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There are various modes of representation that may be used to convey ideas about human relations and perceptions. Poetry is one of the avenues that is often used to express ideas about human experience and other related matters. Hence, poetry may be used to convey ideas about gender and its attendant perception and portrayal in society. This is true of Xitsonga poetry, which often entails poets’ concept of women and womanhood. This article analyses two Xitsonga poems that were purposively selected for their treatment of women and womanhood as themes. The selected poems are are Vatshiveri by Malungana and Babane, and Nkata xithicarana by G.J Maphalakasi. Underpinned by the theory of meaning and content analysis, the article reveals that women are largely portrayed in a negative light, lazy, heartless, boastful, arrogant, and evil, only insofar as they do not conform to the cultural and stereotypic definitions of a woman is or should be in a given society. The article recommends that Vatsonga women should create poetry contrasting male writers' views, transforming perceptions of women and womanhood. Future Vatsonga poets should draw from cultural tenets without relying on past understandings.

This essay examines Nigerian women's transgressive sexualities as a redefinition of African womanhood. It identifies emerging transgressive sexualities in third-generation Nigerian literature, such as lesbianism and Nigerian Muslim women's sexual nonconformity, as compelling counternarratives against dominant masculinist discourses of heterosexism and religious orthodoxy. Referring to Chinelo Okparanta's Under the Udala Trees (2015) and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's Season of Crimson Blossoms (2015), this essay shows how patriarchy, backed by religious dogma, constructs the female body and sexuality. By demonstrating Nigerian women's act of decolonizing their gendered bodies from masculinist and religious discourses of oppression, it identifies women's quest for sexual freedom as an epistemic revisioning of African womanhood.

Police brutality harms women. Structural racism and structural sexism expose women of color to police brutality through 4 interrelated mechanisms: (1) desecration of Black womanhood, (2) criminalization of communities of color, (3) hypersexualization of Black and Brown women, and (4) vicarious marginalization. We analyze intersectionality as a framework for understanding racial and gender determinants of police brutality, arguing that public health research and policy must consider how complex intersections of these determinants and their contextual specificities shape the impact of police brutality on the health of racially minoritized women. We recommend that public health scholars (1) measure and analyze multiple sources of vulnerability to police brutality, (2) consider policies and interventions within the contexts of intersecting statuses, (3) center life course experiences of marginalized women, and (4) assess and make Whiteness visible. People who hold racial and gender power—who benefit from racist and sexist systems—must relinquish power and reject these benefits. Power and the benefits of power are what keep oppressive systems such as racism, sexism, and police brutality in place. (Am J Public Health. 2023;113(S1):S29–S36. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307064 )

Her award-winning novels and thought-provoking TED talks propelled the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie into the public consciousness and sparked a worldwide discourse about feminism in the late 2010s. Adichie uses her work to empower women all around the world to dismantle gender constructs, stereotypes, and sexualities designed to enslave women in society. Several researchers have successfully construed common motifs in her fiction. This paper draws on recent studies undertaken by Moffat Sebola, who affirms that Adichie’s Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions (2017) is not only a list of proposals; with closer examination, the manifesto reveals the recurring themes throughout Adichie’s writing. Furthermore, for analytical convenience, Moffat Sebola (2022) selects only seven of Adichie’s fifteen suggestions, identifies the elements that reflect her authorial perspective, and utilizes them as filters in analysing the author’s novels. The main objective of this study has been the presentation of the elements of Adichie’s fiction in all fifteen manifesto statements. In order to achieve this objective, themes of womanhood, femininity, love, history, culture, gender equality, and otherness are discussed in separate sections with examples from her novels. The first section of the paper provides a brief overview of African feminist fiction within which the work of this third-generation Nigerian writer is embedded.

Menarche is the first occurrence of a woman’s menstruation, an event that symbolizes reproductive capacity and the transition from childhood into womanhood. The global average age for menarche is 12 years and this has been declining in recent years. Many factors that affect the timing menarche in girls could be affected by climate change. A systematic literature review was performed regarding the timing of menarche and four publication databases were interrogated: EMBASE, SCOPUS, PubMed, and Cochrane Reviews. Themes were identified from 112 articles and related to environmental causes of perturbations in menarche (either early or late), disease causes and consequences of perturbations, and social causes and consequences. Research from climatology was incorporated to describe how climate change events, including increased hurricanes, avalanches/mudslides/landslides, and extreme weather events could alter the age of menarche by disrupting food availability or via increased toxin/pollutant release. Overall, our review revealed that these perturbations in the timing of menarche are likely to increase the disease burden for women in four key areas: mental health, fertility-related conditions, cardiovascular disease, and bone health. In summary, the climate does have the potential to impact women’s health through perturbation in the timing of menarche and this, in turn, will affect women’s risk of disease in future.

