaches to feminist IR, this research project undertakes a brief overview of the history of feminist IR, showing how the tools and language of traditional IR do not encompass the needs of feminist IR study. The research article then reviews the literature of gender, feminism and foreign policy beliefs and behavior, examining its research core and evolution to date. Three research questions are covered. Firstly, is gender a relevant variable in foreign policy analysis? Secondly, if yes, does it make a difference to the foreign policy beliefs of women? Thirdly, where women play a significant role in foreign policy decisionmaking, are countries more pacific on the international level? Dealt with separately, foreign policy beliefs are found to have a clear gender-based breakdown. Foreign policy behavior is less simple to approach since the dataset of countries led by women during international disputes is limited. The research project and literature review also looks forward, pointing toward the future, not only of gender and foreign policy studies but also to the implications that future developments in feminist IR may have for the study of IR. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Pogings om die geslagsgaping te verduidelik het vermenigvuldig sedert die feministiese benadering tot Internasionale Verhoudinge die eerste keer in die laat 1980's sy verskyning gemaak het. Geslagstudies binne Internasionale Verhoudinge het veral gefokus op opinies oor buitelandse beleid om sodoende vas te stelof mans en vroue verskillende sienings oor buitelandse beleid huldig bloot as gevolg van die feit dat hulle verskillende geslagte is. Die keersy hiervan is dat indien vroue anders glo as mans, op watter manier hulle anders glo, en - indien dit dan tot 'n logiese uiteinde gevoer word - wat sou gebeur indien daar meer gelyke verantwoordelikheid vir buitelandse beleidsbesluite sou wees. As 'n illustrasie van die verskillende benaderings tot feministiese Internasionale Verhoudinge, onderneem hierdie navorsingsprojek 'n oorsig van die geskiedenis van feministiese Internasionale Verhoudinge om sodoende te toon dat die gereedskap en taal van tradisionele Internasionale Verhoudinge nie aan die behoeftes van feministiese Internasionale Verhoudingstudies voldoen nie. Hierdie navorsingsartikel gee dan 'n oorsig oor geslagsliteratuur, feminisme en buitelandse beleidsopinies en -gedrag deur sy navorsingskern en evolusie tot datum te ondersoek. Drie navorsingsvrae word behandel. Eerstens, is geslag 'n relevante veranderlike in buitelandse beleidsanalise? Tweedends, indien ja, veranderdit die buitelandse beleidsopinies van vroue? Derdens, is lande meer passief op internasionale vlak waar vroue 'n wesentlike rol in buitelandse beleidsbesluitneming speel? Afsonderlik beskou, is daar gevind dat daar 'n duidelike geslagsonderskeid in buitelandse beleidsopinies is. Dis egter minder eenvoudig om buitelandse beleidsgedrag te bestudeer, aangesien slegs beperkte inligting oor lande wat gedurende internasionale dispute deur vroue beheer is beskikbaar is. Die navorsingsprojek en literatuuroorsig kyk ook vorentoe met spesifieke verwysing na die toekoms van nie net geslag en buitelandse beleidstudies nie, maar ook na die implikasies wat toekomstige verwikkelinge In feministiese Internasionale Verhoudinge 'n vir die studie van tradisionele Internasionale Verhoudinge kan hê.

A preliminary theoretical framework for analyzing the role of the press in the public process of defining important social issues and labeling of politically marginal minorities is developed. This theory employs the concept of newsworthiness and stresses the effect of the social organization of news work as a factor in press gatekeeping and agenda setting. It is the object of our research to demonstrate that the "objective" perspective of the news media is, in actuality, a biased one which is imbalanced and slanted towards representation of dominant group interests. Two cases, illegal Mexican immigration, and the 1984 Ferraro-Bush campaign, are analyzed to determine how reporting practices result in imbalanced coverage. Our empirical analyses of news content on these issues will show that a favorable rate of access to the press for dominant group, rather than minority group representatives exists. As a result, news coverage of undocumented Mexican workers and the 1984 woman vice-presidential candidate was imbalanced.

In this study, I focus on the changing gender relationships between women and men and on women’s political rights in Kuwaiti society in particular. Specifically, I measure Kuwaiti citizens’ attitudes toward Kuwaiti women in political roles after Kuwaiti women gained their political rights, especially after May 16, 2005. Gender relationships continue to change, and in order to understand these changes it is important to examine the current cultural context in which they are occurring. This context includes political change, cultural development, the impact of the media and economic systems, as well as changing laws, religions, socialization, and globalization. All of these factors influence gender relations in Kuwaiti society. This study focuses specifically on the way that political ideology and perceptions about gender roles impact attitudes toward political efficacy for women in Kuwait. This study focuses on Kuwaiti citizens’ attitudes and perceptions about women’s political rights and changing gender relationships in Kuwaiti society. The study uses survey data based on a random sampling of students at Kuwait University, along with the snowball technique for the general population, taken from Kuwaiti employees in public businesses. The data measure the attitudes of both of these populations towards Kuwaiti women’s political rights. / Department of Sociology