Posted on by ijeomaopara

Demystifying Gender Politics: A Lexicon for Empowerment

Bridging the gap between academia and the real world is so important. For starters, if our work is not impacting the communities we write about or the world we live in, then what is the point? In my discipline of political science (and especially in gender politics), there is a lot of confusion about the terms that are used. If political science is the study of the world we live in, and gender studies is the study of gendered dynamics in the world we live in, gender politics brings together the opportunity to study what happens in the world with a consideration of gendered power dynamics. There may be some terms that you recognise, as they have made their way into mainstream language. As a result, it becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction when originally academic terms become part of the everyday lexicon. This blog will be decoding eight terms within gender politics (with some others sprinkled in between!). The hope is that this can help foster a deeper comprehension of critical issues at the heart of these areas.

1. Gender: Gender is the expression, behaviour and identity through which you experience the world. The genders that society is often familiar with are ‘man’ or ‘woman’, but there are a plethora of genders that people identify with (or don’t identify with e.g. non-binary people/gender non-conforming people). It is essential to know that people’s gender expression (through clothes, hair, behaviour, voice) is not the same as gender identity (which has to do with self-identification), or sexual orientation. Within feminist scholarship, there are also those that challenge the idea of gender being a separate categorisation, they state that a binary understanding of the body is a product of social-cultural realities.

2. Feminism (feminist theory): Depending on where you get your information from, the term feminism can be defined on a wide spectrum. But is there a ‘right’ definition of feminism, and what would an accurate example of feminism be? This is a difficult question to answer in a straightforward manner. According to UN Women, feminism is “a movement advocating for women’s social, political, legal and economic rights equal to those of men.” Feminist theory is different in that it is a way of thinking and understanding how gender affects people’s lives. Examples of prominent feminist theorists include Sara Ahmed, Judith Butler, bell hooks and Ama Ata Aidoo.

3. Neo/liberalism: Within the discipline of political science, liberalism refers to a specific school of thought. Liberalism refers to the ideology of individual autonomy against state intervention. Over time the term evolved to also include protection against private businesses. However, in mainstream media, liberalism often refers to being a ‘liberal’, which is different from leftist ideals. Neoliberalism refers to the economic policies that highlight the political ideology of liberalism i.e. minimal state intervention, a competitive trade market and the principle of self-efficacy.

4. Patriarchy/Toxic Masculinity: Patriarchy can be defined as a system or hierarchy in which gender inequality is perpetuated through the unequal distribution of power that favours men and oppresses women. Toxic masculinity is a result of patriarchy, whereby the attitudes and behaviours of men towards women create a sense of entitlement towards violence and dominance. A popular example of toxic masculinity is the TikTok famous social media personality Andrew Tate, whose views and beliefs on men’s and women’s places in society have had a massively negative impact on young men.

5. Intersectionality: The term ‘intersectionality’ was created by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the 1980s, which was meant to highlight the intersecting ways in which differences (race, class, gender) amongst groups of people showcase imbalances in the legal context of the USA. However, intersectionality went mainstream around the mid-2010s, and the conservative backlash to the term created a fear-based idea about who deserves to be a victim, and who does not. At its core, intersectionality functions as an observation of power imbalances in varying socio-political contexts and is a tool through which said contexts can be examined and dismantled.

6. Cis-hetero patriarchy: There are three different terms in this one word, namely; cis-gendered, heteronormative and patriarchy. We know that patriarchy is a system that prioritises men by valuing behaviours, attitudes and systems that oppress women. Heteronormativity is the assumption everyone is ‘naturally’ heterosexual (romantic/sexual attraction to people of the opposite sex i.e. heterosexual men are attracted to women, and vice versa). Cisgender is the gender identity of a person who identifies with the gender they were assigned at birth. Therefore, when we put it all together, cis-hetero patriarchy is a “system of power based on the supremacy of cis-gendered heterosexual men through domination and exploitation of women and other marginalised genders/gender nonconforming identities.

7. Gender Equity/Gender Equality:

8. LGBTQIAP++ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, Pansexual, and more): This is an acronym that has changed over time to reflect other identities not included. Although it is shortened to LGBT, this can have different implications for those who do not identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Trans. The earliest use of the term LGB was in the 1990s when lesbian, gay and bisexual activists adopted the acronym for the community they were part of.

