The Combined Effect of Women's Neighborhood Resources and Collective Efficacy on IPV

This study integrates gender stratification and social disorganization theories to examine neighborhood effects on intimate partner violence (IPV). Using data from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods, multilevel models assessed the influences of women's neighborhood‐level socioeconomic resources relative to men's and collective efficacy on a woman's risk of IPV victimization by her spouse or cohabiting partner. The findings indicate that women's relative neighborhood resources protect against IPV victimization only in neighborhoods with sufficiently high collective efficacy. Likewise, the results show that collective efficacy protects against IPV victimization only when women have at least a modicum of control over neighborhood resources compared to men. The findings emphasize the importance of considering group resources along with neighborhood social organization to better understand IPV. More broadly, this study demonstrates how a group's position in a neighborhood social hierarchy helps determine the extent to which its members benefit from neighborhood social control.     

Village Tolerance of Abuse,Women's Status,and the Ecology of Intimate Partner Violence in Rural Uttar Pradesh,India

We explore the multilevel determinants of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. We focus on village tolerance of abuse and its ability to regulate the effects of individual and village‐level women's status and social capital. Using individual and village data from the 1998 to 1999 India National Family Health Survey, we find that village tolerance and women's status at individual and village levels help explain the risk of IPV. Village tolerance of abuse also moderates the ability of village‐level women's status and social capital to protect women from IPV. Results underscore the need to understand processes that sustain and/or challenge violence‐legitimating norms.     

Women's relationships with women at work: Barriers to solidarity

Voluminous scholarship documents the wage gap, occupational segregation, sexual harassment, and other forms of gender inequality at work. Few sociological studies explore women's work relationships with other women. Our article summarizes existing research from several disciplines on women's working relationships with other women. Specifically, three themes about the conditions of work emerge that discourage women's support for other women: (a) negative stereotypes about women, (b) lack of recognition of gender inequality, and (c) the devaluation of women's relationships, groups, and networks. We assert that these conditions reinforce essentialized notions of women, ignore larger structural inequalities at work, and cast women as the primary culprit in perpetuating gender inequality at work. We conclude with promising areas for future research on women's working relationships with other women.     

The Role of Attachment Behaviors in the Link between Relationship Satisfaction and Depression in Clinical Couples: Implications for Clinical Practice

Using dyadic, clinical data from 104 couples in committed relationships, the purpose of this study was to determine whether relationship satisfaction was associated with depression through perceived partner attachment behaviors—accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement—for both men and women. We found that one's satisfaction in the relationship was the lens through which they viewed their partner's attachment behaviors and—women's relationship satisfaction was the lens through which her male partner viewed her attachment behaviors. Finally, women's relationship satisfaction is associated with both individuals' depression through her perceived partner's accessibility, responsiveness, and engagement. The findings from this study are important because they provide clinically relevant and mutable constructs in which clinicians can intervene at an attachment level in distressed marriages with depressed partners.     

Women and Top Leadership Positions: Towards an Institutional Analysis

Women remain under‐represented in top leadership positions in work organizations, a reality that reflects a variety of barriers that create a glass ceiling effect. However, some women do attain top leadership positions, leading scholars to probe under what conditions women are promoted despite seemingly intractable and well‐documented barriers. Previous scholarship tends to posit individual‐level explanations, suggesting either that women who attain top leadership positions are exceptional or that potential women leaders lack key qualities, such as assertiveness. Much less scholarship has explored institutional‐level mechanisms that may increase women's ascension to top positions. This analysis seeks to fill this gap by testing three institutional‐level theories that may shape women's access to and tenure in top positions: the glass cliff, decision‐maker diversity, and the saviour effect. To test these theories we rely on a dataset that includes all CEO transitions in Fortune 500 companies over a 20‐year period. Contrary to the predictions of the glass cliff, we find that diversity among decision makers — not firm performance — significantly increases women's likelihood of being promoted to top leadership positions. We also find, contrary to the predictions of the saviour effect, that diversity among decision makers increases women leaders' tenure as CEOs regardless of firm performance. By identifying contextual factors that increase women's mobility, the paper makes an important contribution to the processes that shape and reproduce gender inequality in work organizations.     

