Feminist Advocacy And Gender Equity In The Anglophone Caribbean

This book uses the Anglophone Caribbean as its site of critique to explore two important questions within development studies. First, to what extent has the United Nations' call to implement gender-mainstreaming projects resulted in the realization of gender equity for women within developing societies? Second, does gender-mainstreaming have the conceptual, operational, and technical capacities to address the centrality of the body in 21st-century lobbies for gender equity? In answering these questions, Rowley examines such issues as reproductive rights and equity, sexual harassment, and sexual minorities' rights.

A collection of essays by a number of outstanding women of the Caribbean on the situation of women in the region, in the period since the Beijing Conference of 1995. Examining a range of issues including education, poverty, decision-making, and violence, the authors expose continuing burdens and disadvantages faced by women.

This book analyzes the effect of gender on policy-making in the Jamaican Parliament, specifically regarding women-friendly policies. So-called "women-friendly policies" are categorized as those laws which seek to promote and protect women’s rights and equality and have some element addressing childcare, domestic violence, sex offences, reproductive rights, sex discrimination, property rights and family issues. It frames critical analysis of bill sponsorship and the participation levels and verbal contributions of legislators during floor debates on legislation affecting women. Using a mixed method approach, the author gives insight into how feminism is integrated into real-time public policy discourse. The book begins with a brief overview of feminist advocacy and activism and State feminism in Jamaica and an introduction to the country’s Parliamentary system. It then moves to a theoretical discussion of feminist advocacy within public policy debates. The next two chapters present a time series analysis of bill introduction and floor debates on women's interests and issues legislation from 1962 through 2017. The concluding chapter ties up the research and provides recommendations for moving forward. Combining feminist theory with a detailed view of Jamaican Parliamentary procedure and debate, this book will be useful to students and researchers interested in feminist advocacy and activism, minority representation, democratic governance, and women in politics.

Publisher Description

Gender Inequality and Women’s Citizenship combines cases across Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago to highlight the range of systemic inequalities that impact women in the Anglo-Caribbean. Using empirical and secondary data and drawing on feminist theoretical insights, Yonique Campbell and Tracy-Ann Johnson-Myers examine a range of pertinent and intersecting social, political and economic challenges facing women in the Anglo-Caribbean. The issues explored include gender-based violence, barriers to women in politics, the effects of COVID-19 on women, and debates around the illegality of abortion rights and failure to protect the health of women by allowing them to exercise autonomy over their bodies. They raise questions about systemic inequalities resulting from patriarchal gender relations, heteronormativity, women's social and economic status, and state inaction. This book is unique in its interdisciplinary analysis of gender inequality in the Anglo-Caribbean, mapping the intersection of women’s multiple identities and positionalities to determine the obstacles they encounter. It will be of interest to scholars and researchers of International Relations, Caribbean Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Development Studies, Sociology and Anthropology.

Drawing on rich empirical research, this book examines the evolution and success of feminist strategies to promote democratic governance, women’s rights and gender equality in the Caribbean.

"This is a very exciting collection that will fill an important gap in what has emerged in comparative studies of women and Latin American democracies. Maier and Lebon provide provocative overview essays, and the chapters trace a range of cases from Argentina and Brazil to Nicaragua and Venezuela, showing how institutions. leaders and culture all shape the opportunities and challenges women face."---Jane Jaquette, editor of Feminist Agendas and Democracy in Latin America --

For more than two decades, feminist activists in the Caribbean have been researching, teaching, writing and collaborating with organisations and groups at all levels to improve the status of women, and to protect and advance their rights. This volume, Gender in the 21st Century, commemorates the pioneering work of feminists, scholars and activists by reflecting on some of the major issues which have engaged them and influenced their scholarship and work since the early 1980s. It also addresses issues at the cutting edge of Gender and Development Studies, adopting a strong policy focus for treating current social and gender inequity. Finally, the volume looks to the future and speculates on the place of gender in the academy, as well as its outreach, and provides a unique opportunity to explore, with highly respected and renowned scholars, aspects of the present state of Gender Studies and prospects for the future of this dynamic area of scholarship.