Uta Ruppert

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Uta Ruppert (* 1961 ) is Professor of Political Science and Political Sociology with a focus on developing countries (with special consideration of gender relations) at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main .

biography

  • Studied political science, economics and sociology
  • Dissertation on women's work in the political and economic process of Burkina Faso
  • From 1988 to 2002 research assistant and research assistant at the Institute for Political Science at the Justus Liebig University in Gießen and guest lecturer at the universities of Linz and Innsbruck / Austria, Castellon / Spain, Bandung / Indonesia as well as lecturer at the international women's university ifu.
  • Since 2002 Professor of Political Science and Political Sociology with a focus on development and gender research in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt / M.

also:

  • Director of the Cornelia Goethe Center for Women's Studies and Research into Gender Relations
  • Member of the board of directors of the Center for Interdisciplinary Africa Research (ZIAF)
  • Supervisor in the DFG Graduate School “Public Spheres and Gender Relations. Dimensions of experience "
  • Co-director of the international seminar “Women in Politics” at the Inter University Center (IUC) Dubrovnik
  • Liaison professor of the Heinrich Böll Foundation

Regional expertise:

West Africa, (South) East Africa and Indonesia.

Main focus of work and research

In her publications, Uta Ruppert deals, among other things, with questions of gender-political change in the context of transformation and the localization of democracy in Africa. In her book “Connecting present times - women's work and women's politics in the development process of Burkina Faso”, Ruppert draws attention to the living and working conditions of African women and calls for a significant improvement in the material livelihood. Ruppert would like to awaken a better understanding of the African reality in the reader and shows this on the basis of women and women's political strategies in Burkina Faso.

In her article “Progress, step backwards, step change: International women's politics between backlash and empowerment”, Ruppert deals with “the development directions of international women's politics”. The author notes four steps backwards: Political-economic crises cause more inequality for women in living conditions, "men-aligned defense mechanisms", i. H. the suppression of women's political demands, the decline in women's movements and “the specifically anti-feminist men's politics”. Empowerment, "the right of disposal over resources, decision-making and creative rights in various areas of society", appears as "the development of material and immaterial women's power".

Ruppert concentrates (together with Virginia Penrose) in her article “Attempts at Cross-Border Understanding” on the women's political consequences of the system change in Eastern Europe. According to her, the consequences are: the feminization of poverty, rising unemployment among women, unequal pay and the dismantling of state social benefits such as E.g. child care. Based on these observations, she comes to the conclusion that women are more affected by the system change than men.

In her essay "Ability to go to war, bargaining power and the unequal division of labor", Ruppert criticizes the overestimated male characteristics, which are sometimes seen as the prerequisite for certain abilities: "Male ability to fight as a prerequisite for international conflict management", "Man, the measure of political subjectivity" This is how men dominate while women theoretically do not even appear in these positions.

Another focus of Ruppert's work is the feminist theory of international relations and gender equality in globalization. Her book “Moving Locally - Negotiating Globally. International Politics and Gender ”analyzes the theory and practice of international politics related to gender. Together with guest authors, Ruppert comes to the conclusion that "international women's policy is largely supported by local movements whose issues need to be negotiated globally". In her book Ruppert shows that international politics is dominated by economic and potentially armed security politics. States are still the dominant actors here. Gender-specific questions are left out: "Women as decision-makers as well as specific interests and problems of women have hardly any weight in international politics". Women therefore remained powerless, according to Ruppert. In order to substantiate her theses, the author gives a few examples. Women would make up around fifty percent of the world's population, but earn only a tenth of the world's income. Only around one percent of economic leadership positions worldwide are held by women, and among the fifty presidents of the UN General Assembly there are only two women to date. In her book, Ruppert criticizes the fact that international politics is neither structured in a gender-neutral way, nor that it would work fairly between the sexes. There is a division into a male and a female sphere. Women are usually assigned a place on the female deficit side of the world (politics). Ruppert also criticizes the ignorance and reticence of classic political science analyzes and theories of international politics. The “mainstream” of the subject rigorously ignores the results of the studies of women and gender studies. It was only in the 1990s that international women's (movement) policy became relevant. "Feminist perspectives have so far played a marginal role in the theories of international relations," said Ruppert. The author also deals with the main features of feminist theory in international relations.

Uta Ruppert contributes to the book “Women's Political Chances of Global Politics” with her essay “Global Governance: The End of Illusion or a New Ideal of International Women's Politics?” The main topics are gender democracy and international women's politics. Globalization is seen here as “a thoroughly gender-specific transformation through participation”. It is pointed out that the proportion of women in processes of political decision-making and their influence on them is very low worldwide. As an alternative solution, changing the content and structures of global governance (the political shaping of the process of globalization) is proposed. The aim is to increase women's political opportunities in world politics.

In a published article, “The better half of transnational civil societies”, Ruppert discusses women's NGOs and the politics of women's human rights. According to Ruppert, all organizations of this kind have a basis: improving the living conditions of women and fighting violence against women.

Ruppert's essay, “Racism and international economic inequality”, published in collaboration with Anja Ruf, deals with considerations on gaps in gender equality policy. The authors point out that German gender equality policy has so far excluded black German women, migrants and women from the south in their ideas and strategies. Furthermore, they try to reconstruct the racism discussion in the women's movement of the previous years, which was mostly shaped by migrant and Afro-German women. Mention is also made of the "equality demand" of "third world women" which was developed and raised by the women's movements in the South in the 1970s and 80s. Although these demands became known to the western feminist public through the United Nations World Conference on Women, they were not included in the conception of institutional equality policy.

literature

  • Ilse Lenz : The New Women's Movement in Germany. Farewell to the small difference . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-14729-1 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ruppert, Uta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political scientist
DATE OF BIRTH 1961