Maybe other terms came to mind when reading through this that you’d like to understand more about. Also being aware, there are different implications for these definitions when applying them to different contexts and examples. Let me know in the comments below!

Posted on by MukhtaarWaja

The Geography Glossary: A Beginner’s Guide to Biometeorology

You may not know this about me, dear reader, but I – a writer of monthly, very wordy blogs – love words! I adore, and admire words, am amused, and delighted by verbiage, and find myself consistently and often thinking, speaking and, even writing, in the form of words. Words are powerful tools, which contain concepts, connotations, and histories all in tiny, syllabic packages. Words can alter the way you engage with ideas, places, and people. Words are the containers of knowledge and culture, and are something entirely unique to human beings, having played a key role not only in the evolution of civilisation, but potentially in the evolution of human consciousness! Now that I’ve built up some anticipation, it’s probably past time that I tell you what this blog is about. This is a blog about the words and concepts in my field of study, which are either the least well-understood or the most misunderstood by general audiences. And if that sentiment makes sense to you, then stick around, dear reader, and you might just learn something…

As a young boy, I would enthusiastically tell people that I wanted to be a meteorologist when I was older! I severely misunderstood what meteorology is. I know people my age who still believe that meteorology is what you study if you want to write horoscopes, but I’m here to disappoint you, dear reader, and explain that this is not true. Meteorology derives from the Greek term meteōron, which referred to the phenomena of the sky – also known as weather! Meteorologists concern themselves with weather patterns and phenomena – such as variations in temperature, changes in sunlight, and rates of precipitation – and the science behind these phenomena. Meteorology is an exciting and vital discipline, which most people associate with weather forecasting, but which actually expands far beyond the morning news. It’s important to note that weather and climate are two different things. When we talk about weather, we’re talking about changes in atmospheric phenomena occurring over a short time scale, like weather patterns over a period of days or months. Climate, on the other hand, examines the atmospheric phenomena in specific regions as they take place over large periods of time, usually decades. A climatologist would thus concern themselves with long-term atmospheric changes, while a meteorologist would concern themselves with short-term atmospheric changes. Whether either person would concern themselves with their horoscope would ultimately depend on the individual.

At this point, you’re most likely asking, “So, did you become a meteorologist?” Well, in a way… I became a biometeorologist! My research falls within the field of biometeorology, a field of study which spans multiple disciplines, and which focuses on the relationship between living beings and the Earth’s climate and weather processes. My research examines the effects of climate on mental health, and thus falls under the umbrellas of Human Biometeorology and Health Biometeorology, but there are many subdisciplines within biometeorology. Plant Biometeorology focuses on the relationships between plant life, and phenology, and variations in climate, while Bovine Biometeorology focuses on the relationship between cattle, bison, buffalos – amongst other bovine animals – and climate. If you’re a fan of The 1975, you may have heard their song When We Are Together, the lyrics of which reference the impact of weather on the behaviours of cows! It doesn’t go into detail, obviously, but it’s still cool!

The field of biometeorology is an especially interesting one within our current cultural climate, as our literal, physical climate is changing. The impact of climate change on living organisms is something we desperately need to understand, and research within the field of biometeorology aims to do exactly that! What makes biometeorology fascinating to me is that we live through its phenomena every day! When you get that awful cough just before your June exams, that’s biometeorology! When you see a herd of cattle lying on their sides, and it rains later in the day, that’s bovine biometeorology, baby! It’s not definitively proven that cows can predict rain, but you get my point…

As I said, my research focuses on the relationship between climate and mental health, and there are a lot of mental health conditions which are misunderstood by the general public. The great thing about social media is that the stigma around mental health is slowly being chased away, and replaced with a greater awareness of mental health conditions by general audiences. However, it has also led to a lot of misinformation, and misunderstandings of these conditions. Social media often provides generalised takes on mental health, which do not convey the nuances, complexities and variabilities of mental health conditions and their symptomology. While social media can start conversations about mental health, these conversations can be superficial, or misleading, ultimately perpetuating stereotypes and misconceptions. Remember, dear reader, words are powerful. They can alter the way you engage with ideas, and with people. Anyone can say anything on the internet, and it’s not always true! Fact check everything, dear reader, even the thing you’re reading right now…