This Open Access book aims to find out how and why states in various regions and of diverse cultural backgrounds fail in their gender equality laws and policies. In doing this, the book maps out states' failures in their legal systems and unpacks the clashes between different levels and forms of law-namely domestic laws, local regulations, or the implementation of international law, individually or in combination. By taking off from the confirmation that the concept of law that is to be used in achieving gender equality is a multidimensional, multi-layered, and to an extent, contradictory phenomenon, this book aims to find out how different layers of laws interact and how they impact gender equality. Further to that, by including different states and jurisdictions into its analysis, this book unravels whether there are any similarities/patterns in how these states define and utilise policies and laws that harm gender equality. In this way, the book contributes to the efforts to devise holistic and universal policies to address various forms of gender inequalities across the world. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students in Gender Studies, Sociology, Law, and Criminology.

Alfred Hitchcock is said to have once remarked, "Actors are cattle," a line that has stuck in the public consciousness ever since. For Hitchcock, acting was a matter of contrast and counterpoint, valuing subtlety and understatement over flashiness. He felt that the camera was duplicitous, and directed actors to look and act conversely. In The Camera Lies, author Dan Callahan spotlights the many nuances of Hitchcock's direction throughout his career, from Cary Grant in Notorious (1946) to Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960). Delving further, he examines the ways that sex and sexuality are presented through Hitchcock's characters, reflecting the director's own complex relationship with sexuality. Detailing the fluidity of acting - both what it means to act on film and how the process varies in each actor's career - Callahan examines the spectrum of treatment and direction Hitchcock provided well- and lesser-known actors alike, including Ingrid Bergman, Henry Kendall, Joan Barry, Robert Walker, Jessica Tandy, Kim Novak, and Tippi Hedren. As Hitchcock believed, the best actor was one who could "do nothing well" - but behind an outward indifference to his players was a sophisticated acting theorist who often drew out great performances. The Camera Lies unpacks Hitchcock's legacy both as a director who continuously taught audiences to distrust appearance, and as a man with an uncanny insight into the human capacity for deceit and misinterpretation.

The Female Gaze in Documentary Film - an International Perspective makes a timely contribution to the recent rise in interest in the status, presence, achievements and issues for women in contemporary screen industries. It examines the works, contributions and participation of female documentary directors globally. The central preoccupation of the book is to consider what might constitute a 'female gaze', an inquiry that has had a long history in filmmaking, film theory and women's art. It fills a gap in the literature which to date has not substantially examined the work of female documentary directors. Moreover, research on sex, gender and the gaze has infrequently been the subject of scholarship on documentary film, particularly in comparison to narrative film or television drama. A distinctive feature of the book is that it is based on interviews with significant female documentarians from Europe, Asia and North America.

The year 2019 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the death of Kurt Cobain, an artist whose music, words, and images continue to move millions of fans worldwide. As the first academic study that provides a literary analysis of Cobain's creative writings, Arthur Flannigan Saint-Aubin's The Pleasures of Death: Kurt Cobain's Masochistic and Melancholic Persona approaches the journals and songs crafted by Nirvana's iconic front man from the perspective of cultural theory and psychoanalytic aesthetics. Drawing on critiques and reformulations of psychoanalytic theory by feminist, queer, and antiracist scholars, Saint-Aubin considers the literary means by which Cobain creates the persona of a young, white, heterosexual man who expresses masochistic and melancholic behaviors. On the one hand, this individual welcomes pain and humiliation as atonement for unpardonable sins; on the other, he experiences a profound sense of loss and grief, seeking death as the ultimate act of pleasure. The first-person narrators and characters that populate Cobain's texts underscore the political and aesthetic repercussions of his art. Cobain's distinctive version of grunge, understood as a subculture, a literary genre, and a cultural practice, represents a specific performance of race and gender, one that facilitates an understanding of the self as part of a larger social order. Saint-Aubin approaches Cobain's writings independently of the artist's biography, positioning these texts within the tradition of postmodern representations of masculinity in twentieth-century American fiction, while also suggesting connections to European Romantic traditions from the nineteenth century that postulate a relation between melancholy (or depression) and creativity. In turn, through Saint-Aubin's elegant analysis, Cobain's creative writings illuminate contradictions and inconsistencies within psychoanalytic theory itself concerning the intersection of masculinity, masochism, melancholy, and the death drive. By foregrounding Cobain's ability to challenge coextensive links between gender, sexuality, and race, The Pleasures of Death reveals how the cultural politics and aesthetics of this tragic icon's works align with feminist strategies, invite queer readings, and perform antiracist critiques of American culture.