Impact of Marital Dissolution on Men's and Women's Incomes: A Longitudinal Study

This study adopted a longitudinal framework in examining economic consequences of marital dissolution for men and women. Data collected in the Survey of Labor and Income Dynamics from 1998 to 2005 were used to compare men's and women's incomes for up to 5 years during and after marital dissolution. Marital dissolution was defined as divorce or separation from a spouse or a common-law partner. Results revealed a dramatic drop in women's income and a slight drop in men's income during the dissolution year. One year later, women's income was 80% that of men's; 4 years past dissolution, it reached 85% that of men's. Gender differences in adjusted incomes were statistically significant for up to 3 years postdissolution. These findings suggest that the level of deterioration in women's economic well-being after marital dissolution has not improved in the last 2 decades.     

Women of Color in State Legislatures: Gender,Race, Ethnicity and Legislative Office Holding

SUMMARY

This article investigates the puzzle of women of color's proportionately higher percentage of office holding in state legislatures compared to white women legislators by testing the predictive capacity of variables commonly used to explain percentages of women at the state level. Using an original dataset that includes characteristics for all 50 U.S. states, the results suggest that standard indicators of women's office holding do not work equally well for all groups of women. The study demonstrates that race and ethnicity do make a difference in regards to women's office holding at the state level when the racial and ethnic characteristics of female legislators are considered.     

Women's body image self‐consciousness during physical intimacy with a partner

In Western cultures, women's bodies are objectified more so than men's, and other writers have noted the multiple ways that such objectification may negatively impact women's lives. As women's sexual desirability is often equated with physical attractiveness and thinness, it is surprising that previous investigations have not included women's body image self‐consciousness during physical intimacy with a partner. In the current set of studies, a 15‐item measure of the construct was developed and shown to have excellent psychometric properties. Approximately one third of college student women indicated experiencing body image self‐consciousness during physical intimacy with a heterosexual partner at least some of the time. Even after statistically controlling for actual body size, measures of general body image, general sexual anxiety, and general well‐being, scores on the new measure were predictive of heterosexual experience, sexual esteem, sexual assertive‐ness, and avoidance of sexual activity. Results are discussed with regard to implications and directions for future research.     

Coverage of Women's Issues in Social Work Journals: Are We Building an Adequate Knowledge Base?

Abstract

The authors of this article conducted a review of selected social work journals published between 1982 and 1991 to determine the coverage given to women's issues during this period. Because this study was similar to one conducted for the previous decade, the authors were able to analyze trends over time as well as differences among various journals. The findings indicate that articles focusing on women's issues comprised less than 10% of all articles published in the sampled journals during the decade. The study also found that women authored over 75% of the articles and books on women's content, but that only about 15% of the articles women write are on women's issues.     

Gender attitudes,sexual violence,and HIV/AIDS risks among men and women in Cape Town,South Africa

This study examined gender attitudes and sexual violence‐supportive beliefs (rape myths) in a sample of South African men and women at risk for HIV transmission. Over 40% of women and 16% of men had been sexually assaulted, and more than one in five men openly admitted to having perpetrated sexual assault. Traditional attitudes toward women's social and gender roles, as well as rape myths, were endorsed by a significant minority of both men and women. Multivariate analyses showed that for men, sexual assault history and rape myth acceptance, along with alcohol and other drug use history, were significantly related to cumulative risks for HIV infection. In contrast, although we found that women were at substantial risk for sexually transmitted infection (STI), including HIV, women's risks were only related to lower levels of education and alcohol use history. We speculate that women's risks for STI/HIV are the product of partner characteristics and male‐dominated relationships, suggesting the critical importance of intervening with men to reduce women's risks for sexual assault and STI/HIV.     

Status of women on faculty and status of women's studies in Israeli schools of social work

Although social work is a profession consisting mainly of women, social work education is dominated by men. In Israel, 75% of professional social workers are women, but women constitute less than half of the faculties of schools of social work, and are found chiefly in the middle level of academic rank. None holds a rank higher than senior lecturer, although there has been one professor who was a woman. This paper discusses the problems of social work as a women's profession from the point of view of women's developmental theory, and discusses the limitations of the curriculum in the area of women's studies.     

