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3G Three Generations of Women, is an interactive multimedia project that attempts to move beyond the media stereotypes and statistics about women, and look at their real lives. The makers photograph and interview three different generations of women within one family about aspects of their experience, growing up, learning, happiness, love, and more. The aim is that this will give people some sense of the changes that have happened in the lives of these women over the past few decades. …

This article reflects on the lessons learnt about strategies for increasing access to abortion from an 11 country comparative policy analysis known as the Johannesburg Initiative. It reflects on the value of learning and sharing strategic thinking while remembering that opportunities for litigation, policy change, shifts in programming, or even changing public opinion are often place and time specific, so that what leads to victory in one place cannot necessarily be repeated in another. The task is to build the evidence, the legal and health system capacity, the engagement with the public and policymakers to be able to take advantage of windows of opportunity as they arise. The article also suggests that while many gains have been made in winning a broader base of support for the idea of sexual and reproductive rights internationally, there is an urgent need to reinvigorate this movement, particularly through greater leadership, organisational and strategic engagement by activists from developing countries. …

Following the round of UN Conferences on Women from the 1970s to the 1990s, many states in the developing world established national machineries to first 'integrate women into development', and later to spearhead the task of gender mainstreaming adopted in the Beijing Platform for Action.  …

This article looks at the issue of domestic violence from the perspective of African experience, and examines the impact of attempts to address it by legal means. It poses three questions: 1) what are the similarities and differences in the experiences of African countries that have attempted to pass domestic-violence legislation; 2) what lessons have been learned in the process; and 3) how do attempts to pass such laws connect to the lived realities of ordinary women? …

McFadden argues that societies in the South have been approached from a particular research gaze that is derived from a liberal epistemology that focuses on the individual; it simplifies women’s lives and is both methodologically and politically inadequate and deeply problematic. Empowerment as a notion is, too, embedded in liberal and neo-liberal worldviews and is ideologically flawed. With this liberal and neo-liberal development discourse in mind, McFadden looks at empowerment, MDGs, gender and human rights, and citizenship, entitlement and rights and analyses how they are embedded in this ideology. …

This paper, presented to 'Pathways: What are we Learning?' Analysis Conference held in Cairo, 20-24 January 2009, seeks to interrogate the extent to which change has occurred in the lives of three generations of Ghanaian women. This is to assess the extent of changes and continuities in the lives of women as a social group. Change here is being used as an indirect indicator of empowerment when it involves improvements. The significance of the various indicators in the lives of the different generations of women will also be explored. …

This concept paper focuses on the politics of sexuality. Its focus is on the normative construction of heterosexuality in mainstream narratives of sexuality produced by institutions such as the media, the law, religion and the development industry; by cultural arenas such as popular music and soap operas, as well as for counter narratives produced by women themselves. Foregrounding concepts of heterosexualty, sexuality and gender, the paper explores the connections between them and connections to norms that reinforce compulsory heterosexuality and male supremacy, and the implications for the workings of power and privilege. Narratives of sexuality serve both to affirm and also to challenge these norms. …

In this chapter, the authors draw on a project that explored the gendered stereotypes of women in Ghanaian popular music, and sought to contribute to reflection on, and creation of, alternative (empowering) narratives about women through song. The project involved an extensive analysis of the lyrics of music produced by Ghanaian popular artistes since the 1930s, using emerging themes as an entry point for workshops with popular artistes. …

Popular music plays a significant part in the everyday lives of people across age, class, religion, ethnicity and social occasion. In Africa, musicians are frequently powerful public figures capable of conveying ideologies through their lyrical and verbal pronouncements. Many popular songs portray women as sex objects and convey misogynistic constructions of women. At the same time, however, other songs hail women as perfect lovers and sacrificial mothers. …

This article maps the multiple methods used to bring scholar-activists, music producers and music consumers together in a conversation that culminated in the creation of three winning ‘empowering songs’ from the ‘Changing representations of women in popular music’ project. This project explores the gendered stereotypes of women in popular music, and seeks to contribute to reflection on, and creation of, alternative (empowering) narratives about women through song. The article discusses this marriage of research and advocacy and reflects on some of the outcomes from ‘corporate’ reflections – all of which generated a lot of passion about the tensions and possibilities around women’s representations and roles. The authors conclude that for research findings to have practical and policy value and legitimacy, what, how, when and where we communicate our messages is extremely important. …

Tessa Lewin draws on the work done by the Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Research and Communications Consortium from 2007 to date. She explores both the broad approach to communicating empowerment and highlights the work of various projects undertaken. …

This paper discusses how the concept of ‘empowerment’ and specifically women’s empowerment, has been constructed in different literatures and the insights that these may offer for Pathways’ research programme. In particular the paper explores how different understandings of women’s empowerment shape capacity for action, by women themselves as well as by diverse policy actors. …

Women’s paid work has featured in the development literature for two main reasons. The instrumental reason relates to its potential to contribute to make a variety of development goals, from poverty reduction to human development to economic growth. The intrinsic reason is its potential to transform the lives of women and girls by addressing gender inequalities on a wide variety of fronts. However in both cases, paid work is most likely to achieve this potential if it empowers women; since it is women’s capacity to exercise voice and influence in the key arenas of their lives that provides the impetus for change. …

Women’s paid work has featured in the development literature for two main reasons. The instrumental reason relates to its potential to contribute to make a variety of development goals, from poverty reduction to human development to economic growth. The intrinsic reason is its potential to transform the lives of women and girls by addressing gender inequalities on a wide variety of fronts. …

This chapter explores how pornography can eroticize safer and less gender normative sex. The authors point out that pornography is a huge industry, and one of the most important sources of information on sexuality for young people in many countries. They discuss the prevalence and importance of porn as a conduit for sex education before describing ways in which the pleasure industry is challenging norms to create pornography that is positive. They advocate a harm-reduction approach where the harm is not ended, but its negative effects are mitigated, and cite examples of porn that erotizes safer sex with actors using female and male condoms. …