‘Untrustworthy and Unbelievable’ citizenship in the same way as men. A vision for feminist citizenship mandates practices that are political, participatory and democratic, which allow people to engage actively in making decisions that affect their own lives.38 Citizenship is not merely about occupying political space — the Marshallian construction of female citizenship is contingent upon involving women in political life and improving their lives in the workplace.7? This does not account for citizenship in the private realm. As Raia Prokhovnik states, dominant liberal notions of citizenship see citizenship as universal in terms of providing access to certain rights; in contrast, those who cannot access those rights fall to the margin of the ‘other’.4° Feminist scholars suggest that in analysing questions of citizenship, membership must include elements of activities that are not traditionally seen as ‘political’.*! This discourse has also been expanded to incorporate elements of queer theory. David T Evans uses the term ‘sexual citizenship’ to describe the insertion of sexual politics within the dominant understanding of citizenship.42 This school of thought, in the words of Thomas McGee, conflates citizenship with “broader notions of membership, participation and belonging [rather] than the strict legal definition of being formally recognised as a citizen of a particular state’ .4° The realm of citizenship is, therefore, not neutral or objective. To counter this notion, we have adopted a feminist standpoint in our research. We wish to investigate the ‘lives of marginal and oppressed groups and their histories’*4 to lay bare the entrenched structures of the patriarchy.4> The principles informing feminist standpoint theory are very relevant here; namely, that on account of their multiple marginalisations, women’s lived experiences of citizenship are vastly different from that of their male counterparts.4° We attempt to understand how the performance of citizenship manifests for women when their very citizenship itself is at stake. We investigate the question of statelessness in this context. C Gender and Statelessness With respect to statelessness, discrimination on grounds of gender can be direct or indirect. As far as the international legal regime is concerned, neither of the two statelessness conventions refer to gender in their text. Tang Lay Lee points out that feminist critiques of citizenship assume that women have citizenship by 38 39 40 41 42 43° 44 45 46 Mary G Dietz, ‘Context Is All: Feminism and Theories of Citizenship’ (1987) 116(4) Daedalus 1, 13-14. Raia Prokhovnik, ‘Public and Private Citizenship: From Gender Invisibility to Feminist Inclusiveness’ (1998) 60 Feminist Review 84, 86. ibid. ibid 86-87. David T Evans, ‘Sexual Citizenship’ in George Ritzer (ed), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology (John Wiley & Sons 2007) 1. Thomas McGee, ‘“Rainbow Statelessness”: Between Sexual Citizenship and Legal Theory: Exploring the Statelessness-LGBTIQ+ Nexus’ (2020) 2(1) Statelessness & Citizenship Review 64, 67. Rutvica Andryasevic, “Acts of Citizenship as Methodology’ in Engin F Isin and Michael Saward (eds), Enacting European Citizenship (Cambridge University Press Cambridge 2013) 49 Susan Hekman, ‘Truth and Method: Feminist Standpoint Theory Revisited’ (1997) 22(2) Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 341, 343-44. Mary E Swigonski, “The Logic of Feminist Standpoint Theory for Social Work Research’ (1994) 39(4) Social Work 387, 390-91. 241