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The nature of men's involvement in the struggle for gender justice has long fiercely divided gender-equality advocates. After nearly three decades of disagreement this seam of tension doggedly persists, little engaged with and largely unresolved. …

This report focuses on the results from research on case study organisations and donors, conducted in Bangladesh. Five women-headed WROs were chosen as case studies. Research included interviews with donor staff, document review, and validation workshops. This report synthesizes their findings and reflections based on the case studies, around three key questions: How have donors affected women’s organisations’ work and ways of working? What are WROs doing to raise resources outside of donor funding and what are the types of work they do which is not donor funded? What are the emerging pathways? The report includes an analysis of Bangladesh’s context and developments from 1995 to present, the national development-aid scenario, the influence of the Paris Declaration and attempts towards donor harmonisation; a presentation of the five case-study organisations; an analysis of the experiences of the organisations before they received donor funding; sections on “Life with and without Funding”; a presentation of the situation from the perspective of the donors; and conclusions from the research and presents issues of sustainability. …

A case study report of the organization BNWLA, under the umbrella of inter-country research on ‘Mobilising for Women’s Rights and the Role of Resources’ undertaken by The Research Programme Consortium (RPC) on Pathways of Women’s Empowerment. The case-study organisations were chosen to capture the diversity of different types of women’s organisations in Bangladesh which include small associations, professional networks, and NGOs. The case studies were compiled following the collection of background materials, individual interviews, and a day long reflection exercise which was carried out using participatory techniques. The case study gives a background of the organization, its institutional process, its national and international context, its timeline, its agenda and relationships, its resources, its ways of organising, mobilising and the changes that have taken place, its relations with the government, crises/conflicts with donors, and an analysis. …

A case study report of the organization BOMSA, under the umbrella of inter-country research on ‘Mobilizing for Women’s Rights and the Role of Resources’ undertaken by The Research Programme Consortium (RPC) on Pathways of Women’s Empowerment. The case-study organisations were chosen to capture the diversity of different types of women’s organisations in Bangladesh which include small associations, professional networks, and NGOs. The case studies were compiled following the collection of background materials, individual interviews, and a day long reflection exercise which was carried out using participatory techniques. The case study gives a background of the organization, its institutional process, its national and international context, its timeline, its agenda and relationships, its resources, BOMSA’s own reflections, and analysis of the relationship between the organization and donors. …

A case study report of the organization Kormojibi Nari, under the umbrella of inter-country research on ‘Mobilizing for Women’s Rights and the Role of Resources’ undertaken by The Research Programme Consortium (RPC) on Pathways of Women’s Empowerment. The case-study organisations were chosen to capture the diversity of different types of women’s organisations in Bangladesh which include small associations, professional networks, and NGOs. The case studies were compiled following the collection of background materials, individual interviews, and a day long reflection exercise which was carried out using participatory techniques. The case study gives a background of the organization, its institutional process, its national and international context, its timeline, its agenda and relationships, its resources, reflections on overall trends, its ways of organizing, mobilizing and the changes that have taken place, its relations with the government, crises/conflicts with donors, and an analysis. …

A case study report of the organization Doorbar Network, under the umbrella of inter-country research on ‘Mobilizing for Women’s Rights and the Role of Resources’ undertaken by The Research Programme Consortium (RPC) on Pathways of Women’s Empowerment. The case-study organisations were chosen to capture the diversity of different types of women’s organisations in Bangladesh which include small associations, professional networks, and NGOs. The case studies were compiled following the collection of background materials, individual interviews, and a day long reflection exercise which was carried out using participatory techniques. The case study gives a background of the organization, its institutional process, its national and international context, its timeline, its agenda and relationships, its resources, Doorbar Network’s own reflections, and analysis of the relationship between the organization and donors. …

Report in Bangla on the research which documented and analysed strategies and approaches used by three national women's organisations in Bangladesh to mobilize and advocate for women's rights and raise demands to the state and other rights holders. The study challenges the established view that feminist voice, organisation and movement loses ground after democratic transitions. …

