RT Article
T1 Gandhi and the Gender of Nonviolent Resistance
JF Religions
VO 13
IS 5
A1 Du Toit, Louise
LA English
PB MDPI
YR 2022
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1807456811
AB The special issue of which this article forms a part looks at human violence and tries to investigate religious potentials to strengthen the case for nonviolence as the preferred method of social change. This article’s focus is on Gandhi’s version of a faith-based form of nonviolent resistance, called Satyagraha, and its relation to gender. In particular, the article asks whether this Gandhian tradition holds any value for women’s struggles and for contemporary feminist politics. The first section follows the historical development of Gandhi’s thinking on women’s participation in Satyagraha, from South Africa to India. The second section gives a brief overview of the recent empirical work conducted by Erica Chenoweth on the impact of women’s participation on the outcomes of mass movements over the past century. The final section places these two thinkers in conversation and draws out the value and limitations of Gandhi’s thinking for contemporary women’s struggles and feminist resistance. Although the direct focus is on the relation between women and nonviolent revolutionary campaigns and movements, indirectly the unstable gendered dichotomies, male-female, masculine-feminine, and violence-nonviolence, will be simultaneously drawn upon and problematised.
K1 Chenoweth
K1 Gandhi
K1 creative transgressions
K1 Gender
K1 nonviolent resistance
K1 Revolution
DO 10.3390/rel13050467