Comprehensive Study Notes on Gender, Culture, Social Justice, and Climate Justice

In Memory of Tanja Harrison

• Tanja Harrison's Role and Contributions

  • Beloved University Librarian at Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU) for eleven years.

  • Graduate of the Dalhousie School of Information Management.

  • Highly respected member of the library community in Atlantic Canada and beyond.

  • Numerous accolades and contributions to local, regional, and academic communities and sectors.

  • Active Member and Leader of Various Committees and Organizations:

    • Dalhousie University School of Information Alumni Association.

    • Atlantic Provinces Library Association (APLA).

    • International Association of Library Associations.

    • Canadian Library Association.

    • Novanet.

    • Council of Atlantic University Librar-ies.

    • Canadian Research Knowledge Network.

    • Ex Libris Association.

    • Nova Scotia Library Association.

  • Key Contribution: Central role in developing the "You Quote It, You Note It" tutorial.

    • This tool revolutionized student approaches to citation and academic integrity.

    • Referenced on Acadia University’s memorial page: https://www2.acadiau.ca/about-acadia/newsroom/news-reader-page/acadia-mourns-tanja-harrison.html.

  • Award: Awarded the APLA Merit Award in $2021$ for her significant contributions.

• Dedication to Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice

  • Demonstrated deep dedication and passion for Atlantis.

  • Atlantis is a Diamond Open Access, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal published since $1975$.

  • Committed to open access in general.

  • Consistently worked to navigate Atlantis through funding challenges, including stepping up to assist wherever needed.

  • Expressed anticipation of having more time to devote to Atlantis after transitioning from her University Librarian role before her passing.

  • Passionate about open science, institutional support for open access journals, and historical research focusing on the Maritimes.

  • Her strong contributions evident in Atlantis's success.

• Tributes and Reflections

  • Donna Bourne-Tyson (retired Dalhousie University Dean of Libraries):

    • Tanja always went "that extra mile," organizing interesting events with a creative spark.

    • Her energy and innovative ideas were always welcome, making meetings more fun and productive.

    • Collaborations on committees (silent auction, governance, copyright, 2SLGBTQIA+ digital archives) were more rewarding with Tanja as a partner.

  • Jacqueline Gahagan (MSVU Associate Vice-President Research):

    • Met Tanja in September $2021$, shortly after joining MSVU as AVPR.

    • Explored partnerships between the MSVU Research Office and the Library.

    • Shared the cost of "The Conversation" membership with Communications to increase visibility of MSVU's research.

    • Looked into other partnerships to augment research awareness through "Research In View," training events, and webinars.

  • Bernadette V. Russo (mixed Indigenous ancestry, Assistant Professor at MSVU):

    • Met Tanja on June $22$, $2021$, during a tour of MSVU as a newly hired faculty member, as the Mount prepared to reopen.

    • Tanja was always in the library.

    • Meeting her felt like reuniting with an old friend; her positive, kind, and generous spirit touched everyone.

    • Strong, steadfast, and staunch supporter of social justice and EDIA (Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility).

    • Activist-advocate-ally for Indigenous initiatives, always appreciating and respecting the land and its people.

• Personal Interests and Legacy

  • Rock hound, ceramicist, photographer, traveler.

  • Lover of whales and all other animals.

  • Avid Manchester United fan.

  • Will be forever missed for her zest for life, easy laughter, love for family, and joy in people, art, music, research, writing, and sharing ideas.

  • Donations: Donations to Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture & Social Justice may be made in her memory.

A New Atlantis? Shifting Shorelines and Salt Marshes: Between Third and Fourth Wave Feminism in the Twenty-first Century (by Tegan Zimmerman)

• Author Information: Tegan Zimmerman

  • Chair of the Alexa McDonough Institute at Mount Saint Vincent University.

  • Chair of the International Comparative Literature Association’s Comparative Gender Studies Research Committee.

  • Specializations: Women’s writing (Caribbean and Canadian literature, historical fiction), contemporary gender theory (maternal and mother-daughter relations).

  • Publications: Articles in Feminist Theory, MELUS, and Women’s Studies.

  • Books: Author of Matria Redux: Caribbean Women Novelize the Past and Chronotropics: Caribbean Women Writing Spacetime (co-edited with Odile Ferly).

  • Currently serves as Editor of Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice.

• Introduction to "Atlantis" Symbolism

  • The concept of "Atlantis" is multifaceted, with diverse interpretations across geopolitical positions, symbolic-historical references, and philosophical-literary discourses.

  • This essay commemorates the $50$th anniversary of Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, and Social Justice, MSVU's women's studies journal.

  • It brings together Plato, Shirley MacLaine, and Atlantis journal's references to the lost city to analyze contemporary feminist political situations.

• Feminism in a Transitional Period

  • Feminism is currently in a "murky, transitional period," experiencing an "ever-shifting/eroding shoreline."

  • Pivot from previous claims (Zimmerman $2017$): Doubt about the emergence of a fourth wave of feminism.

  • Now believes that the Global North has witnessed "the tail end of the third wave."

  • Proposed concept: "Marsh feminism" to describe the gap between waves or feminist movements (often perceived as backlash).

    • Uses environmentally-charged imagery.

    • The saltmarsh image illuminates new paths for understanding diverse women's movements and activisms.

    • Represents a deep, rich, murky, subversive space where timelines and goals overlap and intermingle.

    • Compels confrontation of planetary risks and threats faced by all species in a crisis.

• Plato's Atlantis: A Cautionary Tale

  • Typically traced to Plato’s dialogues Timaeus and Critias as a utopian island.

  • Close reading methodology: Reveals Plato’s Atlantis is "far from ideal."

  • In Timaeus: Critias recounts to Socrates the story of Atlantis, originating from Egyptian priests via Solon.

    • Atlantis was a great island ruled by royal power.

    • Extended its rule to other locations.

    • Aimed "to enslave all of the territory inside the strait [of Gibraltar, or 'the Pillars of Heracles']" (Plato $1997b$, $25a$, $1232$).

    • Athens triumphed, preventing enslavement and freeing others "within the boundaries of Heracles" (Plato $1997b$, $25c$, $1232$).

  • In Critias: Continues the tale of Atlantis and the war with Athens.

    • Genealogy of Rulers: Started with Poseidon, then his sons, including Atlas (with mortal Clito).

    • Island was their domain (Plato $1997a$, $113c$, $1299; 114b$, $1300$).

    • Observed primogeniture.

    • Amassed immense wealth, hence "paved with gold" (Plato $1997a$, $114d$, $1300$).

    • Initially, wealth benefited all citizens through imports and abundant island resources.

    • Mines produced "hard and fusible ore" and oreichalkos (copper) nearly as valuable as gold (Plato $1997a$, $114d-e$, $1300$).

    • Sacred island provided lumber, abundant flora and fauna (marshlands for grazing), sweet-smelling roots, greens, herbs, trees, and gums (Plato $1997a$, $114e$, $1300; 115a$, $1300-1301$).

    • Construction of palaces, temples, canals, bridges, and a shrine to Clito and Poseidon.

    • Decline: Atlantis became obsessed with possessions, and the "divine portion" waned (Plato $1997a$, $121a$, $1306$).

    • Empire became "disordered," appearing at its zenith to the "untrained, undisciplined, or ignorant eye," but to those committed to virtues, it was "hideous… losing the finest… filled with an unjust lust for possessions and power" (Plato $1997a$, $121b$, $1306$).

    • Dialogue ends with Zeus's determination to punish Atlantis.

  • In Timaeus (filling gaps): After failed naval attempt against Athens, an earthquake erupted, and the island "sank below the sea and disappeared" (Plato $1997b$, $25d$, $1232$), known only by impassable mud shoals.

  • Interpretation: Plato's Atlantis is a "cautionary and punitive tale" of an imperialistic, monarchal land's failed attempt to overthrow democratic Athens.

• Feminist Critique of Plato's Atlantis

  • Questions why a women's studies journal would be named after a "war-loving ancient island," known from a philosopher (Plato) whose writings on women are ambivalent.

  • Remarks that the discussion of women and wombs at the end of Timaeus is cringeworthy.

  • Asks why a feminist journal wouldn't distance itself from both the "patriarchal polis" and the "island of kings" and the "language of Atlantis" (Plato $1997a$, $114b$, $1300$).

  • Plato's casual comparison of "ancient laws with ours today," finding similarities (Plato $1997a$, $24a$, $1231$), suggests modern parallels.

  • Analogy: Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen as "new Atlantean figures" amassing wealth and power, threatening democracy and aiming to subsume nations (Greenland, Canada, Panama, Gaza) into America's fold.

• Pre-Socratic Atlantis and Focus on Women

  • The story of Atlantis predates Plato.

  • Pre-Socratic writers like historian Hellanicus and poet Hesiod mention the Titan Atlas's daughters, especially Maia.

  • O.R.H. Thomas claims Hellanicus likely used Hesiod's Catalogue of Women (Thomas $2007$, $15$, $22$), naming a genealogy of daughters on the "islands of the blessed" in his Atlantis (qtd. by Thomas $2007$, $15$).

  • Key Distinction: These earlier texts focus on women, centralizing a "genealogy of women," whereas Plato's dialogues often render women peripheral, focusing on kingship and men's deeds.

• The First Issue of Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal (Fall $1975$)

  • Epigraph: "Atlantis was an ancient kingdom, an island in the Atlantic which disappeared during an earthquake. Fabulous stories are told about the beauty of the people who lived there and the kind of civilization they created. We take Atlantis as a symbol of the lost kingdom which women are striving to rediscover by discovering themselves."

• Reclaiming the Maternal-Feminine and Marsh Feminism

  • To reclaim feminist ground, the legacy and "logos of the patriarchy" (patros: pater=father; patriot=countrymen) must be discarded.

  • Monuments to mothers are unstable, rising and sinking with tides, reflecting shifting ground.

  • This unstable ground aligns with pre-Socratic recognition of women's power and agency.

  • The maternal-feminine must be revived as an alternative foundation for Western thinking.

  • Avoid replicating errors of the "old vanguard" (armadas, battles, military occupations).

  • The "disembodied Atlantean masculine, (neo)colonial-hyper-capitalist subject" is selfish, dangerous, violent, accelerates climate disasters, and threatens vulnerable communities.

  • Climate Justice and Gender Equity: "[W]omen, girls, and gender-diverse people often face harsher impacts of climate change, especially when marginalized by racism, poverty, and other forms of inequality" (The Canadian Women’s Foundation $2025$).

  • Atlantis invites continuous self-reflexive critiques of feminism, limits of women's/gender studies, and references to Western tradition/white feminists.

  • Water cannot be disciplined into a binary ($0$ or $1$); other codes include wool, blood, ooze, milk, tides, rivers, moons (stream of consciousness).

  • Feminist work is ongoing ("no done, only doing"); must seek beyond the obvious, buried, subterranean, submarine, messy Eleusinian mystery (rivulets, droplets, bones, pellets, scat, urine, caves, animal sleeping places).

  • Marsh Feminism: Involves letting things seep, drip-dry, flood, evaporate; reciprocity.

    • Marshes are cyclical but also escape rigid grasp; "no map to marsh feminism."

    • A marsh desires to write (confessional poetry preferred), inscribing itself in stillness, embracing "perfumed stench of decay and rot."

    • Has a biography (bios: life, graphia: writing); can be written by reading mudflats, sandpiper tracks "as marking the place where third and fourth wave feminist goals coalesce and co-mingle."

    • Difficult to ascertain distinctions or linear timelines.

    • Feminists must dwell in this "sticky, messy, richly diverse, and thriving place."

    • Embrace contradictions and contrapuntal aspects of marsh feminism.

  • Marshes are associated with the feminine.

    • Margaret Atwood's poem "Marsh Languages": "The dark soft languages are being silenced:/Mothertongue Mothertongue Mothertongue/falling one by one back into the moon" (Atwood $1995$, 1-3).

    • Sappho: "The moon has set and the Pleiades/Have gone."

    • Languages of the marsh are plural, sibylline, expressing fecundity linked to feminine/maternal.

    • Marshes are wet, moist, dense, deep, womb-like locales, harboring diverse species/vegetal life, with constantly fluctuating shores (never static).

  • Performative Marsh Feminism: To survive the "war-machine," the "persistent, pernicious polis," is "to dance and sing underwater or to 'trample the hyacinths/Upon the mountain-side until they stain the earth'" (Sappho, Purple Earth).

• Reassessing Feminist Waves

  • Zimmerman's $2017$ article in Atlantis: "#Intersectionality, The Fourth Wave Feminist Twitter Community."

    • Examined #intersectionality hashtag to trace transition from third to fourth wave feminism.

    • Third wave: Ushered in by Black, anti-/post-colonial, 2SLGBTQIA+ feminist thinkers (Rebecca Walker, Audre Lorde, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Kim Anderson, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Gloria Anzaldúa, Judith Butler, Jack Halberstam).

    • Overlapping goals (third and fourth wave): Emphasizing difference, applying intersectional frameworks, prioritizing LGBTQ+ rights (e.g., gay marriage legalization in Canada in $2005$ [Bill-38]).

    • Major distinction: Inception and ubiquity of social media by end of $2010$s (smartphones, apps).

    • Facebook, YouTube, Twitter taken up; Twitter proved most useful for disseminating feminist discourse.

    • Interested in how Twitter users used hashtags like #intersectionality to critique white feminism and promote inclusivity agenda.

    • This activism signaled a new fourth wave, solidified by the Women’s March on Washington ($2017$) and viral #Metoo hashtag (initiated by Tarana Burke in $2006$, revived by Alyssa Milano).

  • Critiques of the Wave Metaphor: Theorists (Judith Roof $1997$, Linda Nicholson $2013$) criticize it for:

    • Oversimplifying complex feminist movements.

    • Generalizing or universalizing women’s experiences.

    • Advancing white feminism by misrepresenting or excluding perspectives from the Global South and women/people of color.

  • Current position: Leaning towards believing a fourth wave "did not happen…instead, we are in a transitional period, one that marks a shift between third and fourth wave feminism."

    • Still finds wave metaphors helpful for first and second waves.

    • Questions when the third wave began/ended and if there was a fourth wave, similar to Nicholson.

  • Events prompting this crisis in thought:

    1. $2022$: US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending abortion as a fundamental right (a major second-wave achievement). Olivia Rodrigo stopped handing out free contraception due to backlash.

    2. $2022$: Twitter devolved into X, owned by Elon Musk (formerly a fervent Trump supporter), a shift from a left-friendly space.

    3. Late $2016$ / $2024$: Donald Trump elected (and re-elected in $2024$) US President, publicly affirming gender binary, denouncing trans and non-binary lives.

• Shirley MacLaine's Atlantis and Critique of Modernity

  • Learned about MacLaine's reference serendipitously from her second-wave feminist aunt (Mary Beton, à la Woolf), who studied at Acadia University (where Atlantis journal was "homebirthed" in $1975$).

  • Memoir Walking the Camino: A Journey of the Spirit ($2000$): MacLaine recounts a past life in Atlantis.

    • After living as an "androgynous soul" (MacLaine $2000$, $242$), she describes separation into two bodies based on sexual difference, echoing Aristophanes' speech in Plato's Symposium (minus extraterrestrials).

    • Claims she lived in Atlantis as a male, while her soul mate (from her own body) lived as her female counterpart.

    • Remembers Atlantis becoming corrupt, consumed by materialism, technology, and self, turning away from spirituality (MacLaine $2000$, $232$).

    • Atlantis destroyed by its own greed and godlessness; however, MacLaine witnesses her spiritual motherland Lemuria crashing into the sea, not Atlantis.

    • "Forbidden reincarnation until the end of the Atlantean civilization," then reborn and "earthbound until the end of the Adamic Age at the turn of the twenty-first century" (MacLaine $2000$, $281$).

    • Combines present Camino experiences, past Atlantis memories, and spirituality search to critique hyper-capitalist, techno-driven, celebrity-obsessed, anthropogenic, androcentric $21$st century world.

• Fourth Wave Feminism's Roots and Shifting Focus

  • Strictly speaking, fourth wave feminism has roots in the new millennium.

  • E. Anne Kaplan's $2003$ article "Feminist Futures: Trauma, the Post-$9/11$ World and a Fourth Feminism?" references $2001$ terrorist attacks and Kathlyn Schaaf's feminist response.

    • Schaaf (American psychotherapist/activist) organized women on her website "Gather the Women" for world peace.

    • Pythia Peay ($2005$, $59$) claimed Schaaf's website inaugurated "the long-awaited 'fourth wave' of feminism—a fusion of spirituality and social justice reminiscent of the American civil rights movement and Gandhi’s call for nonviolent change."

  • Current observation: "If peace was heralded as a founding principle of fourth wave feminism, we have lost that focus in the twenty years since."

    • Humanitarian crises (Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine) do not immediately bring peace to mind.

    • Feminists in the Global North seemingly drifted from considering class as a meaningful category.

    • Questions if celebrity influence and idolization of the rich/famous dampened the socialist agenda of second-wave feminism.

    • Despite #MeToo achievements, asks if social media is "an anathema to feminism" due to technocratic men owning communication means (Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Zhang Yiming, Jeff Bezos).

• Reinterpreting Atlantis Journal's Raison d'être (in $2025$)

  • The lost kingdom cannot be Plato's or MacLaine's.

  • This Atlantis (journal) advances gender studies and social justice by rejecting originating Western philosophical traditions (Plato to $21$st century patriarchy-plutocracy).

  • Offers an "alternative feminist space," a "wet-land" based on equity, empowerment, diversity, consciousness-raising, anti-capitalist struggle, and peace.

  • A vibrant ecosystem for idea exchange and critical dialogue, without "philosopher-kings," only "kingfishers chasing wind patterns."

  • Caution against viewing Atlantis as a simplistic utopian feminist space (risks escapism, bio-essentialism).

  • The real catastrophe: Earthquakes, global warming, natural devastation are present, not just past or future. This is why Atlantis matters to our "slowly sinking (ethical-philosophical-bios) Atlantis."

  • History folds and unfolds; two parallel bloodlines: mythic origins in Ancient Greece and journal's birth from an estuary.

  • Founders: Donna E. Smyth and the original Editorial Board (Maureen Baker, Margaret Conrad, Carrie Fredericks, Lethem Sutcliffe Roden, Lorette Toevs, Lois Vallely-Fischer).

  • These scholars and others kept the journal afloat, continually striving to rediscover/discover themselves, reimaging Atlantis as a "veritable catalogue of women and gender studies," symbolized by Suzanne MacKay's "Emerging Woman" sculpture on the $1975$ cover.

  • Embracing plurality and intersectionality requires diving into the archive to rediscover polyphonic feminists and voices yet to resurface.

  • "We are still living in the time of Atlantis but it’s up to us to decide which one." Origin stories can be born in a cave or a marsh.

• Evolution of Atlantis Journal's Mission

  • Spring $1979$: Dropped its signature description: "We take Atlantis as a symbol of the lost kingdom which women are striving to rediscover by discovering themselves."

  • $1980$ (Volume $4$, Number $2$): Took root at Mount Saint Vincent University.

  • Atlantis inspires "traitors," those who dare "to skirt around in the dirt, get stuck in the weeds, and practice spodomancy."

  • The author began her journey at Acadia, managing its student literary magazine estuary, before MSVU.

  • MSVU, overlooking the harbor and basin, is historically a safe haven for women and the queer community, but also has clear colonizer-settler ties, located on unceded ancestral Mi’kmaq territory.

    • Endnote 2: In $2021$, MSVU's then President Dr. Ramona Lumpkin apologized for the University's role in residential schools. Sisters of Charity Halifax (MSVU founders) staffed Shubenacadie Residential School (Nova Scotia, $1930$–$1967$) and Cranbrook Residential School (British Columbia, $1890$–$1970$).

• Marsh Feminism, Decolonial Thinking, and Luce Irigaray

  • Critical thought indebted to feminist borderland theory and decolonial thinking (e.g., Gloria Anzaldúa).

  • Gloria Anzaldúa ($1987$) and mestiza consciousness: Embracing pluricultural heritage as an inhabitant of the contested Mexico-Texas border.

  • Marsh feminism: Predicated on plurality, webs, rhizomatic roots/shoots, plant communities, botanical branches/leaves, (sub)marine and (sub-) and (extra)-terrestrial life.

  • Shares deep affinities with transnational feminist thinking, stretching "from the fringes of a shoal to the depths of a nest concealing eggs."

  • $2013$ Name Change: Atlantis: A Women's Studies Journal became Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Justice, and Social Justice.

  • Marsh feminism moves beyond land imagery: it seeps, saturates, flourishes, floods, cracks, replenishes, binds, protects, safeguards.