Social Identity and its Influence on Women's Roles in East-Central Europe

An apparent drop in women's presence in the political sphere has spawned debates in the feminist literature over the need and cultural appropriateness of women's political office-holding in East-Central Europe. The author discusses the nature of political participation in light of women's self-definition, social identity, and loci of commitments in these transforming states. Taking their own value orientations and the societal processes they experience as a baseline from which to appraise political and social change, women in East-Central Europe feel disillusioned with the transition to a market economy and the ideological framework out of which it functions. They have, after all, disproportionately borne the ill-effects of the new ideology of efficiency and productivity in the workforce and they perceive the political arena as a narrowly defined arena of partisan rancoring that does not address their needs. Pointing to Dahl's work on moral civic virtue, the author argues that the orientation and values of women in East-Central Europe – i.e. a commitment to justice and preference for localized, pragmatic (not ideological) and particularistic action – are especially conducive to developing the moral civic infrastructure so badly needed in these transitioning countries. The author discusses the merits and drawbacks of three possible scenarios for action for the women of this region: maintaining the status quo; using women's traditional and preferred forms of action to effect change 'from the bottom'; and taking frontal action at the national level against inequities and discriminatory policies.     

Gendered Divisions of Fertility Work: Socioeconomic Predictors of Female Versus Male Sterilization

Domestic labor researchers have examined a multitude of duties disproportionately performed by women, yet the responsibility associated with navigating a couple's fertility—fertility work—has been overlooked. Using data from the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 1,415), the author examined how racial and socioeconomic factors affect the division of contraceptive fertility work among married and cohabiting women who rely on either their partners' vasectomies or their own sterilizations. Drawing theoretical connections between fertility work and housework, resource‐ and gender‐based perspectives were used to assess whether women's or their partners' characteristics are stronger predictors of sterilization type, and whether women's absolute or relative education level has a greater impact. Findings suggest that White and socioeconomically privileged women are more likely to have vasectomized partners than disadvantaged women. Male partners' characteristics were more closely associated with sterilization type than women's characteristics, lending greater support for the gender‐based hypotheses.     

And roses too: How “Better Work” facilitates gender empowerment in global supply chains

Women's increasing entry into paid work has not been accompanied by a corresponding change in the gender division of unpaid labor in the household and community. Though women participate in the labor market, the expectation is that they will also take responsibility for the household. To what degree does women's waged work in the garment industry transform gender norms and dynamics in their home lives? To what extent do the choices they make translate to their household-level empowerment? This practice-focused article examines these questions by looking at data collected on gender dynamics at work and at home in the clothing industries of Bangladesh, Cambodia, Kenya, Lesotho, and Vietnam. While women's empowerment through garment sector employment remains circumscribed by low wages, financial insecurity, and gendered expectations, we find that international interventions, namely the International Labor Organization's Better Work program, has expanded women's abilities to exert agency over their earnings within the context of household resource allocation and has decreased the negative effects of ongoing and systemic financial precarity.     

Truth or Fiction: Men as Victims of Domestic Violence?

Recently, claims have been made that womens's violence towards their male partners is a hidden and unacknowledged form of domestic violence. This paper critically examines this claim, arguing that studies that compare men's and women's violence, while showing a similar frequency of violent acts perpetrated by both men and women, also reveal significant differences. A man's violence is more serious in its effects, can employ a wider range of violence tactics and emanates from a more dominant and powerful position in relation to his female partner. A woman's violence, on the other hand, is often in self defence or is an expression of frustration and stress. In contrast to men's violence, women's violence is not usually an attempt to control or dominate their partners. The implications for practice are discussed and therapists are encouraged to differentiate between women who are violent towards an abusive partner versus those whose partners are not abusive.     