'And then I saw it. And once I had seen it, I saw it everywhere. Why are men still winning at work? If women have equal leadership ability, why are they so under-represented at the top in business and society? Why are we still living in a man's world? And why do we accept it? In this provocative book, Gill Whitty-Collins looks beyond the facts and figures on gender bias and uncovers the invisible discrimination that continues to sabotage us in the workplace and limits our shared success. Addressing both men and women and pulling no punches, she sets out the psychology of gender diversity from the perspective of real personal experience and shares her powerful insights on how to tackle gender equality.

This book is the first to present a comprehensive historical picture of the modern Catholic concern with the body and sexuality. The Catholic church is commonly believed to have always opposed birth control and abortion throughout the centuries. Yet the Catholic encounter with modern sexuality has a more complex and interesting history. What was the meaning of sexual purity? Why did eugenics matter to Catholicism? How did the Society of Jesus interpret the idea of overpopulation? Why did Pius XI decide to issue the notorious encyclical Casti connubii on Christian marriage - the first modern papal pronouncement on birth control, abortion, and eugenics? In answering these questions, Lucia Pozzi uncovers new archival and unpublished records to dig into Catholic responses to modern sexual knowledge, showing the Catholic church at times resisting, but also often welcoming, scientific modernity.

Allegorical Bodies begins with the paradoxical observation that at the same time as the royal administrators of late fourteenth and early fifteenth-century France excluded women from the royal succession through the codification of Salic law, writers of the period adopted the female form as the allegorical personification of France itself. Considering the role of female allegorical figures in the works of Eustache Deschamps, Christine de Pizan, and Alain Chartier, as well as in the sermons of Jean Gerson, Daisy Delogu reveals how female allegories of the Kingdom of France and the University of Paris were used to conceptualize, construct, and preserve structures of power during the tumultuous reign of the mad king Charles VI (1380-1422). An impressive examination of the intersection between gender, allegory, and political thought, Delogu's book highlights the importance of gender to the functioning of allegory and to the construction of late medieval French identity.

Women have always been inextricably linked to food, especially in its production and preparation. This link, which applies cross-culturally, has seldom been fully acknowledged or celebrated. The role of women in this is usually taken for granted and therefore often rendered unimportant or invisible. This book presents a wide-ranging, interdiscplinary and comprehensive feminist analysis of women's central role in many aspects of the world's food systems and cultures. This central role is examined through a range of lenses, namely cross-cultural, intergenerational, and socially diverse.

A compelling story about a boy who learned that he was not like other boys...he learned early in life that he was born with both male and female genitalia...an Intersex child. Follow him on his journey of self-acceptance.

This book examines persistent gender inequality in higher education, and asks what is preventing change from occurring. The editors and contributors argue that organizational resistance to gender equality is the key explanation; reflected in the endorsement of discourses such as excellence, choice, distorted intersectionality, revitalized biological essentialism and gender neutrality. These discourses implicitly and explicitly depict the status quo as appropriate, reasonable and fair: ultimately impeding efforts and attempts to promote gender equality. Drawing on research from around the world, this book explores the limits and possibilities of challenging these harmful discourses, focusing on the state and universities themselves as levers for change. It stresses the importance of institutional transformation, the vital contribution of feminist activists and the importance of women's deceptively 'small victories' in the academy.

Misconceptions regarding gender identity and issues of inequality that women around the world face have become a predominant concern for not only the citizens impacted, but global political leaders, administrators, and human rights activists. Revealing Gender Inequalities and Perceptions in South Asian Countries through Discourse Analysis explores how an analysis of language use in the South Asian region exposes issues related to gender identity, representation, and equality. Emphasizing emerging research and case studies focusing on the concept of gender in Malaysia, Bangladesh, and Nepal, this publication is an essential resource for social theorists, activists, linguists, media professionals, researchers, and graduate-level students.