  • Beckons to "wreathe lovely garlands in your hair,/Weave shoots of dill together, with slender hands" (Sappho, But you, O’Dika, 1-2).

  • "the Graces prefer those who are wearing flowers,/And turn away from those who go uncrowned" ("But you, O Dika", 3-4).

  • Luce Irigaray: Exiled from the Sorbonne for critiquing phallocentric Western tradition (Plato, Freud, Lacan) in Speculum of the Other Woman ($1985$).

    • In recent years, moved towards a "marsh feminism" based on ecological and social justice, defining it as "she – nature, woman, Goddess" ($2013$, In the Beginning She Was, 2).

    • Returned to Nature and pre-Socratics to resurrect importance of maternal/feminine and contest loss of women’s voices under the "Master’s logos."

    • Invites taking the Earth (Mother) seriously.

    • "a return to the marsh, replete with excess, jouissance, fluids, blood, milk and an ‘undefined flow that dampens, wets, floods’" (Irigaray $1995$, $64$) offers an alternative feminist perspective.

    • "Western culture associates the mother with contagion and contamination […] madness and death" (Irigaray, cited in Murphy $2001$, $59$), so the marsh's abject position ensures its subversiveness.

    • A refuge from patriarchal Western polis, threatened by feminine wilderness, hence the need to tame, drain, consume, draw lines, contain, or expel her.

    • Endnote 3: Irigaray's advocacy for sexual difference has led to being considered a trans exclusionary radical feminist, but careful reading of her work (e.g., "other woman" in Speculum) resists bio-essentialism.

• Feminist Literary Tradition and Saltmarshes for Survival

  • Margaret Andersen's first essay in Atlantis: Argued for a feminist literary tradition (Christine de Pisan to Margaret Lawrence) to destabilize male-dominated field.

  • Andersen revised Atwood's Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature ($1972$) to reflect "the significance of the discovery of ‘their’ [women’s] literature."

    • "What a lost woman needs is a map of the territory, with her own position marked on it, so she can see where she is in relation to everything else. Literature is not only a mirror; it is also a map, if we can learn to read it as our literature, as the product of who and where we have been. We need such a map desperately, we need to know about here, because here is where we live. For the members of a sex [sic] or a culture, share knowledge of their place, their here, is not a luxury but a necessity. Without that knowledge we will not survive." (Andersen $1975$, $9$)

  • Saltmarshes are also key to survival, recognized as buffers, providing "necessary resilience."

  • Scientists and poets know saltmarshes offer "better coastal defense over conventional engineering," but project realization is hampered by "practical and governmental obstacles" (Baptist et al. $2021$).

  • Efforts to restore and create saltmarshes exist, but "artificial" ones are difficult to grow organically.

  • Saltmarshes, where feminists/women/queer folks write and dwell, are threatened by right-wing politics.

  • Despite sustaining life, marshes are often taken for granted, exploited, eroded, polluted, threatened, leading to "loss of autonomy (bodily, politically, ecologically).

  • This maps onto erosion of gender/sexuality rights (Roe V. Wade reversal, abolishment of DEI policies) in the "old-made-new-again Atlantis."

  • Encourages embracing the marsh, getting dirty, seeing beauty in submerged tangle, where feminism lives, survives, and thrives in murky depths and secret dens.

Of Two-Spirit and Indigenous Queerness: Indigenous Queerness Today (by Nicolas Côté-Saucier)

• Introduction to Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Concepts

  • Many academic works define and explain the origin of "two-spirit" in diverse, sometimes contradicting, ways (Adams and Phillips $2006$, Anguksuar $1997$, etc.).

  • Critiques of "two-spirit" term:

    • Imposes foreign cultural concepts.

    • Erases diversity of Indigenous forms of queerness.

    • Evicts sexuality.

    • Presents a "noble magical savage" image (Driskill $2010; 2016$, etc.).

  • Due to these critiques, "two-spirit" is increasingly rejected by activist groups.

  • Emerging term: "Indigiqueer" (sometimes "indigequeer") has become increasingly popular.

• Article's Focus and Objectives

  • Takes critiques of "two-spirit" concept to explore Indigenous queerness and indigiqueer identities.

  • Bridges older and newer literature, focusing on contemporary indigiqueer realities, diversity, and commonalities.

  • Recurring confusion: Decontextualized use of literature, disregarding age of accounts, focusing on problems over general lived experience, treating Indigenous Nations homogenously, and treating "two-spirit" as a homogenous queer category.

  • Objective: To explore and contextualize recent literature on Indigenous queerness to portray current indigiqueer realities.

  • Three-fold objective:

    1. Demonstrate how "two-spirit" lumps together diverse realities that should be separated.

    2. Present four common characteristics among diverse queer Indigenous identities: queerness, indigeneity, spirituality, and in-betweenness.

    3. Present common elements shaping current indigiqueer experience: disconnect from the past, homophobia, racism, lack of intersectionality, dire vulnerability, and social change.

• Three Examples of Indigenous Queerness (Illustrating Diversity)

  • Critique against "two-spirit" is its reduction of diverse roles/experiences to one limited concept, erasing difference (Driskill $2010$, Gilley $2006$, etc.).

  • Roscoe ($1998$) documented over $155$ North American tribes with more than two genders.

  • These examples are highly documented and represent living cultural practices (though potentially changed to reflect current realities).

  • These are overviews, not exhaustive presentations of Indigenous gender systems.

  • 
    

  Example #1: Nádleeh (Diné/Navajo)

  • Location: Border of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah.

  • Sources: Roscoe ($1998$), Lang ($1997$), Epple ($1997$), and Diné/Navajo scholars Jennifer Nez Denetdale ($2006; 2009; 2020$), Carrie House ($1997$), and Wesley Thomas ($1997$).

  • Gender System: Thomas explains a sex-based system with five genders (Roscoe saw three).

    1. ’asdzáán: Feminine female (translated as "woman").

    2. hastiin: Masculine male (translated as "man").

    3. nádleeh (person who changes): Three types bearing this title.

       • Masculine-female nádleeh: Female-bodied, masculine social role, masculine gender expression.

       • Feminine-male nádleeh: Male-bodied, feminine social role, feminine gender expression.

       • Intersex nádleeh: Born with unclear sex, can have any gender role.

  • Sex-based system: Similar to Western one; ‘asdzáán and feminine-male nádleeh (trans-women equivalent) follow feminine norms (gathering, weaving); hastiin and masculine-female nádleeh (trans-men equivalent) follow masculine norms (hunting).

  • "nádleeh" is seen as similar to "trans" in Western cultures.

  • Epple ($1997$, $181$) cites an informant: a nádleeh who sees herself as "a complete woman, just without a vagina"; another refers to themself as a "queen" not a "woman," a man attracted to men with a "womanly" occupation.

  • "Drag queens" are nádleeh, regardless of off-stage life.

  • Becoming Nádleeh: Except for intersex nádleeh (born that way), no one is born nádleeh.

    • Assigned sex-concordant gender at birth.

    • Develops if a child shows interest in other-gender roles/behavior.

    • Can happen later in life (e.g., Epple's informant became nádleeh after mother's death to take on maternal role for siblings).

  • Spiritual Aspect: Minor but present. Nádleeh play a significant part in Diné origin story, seen as important and spiritual.

    • Children/teenagers identified as nádleeh often steered towards spiritual, leadership, or mediation roles.

    • Roscoe ($1998$, $43$) quotes $1930$s comment: "They are leaders just like President Roosevelt. […] We must respect a nadle. They are, somehow, sacred and holy."

  • Homosexuality/Relationships (Traditional): Gender was sex-based, but relationship norms were gender-based.

    • Homosexuality (relationship between two persons of the same gender, not same sex) was seen as "inconceivable" (Roscoe $1998$, $162$).

    • See Table 1 for classifications (colour-coding added by author).

  • Changes with Western Colonial Influence (Contemporary):

    • Thomas ($1997$) notes traditional conceptualization no longer existed at his study time.

    • Denetdale ($2006; 2009; 2020$) and Estrada ($2011$) show nádleehi still used; conceptualization shifted but largely remains.

    • Impacts of HIV led to a more sex-based and binary classification.

    • Any same-sex relationship (regardless of gender) now homosexual; any opposite-sex relationship now heterosexual.

    • Intersex nádleeh largely disappeared as intersex babies are surgically assigned binary sex.

    • Nádleehi now used for gender non-conforming individuals: effeminate men, "half woman half man" (Estrada $2011$, $169$) non-binary identities, transgender individuals, drag queens (Denetdale $2020$, Estrada $2011$).

  • Bisexuality: No prescriptive sexual behavior pre-colonial; homosexual intercourse seen as inappropriate at worst, "permitted although rare" (Thomas $1997$, $167$).

    • Explains absence of formal pre-colonial bisexuality models.

    • Now "practiced among contemporary [Diné/]Navajo males and females" (Thomas $1997$, $167$) and part of modern norms.

  • 
    

  Example #2: Tainna wa’ippe (Shoshone)

  • Location: Plateau region of Northwestern United States (geographically near Diné, culturally very different).

  • Source: Lang's works ($1997; 2016$).

  • Gender System: Three genders.

    1. tainna: Masculine gender ("man").

    2. wa’ippe: Feminine gender ("woman").

    3. tainna wa’ippe: Third gender ("man woman"), seen as both masculine and feminine.

  • Spiritual Aspect: Strong visionary experiences. Tainna wa’ippe have a powerful vision about identity, community role, and gender, leading them "to adopt the ways and clothing of the other sex" (Lang $1997$, $106$).

  • Regardless of sex, tainna wa’ippe have blended gender norms.

  • Seen as born with gift of being medicine people, often hold elevated status in healing, leadership, war.

  • Sexual Norms: No sexual prohibition regarding homosexuality.

    • Tainna wa’ippe not seen as "gay" or "lesbian" as they engage sexually/romantically with other two genders.

    • Cannot have sexual/romantic relationship with another tainna wa’ippe because it's considered incest (all tainna wa’ippe are spiritual sisters).

    • Homosexual relationships among tainna (men) or wa’ippe (women) are permitted but seen as "gay"/"lesbian" (lacking spiritual calling).

    • "A gay person, as opposed to a tainna wa’ippe, is defined as lacking the spiritual element, acting on personal preference instead of a manifesting spiritual power" (Lang $1997$, $106$).

  • Distinction from Diné: For Shoshone, spiritual aspect is central, not occupation.

  • Biological sex is inconsequential.

  • Gender expression is a mix, closer to Western non-binary or gender-queer models, with a strong spiritual aspect, not a full/partial switch like nádleeh.

  • ### Example #3: Sipiniq (Inuit)

    • Location: Arctic Circle (northern Québec, Canada's northern territories, Alaska, Siberia).

    • Source: Bernard Saladin d’Anglure's research since $1960$s (Saladin d’Anglure $2006$, $6$; $2018$) and Lang's ($2016$) summary.

    • Gender System: Technically two genders (masculine male/man, feminine female/woman).

    • Sipiniq (plural: sipiniit): "An infant whose sex changed at birth" (literally "split infant" from sipi 'to split' for fetus's penis becoming a vulva).

    • Gender attributed at birth not based on genitalia, but on spiritual (reincarnation) or practical (necessity) reasons.

    • Can also become sipiniq through shamanic transformation.

    • Reincarnation: Important in Inuit culture. Newborn seen as reincarnation of deceased family member.

      • If newborn is opposite sex, it's "sipiniuniq (change of sex)": fetus or baby can choose a sex other than the person reincarnating (Saladin d’Anglure $2018$, $174$).

      • Change happens in womb or at birth.

      • Example: Grandmother wishing to be reborn as human baby; granddaughter's baby (regardless of sex) seen as reincarnation and called "grandmother."

      • Person being reincarnated can wish to be reborn in opposite gender.

      • Example of Iqallijuq (Saladin d’Anglure $2018$, $174$): grandfather wanted to live again as a woman to avoid hunting efforts/risks; Iqallijuq became a girl, having changed sex at birth.

    • Upbringing: Sipiniit babies raised as gender of previous incarnation until puberty.

      • At puberty, can choose to remain raised gender or be reassigned opposite gender.

      • Follow new gender's norms but still considered sipiniit.

    • Practical Reasons (No Longer Practiced): Lack of sufficient people of a given gender in village for labor reproduction (e.g., not enough men for hunting party).

      • Lang ($2016$) describes daughters taught hunting skills, raised in hunter roles, quasi-masculine status, wore men's garb.

      • Saladin d’Anglure's "man-woman" bore masculine names but was raised in man's role due to lack of boys.

      • At puberty, could choose to remain assigned gender or be reassigned their sex-corresponding gender.

      • Saladin d’Anglure ($2018$) clarifies this practice stopped.

    • Shamanistic Transformation (Exception): Non-sipiniq (gender matching assigned sex) can change gender after birth through shaman.

      • Shaman could authorize change to heal seriously ill child.

      • Child receives new name/identity from opposite sex person or shaman's helping spirit to deter evil spirits (Saladin d’Anglure $2018$, $222$).

      • Child becomes sipiniq, dressed/groomed/named according to new gender, encouraged to engage in new gender's activities.

    • Societal Roles: Often mediators, spiritual/political leaders, specific ceremonial roles.

      • Not due to "spiritual power" like tainna wa’ippe, but unique life experience informs understanding of both man and woman.

      • Sipiniit are not automatically shamans; shamans can be any gender.

      • Indisputably a spiritual aspect to being sipiniq.

    • Sexuality: Strongly heteronormative (heterosexuality enforced, homosexuality forbidden).

      • Homosexuality "severely disapproved," even though transgender shamans (sometimes practicing homosexuality) were thought most powerful (Saladin d’Anglure $2018$, $221$).

      • Allowed only if one partner is sipiniq (of same sex).

      • Sipiniit who changed gender at puberty seen as better partners than non-sipiniit (understand partner's gender norms).

      • Two sipiniit as a couple considered best pairing; communities encourage this.

    • Conclusion on Sipiniq: Not a gender role in classic sense (conforms to binary roles); not a "third gender" (not both at same time).

      • Clearly a form of gender queerness that doesn't fit Western heteronormative/heteropatriarchal models, or even Western non-heteronormative fluidity concepts.

• Summary of Diversity and Further Examples

  • These three examples are a mere fraction of the vast diversity of Indigenous queerness.

  • Many past/present gender systems are understudied or lost, but more are being documented.

  • Readers invited to explore how these have changed and are lived today.

  • Other examples: Zuni lhamana (Roscoe $1992$), Lakota/Dakota winkte (Cooper $2018$, Little Thunder $1997$), Cherokee Asegi udanto (Driskill $2016$).

• Main Characteristics of Indigenous Queerness

  • Beyond diversity, key elements unite Indigenous forms of queerness, allowing delineation.

  • Indigeneity and queerness are fundamental.

  • Four main characteristics differentiating Indigenous from non-Indigenous queerness:

    1. Spirituality.

    2. Gender over sexuality.

    3. Relation to tradition.

    4. In-betweenness.

  • 
    

  Spirituality

  • Central to "two-spirit" concept (Anguksuar $1997$, Driskill $2010$, Lang $1997$, etc.).

  • Strategic tactic for acceptance in homophobic/conservative communities, but magnified existing significance.

  • Almost all Indigenous alternative gender (non-binary) and sexuality (non-heterosexual) identities have a spiritual component, even if minor.

  • Examples: Central in Shoshone three-gender system and Inuit sipiniq; minor in Diné five-gender system.

  • Often source of distinction between "gay/lesbian/trans" and "two-spirit": "Two-Spirit and gay clashes. Gay is flesh-centered; Two-Spirit is spirit-oriented" (Lépine-Dubois $2018$, 57).

  • Shoshone Example: Queer individuals who are not tainna wa’ippe (e.g., cis-gendered gay men/tainna, cis-gendered lesbian women/wa’ippe) lack the spiritual calling.

    • Unanswered question in literature: Are these gay tainna/lesbian wa’ippe considered two-spirit, or only tainna wa’ippe?

    • Spirituality affects all Shoshone genders; even defining gay/lesbian in relation to lacking spirituality shows its importance.

  • Symbol: Feather often seen in "two-spirit" imagery (at least in northeast North America) associated with spirituality.

  • Counter-discourse: Emphasis on spirituality in literature incurs resistance.

    • Some queer Indigenous individuals preferring "gay," "lesbian," "trans," "non-binary" reject cultural-specific terms or "two-spirit" due to pressure of spirituality.

    • Meyer-Cook and Labelle ($2004$) explain conversion to Christianity (often forced) and multi-generational trauma related to religion/spirituality makes traditional spiritual language inaccessible for many.

  • Alternative Expression of Spirituality: Caregiving/caretaking language.

    • "Caregiving is perceived as an important and integral role of two-spirit people… engage in caregiving or expect to provide care" (Evans-Campbell et al. $2007$, $88$).

    • "Many people who are Two-Spirited are active in their communities today, and are using the gifts they have been given. […] They use their gifts in the service of community" (Meyer-Cook and Labelle $2004$, $36$).

    • Driskill ($2010; 2016$) and others: caretaking/caregiving is part of the spiritual medicine role.

    • "Two-Spirit asserts ceremonial and spiritual communities and traditions and relationships with medicine as central in constituting various identities, marking itself as distinct from dominant constructions of GLBTQ identities" (Driskill $2010$, $73$).

  • 
    

  Gender and/or Sexuality

  • Complex distinction between gender and sexuality conceptualization under "two-spirit" umbrella.

  • Historical Conflation: For over a century, anthropologists didn't differentiate gender pluralism and sexuality diversity (Jacob, Thomas, and Lang $1997$, Roscoe $1998$, Saladin d’Anglure $2006; 2018$).

    • Inuit sipiniit initially thought homosexual: "Cross-dressed individuals were long believed to be homosexual, but only a tiny minority actually were. In fact, they should be viewed through the lens of gender rather than sexual orientation" (Saladin d’Anglure $2016$, $221$).

  • Contemporary Lumping: Despite Queer Studies, "two-spirit" still mixes queerness forms:

    • "The term Two-Spirit is presently used to describe Aboriginal people with different roles or identities, including gays, lesbians, other genders (not-men, not-women), those of multiple genders (hermaphrodites and bisexuals), transvestites, transexuals, transgendered people, drag queens and butches" (Meyer-cook and Labelle $2004$, $30$).

  • Post-$1990$s Literature Shift: Gender and sexuality separated.

    • Literature split into "spirit" vs. "flesh": one emphasized gender constitutive of two-spirit identity (opposed sexual minority identity), other embraced sexuality/desire central to queer Indigenous studies (Hames-Garcia $2013$, $393$).

    • Initial focus on gender: Became more prevalent post-$1990$s, downplaying sexuality amidst HIV crisis, aligning with non-sexual, "inoffensive" gay media portrayals (Hames-Garcia $2013$, Rothmann $2013$).

    • New wave pre-$2010$s: (Brown $2014$, Driskill et al. $2011$, Justice et al. $2010$, Morgensen $2011$, Wilson $2011$) addressed both sexuality and gender.

      • Recognized downplaying sexuality misrepresented reality, painted false image, caused erasure: "Many Indigenous GLBTQ2 people testify to the erotic being central to their definition and experiences of Two-Spirit identity, community, and spirituality" (Driskill, Finley, Gilley and Morgensen $2011$, $16$).

    • Political/Ideological Shift: Division of gender/sexuality, while breaking from hetero-patriarchal "berdache studies," didn't represent Indigenous worldviews where spirituality, gender, sexuality are integral (Cooper $2013$).

    • Bringing sexuality back connects Two-Spirit Studies with Queer Studies (critiques of (hetero)patriarchy, modernity, colonialism), creating Queer Indigenous Studies.

    • Connects to queer activism/struggles.

    • "Erotic" concept (Driskill, Justice, Miranda and Tatonetti $2011$ in Sovereign Erotics): Connects sexuality, spirituality, decolonialism.

      • "The erotic, then, is not only about sexuality—though it is certainly about that—but also […] a return to our bodies as whole human beings [which] can disrupt colonial gender regime that have attempted to disavow and colonize indigenous genders and sexualities" (Driskill et al. $2011$, $3$).

      • Recognizes control of Indigenous sexualities/genders as "central tactic of colonial oppression" (Driskill et al. $2011$, 3-4); resistance must include sexuality/gender.

  • Implication for studies: Any study of Indigenous queerness must consider context of publication due to these shifts.

    • Apparent contradictions on sexuality importance likely due to emphasis linked to political climates/ideologies.

  • 
    

  Relation to Tradition

  • Queer Indigenous individuals relate to tradition differently than non-Indigenous queer individuals.

