HIGHLIGHTS

Article highlights briefly convey key findings, main points, and policy implications.

Recent article highlights are available below:

Articles

  • The Gendered Crisis: Livelihoods and Well-Being in India During COVID-19 – Farzana Afridi, Amrita Dhillon & Sanchari Roy
    • In India, men suffered larger employment losses than women during the pandemic.
    • Women reported greater mental stress than men, although both reported high stress.
    • Men’s employment losses affected their wives’ mental health more than their own.
    • Having many peers is correlated with worse stress for women, but not men.
  • Critical Feminist Engagements with Green New Deals – Carol Cohn & Claire Duncanso
    • Intersecting global crises impel the question, “what should the goal of economic life be?”
    • Many climate “solutions” embed the same faulty ways of thinking that caused the crisis.
    • Clean energy for the Global North spells toxic tolls for the Global South.
    • GNDs neglect militarism, despite its key role in driving the climate crisis.
    • GNDs remain rooted in a mindset that separates humanity from nature and will thus fail.
  • The Crooked Codes of the Luxury Handbag: Narratives of Empowered Feminine Consumption in Africa – Mehita Iqani
    • The luxury handbag is viewed as a symbol of African women’s economic success.
    • This understanding obscures the realities of access to economic equality for most women living in African contexts.
    • Luxury consumption privileges wealth and does not offer alternatives for women’s economic empowerment.
    • As evidence of women’s achievement, the luxury handbag reveals the limits of neoliberal views for women’s empowerment.
  • Domestic Burdens Amid Covid-19 and Women’s Mental Health in Middle-Income Africa – Valerie Mueller, Karen Grépin, Atonu Rabbani, Anne Ngunjiri, Amy
    • Women in Kenya and Nigeria reported increases in domestic labor amid the pandemic.
    • Women’s agency is negatively associated with the domestic burden and a reduction in paid activities in Kenya.
    • Women in households with two or more children face greater domestic burdens and losses in paid activities in Nigeria.
    • Increases in domestic work render women more likely to be anxious (Kenya and Nigeria) and depressed (Nigeria).
  • Gender-Based Policies and the Role of Patriarchal Norms: Evidence from Northern India – Pareena Gupta Lawrence & Catherine Hensly
    • In India, gender quotas aim to promote equity in political representation and offset patriarchy.
    • Yet, longstanding patriarchal norms and cultural expectations of how women behave in the public sphere subvert policy reforms.
    • In Indian states with greater degrees of patriarchy, women had little awareness of their legal protections.
    • Gender quotas are more effective when combined with efforts to address the attitudes and systems perpetuating inequality.