Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies - Volume 17, Issue 4, 2014

There is a consensus in the neuroscientific literature that brains are either male or female, and that ‘brain sex’ is a fixed, immutable trait. Feminist critics have challenged this idea, raising questions, for example, about brain plasticity (the role of sociocultural factors in the emergence and endurance of brain structure and function). However, neuroscientific studies of sex/gender differences still rarely consider these factors. This paper discusses brain plasticity as a shared point of interest for the neurosciences and feminist theory. Plasticity arguments resonate strongly with longstanding feminist arguments about the interaction of nature and nurture, the embodiment of social practices, and the performative nature of gender. However, whether it is appropriate and productive for feminist theory to approach the gendered subject as a plastic, cerebral subject is up for discussion. This paper explores these different dimensions. I pay detailed attention to the concern that plasticity arguments can corroborate the idea of brain sex as effectively as they can undermine it. Depending on how broadly one defines plasticity, the focus of research can be on ‘the plasticity of sex differences’ or on ‘sex differences in plasticity’. I conclude that a traditional definition of plasticity, according to which the brain is largely stable, conserves the idea of brain sex. However, the alternative – framing the brain as fundamentally and infinitely plastic – also raises concerns.

Somalische vrouwen zijn reeds lang militair actief in de Ogaden, een Somalische regio in Oost-Ethiopië. In de Ogadenoorlog (1977-1978) tussen Somalië en Ethiopië namen zij diverse rollen op zich. Dit artikel onderzoekt wat deze rollen waren en welke motieven Somalische vrouwen vandaag aanhalen voor hun deelname aan de Ogadenoorlog. Daarnaast argumenteer ik dat deze vrouwelijke oud-strijders een belangrijke rol spelen in het discours over het huidige conflict in de regio. Met andere woorden, de vrouwelijke strijders van de late jaren 1970 inspireren de huidige generatie rebellen.

Dr Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian is a feminist, Palestinian professor at the Hebrew University in East Jerusalem. Drawing on her practises as a social worker for vulnerable Palestinian women, she passionately advocates that critical scholarship should attentively listen to the personal stories of women and girls. For Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies, she spoke about often unnoticed and unclassified acts of women’s resistance in Palestine. On the far-reaching consequences of Israel’s practise of house demolition and on why this cannot be understood without looking at Zionist ongoing dispossession of Palestinians. By eloquently moving from the very personal to the political and from the very local to the global, Dr Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian puts forward a critical analysis of Palestinian women’s experiences under Israeli settler colonialism.

Homonationalism is a recent topic of debate in the field of queer studies, with scholars such as Jasbir Puar and Jin Haritaworn, Tauqir, & Erdem arguing that homonationalist discourse others Muslims by constructing them as homophobic and thus ‘backwards’, as opposed to Western ‘progressive’ acceptance of homosexuality. However, these arguments have not adequately addressed the adoption and reinforcement of homonationalist discourse by queer Muslims. Using the concept of homonationalism, this article investigates the reinforcement of homonationalist discourse by queer women of colour in their representation of Muslim and Arab sexuality. It does this by exploring the connection between Western secularist and Orientalist discourses, and Western debate on queer reproduction. Through an analysis of the film I can’t think straight, I argue that the reflection of these Western discourses in the film reinforce constructions of Western (sexual) exceptionalism and Eastern ‘backwardness’, implying that inclusion in homonationalist discourse is possible for gay Muslims, as long as they meet certain requirements.