  • Driskill ($2010$, $86$):

    • Radical white-dominated queer movements often reject religion due to homophobia/heterosexism, or appropriate Native practices for spiritual movements.

    • Native Two-Spirit/GLBTQ people insist they have a place within traditional religious/spiritual life; many movements emphasize this.

  • Common for queer people of color to choose between queer and ethnic identity (Driskill $2010$, Lang $2016$).

  • Indigiqueer individuals often identify as Indigenous first, queer second:

    • "One of our major emphases is that we are Indian first, we’re Navajo, we’re Pima, we’re Apaches. And we do not divide our group and say that we’re gay, and making us different. We’re all Indians, and that’s the way we portray our feelings, and that’s the priority in terms of our organization" (Erna Pahe [Diné/Navajo] about GAI in Lang $2016$, 312-313).

  • Driskill ($2010$) explains this: Indigenous cultures traditionally have a place for queer individuals, so they don't have to choose; choosing white-dominated queer communities erases indigeneity.

  • Racism in queer communities: Documented by many (Adams and Philips $2006$, Driskill $2010$, etc.).

    • Adams and Philips's ($2006$) study: "all participants thought that their ethnicity was invisible within these communities" (283).

    • Leads many queer Indigenous individuals to find "much more in common with those of ‘straight’ Native Americans than with those of white lesbians and gays, or even other LGBTQ people of color" (Lang $2016$).

  • Lang ($2016$) also notes peer pressure to "be Indigenous first" is real.

  • Recurring element: queer Indigenous people are more often connected to tradition than non-Indigenous queer individuals.

    • Tradition represents indigeneity, spirituality, history, and traditional practices.

  • ### In-betweenness

    • Ubiquitous yet rarely explicitly stated characteristic.

    • Lépine-Dubois ($2018$) introduced this concept to Indigenous Studies, drawing from Baas ($2010; 2013$).

    • Definition: A desired position for queer Indigenous individuals; a state of not belonging entirely to one category, but being a bit of both.

      • E.g., not woman/not man, both/neither, in-between Indigenous/queer identity, between cities/communities, between spirit/material world, between past/future.

    • Meyer-Cook and Labelle ($2004$, $38$):

      • "They are of two worlds, the world of the differently gendered, and the world of being Native. […] To achieve a sound identity, Two-Spirited people need to simultaneously follow two tracts of identity formation: first as Native people or people of a minority group; and second, as people who are differently gendered."

    • Gilley ($2006$, $89$): "Two-Spirit men must, as Ben put it, ‘keep one foot in the gay world’ where their sexuality is accepted, and ‘one foot in the Indian world’ where their cultural heritage lies."

    • State of constant change: Shifting identities, navigating communities.

      • Roscoe ($1998$) titled his book Changing Ones.

      • Lang ($2016$, 315-316) discusses two-spirit women self-labeling as bisexual due to fluidity of sexual preferences, or using "lesbian" to include relationships with both sexes or synonymous with "man-woman" (manly women on reservations, including non-exclusively homosexual relationships).

    • Concrete examples of in-betweenness:

      • High proportion of queer Indigenous people in urban settings, moving between reserves and cities (Lépine-Dubois $2018$, Medicine $1997$, Ristock et al. $2010$).

      • Engagement in intertribal concerns (Driskill $2010$).

      • Number of "mixed heritage" individuals identifying as queer Indigenous (Lépine-Dubois $2018$, Lang $1997$).

    • This in-betweenness makes intersectionality absolutely necessary for understanding Indigenous queerness.

• Current Realities and Struggles

  • Previous sections covered diversity and commonalities (four characteristics).

  • These characteristics tend to focus on past realities and identity, rather than experience.

  • To accurately portray current realities, switch focus from identity to lived experience.

  • Recent literature emphasizes struggles and hardships, but also positive experiences.

  • Importance of remembering diversity of socio-cultural contexts shaping indigiqueer experiences.

  • Elements presented below are based on indigiqueer realities in Québec, but resonate with other accounts.

  • 
    

  Disconnect with the Past

  • Literature on two-spirit/Indigenous queerness is meager; few models/traditions studied/recorded, knowledge incomplete.

  • Much literature is decades old, can provide historical info but often biased.

  • Outside academic sources: some nations have historical/oral stories, but most have little, and rare accounts are centuries old, unreliable, or vague (Bousquet, Hamel-Charest, and Mapachee $2020$, $117$).

  • Absence of documented historical past creates disconnect between past/present, hinders recognition/belonging (Bousquet et al. $2020$, Laing $2021$).

  • Residential Schools: Enhanced problem by erasing whatever didn't fit "Christian values" (heteronormativity, heteropatriarchy, binary gender), teaching homophobia/transphobia.

  • AIDS Crisis: Saw death of large proportion of queer generation, more violent homophobia.

  • These events led to literal killing of queer Indigenous individuals, resulting in absence of queer elders/mentors (Laing $2021$, Lépine-Dubois $2018$, Pullen Sansfaçon et al. $2022$).

  • Without historical accounts, elders/mentors, many queer Indigenous individuals lack means to connect queer and Indigenous identities.

  • Laing's ($2021$, $121$) participant: on a "constant quest to find our lost stories and teachings and ceremonies and languages specifically in my Haudenosaunee community. I feel kind of envious that there are other nations and other communities who retained that, and who have those words to describe two-spirit people in their language, and who have the teachings of what it means and what your roles were, and what your responsibilities were."

  • 
    

  Homophobia/Transphobia in Indigenous Communities

  • Many authors note homophobia/transphobia in Indigenous communities (Adams and Philips $2006$, Anguksuar $2010$, Bousquet et al. $2020$, etc.).

  • Still a reality for most queer Indigenous individuals, but acceptance has increased.

  • While recent works don't detail growing acceptance, it's evident in increased openness on reserves (Bousquet et al. $2020$); however, openness is limited, slow, uncomfortable.

  • Non-academic literature (Chacaby and Plummer $2016$, Whitehead $2017$, Whitehead and Abdou $2023$, Youssef $2020$) provides accounts of greater acceptance.

  • Example: July $3$, $2021$, Kahsennenhawe Sky-Deer became first woman and openly queer person elected Grand Chief of Kanien'kehá:ka/Mohawk Council of Kahnawà:ke (major change for influential nation in Québec).

  • 
    

  Racism in Queer Communities

  • Indigiqueer individuals are victims of racism in queer communities (Lépine-Dubois $2018$, Meyer-Cook and Labelle $2004$, Pullen Sansfaçon et al. $2022$).

  • This problem is not unique to Indigenous people; identified throughout literature (reference Endnote 2).

  • Lang ($2016$) explains this racism leads many queer Indigenous individuals to choose Indigenous or other queer persons of color as partners.

  • Recent Wave of Interest: Followed Truth and Reconciliation movement (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation - September $30$th, multiple committees, media coverage of Indigenous events in early $2020$s).

    • Events: Discovery of unmarked graves in residential schools, death of Joyce Echaquan, Wet'suwet'en resistance.

    • This wave raised awareness, created opportunities for Indigenous peoples.

  • Many queer organizations making efforts toward Indigenous representation.

  • Despite efforts, queer Indigenous individuals still face racism in everyday interactions with local/global queer communities (Adams and Phillips $2006; 2009$, Lépine-Dubois $2018$, Pullen Sansfaçon et al. $2022$).

  • Non-Indigenous queer organizations often poorly equipped for Indigenous issues, leaving queer Indigenous individuals feeling they don't belong.

  • 
    

  Settler Colonialism and the Lack of Intersectional Approaches

  • Racism in queer communities and homophobia in Indigenous communities result in indigiqueer individuals feeling out of place.

  • Stems from systemic lack of recognition of intersectionality and intersectional approaches.

  • Intersectionality (Crenshaw $1989; 1991; 2015$): Discriminations are not parallel but overlap and intersect.

    • "Intersectionality is a metaphor for understanding the ways that multiple forms of inequality or disadvantage sometimes compound themselves and create obstacles that often are not understood among conventional ways of thinking" (Crenshaw $1989$, $149$).

    • A queer Indigenous cis-woman experiences racism, homophobia, and sexism together, intertwined, shaped differently than for a white trans woman, disabled queer Indigenous woman, or queer Indigenous cis-man.

  • Indigiqueer literature full of examples of lack of intersectionality:

    • Queer organizations rarely address Indigenous issues.

    • Indigenous organizations rarely address queer issues (though increasingly common now).

    • Anti-racism activism organizations almost never address Indigenous issues (Driskill $2010$, Driskill et al. $2011$, Hames-Garcia $2013$, Lépine-Dubois $2018$).

  • Many struggles (erasure, pressure to choose identity) caused by lack of intersectional approaches.

  • Crenshaw: Power is used by treating inequalities separately, without considering compounding overlap (Crenshaw $1989; 1991; 2015$).

  • Lack of intersectional approaches, even impossibility of working on settler colonial projects through intersectional lens, prevalent in decolonial literature (Driskill $2010; 2016$, Greensmith $2018b$, Hames-Garcia $2013$, Hawley $2001$, Larouche $2010$, Lépine-Dubois $2018$, Lévesque $2016$).

  • Lack of intersectional awareness is not accidental; aligns with settler colonialist ideologies/practices shaping queer communities (Greensmith $2018a$, Hames-Garcia $2013$, Morgensen $2011$).

  • This hinders indigiqueer inclusion and contributes to erasure of Indigenous presence in queer spaces.

  • 
    

  Isolation, Homelessness and Suicide

  • Historical/cultural disconnect, lack of mentors/elders, homophobia/transphobia, racism, lack of intersectional approaches, feeling of erasure all generate exclusion and isolation (Lépine-Dubois $2018$).

  • Indigiqueer individuals often feel they belong to no community, lack a place for support, unity, organization.

  • Often feel isolated, alone, powerless against homophobia, discrimination, violence (RCAAQ $2016$).

  • Amplified by cultural and linguistic barriers.

  • These issues can lead to vulnerability, homelessness, addiction, death/suicide (Patrick $2014$, Pullen Sansfaçon et al. $2022$).

  • Meyer-Cook and Labelle ($2004$) note compounded vulnerabilities lead to high HIV infection/suicide rates:

    • "Suicide becomes the only option for many, especially among youth. Suicide among Native youth is several times greater than for other adolescents" ($40$).

    • Coupled with already higher-than-average suicide rate among vulnerable queer youth, intersectional situation for queer Indigenous youth is dire.

  • Recent publications (Patrick $2014$, Pullen Sansfaçon et al. $2022$) confirm problem persists; higher-than-normal proportion of queer individuals among homeless Indigenous population (Patrick $2014$).

  • Patrick ($2014$) explains lack of intersectionality in most research on queer homelessness or Indigenous homelessness results in incomplete data on indigiqueer homelessness.

  • Unidimensional research often fails to account for multiple/compounding identities/vulnerabilities beyond superficial quantitative data.

  • ### Times are Changing

    • This section paints a grim picture, but acknowledges that much literature focuses on problems.

    • Most recent academic works (Bousquet et al. $2020$, Denetdale $2020$, Driskill $2016$, Laing $2021$, Lépine-Dubois $2018$) and non-academic accounts (Chacaby and Plummer $2016$, Whitehead $2017$, Whitehead and Abdou $2023$, Youssef $2020$) paint a more positive, though still problematic, picture.

    • Not enough recent publications for general conclusion except that things are improving.

    • Greater recognition of indigiqueer identities in queer and Indigenous communities.

    • Support from mainstream media: Growing presence of indigiqueer figures.

      • Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs (queer Kanien'keha:ka actor).

      • Anthony Johnson (gay Navajo-Diné) and James Makokis (two-spirit Nehiyô/Plains Cree) – winners of Canada’s Amazing Race season $7$ .

      • Kent Monkman (queer Cree artist/artivist).

      • Jeremy Dutcher (queer Wolastoq/Malicite musician/singer).

      • Two-spirit Drag artists Ilona Verley (Nlaka pamux/Thompson), Venus (Red River Métis), and Jaylene Tyme (Métis) – brought indigiqueer representation to Drag Race franchise.

    • Laing ($2021$), working with indigiqueer youth, notes use of online groups and hashtags like #twospirit.

    • Social change observed in author's own research in Québec:

      • Younger participants had more positive narratives/outlooks, experienced less violence than older indigiqueer participants.

• Conclusion of Article

  • Indigenous roles, models, identities of queerness are diverse (Diné nádleeh, Shoshone tainna wa’ippe, Inuit sipiniq).

  • Beyond differences, four characteristics emerge: spirituality, fluid gender/sexuality, stronger relation to tradition, important "in-betweenness."

  • Added overview of current indigiqueer struggles, with varied magnitude: "Today, some are greatly respected in their communities, but many others suffer violence and worse" (Anguksuar $2010$, $46$).

  • Great deal of activism and research ongoing: more publications, Facebook groups, unofficial meetings becoming official, queer organizations decolonizing, opening to ethnic diversity.

  • This article responds to author's struggle to find clear answers, hoping to help researchers, community organizations, activist groups understand Indigenous queerness and engage with indigiqueer individuals as experts.

Masculinities at the Crossroads: Theoretical Insights into Gendered Violence and Social Class in Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja (by Sanjana Chakraborty and Dhananjay Tripathi)

• Abstract Summary

  • Critically examines gendered space in Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja ($2014$).

  • Aims to unravel social position of men in minority communities during conflict.

  • Based on theories of Susan Bordo, Michael Kimmel, Raewyn Connell, among others.

  • Highlights complexities of gendered violence and male identity formation.

  • Underscores emergence of subaltern masculinity, layered with embodied realities.

  • Fosters "otherness" among minority men.

  • Reinforces psychological and physical trauma on male bodies in gender-based violence discourse.

  • Explores intersections of racial/ethnic identities within social class dynamics, revealing multifaceted masculinity.

  • Focuses on systematic invisibility of male victims on gender spectrum vs. unjust association with perpetrator image.

  • Contributes to theoretical discourse on masculinities and social class, unraveling gendered violence against men in Lajja's socio-cultural context.

• Author Information: Sanjana Chakraborty

  • BA ($2016$) and MA ($2018$) in English Literature from Banaras Hindu University, India.

  • Qualified for UGC-NET in $2019$, currently Senior Research Fellow at National Institute of Technology Sikkim, India.

  • Research Interests: Gender/sexuality studies, masculinity studies, cultural studies, South Asian literature, gendered violence.

  • Focuses on representation of vulnerable identities marginalized from mainstream gender discourse in South Asian texts.

  • Engages with male embodiment, male vulnerability of queer identities, socio-political dynamics influencing sexuality/power in postcolonial narratives.

  • Published in various journals, presented at national/international conferences.

• Author Information: Dhananjay Tripathi

  • MA ($2006$) and D.Phil ($2013$) in English from University of Allahabad, India.

  • Associate Professor and Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at National Institute of Technology Sikkim, India.

  • Supervises doctoral research.

  • Research Interests: Retelling of myths, gender studies, South Asian fictions, phenomenology.

  • Uncovers intersections of narrative structures, identity, cultural understanding, how literary narratives re-fabricate these intersections into contemporary theoretical lens.

  • Published in reputed journals, presented at global academic forums.

• Introduction to Research Topic

  • Theorizing masculinities and social class: gendered violence often confines male victims to a female image.

  • Men are subject to societal power dynamics, similar to women; requires examining factors shaping male perceptions of masculinity across contexts.

  • Research unveils concealed gendered violence against men in minority communities, depicted in Lajja ($2014$).

  • Aims to debunk stereotypes, raise awareness, foster inclusive comprehension of gender-based violence.

  • Sheds light on complexities of male identity within gender/socioeconomic class nexus, elucidating marginalization's ramifications on male victims' psychological well-being.

• Taslima Nasrin’s Lajja

  • Originally published in $1993$.

  • A reply to atrocities against Hindu and other minority communities in Bangladesh, a ripple effect of the $1992-93$ Babri Masjid demolition.

  • Nasrin's Preface: "I wrote Lajja when I saw Muslim fundamentalists in Bangladesh attack Hindus.… The Hindu fundamentalists of India destroyed the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The Muslim fundamentalists of Bangladesh avenged the destruction … attacking the blameless Hindus of Bangladesh … destroying their temples … and raping Hindu women." (Preface to Lajja $2014$, ix)

  • "Lajja" means "shame" in Bengali; manuscript associates this with shame and humiliation upheld through silence.

  • Sexual harassment narratives illustrate this shame through Bengali men, Suronjon and Sudhamoy.

  • Novel centers on after-effects of $1993$ Babri Masjid demolition, narrating Datta family's life during Hindu-Muslim riots.

  • During riots, many Hindu families in Bangladesh abducted, molested, killed, or forced into conversions.

  • Reports: Babri Masjid demolition in India led to riots/violent attacks on Bengali Hindus and non-Muslim minorities (December $1992$ - March $1993$).

    • Muslims mobbed Hindu temples across Bangladesh (December $1992$).

    • Disruption of India-Bangladesh cricket at Dhaka National Stadium.

    • At least ten people died, many Hindu women raped, hundreds of Hindu homes/temples destroyed (UNHRC $2004$).

    • Hindus in Bangladesh curtailed Durga Puja due to atrocities (October $1993$) (All-India-Radio [AIR] Oct. $16$, $1993$).

  • Book Ban: Six months after publication (July $1993$), Lajja was banished; radical Muslims marched for Nasrin's arrest/execution.

  • November $1993$: "Fatwa" released against her by Council of the Soldiers of Islam for insulting Islam.

  • Significance of selecting novel: Reconfiguring literary representations in feminist texts to segregate male experiences of cultural minorities after communal upheaval.

  • Focuses on scars carried by male bodies falling prey to cultural marginalization and subalternity.

• Psychological Trauma of Gendered Violence on Male Bodies

  • Unacknowledged challenges faced by male minority community members (physical/psychological trauma).

  • Pervasive discrimination fueled by patriarchal biases; violence is gendered, reinforces masculine norms.

  • Intersection of social dynamics, gendered violence, cultural shifts offers varied perspective on violence's impact on diverse gender identities.

  • Challenges prevailing narratives focusing primarily on female and child victims.

  • Figure 1: Graphical Representation of Male Victims of Sexual Violence in Conflict Areas.

    • Data from Sarah Chynoweth’s report (We Keep it in our Heart, UNHRC $2017$), Into the Mainstream-Refugee Law Project ($2014$), Women’s Refugee Commission ($2013-17$).

    • Emphasizes prevalent gendered abuse targeting men, especially in conflict regions.

    • Gendered violence: A public health/human rights concern, molded by societal paradigms dictating gender roles.

    • Invisibility of male victims in specific social spaces highlights entrenched power differentials, conflicting human rights, substantial neglect of public health.

    • Males can be victims of gendered violence, particularly by other men, especially if deviating from hegemonic masculinity expectations.

  • Lajja reveals profound transformation in Datta family men (Sudhamoy, Suranjon).

    • Grapple with not conforming to hegemonic masculinity in a Muslim country.

    • Highlights male victimization within dynamics of gendered violence.

  • This study interpolates these dynamics with Bangladesh's trajectory since independence reduced religious diversity (Shahisullah $2016$).

  • Figure 2: Graphical Representation of Religious Diversity in Bangladesh (1951 versus 2022).

    • Statistical data from Minorities Rights Group (Shahisullah, $2016$).

    • Shows national move toward one religious community, significant reduction in others (especially Hindus).

  • Times of India ($2024$) and The Print (Halder $2024$) report minorities (Hindus, Christians, Buddhists) forced to resign due to threats/harassment.

  • Recent adaptation of Lajja staged in Delhi (November $2024$) remains relevant, implicitly nodding to India's Citizenship Amendment Act.

  • Paper analyzes real-time scenarios of discrimination, blending with South Asian masculinity parameters to explore subalternity of minority men in Bangladesh.

• Theoretical and Analytical Approach

  • Qualitative approach: literary analysis and close reading with intersectional analysis of social implications through Lajja.

  • Harry Brod (The Masking of Masculinities): "Men’s studies scholars repeatedly face a problem in explaining their task.… Women’s lives have been so privatized—some feminists call it the “male-stream”—tradition. Men’s studies have no such immediately appealing claim to make since men have been the subjects of scholarship (Brod $1987$, $2$)."

  • Study uses Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak’s ($2005$) subaltern lens for male victimization in conflict via thematic analysis of minority communities.

  • Observes Nasrin’s depiction of masculinity, focusing on themes like reactions to shame, representations of resilience/vulnerability amidst socio-political shifts.

  • Sudhamoy’s perspective explains psycho-social impact of systematic violence on Hindu men during Babri Masjid incident ($1993$).