The history of modern architecture has particularly emphasized the roles of male architects with little mention of women architects. Since women's contributions have often been overlooked, feminist scholars worldwide have aimed to showcase women's history in the architectural profession over the past several years. However, there is still a lack of scholarship on the historical experiences and contributions of women architects in the Middle East, particularly Egypt. This research aims to address this gap in historiography by focusing on the first women architects in Egypt during the Nasser era. As such, the study utilizes archival sources and examines various architecture and engineering magazines and state reports published during the mid-20th century. Our analysis reveals how early architectural pioneers such as Anjil Tawfik, Amina Maher, Zakeya Shafi, and Sawsan el-Qusbi faced considerable barriers related to societal norms and educational limitations. We argue that the idealized image of womanhood was a strategy employed by men to maintain the discipline as androcentric. In contrast, Nasser's regime, which was concerned with Egypt's modernization and development, enacted progressive policies to promote gender equality. The policies facilitated the entry of women into different fields including engineering and architecture. We examine the complex interplay between state feminism and persistent societal norms, noting how Abdel Nasser redefined the ideal image of women to one that balanced professional work with familial responsibilities. We explore the career trajectories of early pioneering women architects, arguing that al-taklif, the employment order mandated by Abdel Nasser in 1955, was not merely a work policy but also shaped the ideal image of professional life for women architects. We discuss women architects' strategies to carve out a space for themselves in architectural practice. Finally, we address the lack of recognition for women architects' work with a focus on Zakeya Shafi and Amina Maher, two pioneering Egyptian women architects.

This essay examines Nigerian women's transgressive sexualities as a redefinition of African womanhood. It identifies emerging transgressive sexualities in third-generation Nigerian literature, such as lesbianism and Nigerian Muslim women's sexual nonconformity, as compelling counternarratives against dominant masculinist discourses of heterosexism and religious orthodoxy. Referring to Chinelo Okparanta's Under the Udala Trees (2015) and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's Season of Crimson Blossoms (2015), this essay shows how patriarchy, backed by religious dogma, constructs the female body and sexuality. By demonstrating Nigerian women's act of decolonizing their gendered bodies from masculinist and religious discourses of oppression, it identifies women's quest for sexual freedom as an epistemic revisioning of African womanhood.

This article examines the mutual imbrication of gender and class that shapes how some transgender women seek incorporation into social hierarchies in postcolonial India. Existing literature demonstrates an association between transgender and middle-class-status in the global South. Through an 18-month ethnographic study in Bangalore from 2009 through 2016 with transgender women, NGO (nongovernmental organization) workers and activists, as well as textual analyses of media representations, I draw on “new woman” archetypes to argue that the discourses of empowerment and respectability that impacted middle-class cisgender women in late colonial, postcolonial and liberalized India also impact how trans women narrate their struggles and newfound opportunities. Trans woman identities are often juxtaposed to the identities of hijras, a recognized (yet socially marginal) group of working-class male-assigned gender-nonconforming people. Instead of challenging stereotypes of gender nonconformity most evident in the marginalization of hijras, some transgender women are at pains to highlight their difference from hijras. These trans women are from working-class backgrounds. It is partly their similarities in class location that propel trans women’s efforts to distinguish themselves from hijras. They employ the figure of the disreputable hijra to contain negative stereotypes associated with gender nonconformity, thus positioning their identities in proximity with middle-class respectable womanhood.

Drawing on data generated from a two-year ethnographic observation with a group of multiethnic Black women, this investigation delves into the ways they employ discursive and linguistic strategies, namely solidarity through difference and distinction, solidarity through denaturalizing difference, and solidarity through shared struggles and learning in deictically anchored interactions. The study presents a moment-by-moment analysis of culturally and socially situated conversations. These conversations allow us to see how the social actors enact different stance-taking and scaling practices to construct meanings about race that intersect with gender/transnational identities. Discursive practices show that when we closely attend to race, transnationalism, and gender, specifically considering the particularity of Black womanhood, new and more complex ways of understanding transnational identity formation emerge. Participants’ constructions indicate that women co-construct a unique brand of Black feminist solidarity that is not based on similarity but meaningfully created through differentiation and distinction. (Black immigrant women, solidarity, stance-taking, scaling and deixis difference, African diaspora, intersectionality)*