“Stress That I Don't Need”: Gender Expectations and Relationship Struggles Among the Poor

Based on 55 qualitative interviews, this article looks in depth at the ways in which gendered expectations impact heterosexual romantic relationships among low‐income and poor adults in a small, western U.S. city. It finds that contradictory understandings regarding meanings and responsibilities associated with masculinity and femininity present challenges to the formation and sustaining of committed relationships. Although men desired to be providers and heads of household with limited household responsibilities, women wanted men with traditional work ethics but egalitarian perspectives on sharing both income generation and home and family responsibilities. Participants' unrealistic and conflicting gendered relationship expectations combined with economic concerns and social problems associated with economic strain to contribute to relationship tensions and wariness toward romantic involvements.     

Partner Violence in Transgender Communities: What Helping Professionals Need to Know

ABSTRACT

In recent decades, there has been an increase in scholarly attention devoted to the study of intimate partner violence (IPV) within rainbow communities. While a growing body of scholarship now informs our understanding of the experiences of gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women with IPV, comparatively less is known about IPV within transgender communities. Drawing on the published literature on transgender intimate relationships, this article seeks to provide practitioners with a foundational understanding of IPV in the lives of transgender people. Specifically, we will examine (a) methodological, political, and social barriers to the creation of knowledge about transgender IPV; (b) the familial and relationship contexts of IPV within transgender communities; (c) the prevalence of IPV experienced by transgender survivors; (d) the dynamics of IPV perpetrated against and/or by transgender persons; (e) the problematic use of the “trans panic” defense by perpetrators of IPV in legal contexts; and (f) recommendations for supporting transgender survivors of IPV in ways that are trans-inclusive and trans-positive.     

Evaluation of a Training to Reduce Provider Bias Toward Pregnant Patients With Substance Abuse

The objective of this article is not to present a scientific or systematic study, but to provide an initial framework for designing a training workshop to enhance health practitioners’ (nurses, social workers, physicians, etc.) knowledge regarding substance abuse treatment and to decrease their bias toward substance-abusing women, particularly pregnant women in rural communities. We incorporated the 4 Transdisciplinary Foundations from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Competencies Model, with specific competencies targeted that related to provider bias. After the conference, 52 of the 70 participants completed a questionnaire to self-assess knowledge level and confidence in skill related to substance abuse management. Participant mean scores were statistically significantly higher following the conference than 1 week prior (p < .001) in the area of “gender difference with substance abuse,” moving from an average of 2.6 to 4.5 on a 5-point Likert scale. Our conference was successful in increasing attendees’ knowledge about gender difference and substance abuse among pregnant patients.     

A critical examination of visualized femininity: selective inheritance and intensification of gender posing from historical painting to contemporary advertising

This study investigates the visual correspondences of gender posing behaviors, specifically exhibited by female figures, between historical European painting and contemporary American photographic advertising. While utilizing Erving Goffman’s Gender Advertisements as an analytical framework, the study focuses on the visual legacy of gender ritualization that is salient in contemporary mass media, proposing five semiotic codes to concretely analyze it. Although Goffman’s gender posing is traditionally associated with female vulnerability and indolence, the study proposes that such qualities are exploited as indicators of luxury within Western visual culture and advertising specifically. It seeks to deconstruct and re-frame the interconnected connotations of luxury and gender display, both expanding Goffman’s framework and providing a unique interpretive resource for critical readers of media texts.     

Long-term care in Spain: Difficulties in professionalizing services

The aim of this article is to analyze the difficulties in professionalizing the long-term care system in Spain. Since 2006, the new Spanish law has recognized care as a subjective right, and regulations are being designed to create a framework for its professionalization. Nowadays, family remains the most important group of providers who care for their elders, and women remain the main informal caregivers. Why do families resist using public long-term care services and professional carers included in the new law? The hypothesis highlights sociocultural factors as an obstacle to professionalization of long-term care services in addition to political and economic factors. The results show qualitative data about expectations, preferences, and discourses that women caregivers have in relation to their responsibility. The empirical material includes 25 interviews with different profiles of caregivers and six focus groups with family caregivers. The article suggests that the Spanish ideal of care is a problem for the professionalization of services because the family remains as the main provider of care—without specific skills, knowledge, and abilities.     

Humanitarian response and stress in Kenya: gendered problems and their implications

ABSTRACT

Stress-related conditions such as burnout and post-traumatic stress disorder are a growing concern in the humanitarian sector. Aid workers themselves report not only that mental health problems are common, but that the support they receive from their employers is insufficient. Problematically, the experience of the international aid worker – particularly those who are white and from the global North – is often foregrounded in explaining what constitutes stress and related mental health problems. This indicates a wider problem of what is required of ‘the perfect humanitarian’ – a personality that is gendered and racialised – and how this influences the different experiences and treatment of national and international staff from aid agencies. This article explores the organisational culture and working conditions of humanitarian settings and their impact on the mental health and well-being of staff. It argues that there is a structural dimension to stress that is less to do with external security threats and more to do with the specific infrastructure, policies, and practices of humanitarian operations, with implications for aid workers which cut across dimensions of race, gender, and nationality.     

“Empowerment” as efficiency and participation: gender in responsible agricultural investment principles

Amidst global concern over the state of transnational large-scale agricultural investments, several efforts have been made to set global standards for “responsible agricultural investment.” While these efforts have received mixed reviews from the international community, very little attention has been paid to the gendered language of these principles. Through examining two separate sets of agricultural investment principles – one created by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Bank, and the other by the United Nations Committee on World Food Security – this article finds that, despite different processes and participants in the creation of these principles, they nonetheless share a language of “empowerment” targeted at women and marginalized groups. However, in contrast to early feminist discourses of empowerment, these principles instead perpetuate the notion that empowerment is to be found through efficiency, productivity and participation in land and labor markets. This article takes a critical look at this language of economic empowerment in each set of principles, and points to the dangers of equating efficiency, productivity and participation with feminist empowerment. By not acknowledging the broader gender dynamics of agricultural governance and markets, these discourses risk deepening existing inequalities rather than moving toward meaningful social change.     

个体性别意识与女大学生就业质量--基于五所高校的数据分析

本文以福建省五所高校大学生就业问题的调查数据为基础，分析了个体性别意识与女大学生就业质量的关系。研究发现，性别分工观念、性别自信及性别权利意识等因素对女大学生就业质量均有重要正向影响，但影响程度不同，性别平等意识对男女大学生就业质量的影响呈反向差别。     

Twenty-First Century Lesbian Studies,edited by Noreen Giffney and Katherine O'Donnell

Using a convenience sample of 157 undergraduates, this study explored the likeability ratings of target characters from selected film clips who were described as gay or heterosexual as they associated with a gay-described foil character (i.e., a character against which the target is compared). As predicted, male respondents who strongly endorsed anti-gay prejudice viewed gay-described targets more favorably than heterosexual-described targets when each target was paired with a gay foil. Further, this pattern of biased ratings by high-prejudice male participants against our heterosexual target differentiated these participants from both low-prejudice male and high-prejudice female respondents. In contrast, but as hypothesized, high-prejudice female respondents compared to high-prejudice males rated heterosexual-described targets more favorably than they rated gay-described targets.     

男女性别比失衡问题的思考

目前,我国男女性别比例严重失衡,由此带来性犯罪现象增加、婚姻挤压、拜金主义思想等各种社会问题,究其原因,除了传统的重男轻女观念的影响和妇女地位的不平等外,还有科技手段的滥用。应该树立先进的社会性别意识,禁止非法的胎儿性别鉴定,提高女性的社会地位,这样,才能切实解决出生人口性别比例失调问题。