• Unexpected Social Clashes: Reconfiguring Male Bio-metaphors

  • Masculinity profoundly defined by cultural traditions of gender norms.

  • Interwoven with socio-economic metaphors embodied through male bodies, portrayed as artificial state boys/men navigate.

  • Not born with fixed masculinity; shaped by prevailing hegemonic gendered social codes within cultural milieu.

• Subaltern Masculinity and Sociopolitical Clashes

  • Delves into gender politics influenced by unexpected socio-political clashes creating subaltern masculinity.

  • Observes Nasrin vocalizing atrocities on minority religious communities due to $1993$ Babri Masjid conflict.

  • Uses Bengali Hindu family narrative in Muslim-dominant Bangladesh ($1993$).

  • Uses male protagonists (Suronjon, Sudhamoy) to focus on vulnerability of Hindu men failing to fulfill hegemonic protector role, thus losing male privileges.

  • Primarily based on Connell’s study of hegemonic masculinity (Gender and Power $1987$), further developed in Masculinities ($1995$, $2005$).

  • Connell and James Messerschmidt (Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept $2005$) outlined Hierarchy of Masculinity:

    1. Hegemonic masculinity: Traits like heterosexuality, fair skin, stoicism, perpetuated through patriarchy.

    2. Complicit masculinity: Neither aligns nor challenges hegemonic norms.

    3. Marginalized masculinity: Adheres to cultural expectations but fails to access hegemonic privileges.

    4. Subordinate masculinity: Opposes hegemonic traits, often associated with effeminacy.

  • This framework elucidates complex interplay between masculinity manifestations and social class dynamics (economic standing, religious belief).

  • During Babri Masjid riots, Muslim fundamentalists attacked minority communities (mainly Bengali Hindus).

  • Lajja observed: responsibility for demolition in India foisted on "Sudhamoys" (Nasrin $2014$, $17$).

  • Plural "Sudhamoys" represents plight of many Hindus.

  • "had not escaped the clutches of the fundamentalist Muslims in 1990, and so it was unlikely that they would be able to escape their clutches in 1992" (Nasrin $2014$, $17$).

  • Expected to leave home/nation, fostering fear of forced displacement/vulnerability that became reality.

  • Placed them within parameters of marginalized communities.

• Triple Vulnerability of Minority Masculinity in $1993$ Bangladesh

  • Explicit placement in marginalized category creates subaltern masculinity.

  • Antonio Gramsci's "subaltern" (Prison Notebooks $1971$): Socio-economically marginalized groups in colonial politics; identified cultural hegemony in postcolonial context corroborating social exclusion, displacement, denying voices.

  • Created binary space of "them" and "us," emphasizing subaltern paradigm.

  • Developed by Ranajit Guha, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Partha Chatterjee in Subaltern Studies.

  • Uses Spivak’s lens: "It is not just a classy word for ‘oppressed’ for the other, for somebody who’s not getting a piece of the pie… everything that has limited or no access to the cultural imperialism is subaltern – a space of difference" (Spivak $1992$, $45$; De Kock $1992$, $45$).

  • Spivak: subaltern identity creation based on "mechanism of discrimination" (De Kock $1992$, $45$).

  • Argues during conflict, minority communities navigate layered vulnerability.

  • Nasrin’s men (Sudhamoy, Suronjon) embody "triple vulnerability" within homelands, weaving "Othering" and paving way for subaltern masculinity.

  • Drawing on Spivak: Lajja captures layered vulnerability of minority masculine identities, forced into "difference" space.

    1. Religious vulnerability: Hindu men in Muslim-majority space are religiously vulnerable, consistently othered. Religion affects social placement; "religion produces socio-cultural systems through processes of domination, subordination, inclusion and exclusion, all spiced with an aura of factuality" (Geertz $1973$, $90$).

    2. Cultural vulnerability: Hindu Bengali identity correlates to cultural identity creating minority status. Mrinalini Sinha: "The Muslims in Bengal, who as a group had a slight numerical advantage over Hindus, were similarly usually exempted from the popular elaboration of Bengali effeminacy" (Sinha $1995$, $16$). Colonial subordination with sexual harassment pushes them to unredeemable subjugation.

    3. Masculinity shaped by hegemonic masculinity: Connell and Messerschmidt ($2005$) define established by dominant groups while emasculating minority.

  • This triple vulnerability pushes Suronjon/Sudhamoy to subaltern masculinity, snatching agency/visibility via communal violence, socio-cultural biases, gendered hierarchies.

  • Embody marginalized masculinity, showcasing two sides of male image hampered by hegemonic masculinity in Muslim country.

  • Trapped in homelands due to subaltern identities, leading to desperation, alienation, emasculation.

  • Subaltern embodies no identity, lacks representation.

  • Oppressed by "reproductive heteronormativity" (Spivak $2005$, $478$) restricting "social mobility" (Spivak $2005$, $476$) – termed "stuckedness" (Hage $2009$, $4$).

    • Hage: entrapment where "a person suffers from both the absence of choices or alternatives to the situation they are in and an inability to grab such alternatives even if they present themselves" (Hage $2009$, $4$).

  • Shifting gendered hierarchy furthers subalternity of Sudhamoy/Suronjon, where social class based on "economic collectivity" (Spivak $2005$, $476$).

  • Example: Sudhamoy's disqualification for academic promotion.

    • "Do you think something will happen with the file, dear man? he would ask…. Will my work get done, Forib Sahib? he would ask.… Sudhamoy’s juniors got their promotions. His file had been buried under the files of Dr. Korimuddin and Dr. Yakub Mollah, but they soon began working as associate professors." (Nasrin $2014$, $29$)

    • Hindu identity delays promotion, reflecting triple vulnerability (religious, cultural, socio-political subjugation), resulting in loss of social agency.

    • Compromised economic standing illustrates impact of power dynamics on male identity.

    • Sudhamoy didn't fit "real manhood" archetype (economic stability); religious/cultural identity added to emasculation: "Finally, Sudhamoy Datta retired as an assistant professor. His colleague Madhob Chondro Pal whispered in his ear … as they bade him farewell, “In a country of Muslims, we should not expect too many opportunities for ourselves. Even what we’re getting now is a favor” (Nasrin $2014$, $30$).

  • Social class interwoven with racial/ethnic identities contributes to economic disparities impacting masculine identities.

  • Minority men face barriers to economic mobility, unequal pay, limited resource access.

  • Economic challenges shape perceptions of success/failure, influencing masculinity definitions (financial stability/independence).

• Shifting Male Bio-metaphors and Bengali Masculinity

  • Bengali men equated with "feebleness" (Sinha).

    • Sinha quotes Macaulay: "the physical organization of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy…. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his movements languid" (Strachey $1888$ ($1911$), $450$; Sinha $1995$, $15$).

    • This languid state (product of colonial mindset) impacted Bengali men's identity during communal violence ($1992-93$) and contemporary times.

  • Mrinalini Sinha (Colonial Masculinity $1995$) observed colonial divide-and-rule created rift between Bengali Hindus and Muslims.

    • After Partition ($1905$, $1947$), colonial lens exempted Muslims in Bengal from effeminacy.

  • Nasrin's narrative: politicized religious belief by fundamentalist Muslims bestows gendered/racial violence.

    • "Suronjon saw his mother pull the windows shut … they could hear the slogans. “Pick up Hindus/ One or two/ And snack on them.” … Suronjon remembered that they had heard the same slogan in 1990…. And who were they? … They were people like Jobbaar, Romjan … almost like younger brothers…. " (Nasrin $2014$, $23$)

    • Religious hate speeches/bullying inflict trauma on Bangladesh's minority communities (mainly Hindus).

    • Reference to $1990$ scene specifies communal violence marginalizes Bengali Hindus/minorities.

    • Psychological weapon of public shame emasculates men, making them voiceless against culturally dominant groups.

    • Shame/fear erode "liberalism"/"independence," fear of identity loss creates subaltern space for Suronjon/Sudhamoy.

  • Michael Ropar and John Tosh: "Masculinity is in constant relation to the ‘other’, colonizer and colonized, later defined as emasculate and in need of control whereas the former imbues the image of imperial masculinity" (Ropar and Tosh $2021$, 1-24).

  • Recurrent shifts in male bio-metaphors within national borders creates marginalized "Other."

  • Impacts assigned gender roles of minority men (Bengali Hindus of Bangladesh).

  • Nasrin contrasts with Datta family women (Maya, Kironmoyee).

    • Men (father-son) represent non-acceptance of subaltern identity within failed parameters of manhood.

    • Women (mother-daughter) represent acceptance of defeat and vulnerability.

    • Maya (daughter) is prominent relic setting events changing father-son's social placement.

    • Maya's willingness to change cultural identity and migrate to India: "What will you do with your name, Maya?” he [Sudhamoy] asked, recalling when he had identified himself as Sirajuddin…. “I’ll do that, and call myself Firoja Begum,” she replied in an unwavering tone….. Maya was prepared to take any step to carry on living" (Nasrin $2014$, $18$).

    • Sudhamoy questions Maya's nationalism but remembers his own act of choosing Muslim identity (Sirajuddin) during confrontation.

    • Emphasizes hypocritical judgment of men/women based on nationalist identity definitions, linked to "real manhood."

    • Intertwining of embodied masculinity with social metaphors (economic status, nationalism) marginalizes both Sudhamoy/Suronjon.

  • Conundrums about masculinity arise from clashes between "cultural epistemologies" (Haywood et al. $2018$, 4) of understanding performative masculinity.

  • Facet overlooked in mainstream discourse of gender-based violence against men in communal violence.

  • Contends masculinity is more than inherent biological quality; meaning of biological metaphors influenced by cultural fabrication, sustained by social metaphors and peer recognition.

• Masculinity Shifts and Social Class Dynamics in Minority Community

  • Masculinity undergone cultural re-productions, institutional metaphors attached to physiological form.

  • Susan Bordo (The Male Body $1999$): "Images of masculinity that will do double (or triple or quadruple) duty with a variety of consumers, straight and gay, male and female, are not difficult to create in a culture like ours, in which the muscular male body has a long and glorious aesthetic history" (Bordo $1999$, $181$).

  • Shift in masculinity unfolded as religious-inspired criminality in Bangladesh's $1993$ riots in Lajja.

  • Threatens minority community, subjugates male body as embodied within colonial lens.

  • Sudhamoy embodies ghost of masculine metaphors, especially nationalism, setting him apart.

  • With escalating tension, some Hindus sought refuge in India but returned, an act Sudhamoy condemned.

    • "When the war broke out in the country, Sudhamoy would often say while talking to them, “You fled to India like emasculated men. Once the country was liberated you came back like heroes. And now, whenever there is a spot of trouble, you say you’ll go away to India. A cowardly bunch, that’s what you are” (Nasrin $2014$, $27$).

    • His reaction underscores deep valuation of being a man, alignment with institutionalized masculine ideals, tied to nationalism, glorification of violence.

    • Lack of resources to challenge leaves him struggling internally, visible failure to achieve masculine respectability.

    • Tension underscores identity fragmentation at intersection of race, ethnicity, social class.

    • Intersections are puzzle pieces of identity layers; challenge is cohesive link (race, ethnicity, social class, religious background) to create normative masculinity image.

    • Labyrinth of internal/external struggle to align with hegemonic narrative amidst socio-political strife.

• Socio-Political Dynamics Subjugates Subaltern Masculinity

  • Susan Bordo in interview with Karmakar ($2020$, 6-7): "Images of the body are ‘never just pictures’ … they carry fantasized solutions to our anxieties and insecurities…the culturally successful image … carries values and qualities that ‘hit a nerve’ that is already exposed…about how to become what the dominant culture admires—and/or how to escape the pain caused by that culture."

  • These images construct identity intertwined with social metaphors of manhood.

  • Identity negotiation complicated by social clashes (e.g., $1993$ riots).

  • Creates subalternity for men (Sudhamoy, Suranjon) subjugated by socio-economic standing, class embedded with racial/ethnic backgrounds.

  • Negotiation further complicated by intersecting discrimination/oppression for ethnic heritage through sexual harassment.

  • Sudhamoy’s personality drastically shifts after street sexual harassment and forced imprisonment in Pakistani military camp, tortured for failing to align with dominant masculinity.

    • Returning from friend's house, captured by Pakistani army.

    • Asked name: terrified to give Hindu identity, names self "Sirajuddin Hussain" (Nasrin $2014$, $14$), breaking connection to nation.

    • Ordered: "Take off your lungi … and they pulled it off him" (Nasrin $2014$, $14$).

    • After this, Sudhamoy always wore pajamas (pants-like loose cotton trousers), signifying dynamic relation between male body/clothing and social bio-metaphors shifting with socio-political dynamics.

  • Socio-political dynamics trap minority men within restrictive manhood constructs.

  • Highlights internal struggle of Sudhamoy to acknowledge subaltern position (changing Hindu name) leading to psychological mutilation.

  • Uproots him from cultural grounding, changes association with masculinity/male body.

  • Mrinalini Sinha (Colonial Masculinity $1995$) highlights effeminacy imposed on Bengali men vs. imperial masculinity; adds to shifting political dynamics/masculine identity struggles.

  • Represents that gender identity biology determined at birth, but becoming one's gender is culturally influenced.

  • bell hooks quotes Connell on men opposing patriarchy: "who oppose patriarchy remains at odds with the world…. They are likely to be met with derision from many other men…" (hooks $2004$, $73$).

  • This derision isolates, imprisons, confines men within subalternity.

  • Sudhamoy observes his change in nationalist views, tied to manhood: "He was quick to join gatherings against Pakistani rulers, getting there before anyone else. He had never felt restrained by home and family. Where had that courage gone!” (Nasrin $2014$, $16$).

  • Passage outlines how minority men in conflict are burdened with protecting families without realizing their vulnerability (age, economic loss).

  • Loss of agency points to drifting father-son relations as both suffer gendered emotional mutilation.

  • Suronjon viewed Sudhamoy as "guide and teacher," "Superman-like person" (Nasrin $2014$, $93$).

  • But $1993$ Bangladesh not livable for liberals like Sudhamoy.

  • Suronjon, mirroring father's youthful passion, grieved father's lack of nationalist passion and mother's wish to seek refuge.

  • Felt alienated in family/among friends (majority Muslim), moved to nothingness.

  • Failing duties of a man, felt ashamed/insulted.

  • Masculinity pervades cultural epistemologies, essential for politics of (un)intelligibility and subjugating subaltern men.

• Identity Struggles: Masculinity, Social Class, and Gender Violence Realities

  • Susan Bordo in "Hard and Soft" (The Male Body $1999$) quotes Luce Irigaray, "This sex which is not one" (Bordo $1999$, $36$), to understand women's biology/social placement.

  • Bordo analyzes male body/identity negotiations, arguing cultural significance of potency/genitals weighs on manhood.

  • This "cultural equation of penis" (Bordo $1999$, $37$) is questioned when minority men face gendered violence in conflict.

  • Sudhamoy observes: "about torturing the weak whenever possible" (Nasrin $2014$, $26$).

  • Highlighted by assault of Sudhamoy’s female Muslim student (asked to remove sari in street); her weakness was female identity.

  • Consistent correlation between biology/culture aids male body interpretation.

  • Symbolic constructs feed human history, influencing flesh/body, elevated by interlinking race/ethnicity forming subaltern identity struggles.

  • Nasrin specifies how minority men subjected to sexual violence in $1993$ Pakistani army camps:

    • "How many days was it before Sudhamoy returned from the camp? Seven days… Sudhamoy felt that his chest and tongue were bone dry all the time. He would moan for water and the soldiers would laugh horribly" (Nasrin $2014$, $94$).

    • Tortures on Sudhamoy/other minority prisoners highlight shift in power dynamics, altering masculinity metaphors, pushing minority to subaltern masculinity.

  • "Sexual terrorism" (Carol Sheffield, cited in Kimmel $2011$, $137$) is constant reminder of minority vulnerability.

  • Forced imprisonment: a greatest weapon (e.g., Holocaust concentration camps).

  • In novel, during imprisonment, many Hindus forcefully asked to recite Kalma and convert:

    • "One day, after Sudhamoy had steadfastly refused to become a Muslim, they lifted his lungi and said that since he hadn’t agreed to become a Muslim, they were going to circumcise him—they sliced off his penis. Then they held up his organ and laughed" (Nasrin $2014$, $95$).

  • This permanent physical scar (mutilated genitals, impotence) acts as reminder of subaltern position.

  • Beyond physical trauma, fractured his nationalism/masculinity, suffered loss of agency/identity.

  • Dissociation of masculinity and victimization in private/public spheres.

  • Sandesh Sivakumaran ($2007$, $255$): "A man should have been able to prevent himself from being attacked" and cope like a man.

  • Amidst armed conflict/imprisonment, masculine stereotypes intensely attached to self-perception of manhood, meant to shatter household centerpiece.

  • Alters structural metaphors of masculinity (protector image).

  • Minority men's identity loss relates to Alex Haley's Roots ($1976$) - black boy protagonist claiming Kunta Kinte, forced to be Toby (cited in Nasrin $2014$, $95$).

• Impact of Gendered Violence on Subaltern Men and Social Class Dynamics

  • Gendered violence on man/boy scars physiology, mental, and social welfare.

  • Ranges from "bruises, lacerations, stabbings and fractures, genital pain during urination, anal and testicular pain, and sexual dysfunction including impotence" (Solangon and Patel $2012$, $421$).

  • Castration as mutilation/rape as torture often watered down interpretation of male-on-male atrocities, hindering male victim identification in armed conflicts.

  • Gottschall ($2004$, $131$) describes this violence as "coherent, coordinated, logical and brutally effective means of prosecuting warfare."

  • Physical mutilation by dominant opposition is greatest biological weapon, destabilizing/emasculating minority men.

  • Generational gap in novel's response to conflict: Sudhamoy clings to fractured nationalism; Suronjon represents lost generation.

    • "Suronjon’s air of indifference dampened Sudhamoy’s enthusiasm” (Nasrin $2014$, $90$).

    • Suronjon's liberalism bridges familial responsibilities/cultural conflicts: "He was aware that he was not taking on the responsibilities required of him. He should have taken everyone in the family to hide somewhere but he had not done that. Perhaps he did not feel like doing it" (Nasrin $2014$, $19$).

  • In societies where masculinity is power/head of family, unemployed men unable to provide may feel sexual violence (connotations of force/power) allows regaining control over masculinity.

  • Suronjon's inability to protect family (after sister Maya kidnapped/abused) makes him feel alienated/enraged, questioning manhood.

  • bell hooks (The Will to Change $2004$, $73$): "rage is the easy way back to a realm of feeling. It can serve as the perfect cover, masking feelings of fear and failure."

  • To mask failure/regain control, Suronjon assaults Shamina (Muslim prostitute), visualizing her as symbol of Muslim community for his pain.

    • "Suronjon did not look at Shamima as a whore-he saw her as a Muslim woman. He was extremely keen on raping a Muslim woman…. She was a streetwalker and yet she was yelping in pain- this made Suronjon very happy" (Nasrin $2014$, $294$).

  • Marks turning point in Suronjon's life, shifting psychological space, redefining identity:

    • "Suronjon was calm. He felt unburdened. He had been able to do something with the desire that had gnawed at him all day” (Nasrin $2014$, $295$).

    • Sense of unburdening after heinous crime underlines struggle/failure to embody patriarchal protector role, profoundly impacting self-connection.

  • Nasrin’s Lajja echoes plight of Hindu/minority families, highlights sexual abuse as weapon to emasculate men by dominant masculinity.

  • Creates "othering," causing psycho-social implications for men often eliminated from gendered violence discourse.

  • Chris Dolan (Into the Mainstream $2014$) reports psycho-social/familial trauma of male sexual abuse victims in DRC conflict.

    • Interviewee/victim's wife left him, asserting man unable to protect himself cannot protect her; shows trauma, masculinity, gendered violence imbued with social expectations.

  • Carpenter ($2006$, $96$) observes "very little specific effort to recognize the trauma of such atrocity for the male relatives of the victims," highlighting neglected emotional toll on male survivors.

  • Underrepresentation of diverse male identities (race, ethnicity, social class) in media/literature exacerbates marginalization of male victims.

  • Invisibility perpetuates cultural stereotypes, narrowing acceptable masculinities.

  • Void in narrative sustains systematic oppression/gender hierarchies, denying visibility/legitimacy to minority masculinities.

  • Skewed representation shapes societal perceptions, molds collective consciousness; emerging narratives adhere to stereotypes.

  • Nasrin’s Lajja reflects Sudhamoy’s struggles/trauma, symbolizing older generation minority men, focusing on psycho-social trauma incubating subaltern identity within socio-economic strata.

