Men in Middle Eastern societies are often viewed by the popular Western media only in the context of religious fundamentalism and the subjugation of women. This book shifts the discourse on gender, usually focused on women, to men in the Middle East, and to young men in Iranian society in particular.
Masculine cultures define urban cultures and are defined by them. A multidisciplinary analysis that explores urbanism, masculine anxieties and gender relations.
Why were urban women veiled in the early 1900s, unveiled from 1936 to 1979, and reveiled after the 1979 revolution? This question forms the basis of Hamideh Sedghi's original and unprecedented contribution to politics and Middle Eastern studies. Using primary and secondary sources, Sedghi offers new knowledge on women's agency in relation to state power. In this rigorous analysis she places contention over women at the centre of the political struggle between secular and religious forces and demonstrates that control over women's identities, sexuality, and labor has been central to the consolidation of state power. Sedghi links politics and culture with economics to present an integrated analysis of the private and public lives of different classes of women and their modes of resistance to state power.
What Does It Mean To Be A Man In The Shifting Context Of South Asia? Masculinity Has In Recent Years Begun To Be Theorised As A Field Of Study; While Its Study In Different Cultural Areas (Islamic, American, Mediterranean) Has Been Undertaken, South Asia Remains Relatively Unexplored. This Volume Seeks To Fill The Gap And Build A Wider Body Of Ethnographic Work, As Well As Contribute To The Theoretical Literature On Gender. The Papers Are Drawn From Anthropology, History, Film Studies And Literature, And Are Aimed At South Asian Scholars As Well As A Wider Audience Of People Interested In Gender Studies.
'Men and Masculinities in South India' aims to increase understanding of gender within South Asia and especially South Asian masculinities, a topic whose analysis and ethnographising in the region has had a very sketchy beginning and is ripe for more thorough examination.
In this collection, a group of historians explores the role of masculinity in the modern history of politics and war. Building on three decades of research in women's and gender history, the book opens up new avenues in the history of masculinity. The essays by social, political and cultural historians therefore map masculinity's part in making revolution, waging war, building nations, and constructing welfare states. Although the masculinity of modern politics and war is now generally acknowledged, few studies have traced the emergence and development of politics and war as masculine domains in the way this book does. Covering the period from the American Revolution to the Second World War and ranging over five continents, the essays in this book bring to light the many "masculinities" that shaped--and were shaped by--political and military modernity.
Public spaces are the renditions of the power symmetry within the social setting it resides in, and is both controlling and confining of power. In an ideologically-laden context, urban design encompasses values and meanings and is utilized as a means to construct the identity and perpetuate visible and invisible boundaries. Hence, gendered spatial dichotomy based on a biological division of sexes is often employed systematically to evade the transgression of women into the public spaces. The production of modern urban space in the Middle East is formed in the interplay between modernity, tradition and religion. Examining women in public spaces and patterns of interaction with gender -segregated and -mixed space, this book argues that gendered spaces are far from a static physical spatial division and produce a complex and dynamic dichotomy of men/public and women/private. Taking the example of Iran, normative and ideologically-laden gender segregated public spaces have been used as a tool for the Islamization of everyday life. The most recent government effort includes women-only parks, purportedly designed and administered through women’s contributions, as well as to accommodate their needs and provide space for social interaction and activities. Combining research approaches from urban planning and social sciences, this book analyses both technical and social aspects of women-only parks. Addressing the relationships between ideology, urban planning and gender, the book interprets power relations and how they are used to define and plan public and semi-public urban spaces. Lack of communication across disciplinary boundaries as result of complexities of urban life has been one of the major hindrances in studying urban spaces in the Middle East. Addressing the concern, the cross-disciplinary approach employed in this volume is an amalgamation of methods informed by urban planning and social sciences, which includes an in-depth analysis of the morphological, perceptual, social, visual, functional, and temporal dimensions of the public space, the women-only parks in Iran. Based on critical ethnography, this volume uses a phenomenological approach to understating women in gendered spaces. Interaction of women in women-only parks in Iran, a gendered space which is growing in popularity across the Muslim world is discussed thoroughly and compared vis-à-vis gender-neutral public spaces. The book targets scholars and students within a wide range of academic disciplines including urban studies, urban planning, gender studies, political science, Middle Eastern studies, cultural studies, urban anthropology, urban sociology, Iranian studies and Islamic studies.
Japanese men are becoming cool. The suit-and-tie salaryman remodels himself with beauty treatments and 'cool biz' fashion. Loyal company soldiers are reborn as cool, attentive fathers. Hip hop dance is as manly as martial arts. Could it even be cool for middle-aged men to idolize teenage girl popstars? This collection of studies from the University of Cambridge provides fascinating insights into the contemporary lives of Japanese men as it looks behind the image of 'Cool Japan.' (Series: Japanese Studies / Japanologie, Vol. 6) [Subject: Japanese Studies, Cultural Studies]
Based on research commissioned by the World Bank, this books primary focus is on incorporating men in gender and development interventions at the grass roots level. It draws attention to some of the key problems that have arisen from male exclusion; as well as to the potential benefits of - and obstacles to - men's inclusion.