The disconnection between policy practices and women's lived experiences: combining work and life in the UK and the Netherlands

Combining work and family life is central to women's participation in the labour market. Work–life balance has been a key objective of UK and Dutch policy since the 1990s, but policies created at the national level do not always connect with the day to day experiences of women juggling caring and domestic responsibilities with paid work. Using qualitative data from a European Social Fund Objective 3 project the paper explores women's lived realities of combining work and family life in the UK in comparison to the Netherlands as a possible ‘best practices’ model. We argue that women in both countries experience work–life balance as an ongoing process, continually negotiating the boundaries of work and family, and that there needs to be a more sophisticated appreciation of the differing needs of working parents. Whilst policy initiatives can be effective in helping women to reconcile dual roles, many women in both the UK and the Netherlands still resolve these issues at the individual or personal level and feel that policy has not impacted on their lives in any tangible way.     

Women at work: Commitment and behavior over the life course

Women at every stage of the family cycle are increasing their labor force participation but few maintain the continuous, full-time attachment characteristic of employed men. What does this mean in terms of women's subjective work commitment? Using data from six waves of the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics this study investigates the relationship between the pattern of employment over a five-year period and employed women's psychological commitment to work; findings suggest congruence as well as incongruence between labor force attitudes and behavior at different stages of the life course. Commitment to work in 1976 is also incorporated in a model estimating 1977 employment status. Results reveal that the greatest congruence between subjective commitment and labor force attachment is found in young women who have not yet begun their child bearing. On the other hand, employed mothers of preschoolers emerge as the group most likely to evidence discrepancies between labor force behavior and psychological commitment to the work role. Subjective commitment to work is shown to have a slight positive effect in estimating labor force activity the subsequent year, but the greatest predictor is women's work pattern over the previous five years.     

Agricultural body-building: Incorporations of gender,body and work

This paper is concerned with gendered embodiment of agricultural work, particularly the connection between women's gender identity and the body at work. Focussing on how the body enters into relations with the tools of work, four processes are identified by which women's bodies, work and machinery are incorporated into each other and give each other meaning. In the first category women's embodied competences are merged with the qualities of machinery much the same way as men. The second shows how women work to uphold a definition of their bodies as feminine despite the fact that they operate machinery. The third process shows that when machine work is incorporated into farm women's traditional work on the farm, neither the definition of women's bodies nor the tractor change. Finally, when women do not operate machinery as part of their work, the traditional conception of gendered, embodied farm work is maintained. The analysis establishes that there is no one to one relationship between work and the meaning of the embodied self, and highlights the complex and ironic relationship between machinery and femininities.     

From the private to the public sphere: new research on women's participation in peace-building

Despite the United Nation's landmark Security Council Resolution on women, peace and security in 2000 which highlighted the importance of women's participation in peace-building, only one in 40 peace treaty signatories over the last 25 years has been a woman. Yet evidence from non-government organisations and women's rights organisations shows that women are active agents of peace, resolving conflicts at all levels of society with little or no recognition. This article discusses new research which tracks women's roles in building peace at local levels in five conflict-affected contexts: Afghanistan, Liberia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sierra Leone. The article highlights the significance of violence against women as a barrier to peace-building, and explores how and why women's exclusion and marginalisation from peace processes tends to increase the more formal the processes become. The article uses two case studies of women's rights organisations in Afghanistan and Nepal to illustrate the research findings and demonstrate how communities can mobilise to promote gender equality and fulfil women's rights.     

Women's Career Progression in Law Firms: Views from the Top,Views From Below

Law continues to be an attractive career path for women. Yet evidence shows that women's careers in law stagnate with proportionally small numbers of women progressing up the hierarchy from law graduate to partner. In this study we investigated how gendering and class processes impact on women's career progression. A major contribution is that we explored the heterogeneous views held by women below and above the partnership line, in Auckland's top law firms. Drawing on Acker's gendering processes (1990, 2006a) plus the accumulation of appropriate capitals needed to progress, we analysed 52 interview accounts. The women lawyers themselves were divided on how gendering and class processes impact on their career progression. Women partners accepted the hierarchical employment model of law and were confident in their role and place. Women below the partner line, while frustrated by the personal and professional requirements for success, did not demonstrate agency for change. In concluding, we reflect on the potential for change in the profession.