  • Captures systematic socio-economic inequalities creating subaltern masculinity:

    • "Sudhamoy thought to himself that he had not become an associate professor simply because his name was Sudhamoy Datta. If only he had been Muhammad Ali or Salimullah Chowdhury! Even in trade and business, very rarely did a Hindu institution get a license if there was no Muslim partner involved” (Nasrin $2014$, $30$).

  • Paper highlights intersectional perspectives of minority male bodies violated, relating to identity reconstruction within social placement.

  • Masculinity Studies evolving, addressing intersections, but pay negligible attention to racialization of masculinities and pervasiveness of hegemonic whiteness (Wong and Wang $2022$).

  • Same for gender-based violence male survivors in conflict areas (Dolan $2014$; UNHRC $2017-18$); exposes deep embedding of victimhood/masculinity definitions, creating subaltern identities for male GBV survivors.

• Conclusion of Article

  • Patriarchal ideals (protector, breadwinner, provider) exacerbate dominant masculinity, marginalize alternative expressions, silence voices.

  • Failing standards alters male identity, triggering subaltern male identity in social power structures.

  • Socio-political shifts echo through varied social standards of violations, especially for overlooked male victims.

  • Kimmel ($2010$, $3$) observes feminism and gender equality development:

    • "Four decades of feminism has been accompanied by four decades of increasingly shrill denunciations of feminists…. Gender Equality, we’ve been told, is really for women … but underneath this is the idea that gender equality is bad for men."

  • Social dynamics reveal tension between evolving gender norms and restrictive dominant masculinity narratives.

  • Explores Hindu minority male characters (Suronjon, Sudhamoy) in Lajja: constrained emotional range, dominated by despair, failure, anxiety manifesting as anger, failing to reclaim individual agency.

  • Critiques homogenized masculinity portrayal, advocates diverse narratives challenging stereotypes, exploring varied masculine expressions across race, ethnicity, social class.

  • In conflict, sexual violence (rape, physical mutilation) used as biological weapon against marginalized male members, psychologically impacting victims, highlighting gendered subjectivity complexities.

  • Violence heightened during socio-political shifts disrupting power dynamics, deepening male alienation, reinforcing patriarchal ideal man.

  • Results in loss of agency:

    • "Sudhamoy sat up suddenly as he heard the sounds of the procession. Suronjon clenched his jaws… Should he not be angry too?” (Nasrin $2014$, $32$).

  • Religious discrimination in Bangladesh (colonialism, Partition roots) marginalizes minorities post-independence.

  • $1992$ Babri Masjid demolition incited riots targeting Hindu shops/businesses, inflicting gendered violence.

  • Nasrin’s Lajja vividly portrays atrocities, emphasizing intersections of gendered violence and social class.

  • Examines masculinities through intersecting racial, ethnic, class identities, shedding light on how these shape perpetuation/resistance to gendered violence.

  • Adds to discourse of male victimhood in conflict, addressing intersectional perspectives attached to South Asian male identities creating subaltern masculinity.

"Coming In" to Queer Psychology: The Value of Blending Queer Theory and Psychology in Critical Autoethnography (by Alicia Wright, Phillip Joy, Conor Barker)

• Abstract Summary

  • Commentary reflects on a $2024-2025$ Honours thesis analyzing subjective experience of "coming out" in adulthood via critical autoethnography.

  • Method: Blends autobiography with ethnographic observation, rooted in psychological frameworks, drawing on queer theory.

  • Purpose: Analyzes first author's experience of sexual orientation changes in her thirties.

  • Discusses challenges and ultimate benefits of interweaving psychology (positivist, structured) with queer theory (fluidity, resistance to norms).

  • Authors, as queer community members, share unique disciplinary perspectives, highlighting possibilities when holding seemingly opposing theoretical tensions.

  • Value extends to understanding sexual orientation diversity, questioning traditional research boundaries, and human experience complexity.

  • Supports "queering" psychology scholarship, advocating for diverse representation in academia.

• Author Information: Alicia Wright

  • Research assistant in Psychology Department at Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU), Halifax.

  • Holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology; Honours research focused on sexual identity transformation in adulthood.

  • Academic work extends from career as massage therapist, taking a holistic approach and prioritizing service for the queer community.

  • Passionate about qualitative research and using a queer lens to disrupt traditional ways of understanding 2SLGBTQ+ lives.

  • Sees this methodological approach as valuable for understanding mind/body connection interplay.

• Author Information: Phillip Joy

  • Registered dietitian with Nova Scotia Dietetic Association, Assistant Professor in Applied Human Nutrition at MSVU, Halifax.

  • Research: Critically examines intersections of gender, sexuality, nutrition, especially experiences of 2SLGBTQ+ communities.

  • Employs qualitative methodologies within poststructuralism and queer theory.

  • Uses arts-based approaches (photovoice, cellphilming, comics) to explore/challenge normative discourses in nutrition/health research.

  • Website: www.phillipjoy.ca

• Author Information: Conor Barker

  • Assistant Professor of Psychology and Education at MSVU; cross-appointed to graduate program in School Psychology.

  • Founder/director of Barker Psychology Lab, centering first-voice perspectives in education.

  • Examines real-world impacts of school psychological services.

  • Research Focuses: Inclusive education, neurodiversity, culturally relevant assessment practices (especially for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Black, Indigenous, Newcomer, rural learners in Canada).

• Introduction to Alicia Wright's Honours Thesis

  • Reflects on her Honours thesis ($2024-2025$), analyzing subjective experience of coming out in adulthood (Wright $2025$).

  • Mentored by co-supervisors (Phillip Joy: queer health; Conor Barker: psychology).

  • Conducted critical autoethnography: blends autobiography and ethnographic observation, using theoretical views to analyze lived experience (Poulos $2021$).

  • Explored change in sexual orientation.

  • Specifically considers benefits/challenges of interweaving psychological frameworks with queer theory.

  • Theoretical Disparity: Queer theory prioritizes fluidity/anti-normativity; psychology emphasizes diagnosis/structured models.

  • These seemingly incompatible lenses used together to examine tensions, possibilities, productive disruptions at intersection of identity, theory, practice.

• Methodology and Theoretical Integration

  • Aim: Understand how sexual identity transformation happens in adulthood.

  • Wrote reflexive narratives depicting three turning points in sexual identity shift from heterosexuality in her thirties.

  • Stages: Deconstruction, recognition, reconnection of identity.

  • Rooted in psychology: stories compared to psychological models of identity formation, understood in intrapersonal/interpersonal terms.

  • Recognized sexual identity as both socially constructed and guided by authenticity (Rust $1993$).

  • Queer theory employed to remove heteronormative lens from personal stories.

    • Acknowledged religious, patriarchal, heterosexist influence obscuring non-heterosexual thoughts, feelings, behaviors.

    • Integral for understanding complexity of forging sexual orientation identity against dominant social systems.

• Themes and Key Queer Theory Concepts

  • Themes revealed: embodiment, unlearning, being witnessed, grieving, belonging, and "coming in."

  • "Coming in": Introspective concept honoring nuanced nature of sexual discovery and self-acceptance (Rosenberg $2018$).

  • Queer theory used to understand how experiences happened and why they were important for change.

    • Adrienne Rich's compulsory heterosexuality ($1980$): Views heteronormativity as an institution subordinating women to men by promoting heterosexuality as the only standard.

      • Illuminated barriers to sexual diversity recognition and sense of obligation to a heterosexual role.

    • Judith Butler's heterosexual matrix ($2007$): Describes how sexuality, gender, and sex are collectively socially performed and reciprocated.

      • Supported understanding of earlier life stages, intensely attempting to embody wife, woman, mother in the "right" way.

  • Conclusion of study: Sexuality is fluid, orientation can change across lifespan through non-linear, non-sequential, non-hierarchical stages.

    • Extends understanding of popular developmental models seeing sexual identity as stable, typically formed in early life.

• Primary Challenge: Bridging Psychology and Queer Theory

  • Using boundaries/predictability of psychological theory alongside queer theory.

  • Aligned sexual identity shift with social constructionist perspectives:

    • Noted relational meaning-making aspects of sexual orientation.

    • Acknowledged an essential sense of authentic truth feeling "uncovered."

  • Conflict: Essential self concept runs counter to queer theory (ever-evolving, dynamic identity sensitive to sociopolitical, cultural, historic forces).

  • Resolution: Authenticity not absolute/stable, but a sense of congruence/incongruence with evolving values (Erickson $1995$).

    • Accept queer people experience sexuality as stable, retrospectively making sense of experiences as leading to authentic self (Rust $1993$).

  • Queer theory was helpful for retrospective analysis (incongruence with heterosexual life to alignment with lesbian identity/same-sex relationships).

  • Addressed social constructionist factors that both impaired healthy sexual diversity expression and enabled adoption of aligned sexual orientation identity.

• Mentorship and Methodology: A Queer Reflection (Interlude by Phillip Joy)

  • Approaches scholarship with understanding that knowledge is never neutral; meaningful insights arise in discomfort/contradiction.

  • Struck by vulnerability of inquiry and intellectual ambition of engaging both psychological and critical theoretical frameworks.

  • Queer health research often navigates epistemological boundaries: clinical models (diagnose, stabilize, normalize) vs. queer theoretical approaches (fluidity, disruption, resistance to categorization).

  • Encouraged holding space for tensions, viewing friction as "site of possibility," not problem to be solved.

  • Mentor role: not to guide to certainty, but to support engagement with uncertainty.

  • Affirmed Alicia's lived experience as valuable knowledge site, worthy of exploration on its own terms.

  • Choice of critical autoethnography: allowed politically engaged, reflexive approach, foregrounding embodied/affective dimensions of coming out.

  • Aligns with broader commitment to "queering" health scholarship and reimagining knowledge production within systems often hostile to difference.

  • Project illustrates generative capacity of working across disciplinary, theoretical, identity-based borders.

  • Reflects how queer mentorship serves as method and ethic, grounded in collaboration, care, shared pursuit of just/expansive ways of knowing.

• Mentorship and Methodology: A Psychological Reflection (Interlude by Conor Barker)

  • Queer faculty member in psychology/education, research focuses on inclusion/voices of underserved in school psychology.

  • Supervising thesis was personal/professional challenge, evoking deeper meaning.

  • Brought qualitative orientation into psychology department traditionally dominated by positivist, quantitative approaches.

  • Initially imagined becoming quantitative researcher, but questions from practice (clinician, queer person) demanded qualitative approach (lived experience, cultural complexity, professional competency, identity).

  • Early realization: psychology students often under-prepared for this work; education emphasizes statistical significance/generalizability, privileging scientific method.

  • Qualitative research invites different questions: how we know what we know, rigorous research from reflection, emotion, identity.

  • True for supervising Alicia's thesis: her "coming in" to sexual identity pushed conventional undergraduate research to "come out" within psychology as valid and necessary.

  • Before thesis, separated identities ("researcher who happens to be queer, not a queer researcher").

  • Project helped claim queer identity more fully, understanding queerness informs worldview and research methods.

  • Work illuminated: Queer research is about "queering the research process itself."

    • Disrupting linearity, embracing contradiction, valuing stories resisting easy categorization.

    • Queer theory: lens to reinterpret life not as deviation from norm, but narrative shaped by/resisting dominant structures/oppression.

    • Psychological frameworks: grounded story in developmental/relational processes.

    • Powerful interplay between destabilizing queer theory and interpretive psychology.

  • Deep tension, productive: Psychology seeks to explain, categorize, make stable; queer theory insists on fluidity.

    • Alicia's narrative held both truths: felt sense of authenticity is meaningful, even as identity is constructed, shifting, contingent.

    • Not contradiction needing resolution, but generative tension.

    • Encourages psychology students to reckon with discipline's limits, expand what is accepted/valued as knowledge.

  • As queer researchers/educators, must create more space for "messy, embodied, intersectional, real" research.

  • Embracing stories that don't fit variables/diagnostic criteria helps understand full range of human experience.

  • Came to understand queerness not just part of self, but how he thinks, questions, engages with research; now wears "queer researcher" label with pride.

• Conclusion (by Alicia Wright)

  • Thesis, and opportunity for complex critical analysis, began with queer supervisors' guidance.

  • Academic expertise combined with their identities as gay men allowed implicit guidance through appropriate lens, introducing theoretical perspectives for new understanding of her story.

  • Her perspective as a "late-in-life lesbian" expanded collective concept of queer experience, highlighting need for vulnerable discourse in scholarly investigation.

  • Confirms benefit of enacting equity, diversity, inclusion mission in academia, and powerful possibilities of queer representation in research.

  • Outcome: Queer theory critical in weaving multidimensional experience of dynamic sexuality with reciprocal performance of expected social roles.

  • Suggests queer theory enhances/extends psychological perspectives (traditionally rooted in heteronormative standards, seeing non-heterosexuality as outside norm) (Jones $2019$, Minton $1997$).

  • Using queer theory to question psychology supports research calling for move from minoritization to resistance of hegemonic gender/sexuality ideas perpetuating patriarchy/heterosexism (Minton $1997$).

  • Growing scholarly discussion: queer theory helps with "queering" research by deconstructing hierarchical/binary gender/sexuality thinking, encouraging openness to ever-changing psychosocial experience (Lesutis $2023$).

Intersectional Promises: How Well Did the Canadian National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence Integrate an Intersectional Approach? (by Olesya Kochkina)

• Abstract Summary

  • Canadian government adopted National Action Plan (NAP) to End Gender-Based Violence (GBV) on November $9$, $2022$, after over ten years of feminist advocacy.

  • This study is among the first to trace and critique the NAP's development, specifically how well it integrates an intersectional approach.

  • Using adjusted Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis (IBPA) and qualitative content analysis.

  • Argues the NAP is based on a "deflated definition of intersectionality" and neglects existing policies' role in reproducing social inequalities.

  • Fails to center voices of most affected, lacks in-depth understanding of systemic GBV causes/effects leading to diverse intersectional needs.

  • Results in "symbolically intersectional solutions" unlikely to be effective.

  • Relies on non-intersectional data for progress assessment and lacks built-in mechanisms for meaningful engagement of most affected groups.

  • Conclusion: Current NAP design unlikely to achieve vision of Canada free from GBV.

• Author Information: Olesya Kochkina

  • Completed MA in Gender and Social Justice ($2023$) at Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Alberta.

  • Currently pursuing a PhD at Department of Sociology, University of Alberta.

  • Prior to academia, worked over ten years in international development, focusing on sexual/reproductive health and rights and gender-based violence.

• Introduction to Research Topic

  • Researchers acknowledge intersectionality's potential for equitable social outcomes in policymaking (Bowleg $2008$, Hankivsky and Cormier $2011$).

  • Canadian government promised NAP to End GBV would be "grounded in an intersectional approach" (WAGE 2022b$), aligning with feminist organizations' advocacy for a "bold, robust, well resourced, and intersectional" plan (Grant, Hayes and Renzetti 2022$).</p></li><li><p><strong>Paper's goal:</strong> Examine NAP's integration of intersectionality, contributing to intersectional critique of texts/discourses/policies (Garcia and Zajicek$2022$) to advance social justice.</p></li><li><p>Intersectionality framework offers "paradigm shift" to foreground complex contexts/root causes of health/social problems (Hankivsky$2012$,$8$).</p></li><li><p>Brings forth vantage point of invisible groups (Cole and Duncan$2023$, Crenshaw$1989$) for equitable/inclusive outcomes.</p></li><li><p>Crucial for GBV: single-issue analytical frameworks (race, class, gender) fail to address problems from complex web of oppression (Crenshaw$1991$, Day and Gill$2020$).</p></li><li><p>Assuming uniform GBV experiences leads to "one size fits all" solutions, ineffective for all.</p></li><li><p>Developing safety approach tailored to intersectional needs "offers genuine empowerment to end all forms of oppression and violence against all survivors" (Day and Gill$2020$,$847$).</p></li><li><p>Acknowledges challenges in practical application ("blurry" use in policies) (McCall$2005$, Manning and Levac$2022$), but tools exist (Hankivsky and Jordan-Zachery$2019$) for policymakers.</p></li><li><p>Analysis reveals weak/inconsistent intersectionality application, likely producing opposite results.</p></li><li><p>Sara Ahmed's "non-performativity": "when something is named without coming into effect" (Ahmed$2018$,$333$).</p></li><li><p>NAP's recommendations demonstrate non-performative use, masking lack of commitment to disrupting power status quo.</p></li><li><p>Failing to center marginalized standpoints, policy reproduces vulnerability; sustains, rather than challenges, existing GBV hierarchies.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Background: Decades of Feminist Advocacy Resulted in Adopting the NAP</strong></p><ul><li><p>November$9$,$2022$: Government of Canada released ten-year NAP to End GBV.</p></li><li><p>Culmination of over ten years of strategic advocacy by Canadian feminist organizations.</p></li><li><p>Signifies critical step in addressing "one of the most pervasive, deadly and deeply rooted human rights violations" (WAGE,$2022b$, Introduction).</p></li><li><p>Advocates were "far from celebratory" (Joint Statement on the Release of the National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence$2022$).</p></li><li><p>Canadian campaign for NAP started around$2012$in response to UN resolutions/campaign for multi-sectoral plans to address Violence Against Women (VAW) by$2015$.</p></li><li><p>Women’s Shelters Canada (WSC) spearheaded national campaign involving over$250$organizations (Dale, Maki and Nitia$2021$,$362$) to push for "bold, ambitious, and intersectional" plan (Dale, Maki and Nitia$2021$,$135$).</p></li><li><p>Justin Trudeau Liberal government (elected$2015$) supported comprehensive VAW/GBV policy.</p></li><li><p>Instead of long-term NAP, adopted five-year "It's Time: Canada’s Strategy to Prevent and Address Gender-Based Violence" ($2017$).</p><ul><li><p>Strategy had important initiatives/increased funding, but criticized for scattered approach, limited coherence (Gotell$2023$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>$2021$federal budget:</strong>$600$million over five years for NAP.</p></li><li><p><strong>Next year:</strong> Another$540$million over five years for work with provinces/territories on NAP.</p></li><li><p><strong>January$2021$:</strong> Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministers Responsible for Status of Women endorsed "Joint Declaration for a Canada Free of Gender-Based Violence."</p><ul><li><p>Declaration states NAP is high-level framework (vision, goals, pillars, principles, foundation).</p></li><li><p>Left coordination mechanisms open.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>$2021$budgetary allocation:</strong> Funded development of "Roadmap for the National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence" (hereafter "Roadmap").</p><ul><li><p>Sanctioned by Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE).</p></li><li><p>Developed by anti-violence experts (advocacy groups, front-line service, academia, professional organizations) (Dale, Maki and Nitia$2021$).</p></li><li><p>Experts developed prototype NAP with recommendations structured around five pillars:</p><ol><li><p>Enabling environment and social infrastructure.</p></li><li><p>Prevention.</p></li><li><p>Promotion of responsive legal and justice system.</p></li><li><p>Support for survivors and their families.</p></li><li><p>Indigenous Women’s leadership (assigned to WAGE Indigenous Women’s Circle).</p></li></ol></li><li><p>Roadmap proposed over one hundred transformative solutions for systemic problems.</p></li><li><p>Included calls to action for police/state violence, transformative justice, wrap-around services, VAW/GBV sector stability.</p></li><li><p>Arguably comprehensive, well-researched, transparent participatory document, translatable to national framework with political will.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>NAP launch ($2022$) seen as feminist victory, but Roadmap experts expressed "serious concerns."</p><ul><li><p>"The document released two weeks ago is not a National Action Plan," (Joint Statement$2023$).</p></li><li><p>Criticized NAP for not being binding, recommendations too broad, not far-reaching, no identified priorities.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>All provinces/territories signed bilateral agreements with federal government (June-November$2023$) covering four fiscal years (April$1$,$2023$to March$31$,$2027$).</p></li><li><p>Key demand/promise: NAP integrates intersectional perspective.</p></li><li><p>Question remains: How effectively does NAP use intersectionality?</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Literature Review: Intersectional Policy Framework</strong></p><ul><li><p></p></li></ul><h5 id="2f7fba2b-bffa-42fb-a025-cc4ff999f15a" data-toc-id="2f7fba2b-bffa-42fb-a025-cc4ff999f15a" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Defining Intersectionality in a Policy Context</h5><ul><li><p>Intersectionality's "methodological pluralism" (Hankivsky and Jordan-Zachery$2019$,$10$) means multiple definitions/applications.</p></li><li><p>Definition used sends message about policy focus: some towards social justice, others limited transformative potency (Collins$2015$, Christoffersen$2022$, Walby et al.$2012$).</p></li><li><p>Strong caution against "additive" approach; socially constructed categories (gender, race, sexuality, disability) must be co-constitutive and indivisible (Bowleg$2008$).</p></li><li><p>Productive engagement: pay attention to how different inequality regimes shape each other (Walby et al.$2012$).</p></li><li><p>Focus definition on domination systems positioning individuals hierarchically, not just identities.</p></li><li><p><strong>Example 1 (Gopal-das$2013$definition):</strong> "The concept of “intersectionality” refers to the interactivity of social identity structures such as race, class, and gender in fostering life experiences, especially experiences of privilege and oppression."</p></li><li><p><strong>Example 2 (Collins and Bilge$2020$,$2$definition):</strong> "Intersectionality investigates how intersecting power relations influence social relations across diverse societies as well as individual experiences in everyday life. As an analytic tool, intersectionality views the categories of race, class, gender, sexuality, nation, ability, ethnicity, and age—among others—as interrelated and mutually shaping one another. Intersectionality is a way of understanding and explaining complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences."</p></li><li><p>Second definition highlights relationships between social levels, emphasizing power's role in creating inequalities.</p></li><li><p>Invites thinking about policy's role in shaping lived experiences, social relationships, power relations.</p></li><li><p>Though intersectionality's "definitional fluidity" (Collins$2015) allows adjustment, it's crucial to ground it in a definition guiding transformative solutions.