Drawing upon law, politics, sociology, and gender studies, this volume explores the ways in which the Muslim body is stereotyped, interrogated, appropriated and demonized in Western societies and subject to counter-terror legislation and the suspension of human rights. The author examines the intense scrutiny of Muslim women's dress and appearance, and their experience of hate crimes, as well as how Muslim men's bodies are emasculated, effeminized and subjected to torture. Chapters explore a range of issues including Western legislation and foreign policy against the 'Other', orientalism, Islamophobia, masculinity, the intersection of gender with nationalism and questions about diversity, inclusion, religious freedom, citizenship and identity. This text will be of interest to scholars and students across a range of disciplines, including sociology, gender studies, law, politics, cultural studies, international relations, and human rights.

The Urban Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century European Literature explores transnational perspectives of modern city life in Europe by engaging with the fantastic tropes and metaphors used by writers of short fiction. Focusing on the literary city and literary representations of urban experience throughout the nineteenth century, the works discussed incorporate supernatural occurrences in a European city and the supernatural of these stories stems from and belongs to the city. The argument is structured around three primary themes. "Architectures", "Encounters" and "Rhythms" make reference to three axes of city life: material space, human encounters, and movement. This thematic approach highlights cultural continuities and thus supports the use of the label of "urban fantastic" within and across the European traditions studied here.

Women are significantly underrepresented in politics in the Pacific Islands, given that only one in twenty Pacific parliamentarians are female, compared to one in five globally. A common, but controversial, method of increasing the number of women in politics is the use of gender quotas, or measures designed to ensure a minimum level of women's representation. In those cases where quotas have been effective, they have managed to change the face of power in previously male-dominated political spheres. How do political actors in the Pacific islands region make sense of the success (or failure) of parliamentary gender quota campaigns? To answer the question, Kerryn Baker explores the workings of four campaigns in the region. In Samoa, the campaign culminated in a "safety net" quota to guarantee a minimum level of representation, set at five female members of Parliament. In Papua New Guinea, between 2007 and 2012 there were successive campaigns for nominated and reserved seats in parliament, without success, although the constitution was amended in 2011 to allow for the possibility of reserved seats for women. In post-conflict Bougainville, women campaigned for reserved seats during the constitution-making process and eventually won three reserved seats in the House of Representatives, as well as one reserved ministerial position. Finally, in the French Pacific territories of New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna, Baker finds that there were campaigns both for and against the implementation of the so-called "parity laws." Baker argues that the meanings of success in quota campaigns, and related notions of gender and representation, are interpreted by actors through drawing on different traditions, and renegotiating and redefining them according to their goals, pressures, and dilemmas. Broadening the definition of success thus is a key to an understanding of realities of quota campaigns. Pacific Women in Politics is a pathbreaking work that offers an original contribution to gender relations within the Pacific and to contemporary Pacific politics.

This book considers issues of social and ecological significance through a masculinities lens. Earth - our home for aeons - is reeling. The atmosphere is heating up, causing reefs to bleach, fisheries to collapse, regions to flood and dry, vast tracts to burn, the polar ice caps to melt, ancient glaciers to retreat, biodiversity to decline exacerbated by the sixth great extinction, and more. Meanwhile, social and economic disparities are widening. Pandemics are cauterising glocal communities and altering our social mores. Nationalism is feeding divisiveness and hate, especially through men's violence. Politically extreme individuals and groups are exalting freedom while scapegoating the marginalised. Such are the symptoms of an emerging (m)Anthropocene. This anthology contends with these alarming trends, pointing our attention towards their gendered origins. Building on our monograph Ecological Masculinities: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Guidance (2018), this collection of essays is framed as a dinner party conversation grouped into six discursive themes. Their views reflect a growing community of practice, whose combined efforts capture the most recent perspectives on masculine ecologisation. Together, they aim to help create a more caring world for all, moving the ecological masculinities conversation forward as it becomes an established, international, and pluralised field of study.

