WOMEN’S AGENCY: SILENCES AND VOICES, Mounira M. Charrad, Guest Editor
WOMEN’S STUDIES INTERNATIONAL FORUM, SPECIAL ISSUE – Vol. 33, no. 6 December 2010
Journal homepage: www. elsevier.com/locate/wsif

This special issue discusses how women’s voices are excluded, silenced and marginalized in war, displacement, democratization, labor market, judicial system, state bureaucracy, nonprofit organizations and national debates on citizenship. It also shows how women found their voices, channeled them, modified them, and gained a measure of empowerment. The authors examine women’s agency across cultures, in countries as diverse as Turkey, Portugal, Lebanon, Mexico and the US. Each article is concerned with particular transformations in social, economic and political systems that shape women’s ability or lack thereof to make their voices heard. All articles are engaged with identifying structural problems that limit women’s capacity to maneuver for their own interests. Then again, each piece analyzes a particular form of women’s agency or efforts to change their circumstances.

CONTENTS

Introduction

MOUNIRA M. CHARRAD — Women’s agency across cultures: Conceptualizing strengths and boundaries. 517—522.
Articles
F. UMUT BESPVNAR — Questioning agency and empowerment: Women’s work-related strategies and social class in urban Turkey. 523—532.
RITA STEPHAN — Couple’s activism in Lebanon: The legacy of Laure Moghaizel. 533 –541.
SONIA M. FRIAS — Resisting patriarchy within the State: Advocacy and family violence in Mexico. 542—551.
ROBERTA VILLALON — Passage to citizenship and the nuances of agency: Latina Battered immigrants. 552—560.
DENIZ GOKALP — A gendered analysis of violence, justice and citizenship: Kurdish women facing war and displacement in Turkey. 561—569.
MELISSA HAMILTON –Judicial discourses on women’s agency in violent relationships: Cases from California. 570—578.
ANA PRATA — Finding a voice: Abortion claim-making during Portuguese democratization. 579—588.
Book Reviews
JULIE BEICKEN — Global Feminism: Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights. 589
ANGELA FREDERICK — It takes a candidate: Why women don’t run for office. 590.
CHAUNTELLE ANNE TIBBALS — States and Women’s Rights: the Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco. 591.