Fidelma Ashe

• University of Ulster

The figure of the woman combatant has become associated with the transgression of traditional gender norms. By entering the theatre of violence, an arena normatively framed as male, the woman combatant subverts the bifurcation of gender roles and the gendered public/private divide. However, while aspects of the combatant role may be liberating for...

Constitutions reflect national values and set out the foundational principles of governance. Traditionally, those values and principles have been male-defined. As such, constitutions often form the basis of the ‘gendered state’ with all its attendant inequities. Feminist constitutionalism challenges the wider domain of constitution-making to consid...

There has been comparatively little interest in studies of masculinities in Northern Ireland. This chapter explores why studies of masculinities have been slower to develop in Northern Ireland and examines the critical questions that studying men’s gendered identities open up in a society emerging from conflict. Northern Ireland challenges assumpti...

Explorations of Protestant, unionist and loyalist (PUL) women’s identities during the conflict suggested that they were less politically active than their Irish nationalist and republican counterparts. Throughout the conflict, they appeared to be suspicious of feminism and content to ‘do their bit’ to defend the Union within the regulatory gender s...

Research Highlights and Abstract This article: Exposes how masculinised accounts of conflict transformational processes in Northern Ireland have distorted the historical record of the region's on-going transition from violent conflict. Assesses the theoretical and practical effects of de-gendering the analysis of conflict transformational processes...

Men's dominance of the political and military dimensions of the Northern Ireland conflict has meant that the story of the conflict has generally been a story about men. Ethno-nationalist antagonism reinforced men's roles as protectors and defenders of ethno-national groups and shaped violent expressions of masculinities. Due to the primacy of ethno...

The riots that erupted in English cities in August 2011 were provoked by a complex mix of socio-economic factors. Sidelining structural explanations for the civil disorder, conservative commentators argued that dysfunctional families had caused the riots. Reinforcing traditional connections between criminality, the family and welfare, conservatives...

There has been extensive academic analysis of Northern Ireland’s ethnonationalist antagonisms. However, academic literature that has explored both the region’s ethno-nationalist conflict and its more recent processes of conflict transformation has neglected the concept of masculinities. This article employs the framework of critical studies of men/...

Both the business sector and government have claimed that there is a skills deficit among graduates in the UK. Universities are now under increasing pressure to develop graduate ‘employability’ strategies to improve the stock and quality of graduates' generic skills. Critical subject communities have been sceptical of an employability agenda that f...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer a perspective to further the understanding of gender entrepreneurship. This paper considers the situatedness of the gendered entrepreneur within diverse international contexts marked by different constitutions of gender identities and networks of power, both within the context of contributions within...

This article discusses the challenges of teaching sexual politics in the context of Northern Ireland. In this region, ethno-nationalism has been implicated in the constitution of sexual narratives that serve the respective ethno-nationalist struggles in the region. The interaction of sexuality with ethnicity reinforces the importance of reflecting...

Community-based restorative justice (CBRJ) schemes emerged in Northern Ireland during the ‘peace process’ to provide an alternative to paramilitary systems of justice. These initiatives have received considerable academic attention. A complex and critical literature has now emerged in this area; however, extant explorations of CBRJ have tended to s...

In the summer of 2008, the Westminster MP and Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Iris Robinson, made homophobic statements during interviews with the media. Robinson's anti-gay remarks highlight the continuing challenges for sexual politics in Northern Ireland. However, conflict transformation literature in the region has elided issues of sex...

The field of masculinities research continues to expand, and has become increasingly complex. Much of the contemporary analysis of men, masculinity and power has been influenced by the work of a number of profeminist writers who have been leading figures in developing new political interventions around men's identities and power. These men have bee...

This article examines and develops a comparison of the Holy Cross School conflict and the campaign by Robert McCartney's sisters and partner to bring those responsible for his murder to justice in Northern Ireland. Both events involved women who identify with the Irish nationalist community in public protest. The article employs a feminist theoreti...

Academic feminists have turned to feminist theory to develop ways of managing or solving ethnic antagonisms, especially among feminists/women in Northern Ireland. This essay troubles the application of feminist theory to conflict resolution/management in Northern Ireland. It examines the impact of this type of deployment of theory on key feminist c...

The murder of Robert McCartney in Belfast in January 2005 sparked a campaign by his sisters and partner to bring his murderer(s), allegedly members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, to justice. The article examines the gender politics of this campaign. It explores how the campaign simultaneously reflected and contested traditional ideas abo...

This article explores the Holy Cross school dispute in Northern Ireland from a feminist perspective. This ethnic quarrel produced a situation whereby women and young schoolgirls became the focal point of a sectarian protest from September 2001 to early 2002. Throughout the conflict, issues of gender were sidelined from the analysis of the dispute....

This article revisits the issue of male experience and its possible relationship to gender politics. Traditionally, feminism has viewed male experience as representing a bar to the development of feminist knowledge and consciousness. This conceptualization of male experience continues to inform the contemporary debate on male feminism. The article...

This paper examines 'mainstream' analysis of community-based restorative justice programmes in Northern Ireland through a critical feminist lens. The paper begins by outlining the development of community-based restorative justice (CBRJ) and then considers how the analysis of this local level form of conflict transformation has been analysed in way...