Despite their undeniable historical importance, the leaders of the Fascist and Nazi youth organizations have received little attention from historians. In Shaping the New Man, Alessio Ponzio uncovers the largely untold story of the training and education of these crucial protagonists of the Fascist and Nazi regimes, and he examines more broadly the structures, ideologies, rhetoric, and aspirations of youth organizations in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Ponzio shows how the Italian Fascists' pedagogical practices influenced the origin and evolution of the Hitler Youth. He dissects similarities and differences in the training processes of the youth leaders of the Opera Nazionale Balilla, Gioventu Italiana del Littorio, and Hitlerjugend. And, he explores the transnational institutional interactions and mutual cooperation that flourished between Mussolini's and Hitler's youth organizations in the 1930s and 1940s.

This edited volume draws upon work from a wide range of established and emerging international scholars to provide an interdisciplinary analysis of sport's complex relationship with masculinity. With a particular focus on Latin America, it examines the changing relationship between a range of contemporary sport and sexuality and gender expression, as related to lesbian, gay and/or trans athletes. Experts from Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia provide historical, sociological and anthropological perspectives on heteronormativity, masculinity, gender identity, sexual orientation, and the gender binary as they relate to sports clubs, Mexican martial arts, football, softball, sports media, games, and physical education. It will be invaluable to scholars and students in the fields of Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Sports Studies, and Men's Studies.

This book offers a new perspective on the motherhood experience. Drawing on existential philosophy and recent phenomenological research into motherhood, the book demonstrates how motherhood can be understood as an existential crisis. It argues that an awareness of the existential issues women face will enable mothers to gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted aspects of their experience. The book is divided into four sections: Existential Crisis, Maternal Mental Health Crisis, Social Crisis and Working with Existential Crisis, where each section. Each chapter is based on either experiential research or the author's extensive therapeutic experience of working with mothers and reflects different aspects of the motherhood journey, all through the lens of a philosophical existential approach. The book is essential reading for mental health practitioners and researchers working with mothers, midwives and health visitors, but it is also written for mothers, with the aim to offer new insights on this important life transition.

This is the first transnational history of IVF and assisted reproduction. It is a key text for scholars and students in social science, history, science and technology studies (STS), cultural studies, and gender and sexuality studies, and a resource for journalists, policymakers, and anyone interested in assisted reproduction. IVF was seen as revolutionary in 1978 when the first two IVF babies were born, in the UK and India. Assisted reproduction has now contributed to the birth of around ten million people. The book traces the work of IVF teams as they developed new techniques and laid the foundations of a multi-billion-dollar industry. It analyses the changing definitions and experience of infertility, the markets for eggs and children through surrogacy, cross-border reproductive treatment, and the impact of regulation. Using interviews with leading IVF figures, archives, media reports, and the latest science, it is a vital addition to the field of reproduction studies. 'This pathbreaking account of the global forces behind the rapid rise of the fertility industry is the first to offer such a truly comprehensive overview of this hugely important topic.' -Sarah Franklin, Chair of Sociology, University of Cambridge 'In this compelling overview of one of the most significant technological and social interventions ever developed, the cultural and scientific imaginaries of assisted reproduction meet the obdurate histories of laboratory experiments, biological materials, and personal quests. It is an indispensable read for anyone interested in IVF and assisted reproduction.' -Andrea Whittaker, Professor of Anthropology, Monash University

This book charts the journey, in terms of both stasis and change, that masculinities and manhood have made in Irish drama, and by extension in the broader culture and society, from the 1960s to the present. Examining a diverse corpus of drama and theatre events, both mainstream and on the fringe, this study critically elaborates a seismic shift in Irish masculinities. This book argues, then, that Irish manhood has shifted from embodying and enacting post-colonial concerns of nationalism and national identity, to performing models of masculinity that are driven and moulded by the political and cultural practices of neoliberal capitalism. Masculinities and Manhood in Contemporary Irish Drama charts this shift through chapters on performing masculinity in plays set in both the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, and through several chapters that focus on Women's and Queer drama. It thus takes its readers on a journey: a journey that begins with an overtly patriarchal, nationalist manhood that often made direct comment on the state of the nation, and ultimately arrives at several arguably regressive forms of globalised masculinity, which are couched in misaligned notions of individualism and free-choice and that frequently perceive themselves as being in crisis.