  • ### What Makes a Policy Intersectionality-Based?

    • Application to public policy traced to Tiffany Manuel's 2006$paper (Garcia and Zajicek$2022$,$273$).</p></li><li><p>Core element: attention to power (Cho, Crenshaw and McCall$2013$, Collins and Bilge$2020$, Hankivsky$2012$).</p></li><li><p>Power structures intersect at multiple levels (Hankivsky$2012$), placing people in unique social locations; same policy experienced differently (Collins and Bilge$2000$,$6$).</p></li><li><p>Core tenet: centering lived experiences of marginalized people in policy analysis/formulation (Bowleg$2012$,$1268$).</p></li><li><p>Methodological misuse can recenter hegemonic subject positions (whiteness) (Tate$2023$).</p></li><li><p>Recentering whiteness/dominant groups and othering non-white/disadvantaged groups often happens via "colourblind intersectionality" (Carbado and Harris$2019$,$2223$).</p><ul><li><p>False assumption of neutrality of certain positions, treating white, able-bodied, cis-gender, privileged groups as default baseline.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Importance of examining historically marginalized populations' realities from their unique vantage point, not by comparison to imagined "norm" (Bowleg$2012$, Carbado and Harris$2019$).</p></li><li><p><strong>Meaningful engagement:</strong> with beneficiaries addresses "colourblind" intersectionality risk.</p><ul><li><p>Example: LaMartine, Nakamura, and García ($2023$) examined victimization experiences of Afro-American transgender women.</p><ul><li><p>Aggravated vulnerability to GBV from intersection of racism, classism, cissexism, sexual stigmatization ($105$).</p></li><li><p>Black transgender women at higher risk for intimate partner violence, sexual assaults, police violence, re-victimization, criminalization.</p></li><li><p>Authors underline community resilience, creativity in coping mechanisms ($106-107$).</p></li><li><p>Examine situation from Black transgender women’s vantage point to inform GBV counseling/programming recommendations.</p></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><p>Common critique: Intersectionality fragments advocacy movements.</p><ul><li><p>Policymakers argue it's not feasible for different policy for each "interest group"; "too complicated" (Manning and Levac$2022$).</p></li><li><p>Roberts and Jesudason showed intersectionality can forge political alliances (reproductive justice, racial justice, women's rights, disability rights activists).</p></li><li><p>Despite distinct social locations, commonalities reveal how oppression structures are related, offering better ways to address them ($2013$,$316$).</p></li><li><p>Policies tend to assume gender-, race-, class-, sexuality-, ableism-neutral, leading to ineffective "one size fits all" approach.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Policies/programs addressing GBV from appropriate vantage points are scarce (Henriksen et al.$2023$).</p></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Methodology</strong></p><ul><li><p><strong>Research Question:</strong> "How does the Canadian NAP on GBV use an intersectional approach to frame the policy?"</p></li><li><p>Draws on Intersectionality-Based Policy Analysis (IBPA) (Hankivsky$2012$) and qualitative content analysis (QCA) (Altheide and Schneider,$2013$, Krippendorff$2019$).</p></li><li><p><strong>IBPA:</strong> Aims "to better illuminate how policy constructs individuals’ and groups’ relative power and privileges vis-a-vis their socio-economic-political status, health and well-being" (Hankivsky$2012$,$134$).</p><ul><li><p>Core of IBPA: eight guiding principles, twelve descriptive/transformative questions.</p><ul><li><p>Descriptive questions: interrogate policy issue.</p></li><li><p>Transformative questions: develop approaches to tackle it.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Guiding principles imply collective work by people with lived experiences, reflexive processes, multi-level analysis, acknowledgement of contextualized power dynamics, ultimate goal of social justice.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Adopted approach combining IBPA and QCA (e.g., Di Matteo$2022$).</p></li><li><p>Adjusted IBPA framework to match research question/resources.</p></li><li><p><strong>Four Modified Questions Guiding Analysis (adapted from Hankivsky$2012$, 39-42):</strong></p><ol><li><p>How does the NAP define intersectionality? How does the NAP use intersectionality to frame the causes of GBV and its effects on various groups? How does this framing shape the understanding of the groups’ needs in the context of GBV?</p></li><li><p>How has this representation of GBV come about within the NAP? Who was involved and what type of evidence was used?</p></li><li><p>How will proposed actions address intersectional inequities?</p></li><li><p>What intersectional factors will be measured within the evaluation of the NAP and how?</p></li></ol></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Findings: the NAP’s Non-Performative Intersectionality</strong></p><ul><li><p>NAP guiding principles claim policy is "grounded in an intersectional approach" (WAGE$2022b$).

    • "Intersectionality"/"intersectional" appear 21 times.

    • Analysis suggests NAP uses a "hollowed-out version" of intersectionality, depleted of transformative potential (Bilge $2012$).

    • Premised on a "flattened definition," not orienting towards social justice.

    • De facto homogenizes most affected groups despite separate listing.

    • Monitoring/reporting system lacks intersectionality-informed data collection/analysis methods.

    • Demonstrates "non-performativity" (Ahmed $2006; 2018$) in addressing systemic barriers and commitment to engaging lived experiences.

      • Ahmed ($2016$): Non-performative speech acts "'work' precisely by not bringing about the effects that they name" ($105$).

      • Jackson ($2018$): "The failure is the function" ($47$) – non-performatives replace action.

    • NAP's non-performative intersectional language evades further intersectional analysis/response.

    • 
      

    Diluted Definition of Intersectionality

    • First set of questions: How does NAP define/frame intersectionality, causes/effects of GBV, and understanding of needs?

    • Glossary Definition: "Approach to analyzing social relations and structures in a given society developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw. Intersectional approaches recognize that every person’s identity is made up of multiple identity categories such as (but not limited to) ability, attraction, body size, citizenship, class, creed, ethnicity, gender expression, gender identity, race, religion. The ways a person may experience systemic privilege and oppression are affected by the intersection of these identity categories, depending on how they are valued by social institutions." (WAGE $2022b$, "Annex C - Glossary")

    • Frames intersectionality as individual intellectual contribution, not outcome of collective political struggles.

    • Wrests intersectionality from Black feminist thought, detaches Crenshaw from anti-racist/anti-colonial intellectuals/activists.

    • Identity-category framing (narrow/misleading) obscures systemic forces' roles.

    • Language describing relationships ("made up of") doesn't strongly caution against additive approach or treating categories as mutually exclusive (Bowleg $2008$).

      • Bowleg: personal identities not independent characteristics; taken apart, can't fully explain unequal outcomes.

    • Another explanation: slightly more attention to systemic factors/context:

      • "…an intersectional lens, which recognizes that people often experience multiple oppressions due to the combined effects of systemic discrimination (e.g., ableism, classism, colonialism, a collective history of trauma, poverty, racism, sexism, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression). Intersectionality takes into account historical, social, and political contexts and centres the unique experiences of the individual and/or group in relation to their identity factors." (WAGE $2022b$, Introduction)

      • Neglects role of existing institutions, policies, administrative decisions in (re)producing social inequalities.

      • Lists "-isms" without discussing how they work together to position specific groups as more vulnerable.

      • Dominant underlying GBV assumptions (e.g., individual-level problem) remain unchallenged, may be reproduced.

    • Sirma Bilge ($2012$, $407$) on framing social life as individual interactions:

      • Can "create the conditions allowing the founding conceptions of intersectionality - as an analytical lens and political tool for fostering a radical social justice agenda - to become diluted, disciplined, and disarticulated."

      • NAP, despite talking about systemic discrimination, is premised on disarticulated intersectionality.

    • GBV affects groups differently; intersectional understanding of variations/similarities crucial for effective policy.

    • NAP uses intersectionality to name affected groups, acknowledges GBV rooted in gender inequality amplified by systemic factors, but doesn't substantiate with analysis of intersecting power structures creating unique GBV experiences.

    • Results in de facto homogenization of groups and their needs.

      • Example: "Certain populations that are at risk of GBV or underserved when they experience these forms of violence include Indigenous women and girls; Black and racialized women; immigrant and refugee women; Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and additional sexually and gender diverse (2SLGBTQI+) people; people with disabilities, and women living in Northern, rural, and remote communities." (WAGE $2022b$, "Introduction")

      • All lumped without discussing how "-isms" co-produce specific inequalities.

      • Immigrant/refugee women: no discussion of how precarious legal status (migration policies) intersecting with gendered racializations makes them more vulnerable.

      • "Migrant and refugee women" further homogenized; NAP doesn't acknowledge diversities within/between these groups.

      • Doesn't consider how subgroups are differently affected by "welfare models and societal discourses related to migrant deservingness" (Di Matteo $2022$, $70$).

    • Non-performative recommendation: "improve programs, services, and supports that impact people experiencing GBV so they may better address the intersectional needs of diverse communities and populations" (WAGE $2022b$, "Pillar One").

      • Not linked to robust background analysis.

      • Doesn't specify which programs impact which groups or what needs changing.

      • Too abstract to guide intersectional response.

    • Without concrete, targeted actions, solutions likely to benefit privileged, further marginalize disadvantaged.

    • 
      

    Engaging People with Lived Experiences of Intersectional Oppressions

    • Second set of questions: How did GBV representation come about? Who involved? What evidence used?

    • Hankivsky ($2012$, $37$) emphasizes engaging those typically excluded from policy formulation.

    • NAP contains vague description of how diverse knowledges considered.

    • Official Backgrounder: "has been informed by over 1000 recommendations through years of engagement with Indigenous partners and a wide range of stakeholders, including victims/survivors, front-line service providers, community leaders, experts, academics and civil society" (WAGE $2022a$).

    • NAP text echoes this (WAGE 2022b$, "The need for a national action plan").

    • NAP suggests lack of intersectional data is a barrier.

    • If "1000 recommendations" didn't offer substantive intersectional evidence, what counted as evidence?

    • Roadmap is comprehensive, collective voice grounded in intersectionality; NAP follows Roadmap's structure, but Roadmap not directly cited/linked.

    • Weak intersectional paradigm suggests NAP authors didn't substantively engage with "1000 recommendations."

    • Future Engagement: NAP recognizes importance, suggests "federal, provincial, and territorial governments, Indigenous organizations, GBV direct service providers, researchers, the private sector, and victims, survivors and their families work together" (WAGE 2022b$, "The Foundation").</p><ul><li><p>GBV Secretariat at WAGE responsible for coordination.</p></li><li><p>Proposed mechanism lacks clarity.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Roadmap authors called for overarching NAP supervisory body, "independent oversight" for long-term success (Homepage, National Action Plan).</p><ul><li><p>Two years after launch, unclear if/how oversight board created; no specific recommendations in policy.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>"Opportunities for Action" on engagement mostly research/knowledge mobilization.</p></li><li><p>Stronger provincial engagement mechanisms expected, but national policy lacks transparency strategies for NAP as a whole.</p></li></ul><ul><li><p></p></li></ul><h5 id="c2a3fc65-a7d8-45fc-9c21-66530e283b02" data-toc-id="c2a3fc65-a7d8-45fc-9c21-66530e283b02" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Symbolic Intersectionality in Addressing Systemic Issues</h5><ul><li><p>Third IBPA question: How will proposed actions address intersectional inequities?</p></li><li><p>Critical characteristic of intersectionality-based policy: attention to intertwined powers (structural, cultural, disciplinary, interpersonal) producing inequities (Collins and Bilge$2020$), informing policy responses.</p></li><li><p>NAP acknowledges problems (systemic racism, discrimination) but doesn't deal with them substantively.</p></li><li><p>Example: "people are often reluctant to report GBV due in part to stigma, shame, fear, and systemic issues, which may lead to a lack of confidence that the justice response will be effective" (WAGE$2022b$, "The evidence").</p><ul><li><p>NAP doesn't specify systemic issues (victim-blaming, retraumatization, low conviction rates).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Another part: "underlying intersectional factors" as "systemic racism, discriminatory practices and institutional deficiencies that prevent survivors from experiencing just outcomes" (WAGE$2022b$, "Pillar three, footnote").</p><ul><li><p>NAP doesn't specify institutional deficiencies or link factors to barriers in accessing GBV services.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Result: solutions remain vague, unlikely to address systemic causes of GBV or inaccessibility of services.</p></li><li><p><strong>Authentic Intersectionality (Roadmap example):</strong></p><ul><li><p>"Survivors of VAW/GBV, including sexual assault, do not often avail themselves of protections provided by the law and when they do, they often report re-victimization and/or re-traumatization. Since the services that are available are usually underfunded and piecemeal (i.e., legal aid lawyers frequently have strict limits on their hours and cannot complete all aspects of a file) survivors also require continuity of support. In the criminal law context, unless victims are also the accused, they do not have their own lawyer." (Dale, Maki and Nitia$2021$,$80$)</p></li><li><p>Roadmap provides detailed contextual analysis (e.g., "twin myth" of consent/credibility, lack of lawyers).</p></li><li><p>Allows tangible solutions: Survivor Advocates, expanded community-based wrap-around services (Dale, Maki and Nitia$2021$, 79-80).</p></li><li><p>Roadmap advocates revising Correctional Service Canada's risk assessment tools (disproportionately impacting racialized, Black, Indigenous women) using intersectionality (Dale, Maki and Nitia$2021$,$86$).</p></li><li><p>This action addresses over-incarceration and under-reporting of GBV.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Roadmap offers hundreds of targeted strategies; NAP fails to achieve this specificity.</p></li><li><p>Concrete actions expected at provincial level, but certain policies are federal jurisdiction or tandem.</p></li><li><p>NAP commits to intersectionality on surface but lacks substantive actionable recommendations.</p></li><li><p>Ahmed ($2016) discusses commitments as way of not doing things by appearing to do them.

    • ### The NAP’s Accountability: Same Methods—Different Results?

      • Last IBPA question: What intersectional factors measured in NAP evaluation, and how?

      • NAP describes applying intersectional approach as challenging due to data limitations.

        • "It is difficult to apply an intersectional lens to existing data, as available data only highlights specific forms of GBV on individual populations such as Indigenous Peoples or people with disabilities, for example, but not the experience of Indigenous people with disabilities" (WAGE 2022b$, "The Evidence").</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Vaguely acknowledges need for change, but builds monitoring/reporting on conventional indicators/existing data.</p></li><li><p>Data collected by Statistics Canada via Homicide Survey, Survey of Safety on Public and Private Spaces (SSPPS), General Social Survey on Victimization (GSS).</p></li><li><p>No recommendation for reconsidering results-tracking system to be intersectionality-grounded (despite good guidance existing).</p><ul><li><p>Emergent research offers intersectionality-informed mixed-method approaches (Grace$2014$).</p></li><li><p>Methodological advances (survey data harmonisation, big data, interdisciplinary perspectives) can apply intersectional framework (Dubrow and Ilinca$2019$).</p></li><li><p>Considering alternative forms of evidence can expand intersectional understanding (Hankivsky$2012).

      • NAP makes no attempts to embed intersectionality in M&E framework design.

      • Suggests data "whenever possible, data will be further disaggregated by gender identity or expression, Indigeneity, sexual orientation, age, race, status, disability, geography (provinces or territories; urban or rural/remote/Northern) and by any other available identity factor(s)" (WAGE 2022b, "Reporting and monitoring").

      • Data disaggregation alone may be insufficient for intersectional M&E.

        • Example: GBV responses in Canadian healthcare reproduce ableism/power relations restricting "access to care and justice for women with disabilities and those who are historically marginalized" (Grand’Maison 2024, 152-153).

        • Existing methods might show service utilization/satisfaction changes, but not power relations changes.

      • Without truly intersectional M&E, impossible to assess if NAP transforms structural issues like healthcare ableism.

      • One set of NAP recommendations: "design, development and implementation of holistic performance measurement frameworks that are by, for, and accountable to Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, no matter where they live" (WAGE 2022b$, "Reporting and monitoring").</p><ul><li><p>Important aspiration, should extend to other marginalized communities.</p></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Discussion and Conclusion</strong></p><ul><li><p>Intersectionality became "gold standard of feminist work" (Nash$2019$,$43$), but can be neutralized (Bilge$2012$).</p></li><li><p>Analysis suggests Canadian NAP rhetorically values framework but engages in "symbolic performance of intersectionality" (Mirza$2022$,$196).

      • Policy based on deflated definition, preoccupied with identities over systemic inequality intersections.

      • No sound analysis of how intersecting social structures create vulnerabilities for GBV groups, or how policies/practices sustain barriers.

      • In-depth intersectional analysis from Roadmap (by leading Canadian front-line organizations) ignored.

      • NAP follows Roadmap structure but lacks nuanced background analysis/recommendations.

      • Without contextualization in lived realities, NAP recommendations remain too vague to produce tangible results.

      • No evidence of meaningful engagement with most affected groups.

      • NAP implies detailed strategies/actions at provincial level, but national policy provides weak example of embedding intersectionality.

      • NAP's M&E doesn't integrate intersectional lens, so no accountability mechanisms for provincial-level intersectional approach.

