Das Margherita-von-Brentano-Zentrum präsentiert im Sommersemester 2025 erneut Projekte und Neuerscheinungen aus dem Bereich der Geschlechterforschung der Freien Universität Berlin.

Alle Interessierten sind herzlich dazu eingeladen, Lunch mitzubringen und mitzudiskutieren!

Inputs

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Donnerstag, 19.06.2024, 12:30-13:30 Uhr

Özge Yaka (Institut für Geographische Wissenschaften)

Fighting for the River: Gender, Body, and Agency in Environmental Struggles

Fighting for the River portrays women's intimate, embodied relationships with river waters and explores how those relationships embolden local communities' resistance to private run-of-the-river hydroelectric power plants in Turkey. Building on extensive ethnographic research, Özge Yaka develops a body-centered, phenomenological approach to women's environmental activism and combines it with a relational ontological perspective. In this way, the book pushes beyond the “natural resources” frame to demonstrate how our corporeal connection to nonhuman entities is constitutive of our more-than-human lifeworld. Fighting for the River takes the human body as a starting point to explore the connection between lived experience and nonhuman environments, treating bodily senses and affects as the media of more-than-human connectivity and political agency. Analyzing local environmental struggles as struggles for coexistence, Yaka frames human-nonhuman relationality as a matter of socio-ecological justice.

Hybrid-Veranstaltung
Teilnahme unter: https://fu-berlin.webex.com/fu-berlin/j.php?MTID=mcc9b2e426ce66e25e1491b19045bb185
Oder im Raum K 31/102, Freie Universität Berlin, Rostlaube

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Donnerstag, 26.06.2024, 12:30-13:30 Uhr

Cilja Harders (Otto-Suhr-Institut für Politikwissenschaft)

The revolution cannot be unfelt - Affect, emotion and political protest in Egypt

Abstract tba!

Hybrid-Veranstaltung
Teilnahme unter: https://fu-berlin.webex.com/fu-berlin/j.php?MTID=m1f11e6f0fa35589830863be7a505c027
Oder im Raum K 31/102, Freie Universität Berlin, Rostlaube

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Donnerstag, 03.07.2024, 12:30-13:30 Uhr

Jennifer Chan de Avila (Otto-Suhr-Institut für Politikwissenschaft)

Menstrual Health & Work: Menopause in Focus

Menstrual health remains a largely neglected topic in the workplace. While discussions around menstruation and menstrual cycles are slowly gaining visibility, menopause remains the most silenced aspect of menstrual health. Despite affecting millions of workers worldwide, it is still framed as a private or medical issue rather than a structural concern, reinforcing gendered ageism and workplace inequalities. But what if menopause were seen not as an individual challenge, but as a crucial workplace issue, one that requires systemic, rather than personal, solutions?

Menopause is not just a biological transition, it is embedded in social norms, power structures, and workplace cultures that shape professional experiences. The stigma surrounding menopause often forces employees to downplay or hide their symptoms for fear of discrimination, leading to self-censorship, exclusion, and the loss of experienced talent. Addressing this issue requires a fundamental rethink of how workplaces define health, productivity, and inclusion. Organizations must move beyond superficial accommodations and actively integrate menopause into their frameworks for workplace equity and well-being. Drawing from the book Wechseljahre am Arbeitsplatz: Handlungskonzept für ein innovatives betriebliches Gesundheitsmanagement (Chan de Avila & Nitsche 2025) this talk explores menopause through three key dimensions: physical, psychological, and socio-affective, demonstrating why it must be recognized as more than a private health matter.

How does menopause expose the limitations of workplace health policies? In what ways do gender and age intersect to shape professional trajectories? And most importantly, what would a truly menopause-inclusive workplace look like? This talk invites participants to rethink menopause as a workplace transformation issue, one that challenges traditional notions of labor, health, and inclusion. Through an interactive discussion, we will explore how organizations, policies, and cultural narratives must shift to ensure that menopause is no longer a silent career barrier, but instead a recognized and supported life transition.

Hybrid-Veranstaltung
Teilnahme unter: https://fu-berlin.webex.com/fu-berlin/j.php?MTID=maafdbbaaa4be9af09dd4838a33c1f1b4
Oder im Raum K 31/102, Freie Universität Berlin, Rostlaube