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Realising Girls’ and Women’s Inclusion, Representation and Empowerment
Realising Girls’ and Women’s Inclusion, Representation and Empowerment
Between the years 2023 and 2026 I was part of an international cross-country research project that included my institution, the University of the Western Cape (South Africa), Utrecht University (The Netherlands), University of Portsmouth (United Kingdom), University of Deusto (Spain), University of Gdansk (Poland), and the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) (Belgium). The RE-WIRING project was awarded funding by the European Union’s Horizon Europe program and aims to properly identify the structural root causes of ‘gendered’ (gender-blind or gender-neutral) power hierarchies in European countries and in South Africa. RE-WIRING seeks to rewire institutions to prevent and reverse gender inequalities, catalyse change processes, and actively involve diverse stakeholders in the research process. The RE-WIRING initiative was a transformative research project with a cross-country team of leading interdisciplinary researchers who are committed to identifying the structural root causes of gendered power hierarchies in European countries and beyond. The team worked to ‘re-wire’ institutions, creating sustainable change that prevents and reverses existing gender inequalities. Our goal was to empower women and girls, contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5. The idea behind the project was geared towards breaking free from conventional equality approaches, the RE-WIRING project pioneers a holistic, multidisciplinary approach to drive effective transformation and women’s empowerment. Developed within the esteemed Gender and Diversity Hub at Utrecht University, the novel three-dimensional framework recognizes the critical importance of addressing institutional, experiential, and symbolical dimensions simultaneously.
You can learn more about the project HERE!
You can learn about the people that powered the project HERE!
https://re-wiring.eu/about-us/
https://re-wiring.eu/about-us/
RE-WIRING Work Package 5: Representation in Media and Arts
RE-WIRING Work Package 5: Representation in Media and Arts
While in the RE-WIRING project I was involved in a number work packages, but my main package was Work Package 5. In this package we were interested in the means by which the media discursively construct gender binaries and norms, identities, relations, practices, values and attitudes and their intersection with other forms of difference and inequality. We examined how these constructions influence the implicit and explicit rationales or explanatory frames that determine and are determined by social practices and imperatives and, therefore, the individual decisions they make and practices they engage in as members of organisations and institutions. We are particularly concerned with how symbolic, or meaning-making systems are organised and generated by media practitioners to produce particular meaning for various audiences and towards particular political and ideological objectives and the (un)intended effects of these processes in consolidating or resisting stereotypical and binary understandings of gender. Our position was (and remains) that representational practices go beyond description to impose normativity and order onto the unfolding chaos of experiences, thereby shaping, constructing and regulating dominant gendered practices. Additionally, intersectional and neocolonial relations of power are implicated in the production and distribution of media artefacts, impacting decisions about who or what is represented, how and towards what ends. Because advertising is one of the most pervasive forms of media communication, explicitly aimed at influencing social and individual practices, it plays a significant role in shaping societal norms and expectations on various social identities, including gender. Any advertising campaign aims primarily to persuade and influence large audiences, often by relying on established, usually stereotypical and binary, cultural symbols and narratives. At the same time, advertising has significant potential to create images and generate representations that inspire people to re-imagine alternative, more just ways of thinking and being – to conceive of a more inclusive and cohesive society.
RE-WIRING Work Package 5: The Outputs
RE-WIRING Work Package 5: The Outputs
This working paper will map out counter-narratives that question the normalisation of stereotypes/cliché images that dominate media and advertising. It will be informed by the literature review, data analysis, and exhibition and will attempt to synthesise the research findings in this work package.
This deliverable focuses on the representation of women and girls in the media in European and African contexts towards exploring the way in which gender is represented in the symbolic terrain and how it may be shifting and or changing. The working paper presents a comprehensive analysis of how gender stereotypes related to leadership, employment, and socialisation are constructed and reinforced in contemporary media.
Through this deliverable we develop a toolkit for creating inclusive representations, including a video/TED Talk on YouTube. The set of toolkits here can be used in advertising but also beyond, e.g., education, journalism, and communication, will include best practices with narratological and visual techniques, strategies, and scenarios to counteract the stereotypical configurations, both empirically and symbolically.
The toolkit can be accessed HERE!
Artistic Output: Online and On-Site Exhibitions on "UnDoing Gender"
Artistic Output: Online and On-Site Exhibitions on "UnDoing Gender"
In collaboration with institutional stakeholders, including museums, artists and art spaces, we will co-curate several exhibitions on unstereotyping gender. We curated a series of online and offline exhibitions in five of the six participant countries. These exhibitions highlighted the inclusive and non-binary representation of gender, femininity, and masculinity to showcase artistic work that raises critical consciousness and offers alternative imaginaries of gender and how it intersects with other forms of identity. The exhibitions were launched with concomitant scholarly and art events, including online and material catalogues in cooperation with Centraal Museum (Utrecht), Moed (online), Iyatsiba Lab Gallery (Cape Town, SA), European Solidarity Centre (Gdańsk), San Telmo Museum (San Sebastián), Museum M (Leuven).
Intractability of Race From Sexuality.
Intractability of Race From Sexuality.
In my next research project I am interested in the intractability of race from sexuality. This will be a laser focused project on the complex ways that sexuality is racialised, and how in post-apartheid South Africa, the sexuality movement continues to struggle with a society and LGBTI communities that are shaped along apartheid configurations. Here I am interested in how to create expansive sexuality politics that go beyond racial configurations inherited from colonialism and apartheid, into a queer futurity that goes beyond normative, nationalist and racialised boundaries.
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