      • NAP's use of intersectionality is non-performative: labels solutions as intersectional to mask absence of real action (Ahmed 2016$).</p><ul><li><p>Communicates value of intersectionality, presents itself as intersectionality-based despite lack of operationalization/accountability.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Rezai-Rashti et al. ($2021$,$9$) on institutional commitments to diversity/inclusion:</p><ul><li><p>"having a good policy ultimately shields and protects the institution from having to effectively perform the policy"; similarly, declaring commitment allows bypassing transformative solutions.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Scholars demonstrated governmental resistance to applying intersectionality, especially in enforceable initiatives (Manning and Levac$2022$).</p></li><li><p>Intersectionality as knowledge project susceptible to de-politicization, co-opting, misuse (Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall$2013$).</p></li><li><p>Analysis shows how de-orientation happens in NAP.</p></li><li><p>Ahmed ($2016$,$2$) argues non-performativity reveals institutional mechanics of "how things are reproduced by the very appearance of being transformed."</p></li><li><p>NAP risks further disadvantaging people with multiple intersecting identities in GBV, reinforcing systemic marginalizing powers.</p></li><li><p>Through non-performative intersectionality, plan reinstitutionalizes attention to relatively privileged groups, while vulnerable groups' needs neglected.</p></li><li><p>Non-performative deployment leaves little hope for Canada free from VAW/GBV in near future.</p></li></ul></li></ul><h3 id="7c790205-7581-4293-8c37-98b4193f8854" data-toc-id="7c790205-7581-4293-8c37-98b4193f8854" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think about Abortion (Book Review by Jodi VanderHeide)</h3><ul><li><p><strong>Book Reviewed:</strong> Blair, Gabrielle.$2022$. <em>Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think about Abortion</em>. Workman Publishing Company.</p></li><li><p><strong>Reviewer:</strong> Jodi VanderHeide</p><ul><li><p>Manager of the Sex Education Resource Centre at Dalhousie Student Union, working with students on sex, sexuality, gender issues.</p></li><li><p>BA in Social Work (UNBC), MA in Women and Gender Studies (St. Mary’s University).</p></li><li><p>Continuing studies in Sociology (PhD) at Dalhousie University in Fall$2025$, researching intersection of sexuality, religion, and community belonging.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Introduction to the Book and Author's Stance</strong></p><ul><li><p>Context:$2022$US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, restricting abortion/contraception.</p></li><li><p>Reviewer, interested in sexuality, politics, religion, was drawn to <em>Ejaculate Responsibly</em> by Gabrielle Blair.</p></li><li><p>Blair's introduction: "I’m a religious mother of six" followed by "the most important essay I have ever written, an essay about abortion" (1).</p></li><li><p>This piqued interest due to liminal space of feminist/progressive viewpoints co-existing with religious identities publicly.</p></li><li><p>Blair navigates her positionality with nuanced tone, confronting conservative rhetoric.</p></li><li><p>Despite satirical narrative ("poking fun at the simple anatomical process of unwanted pregnancies"), Blair addresses foundational arguments of abortion restrictionists and their "fundamental mistake" (2) (hint: it's about men).</p></li><li><p><strong>Book Premise:</strong> Unwanted pregnancies result from male ejaculation.</p><ul><li><p>Expands this argument in 28 succinct, numbered arguments.</p></li><li><p>Highlights unacknowledged facts of reproductive health (e.g., "men are 50 times more fertile than women," 6).</p></li><li><p>Dispels myths positioning women as intuitively responsible for fertility.</p></li><li><p>Calls for crucial refocus: "it's the men" (1).</p></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Critique of Abortion Debate and Male Responsibility</strong></p><ul><li><p>Blair contends the "for-or-against" abortion debate is ineffective.</p></li><li><p>Reviewer paused here: understanding Blair's intention to bypass debate for wider audience, but perceived as dismissal of past/present political reproductive rights efforts.</p></li><li><p>Blair's overall argument is logical: abortion is not just a women’s issue, but inherently a men’s issue due to male fertility.</p></li><li><p>Flipping narrative to male responsibility would drastically shift debate by decentralizing women as primary character in unwanted pregnancies.</p></li><li><p>This approach undermines patriarchal power entrenched in Western society and government actively displacing male responsibility, forefronting women as reproductively responsible.</p></li><li><p>Hyperbolic image of fertile woman flows into narrative of nurturing mother (breastfeed, stay-at-home, responsible for "family life").</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Female Contraception Industry vs. Male Fertility Focus</strong></p><ul><li><p>Blair's commentary on tragicomic nature of female contraception industry vs. marginal attention on male fertility paints picture of patriarchal pursuits.</p></li><li><p>Uses comedic voice to denote unjust burden on women: doctor's appointments, prescriptions (with/without insurance), adjusting to side effects.</p></li><li><p>Book clearly details barriers to procuring/taking birth control in US.</p></li><li><p><strong>Critique Point:</strong> These barriers do not account for multiple intersecting layers affecting women's access to reproductive health.</p><ul><li><p>Example: Reproductive health care for women of color impacted by systemic racism in health/scientific community.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Reviewer notes Blair's author's note acknowledging exclusive cis-gendered, heterosexual focus.</p></li><li><p>Crucial to recognize variables entwined in reproductive health impacting women in various ways.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Facts, Sources, and Shifting Perspectives</strong></p><ul><li><p><em>Ejaculate Responsibly</em> is full of interesting facts, informative, concise, easy-to-read arguments confronting deficits of positioning reproductive responsibility as women's issue.</p></li><li><p>Blair's note: Book "thoroughly and deeply fact-checked," end notes "almost as long as the book itself" (129), with link to 105-page citation guide (reviewer confirmed).</p></li><li><p>Sources range from peer-reviewed journals to medical web sources.</p></li><li><p><strong>Critique Point:</strong> Unclear how many reliable deductions Blair made from data, given she's not a trained medical professional.</p></li><li><p>Reviewer's opinion fluctuated: strategically comedic in calling out toxic masculinity, or unnamed passivity reluctant to confront ongoing harm of reproductive injustices?</p></li><li><p>Ultimately, Blair succeeded in presenting comprehensive overview of sex/reproduction realities with candour.</p></li><li><p>Addresses personal reproductive issues: reduced sexual satisfaction with condom use, diminished masculinity after vasectomy.</p></li><li><p><strong>Argument No.$17$:</strong> "the uneven power dynamic between men and women is real and can turn violent quickly" ($81$).</p><ul><li><p>While most of book states facts with surface remarks on sexism, here Blair addresses patriarchal violence in American society.</p></li><li><p>Uses satirical "pop quiz" (referenced 82–84) for men, confronting power dynamics in hetero-sexual relations.</p></li><li><p>Grounds Blair's overall argument in realities of sexual violence for many women.</p></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Overall Conclusion of Review</strong></p><ul><li><p>For those seeking socio-political analysis of reproductive rights, Blair's book "may not be for you."</p></li><li><p>Blair's introductory/concluding statements address abortion restriction advocates: "If you want to reduce the number of abortions in your country…" ($118$).</p></li><li><p>Her approach is strategic: highlights statistics/facts, avoids delving deeply into religious, political, patriarchal powers enabling injustices in female sexual reproductive health.</p></li><li><p><em>Ejaculate Responsibly</em> is a condensed handbook highlighting critical reproductive injustices with amusing sarcasm.</p></li><li><p>Reviewer heartily recommends for succinct, informative read, especially for [hetero] men needing education on reproductive responsibilities.</p></li></ul></li></ul><h3 id="53b8e723-2a44-4f15-9601-d39e2250cd36" data-toc-id="53b8e723-2a44-4f15-9601-d39e2250cd36" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">AMI Working Papers Introduction</h3><p>This group of articles, "AMI Working Papers," is a new, annual section.</p><ul><li><p><strong>Purpose:</strong> Presents innovative essays, interviews, and creative writing from speakers hosted by the Alexa McDonough Institute for Women, Gender and Social Justice (AMI) at MSVU during the current or previous year.</p></li><li><p><strong>This Year's Selection Features:</strong></p><ul><li><p><strong>Two keynote addresses from the Women and Gender Studies Graduate Student Conference for International Women’s Day:</strong></p><ol><li><p>MSVU's Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies, Dr. Mary Rita Holland.</p></li><li><p>AMI Fellow ($2024-2025) Adebola Osegboun, an MSVU graduate student in Women and Gender Studies.

    • Interview: With pioneering feminist activist, Julie Glaser.

      • Interviewed by Sam le Nobel (AMI’s Program and Planning Assistant, President & Co-Founder of Women's Studies Society at MSVU).

      • Julie Glaser participated in a panel discussion titled "A Herstory of Consent Activism Across University Campuses," showcasing the book This Wasn't on the Syllabus (edited by Emma Kuzmyk and Addy Strickland).

    • Inclusion of poetry: Celebrates winners of the AMI’s International Day of the Girl Child: Girls’ Vision for the Future poetry contest:

      • Mariana Caloca & Sam Sinclair (1$st place).</p></li><li><p>Jyotsana Balasubramaniyam ($2$nd place).</p></li><li><p>Catherine Khaperska ($3rd place).

      • These pieces were also read at the AMI’s Girls Conference: Better Together.

  Family Caregiving as Health Work: A Critical Perspective on the Value of Supporting a Loved One Aging at Home (by Mary Rita Holland)

  • Abstract Summary

    • Uses example of family caregivers in Atlantic Canada to highlight invisible emotional labour ("health work") required.

    • Focuses on maintaining the home as a site of care and managing disrupted meanings of home space and family relationships.

    • Provides overview of feminist political economy perspective.

    • Illustrates history of women’s exploitation, extent of their invisible health work, and impact of private home care and "aging-in-place" policies on their home experiences.

    • A critical perspective on gendered, familial care providers and their relationship to the care environment.

    • Contributes to understanding the impact of imposing long-term care policy on domestic relationships and places.

  • Author Information: Mary Rita Holland

    • Current Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University.

    • PhD from Queen’s School of Kinesiology and Health Studies (focus: health policy).

    • Master of Public Administration degree in social policy (Queen’s).

    • Master of Arts degree in History (Queen’s).

    • Bachelor of Arts degree in English and History (University of New Brunswick).

    • Teaching Interests: Health equity, formal/informal caregiving, women and politics, social movements, qualitative research methods.

    • Current Research: Uses family caregivers of rural older adults in Atlantic Canada to illuminate invisible emotional labour for maintaining home as care site and managing disrupted meanings of home space/family relationships.

    • Publications: Health & Place and Journal of Rural Studies.

    • Research Associate at the Trent Centre for Aging and Society.

  • Introduction

    • When health problems are chronic (age/disability), family caregivers undertake long-term work of supporting loved ones at home.

    • Family members are integral to healthcare system but their efforts remain largely invisible and undervalued due to being based in private home realm.