This report in Bangla focuses on research which compared and contrasted conceptualizations of women's empowerment used by different actors: women's organisations, development agencies, political parties and NGOs in Bangladesh. …

Sohela Nazneen, Maheen Sultan and Naomi Hossain explore concepts of empowerment being used by some women’s organisations, development NGOs, mass political parties and aid donors in Bangladesh. Focusing primarily on public discourses, they review publicly available documentation of women’s organisations, development NGOs, mass political parties and aid donors. They discuss the implications of using empowerment by these different actors and conclude with reflections on new forms of public action and coalitions of interest to advance women’s power in Bangladesh. …

This paper explores how perceptions and narratives around women’s empowerment have evolved in Bangladesh from 2000 to date. It studies the concepts of women’s empowerment in public discourse and reviews the meanings and uses of the term by selected women’s organisations, donor agencies, political parties and development NGOs. By reviewing the publicly available documents of these organisations, the paper analyses the multiple discourses on women’s empowerment, showing the different concepts associated with it and how notions such as power, domains and processes of empowerment are understood by these actors. It also highlights how these different discourses have influenced each other and where they have diverged, with an emphasis on what these divergences mean in terms of advancing women’s interests in Bangladesh. …

The Pathways of Women’s Empowerment Research Programme Consortium (RPC) and the Women’s Empowerment in Muslim Contexts (WEMC) RPC held a public discussion on the theme of building alliances on 13 November 2008 in Cape Town prior to the AWID Forum. The day’s programme included an introduction to the two RPCs by their respective directors, followed by inputs from the RPC members about women’s movements’ encounters with other social movements, after which there was a question and answer session. An internal meeting was held by the two RPCs for members to identify key issues of strategic relevance for building alliances as well as overcoming oppositions, and to formulate strategies for engagement across movements. …

Culture interacts with development in multiple ways. However the importance of culture within development should not be seen as translating to crystallising and solidifying its meaning or providing definitive ideas of what works. In this paper, I look at the relevance of culture to the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment, and examine how some women’s movements in Latin America have negotiated and contested meanings around culture and as a result have re-signified gender values, attitudes and behaviours. The example of Las madres de la Plaza de Mayo questions the cultural construct of motherhood and the traditional role of the mother caring for the family within the home, and the women’s neighbourhood action based in Bahia, Brazil which I look at contests and extends the notion of that domestic space. …

This article focuses on the challenges facing organisation among the hardest-to-reach working women in the informal economy. What gives some of them the impetus and courage to organise? What is distinctive about the strategies they draw on to transcend their structurally disadvantaged position within the economy? What barriers do they continue to face in their efforts to address the injustices of the economic system? Through analysing the organisational strategies used in different contexts and for different sets of workers, we can start to see a different battery of weapons among these working women, which serve them better and more transformatively than the weapons of the weak on which they previously relied: the weapons of the organised. This article discusses these issues specifically in relation to the experience of two organisations: MAP Foundation, Thailand, and KKPKP, Pune India. …

The Maria da Penha Law (LMP), which was introduced in 2006, is the first Brazilian federal code to address domestic and familial violence against women. The law is the outcome of thirty years of struggles led by Brazilian women and feminist movements. LMP is an extensive legal instrument that is meant to prevent and combat domestic and familial violence against women.  …

Organizing Women Workers in the Informal Economy explores the emergence of an alternative repertoire among women working in the growing informal sectors of the global South: the weapons of organization and mobilisation. This crucial book offers vibrant accounts of how women working as farm workers, sex workers, domestic workers, waste pickers, fisheries workers and migrant factory workers have organized for collective action. What gives these precarious workers the impetus and courage to take up these steps? What resources do they draw on in order to transcend their structurally disadvantaged position within the economy? And what continues to hamper their efforts to gain social recognition for themselves as women, as workers and as citizens? …