    • 2019$Inquiry:</strong> "What do family caregivers do to maintain the home as a site of care and how are they supported?"</p><ul><li><p>Project in rural New Brunswick: interviews with family caregivers, frontline health/social services staff.</p></li><li><p>Participants described interior/exterior work of maintaining home as care site.</p></li><li><p>Housekeeping, administrative tasks, property maintenance often not factored into home care policy, but participants deemed it "critical to care" (similar to feminist political economists' findings on institutional care) (Armstrong, Armstrong, Scott-Dixon$2008$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Research used rural older adults' family caregivers in New Brunswick to shed light on invisible health work and disrupted meanings of home/family relationships.</p></li><li><p>Findings suggest structural forces (government policies, income inequality) create/perpetuate new forms of health work.</p></li><li><p>Encountered perspective of distant caregivers for chronic illness/disability.</p><ul><li><p>Their health work differed from cohabiting caregivers but still significant: "home care 'without walls'."</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Critical perspective on gendered, familial care providers and their relationship to care environment is necessary to understand long-term care policy's impact on domestic relationships/places.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Positioning Myself in the Research</strong></p><ul><li><p>Interest began noticing contradictions in cancellation of Primary Informal Caregiver Benefit (PICB) program in New Brunswick.</p></li><li><p><strong>PICB ($2018$):</strong> Premier Gallant's government introduced monthly, non-taxable benefit of$106.25$to eligible informal caregivers.</p><ul><li><p><strong>Stated purpose:</strong> (1) Recognize vital role of informal caregivers for seniors/adults with disability staying safely at home; (2) Help offset caregiving costs (Government of New Brunswick$2017$).</p></li><li><p>Discourse suggested government recognized caregivers' contributions, and "home" as part of healthcare.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Less than a year later, newly-elected Progressive Conservative government (Premier Blaine Higgs) cancelled program.</p><ul><li><p>Argument: Not effective, only half of eligible applied (CBC News, April$5$,$2019$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Personal connection: Mother cared for father full-time during this period.</p><ul><li><p>Mother experienced PICB cancellation as insult, disregard for her work ("keeping him out of a nursing home").</p></li><li><p>Decision to direct funds to increase home care workers' pay didn't address mother's needs (father didn't qualify for subsidized home care).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Endeavored to learn more about policy impact and lives of home caregivers in response to lingering questions about policy not reflecting mother's needs/experience.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Care is Health Work, not Housework</strong></p><ul><li><p><strong>"Caring" definition:</strong> "the mental, emotional, and physical effort involved in responding to and supporting others" (Evans and Neysmith$1998$,$11$).</p></li><li><p>Scholars explored negative economic/health impacts on family caregivers (Duxbury, Higgins, Schroeder$2009$, Duxbury and Higgins$2017$, Turcotte$2013$).</p></li><li><p>Research question "what do family caregivers do to maintain the home as a site of care" developed from Armstrong, Armstrong, and Scott-Dixon's ($2008$) work on ancillary healthcare in long-term care.</p><ul><li><p>Found privatizing laundry/meal service re-categorized work as ancillary ("outside of care").</p></li><li><p>Cut costs by offering contracts to lowest bidder.</p></li><li><p>Deleterious effects on care: standardization of personal care, poor quality food.</p></li><li><p>Compounded by poor working conditions of non-unionized, low-waged contract employees.</p></li><li><p>High turnover as precariously employed workers opt for better-paying hotel/restaurant work.</p></li><li><p>Argue that feeding/clothing residents is fundamental to care, should be compensated, categorized as skilled care work to uphold social value.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Armstrong, Armstrong, and Scott-Dixion’s ($2008$) theoretical contribution extends to home care, especially in areas with private provision like New Brunswick.</p><ul><li><p>Subsidized home care supports available for some ancillary care tasks, but homemakers/home support workers employed by private, for-profit agencies are poorly trained/low paid.</p></li><li><p>Government policy: homemaker support supplements family work, restricts activities through guidelines, strict means-tested eligibility.</p></li><li><p><strong>Argument:</strong> Family caregivers are essential workforce, providing laundry/meals similar to ancillary workforce in long-term care setting.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Care is work, regardless of provider or location.</p></li><li><p>Armstrong and Day ($2017$,$10$): "unlike many other forms of labour, the timing and duration of care needs are often unpredictable and vary significantly over time of day and of life."</p></li><li><p>Care involves two people, thus relational work; "doing the work well requires conditions that make relationships possible" ($11$).</p></li><li><p>Policymakers must move beyond atomized version of caregivers and task-oriented, for-profit service model, prioritizing fundamental care aspects.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Feminist Political Economy</strong></p><ul><li><p>Debates on women's activities/space are hallmark of feminist scholarship.</p></li><li><p>Feminist political economists categorize women's unpaid labour in relation to institutions/social structures.</p></li><li><p>Comprehensive perspective illustrates women's exploitation, invisible care work, impact of private home care/aging-in-place policies on home experiences.</p></li><li><p>Not all research participants were women, but caregiving field/home organization are gendered, so feminist political economy is good theoretical fit.</p></li><li><p>Gendered expectations of women as caregivers are long-standing social norms; relationship between unpaid care and state evolved in Canada.</p></li><li><p>Post-war capitalism in Canada based on social reproduction; unpaid care institutionalized within welfare state.</p></li><li><p>Feminist political economists fought gender bias in policy; it endures.</p></li><li><p>Proposals varied: some argue for commodifying unpaid labour (market value, material benefit), others against market solutions in favor of social programs to de-commodify care.</p></li><li><p>Before policy direction, vital to conceptualize care in relation to where it's performed.</p></li><li><p>Armstrong, Armstrong, and Scott-Dixon ($2008$) framework for commodifying family caregiving:</p><ul><li><p>Care is more than units/tasks/medical services; it's skilled work requiring compassion/human interaction.</p></li><li><p>Requires broader understanding of context, skills, relationships with space (home) than current policy.</p></li><li><p>Family caregivers want visibility; requires reversing institutionalized invisibility of their work.</p></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>The Value of Care Work</strong></p><ul><li><p>Feminist political economists understand care as work, needing visibility to highlight its value.</p></li><li><p>Marilyn Waring ($1988$,$1999$) challenges neoclassical economics' assumptions about paid vs. unpaid work.</p><ul><li><p>Argues for commodifying (assigning monetary value to) women's home activities to make work visible.</p></li><li><p>Work happens regardless of pay; must be understood beyond narrow economic constructs.</p></li><li><p>"my grandmother did not work, and those mothers I see with their infants are not working" (Waring$1988$,$21$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Donath ($2000$) and Folbre ($2001$) argue categorizing care work by substitute cost in marketplace is best solution.</p></li><li><p>Waring ($1999$), Braedley ($2010$), Luxton ($2010$) call for assigning monetary value to care work in National System of Accounts.</p><ul><li><p>Commodification strategies help frame family caregiving as unpaid labour.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Institutionalization of valuing work by location:</strong> Labour categorization codes (NAICS, NOC).</p><ul><li><p>Armstrong, Armstrong, and Scott-Dixon: codes measure/categorize work by activity type (NAICS) and employer (NOC), not location.</p></li><li><p>Example: laundry, housekeeping, food prep grouped by activity, and if worker in hotel or hospital.</p></li><li><p>Nearly half of hospital/long-term care health workers not classified as such.</p></li><li><p>Breaking care into units of activity gives impression of low-skill tasks.</p></li><li><p>Low pay led to less care, poorer health outcomes (especially for older adults, disabled) (Armstrong, Armstrong, Scott-Dixon$2008$,$9$).</p></li><li><p>Argue ancillary activities in hospitals/long-term care require skill, are "critical to care" as much as physicians/nurses.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>"Social reproduction":</strong> Unpaid domestic work of maintaining/supporting household inhabitants.</p><ul><li><p>Bezanson ($2006$,$26$) defines as processes "providing for social, emotional and physical needs and efforts to secure an income."</p></li><li><p>Canadian women involved since Confederation; welfare state reinforced unequal burden.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Scholars stress lack of understanding of price women pay (time/energy) for social reproduction.</p><ul><li><p>Women have buttressed family, market, society against labor exploitation (unpaid at home or low-paid in market).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Luxton ($2010$,$36$) expands definition to include "complementary work (also often done by women for pay) provided by state services such as education and health care or in the market."</p><ul><li><p>Combining paid/unpaid caring activities enhances understanding of women's roles in social provisioning.</p></li><li><p>State support via public service investments can lessen burden.</p></li><li><p>Canadian example: policy direction towards individualization/privatization of social reproduction (reduced state investment in care in fiscal responsibility's name) (Bezanson$2006$,$11$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Unpaid caregiving increasing in Canada; gender concept disappearing from government policy (Morris et al.$2017$).</p></li><li><p>Policymakers re-framed care as "family" concern, promoting "presumption that households and communities should and will actively provide services formerly offered by the state or third sector organizations" (Braedley$2010$,$216$).</p></li><li><p>Low-income women informal caregivers have fewer support options.</p><ul><li><p>Less likely to have employee benefits supporting care activities (Braedley$2010$).</p></li><li><p>Less likely to have financial resources to contract out domestic work.</p></li><li><p>More likely to receive government assistance and be under state surveillance.</p></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Debates on the Commodification of Care</strong></p><ul><li><p>Key to understanding systemic disenfranchisement of women is not physical labor burden, but social relations perpetuating subordination to capitalism (Luxton$2010$,$34$).</p></li><li><p>Donath ($2000$) argues economy can be characterized as masculine; calls for "other economy" to highlight women's experiences.</p><ul><li><p>Concern for gender parity, but also call to improve economics (incomplete model).</p></li><li><p>"in order to be able to investigate empirically the relationship between the other economy and the market economy, it is vital that feminist economists devise ways of measuring the other economy" (Donath$2000$,$121$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Nancy Folbre ($2001$) dedicated to measuring unpaid care value.</p><ul><li><p>Straightforward approach: cost of substitutes (e.g., purchasing home care).</p></li><li><p>Admits purchased services are partial substitutes, but cost provides "lower-bound estimate of the value of socially important activities" ($66$).</p></li><li><p>First step: develop instruments other than opportunity cost for women's care time/energy.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Donath focuses on broader inclusion of women's economic experiences; Folbre incorporates market mechanisms to explain market value of caregiving.</p></li><li><p>Folbre argues for integrating women in market economy by "valuing" unpaid work.</p></li><li><p>Donath argues integration is impossible/undesirable.</p></li><li><p><strong>Combined approach:</strong> Compensate care work in market terms AND include state support for "other economy" (balance market/state roles).</p><ul><li><p>Starting point: assign care work value in National System of Accounts (Braedley and Luxton$2010$,$14$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Author's research contributes by gaining insights from caregivers on activities for home as healthcare setting, costs of outside help.</p></li><li><p>Making full extent of family caregiver work visible brings social structures oppressing women into focus for reform.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Neoliberalism and Familialization of Long-term Care</strong></p><ul><li><p>Neoliberalism prevails in Canadian policymaking discourse/social-political organization.</p></li><li><p>Politicians argue for curtailing public spending, competitive market to lower taxes, maintain services.</p></li><li><p>Capitalism's virtues promoted; competition depicted as "natural," maximizing social good (Braedley and Luxton$2010$,$8$).</p></li><li><p>State mandate from market, not citizens.</p></li><li><p>"neoliberalism activates the state on behalf of the economy, not to undertake economic functions or to intervene in economic effects, but rather to facilitate economic competition and growth, and to economize the social" (Brown$2015$,$62$).</p></li><li><p>Rationalization for inequality in neoliberal era: "what we get is what we deserve as a result of our efforts" (Armstrong and Armstrong$2010$,$187$).</p></li><li><p>Neoliberal trend to rely on families (who get financial means via market) for social welfare consistently dominated Canadian policies for women's care work.</p></li><li><p>Effect: suppression of social citizenship rights for women in name of individual responsibility.</p></li><li><p>Brodie and Bakker ($2008$,$34$): "the language of choice elevates the goal of individual liberty—the right to choose—over all other goals, including gender equality."</p></li><li><p>State social welfare provision less popular due to "privatization of responsibility" (Armstrong and Armstrong$2010$,$187$).</p></li><li><p>Citizen-as-consumer society: individual choice is right and imperative.</p></li><li><p>Welfare state scholars fought against downsizing government/onus on vulnerable populations.</p></li><li><p>Recent years: scholars point out health impacts of social policies based on individualized citizenship.</p><ul><li><p>Polzer and Power ($2009$,$4$): encouraging citizen-consumers to maintain health through "free choices" commodifies health, increases demand for health products as individuals seek market-based solutions.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Neoliberal backdrop of privatizing government functions led health departments/hospitals to subcontract care services from private agencies (Ferguson$2009$,$168$).</p></li><li><p>Declining government funding privatized hospital services (laundry, food prep).</p></li><li><p>Based on thinking: care activities separable into (1) requiring trained professionals, and (2) low-skilled, resembling hotel services.</p></li><li><p>Neoliberal approaches (individualization, privatization) inconsistent with caregiving goals/nature.</p></li><li><p>Breaking care into assembly-line units led to less care, poorer health outcomes (especially elderly/disabled relying on home care) (Armstrong, Armstrong, Scott-Dixon$2008$,$8$).</p></li><li><p>Current discourse on aging populations/healthcare sustainability in Canada supports business-practice model for efficiency.</p></li><li><p>But healthcare is "a relationship between health care workers and those with health care needs that cannot easily be reduced to a series of unspecified tasks and allotted to narrow time frames" (Armstrong, Armstrong, Scott-Dixon$2008$,$8$).</p></li><li><p>By categorizing caregivers' work as similar to home activities, governments reduced state role.</p></li><li><p>Scholars acknowledge increased burden on family members with private home care (Skinner and Rosenberg$2006$, England$2010$).</p><ul><li><p>England ($2010$,$141$) describes result as "a privatised safety net" revealing neoliberalism depends on "cultural assumptions about home and the hard work of women in the private sphere."</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Invisibilizing home care labor/costs are hallmarks of a liberal welfare state.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Care at Home is Health Work, not Housework</strong></p><ul><li><p>Distinction between "health care" and "ancillary health work" (Armstrong, Armstrong, Scott-Dixon$2008$) illustrates privatization creep in health/long-term care.</p></li><li><p>Mykhalovskiy and McCoy’s ($2002$) "health work" definition captures invisible labor in individual health management.</p></li><li><p>Trend to reprivatize care to home via "aging-in-place" frames long-term care as individual/family responsibility.</p></li><li><p>England ($2010$,$141$) describes result: "a privatised safety net" where neoliberalism depends on cultural assumptions about home and women's hard work.</p></li><li><p>Combining critiques of feminist political economists (privatization) with critical geography of home makes visible health work extent in rural settings and gendered, neoliberal context.</p></li><li><p>As illustrated in rural New Brunswick findings, qualitative research shows complex health work for older adults aging at home in "familialization" era.</p></li><li><p>Family caregivers (especially live-in) navigate material conditions of home, its meaning, preserve family relationships, traditions, within everyday constraints.</p></li><li><p>Constraints particularly challenging for women/low-income caregivers, for whom home can feel confined.</p></li><li><p>Managing home as care site involves multitude of activities, constant coordination of space/relationships.</p></li><li><p>Complex health work must be identified/counted, not taken for granted.</p></li><li><p>Recent debates on long-term care in New Brunswick (investing in PICB vs. private home care agencies) focus on need for higher staffing.</p></li><li><p>Governments aware well-paid, unionized, full-time home care roles demand exponentially higher operating budgets via tax increases.</p></li><li><p>True costs of care are human labour; keeping costs inside home via familialization created new forms of health work for caregivers with few community/government resources.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Prospective Research: Long-distance Caregivers in Halifax, Nova Scotia</strong></p><ul><li><p>Location central to research; scholars provide insight into caregiver-physical surroundings (workspace) relationship.</p></li><li><p>Wiles ($2003$,$1301$) argues caregiver geography provides "sense of the physical, material and social constraints that operate on daily life and the strategies people use to negotiate these."</p></li><li><p>Significance: contributes to comprehensive view of home care costs borne by family caregivers.</p></li><li><p>Place-based aging responses assume (a) safe home environment and (b) human labor for healthy aging.</p></li><li><p>Often met by adult children of parents living far from care recipient.</p></li><li><p>Considerable scholarly attention to caregiver "burden" (Adelman et al.$2014$), but less to health work of long-distance caregivers maintaining home as care site.</p></li><li><p>Health work goes beyond admin/emotional support: includes maintenance of culture, family relationships, memories (vital health aspects invisible in neoliberal/authoritarian welfare states).</p></li><li><p>Long-distance caregiving common in modern society.</p><ul><li><p>Canada: Vézina and Turcotte ($2010$) found$222003$, Sambasivam et al.$2019$).</p></li><li><p>Li and Wister ($2023$), secondary data: greater caregiving intensity leads to social life restriction, causing social isolation.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Qualitative Study Design:</strong> Comparative analysis between:</p><ol><li><p>Halifax residents (Canadian citizens) caring for a loved one >1 hour away in Canada.</p></li><li><p>Halifax residents (Chinese immigrants/newcomers) caring for a loved one in China.</p></li></ol></li><li><p>Purpose: Develop understanding of health work supporting distant loved one.</p></li><li><p>Difference in caregiving traditions:</p><ul><li><p>Canada: emphasizes individual responsibility.</p></li><li><p>China: adult children caregivers hold more responsibility (Lai$2008$).</p></li><li><p>Chinese-Canadian caregivers may face cultural differences, language barriers affecting long-distance caregiving, societal expectations to avoid formal services due to filial piety, immigration pressures (Lai and Surood$2008$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Using semi-structured interviews with long-distance family caregivers in Halifax.</p></li><li><p><strong>Research Question:</strong> What does family caring entail for long-distance family caregivers and how are they supported?</p></li><li><p>Comparative analysis of two distinct experiences (sociocultural norms, citizenship status, caregiving responsibilities).</p></li><li><p><strong>Research Objectives:</strong></p><ol><li><p>Identify invisible forms of health work in distant care.</p></li><li><p>Compare/contrast familial responsibility feelings in China and Canada.</p></li><li><p>Determine how Halifax-area family caregivers can be better supported.</p></li></ol></li><li><p>Rationale: Earlier research on family caregivers didn't capture diversity of experiences (rural New Brunswick studies demographically homogenous except for linguistic/cultural differences).</p></li><li><p>Recruitment: social media posts, outreach emails to organizations representing specific populations (caregiver support groups, urban Indigenous, Black Nova Scotians, Community Health).</p></li><li><p>Halifax's diverse immigrant population provides unique setting.</p></li><li><p>Benefits scholarly community and long-term care practitioners.</p></li><li><p>Increases knowledge of resources supporting long-distance caregivers in Halifax and care recipient locations.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Conclusion</strong></p><ul><li><p>Conceptual work needed to make "invisible heart" of care economy visible.</p></li><li><p>Folbre ($2001$,$79$) argues this possible through measuring care work value and promoting societal success based on values of caring, sharing, duty, responsibility.</p></li><li><p>State support for policies rewarding caregivers, especially gender sharing of commitments, would shift balance from individualization to state ameliorating patriarchy/capitalism's effects on home healthcare.</p></li><li><p>Contributions of long-distance family caregivers in Canada remain invisible (beyond municipal, provincial, federal jurisdictions).</p></li><li><p>Caregivers need recognition/encouragement to mitigate distress/burnout.</p></li><li><p>Regardless of proximity, family caregivers are "critical to care" (work is time-consuming, financially/emotionally burdensome, beneficial to health/social system elsewhere through reduced costs).</p></li></ul></li></ul><h3 id="54a3381d-d6fe-4837-9748-61763899ada6" data-toc-id="54a3381d-d6fe-4837-9748-61763899ada6" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Institutionalizing Women Empowerment in Nigeria: The Contributions of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs to Sustainable Development (by Adebola Esther Osegboun)</h3><ul><li><p><strong>Abstract Summary</strong></p><ul><li><p>Women empowerment is a social change indicator and a key goal for global sustainable development (United Nations n.d.).</p></li><li><p>Historically, men have had greater access to power/resources and socio-politico-economic opportunities worldwide.</p></li><li><p>In Nigeria, predicaments of women are worsening as men are better positioned to benefit professionally/socially.</p></li><li><p>Nigerian women need empowerment due to significant contributions to national development.</p></li><li><p>Literature on women empowerment in Nigeria is abundant, but research on Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development (FMWASD) contributions is scarce.</p></li><li><p>This article examines FMWASD contributions to sustainable development in Nigeria through women empowerment efforts from$2011-2021$.</p></li><li><p>Aims to raise public/government attention to fostering women’s agency and government's mandate delivery.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Author Information: Adebola Esther Osegboun</strong></p><ul><li><p>Lecturer in Political Science at Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria.</p></li><li><p>Master’s student in Women and Gender Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada.</p></li><li><p>$2024$Fellow of the Alexa McDonough Institute for Women, Gender and Social Justice.</p></li><li><p><strong>Research Focuses:</strong> Women in politics, women’s empowerment, feminist policy analysis.</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Introduction</strong></p><ul><li><p>Popular Nigerian belief: women belong to disadvantaged group compared to men, often not treated equally.</p></li><li><p>Men have stronger ability to use force, control resources, fewer societal obligations, benefit from positive cultural ideology (Huis et al.$2017$).</p></li><li><p>Woman disadvantaged: focused on unpaid care work (childbearing, cooking, cleaning, caring for children/elderly/disabled).</p></li><li><p>OECD ($2019$): women globally carry out$762020$).</p></li><li><p>In Nigeria, women's plight worsening due to men's position to gain maximum benefit from opportunities, facilities, infrastructure (Adeleke$2004$).</p></li><li><p>No explicit gender discrimination policy, but detrimental traditions/customs/beliefs impede women's advancement/involvement in national matters (Ovute, Dibia, and Obasi$2015$).</p></li><li><p>Women's marginalization elicited policy interventions (national, regional, global).</p></li><li><p>UN General Assembly, African Union, national governments adopted treaties/conventions/policies:</p><ul><li><p>Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).</p></li><li><p>Beijing Platform for Action.</p></li><li><p>African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR), and African Charter’s Women’s Rights Protocol.</p></li><li><p>National Gender Policy.</p></li><li><p>Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).</p></li><li><p>Others (Ntiwunka$2013$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>September$2015$:</strong> World leaders adopted Agenda$2030$and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to replace MDGs.</p><ul><li><p>Major milestone: SDG 5, dedicated to gender equality and empowerment of women/girls (Rorsche$2015$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Nigeria ratified UN Conventions to eliminate discrimination/violence against women (Federal Ministry of Women Affairs$2006$).</p></li><li><p><strong>$1998$:</strong> Designed national policy on women to protect against discrimination (Nwagbara and Ering$2007$).</p></li><li><p><strong>$2006$:</strong> National gender policy replaced national policy on women.</p></li><li><p><strong>FMWASD:</strong> Charged with overall responsibility to implement agreements/policies.</p></li><li><p>Literature on women empowerment in Nigeria is plentiful (Ntiwunka$2013$, Lawal et al.$2016$, Dibie et al.$2018$, Jooji$2021$).</p></li><li><p><strong>Research Gap:</strong> Specific FMWASD contributions to women empowerment and budgetary allocation lack scholarly attention.</p></li><li><p><strong>Main Objective:</strong> Examine FMWASD contributions to sustainable development through empowerment projects ($2011-2021$).</p></li><li><p><strong>Article Structure (seven sections):</strong></p><ol><li><p>Introduction.</p></li><li><p>Conceptual clarification and theoretical framework.</p></li><li><p>Socio-economic and political conditions of women in Nigeria.</p></li><li><p>Budgetary allocations of the FMWASD.</p></li><li><p>FMWASD empowerment projects ($2011-2021$).</p></li><li><p>Problems with women empowerment in Nigeria.</p></li><li><p>Conclusion: FMWASD's limited resources, poor outreach, lack of political will hinder Nigeria's SDG 5 progress.</p></li></ol></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Conceptual Clarification and Theoretical Framework</strong></p><ul><li><p></p></li></ul><h5 id="9bcfa5a6-8aae-4107-8e5a-5dc50c349075" data-toc-id="9bcfa5a6-8aae-4107-8e5a-5dc50c349075" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Empowerment</h5><ul><li><p><strong>Wallerstein ($1992$):</strong> Process where people acquire social, economic, political power to liberate from societal injustices.</p></li><li><p><strong>Dibie ($2018$):</strong> Granting individuals/groups ability to effectively use personal/collective power, authority, influence in interactions.</p></li><li><p>Involves gaining power (all areas), building capacities/capabilities of disadvantaged people/groups.</p></li><li><p><strong>Gajanayake ($1993$):</strong> Supporting individuals to comprehend situation, analyze influencing factors, take action to enhance it.</p></li><li><p><strong>Page and Czuba ($1999$):</strong> Complex social process enabling individuals to take charge of lives.</p></li><li><p>Empowered people must be aware (consciousness), ready to improve, involved in process/policies.</p></li><li><p><strong>Kapitsa ($2008$):</strong> Two interconnected components: resources (tangible/intangible) and agency.</p><ul><li><p><strong>Tangible resources:</strong> Physical form, measurable value (money, property, equipment).</p></li><li><p><strong>Intangible resources:</strong> Non-physical, not easily quantified (knowledge, skills, abilities, political/social involvement).</p></li><li><p><strong>Agency:</strong> Capacity to establish/accomplish goals/objectives.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>No empowerment without resources, no due pursuit/achievement without agency.</p></li><li><p>Everyone discriminated against (disability, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, economic status) needs empowerment for equity.</p></li></ul><ul><li><p></p></li></ul><h5 id="5dfa4e56-bbb4-4f4f-a3e8-bacf4d6f0936" data-toc-id="5dfa4e56-bbb4-4f4f-a3e8-bacf4d6f0936" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Women Empowerment</h5><ul><li><p>Concept emerged in$1980$s/$1990$s as radical approach to change power dynamics, promote women's rights, achieve gender equality (Batliwala$2007$).</p></li><li><p>Central theme in global treaties/covenants/declarations.</p></li><li><p>Catalyst for clear-cut development strategies:</p><ul><li><p>Poverty reduction, improved living standards, good governance, profitable productive investments.</p></li><li><p>Critical to creating enlarged capacity for equal opportunity and unrestrained access to decision-making/policy implementation (Mahmud$2019$,$350$).</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Process by which women gain capacity to make important life decisions, previously denied.</p></li><li><p>Built on three interconnected elements: resources, agency, achievements (Kabeer$1999$).</p></li><li><p><strong>Lasiele ($1999$):</strong> Provision of sufficient possibilities for women to enhance abilities, contribute to national/global development.</p></li><li><p><strong>Fadeiye and Olanega ($2001$):</strong> Facilitating women to cultivate full potential.</p></li><li><p><strong>Okemakinde ($2014$):</strong> Effective means to enhance competencies, authority over resources, influence in decisions affecting lives.</p></li><li><p>Entails promoting literacy, education, training, entrepreneurship, increasing awareness (Alvarez$2013$).</p></li><li><p>Primary objective: balanced power allocation between genders, ensuring equal opportunity for economic, social, legal, political advancement (Sohail$2014$).</p></li></ul><ul><li><p></p></li></ul><h5 id="f1e1dc2c-17c4-41fa-810b-a8a6d9b9c675" data-toc-id="f1e1dc2c-17c4-41fa-810b-a8a6d9b9c675" collapsed="false" seolevelmigrated="true">Sustainable Development</h5><ul><li><p>Arises from increasing recognition of interconnected global environmental challenges, socio-economic disparities (poverty/inequality), future generations' well-being (Hopwood, Mellor, and O’Brien$2005$).</p></li><li><p>Concept originated from <em>Our Common Future</em> (Brundtland Commission,$1987$).</p></li><li><p><strong>Widely referenced definition:</strong> "development that meets the needs of the current generations without compromising the needs of future generations" (United Nations$1987$,$11$).</p></li><li><p>Emphasizes social, environmental, economic pillars.</p></li><li><p>Often considered varied interaction between social, economic, ecological dimensions (Lawal, Ayoade, and Taiwo$2016$).</p></li><li><p>Major goal: reasonable, equitably distributed economic well-being, perpetually for many human generations.</p></li><li><p>$2030$Agenda: 17 SDGs, 169 targets, effective Jan$1$,$2016$, applicable to all countries.</p></li><li><p>Introduces two fundamental ideas:</p><ul><li><p>"Needs": crucial needs of impoverished populations, prioritized.</p></li><li><p>"Limitations": imposed by current technology/social structure on environment's capacity to fulfill needs (UN World Commission on Environment and Development$1987).

  • ### Theoretical Framework

    • Study adopts empowerment theory for women empowerment for sustainable development in Nigeria.

    • Grew out of 1960$s/$1970$s social/self-help movements; gained prominence in$1980$s/$1990$s (political science, social psychology, feminism, development studies).</p></li><li><p>Proponents: Rappaport ($1985$), Friedman ($1992$), Zimmerman ($1995$), Rocha ($1997$), others.</p></li><li><p>Connects individual well-being with larger social/political empowerment.</p></li><li><p>Suggests people need opportunities for active community decision-making to improve lives, organizations, communities (Zimmerman$2000$).</p></li><li><p>Friedman ($1992$) argues empowerment must improve life conditions and rectify existing imbalances in social, economic, political power.</p></li><li><p><strong>Levels of analysis:</strong></p><ul><li><p>Rocha ($1997$): political, social-political, mediated, embedded individual, atomistic individual empowerment.</p></li><li><p>Rowland ($1997$): personal, relational, collective empowerment.</p></li><li><p>Zimmerman ($2000$): individual, organizational, community empowerment.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Disagreement on which type comes first (Zimmerman emphasizes individual, Friedman community, Rocha suggests individual to community).</p></li><li><p>Central theme: empowerment involves processes, outcome is level of being empowered.</p></li><li><p>Context/population specific; no single standard captures empowerment for all (Rappaport$1985$, Zimmerman$1995$).</p></li><li><p>Theory's strength: recognizes complex interaction between agents (poor citizens, grassroots NGOs, state, international agencies).</p></li><li><p>Most often applied to women, addressing practical and strategic needs.</p><ul><li><p><strong>Practical needs:</strong> food, clothing, shelter, health care.</p></li><li><p><strong>Strategic needs:</strong> structural societal transformation to remove women's subordinate position.</p></li></ul></li><li><p>Moser ($1993$): empowerment policy seeks strategic gender needs indirectly through practical gender needs.</p></li><li><p>FMWASD budget ($2011-2021$) caters more to practical needs, hoping to reach strategic needs.</p></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><p><strong>Socio-economic and Political Conditions of Women and Girls in Nigeria</strong></p><ul><li><p>Worsened by educational variations, child labor, employment disparities, unequal decision-making capacities (personal, family, public) (World Bank$2022$).</p></li><li><p><strong>Data (World Bank$2022$World Development Indicators):</strong></p><ul><li><p>$2021$:$104,250,709$females,$49.352.7$$15$+ are literate (vs.$71.32003$($43.32019$):</strong>$317$–$14$years): declined from$41.1$$2007$) to$18.7$$2010$), then rose to $36$% ($2011$).

    • Alarming exploitation: baby factories, bandits, terrorists, traffickers, ritualists using kidnapped girls/women as sex slaves, sacrifices, rebel spies, domestic servants, fighters, suicide bombers, human shields (Oyewole $2016$).

  • Unemployment: Female unemployment rose from ~$4$% to $9$% in last two decades.

    • Female education less appreciated in labor market: $21$% with advanced education, $16$% intermediate unemployed (vs. $9$% basic education) in $2019$).

    • Firms with female ownership: declined from $20$% ($2007$) to $16$% ($2014$).

    • Female share of senior/middle management: ~$31$% ($2019$).

    • Firms with female top manager: only $14$% ($2014$).

  • Reflects limited economic capacities, implications for decision-making (personal, family, public).

  • Health: Female life expectancy at birth remains low (rose from $47$ to $56$ years, $2001-2020$).

    • $17$% of annual female mortality ($30-70$) from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease.

  • Decision-making participation: Women aged $15-49$ in decisions (health, household purchases, visiting family) rose from $14$% ($2003$) to $34$% ($2018$).

  • Justified wife-beating belief: Declined from $64$% ($2003$) to $28$% ($2018$).

  • Female-headed households: Rose slightly from $17$% ($2003$) to $18$% ($2018$).

  • Political representation: Remains low (women held only $3-7$% seats in national parliaments, $2000-2021$).

    • Women candidates in governorship races: ~$6$% (1999-2019), none won.

• Analysis reveals women (almost half population) underrepresented in leadership, underserved in education, unequal employment, disproportionately affected by poverty/violence.

• Empowering women is effective way to accelerate economic growth, improve social outcomes, achieve sustainable development.

• Policy initiatives for women empowerment critical to Nigeria's sustainable development.