Women in the American Judiciary

Abstract

This article reviews the women and politics literature on gender and the American judiciary. Specifically, it explores what we know about the behavior of women on the bench: Do women judges behave differently than their male counterparts, or do they blend in and conform to existing norms and institutional cultures? The research in this area largely has gone in two directions. First, there appears to be a great deal of consensus in the literature that in sex-discrimination cases, women judges are more supportive of women's claims than men judges, regardless of their ideology. Second, there is much less consensus over whether or not women employ different methods of reasoning, such as a “difference” jurisprudence.     

Microcomputers in Political Campaigns - Lessons from the Jackson Campaign in New York

Summary

Microcomputer information systems arc a popular and effective tool in political elections. The problems posed by elections to designers and developers are unique, due to their short duration and crisis-oriented atmosphere. Formal systems methodologies become more rather than less intense in such an environment. The Jesse Jackson campaign in the 1988 New York State Presidential primary is examined for lessons in systems design methodology. Voter targeting is identified as a key automation area, and particular targeting techniques are discussed.     

Muslim American Women in the Post-11 September Era

Political events can serve as an impetus for civic engagement or disengagement. The events of 9/11 have directed attention toward US Muslim communities and occasionally inflamed anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiments. This article explores the impact of the 11 September events on hijab-wearing Muslim American women. These events and the negative perception of Islam have paradoxically given rise to Muslim women's public presence and paved the way for their political engagement. Their efforts, however, have been hampered by Orientalist and Islamic fundamentalist ideologies, each advancing its own constructs of Muslim women; one seeking to ‘save’ them and the other to ‘protect’ them. Muslim women have found both ideologies oppressive. As a result, they have been actively challenging these ideologies in American society at large and within their own Muslim communities. Through civic engagement and participation in Muslim organizations, these women have been making efforts to redefine themselves, claim their space, secure their rights and advance the causes of Muslim American communities.     

Women in Movement Transformations in African Political Landscapes

Since the mid-1980s and especially after the early 1990s, women's organizations have increased exponentially throughout Africa as have the arenas in which women have been able to assert their varied concerns. Women are organizing locally and nationally and are networking across the continent on an unprecedented scale. They have in many countries been aggressively using the media to demand their rights in a way not evident in the early 1980s. In some countries they are taking their claims to land, inheritance and associational autonomy to court in ways not seen in the past. Women are challenging laws and constitutions that do not uphold gender equality. In addition, they are increasingly moving into government, legislative, party, NGO and other leadership positions previously the nearly exclusive domain of men. In these and other ways women have taken advantage of the new political openings that occurred in the 1990s, even if the openings were limited and precarious. This second generation of activism is markedly different from the earlier post-independence generation of women's mobilization. The reasons for these shifts are varied: the rise of multi-partyism and demise of military rule; the growing influence of the international women's movement; shifting donor strategies; the expansion of the use of the cell phone and the Internet in the late 1990s; coupled with a significant increase in secondary and university educated women. The article explores the major changes in women's mobilization in Africa by contrasting the current women's movements with those that emerged after independence.     

Political Advocacy in the 1980s

Abstract

Government support for human services programs de creased considerably during the 1980s while defense spending rose dras tically. The shift in spending priorities is thought by some to be due to insufficiently active or incapable social welfare lobbyists. This paper ar gues that human services advocacy groups were as active as supporters of defense programs. Human services advocates were shut out of the de cision-making process primarily due to the lack of public support for their ideas. The implication, that social welfare advocates must build a solid base of public support for their proposals, can be applied to current issues.     

Chinese Women Images in the American Literature in the Early Twentieth Century

二十世纪美国文学中的中国形象大概有两种,一种是“黄祸论”,另一种是典型的中国女性形象。在赛珍珠之前,没有小说对中国形象进行过正面描写,赛珍珠开之先河。她因对中国农民生活的真实描写获得了诺贝尔文学奖。本文则运用女权批评理论分析中国女性形象。赛珍珠笔下的女性多为沉默的女性。     

Chinese Women Images in the American Literature in the Early Twentieth Century

二十世纪美国文学中的中国形象大概有两种,一种是黄祸论,另一种是典型的中国女性形象。在赛珍珠之前,没有小说对中国形象进行过正面描写,赛珍珠开之先河。她因对中国农民生活的真实描写获得了诺贝尔文学奖。本文则运用女权批评理论分析中国女性形象。赛珍珠笔下的女性多为沉默的女性。     

高中生的体型认同:基于女性的分析视角

从身体社会学来看,女性的体型审美取向是男权文化的典型表征。通过中日韩三国高中生的对比分析发现,与男生相比,高中女生普遍接受以瘦为美的体型观,存在更为严重的体型认同问题:在主观体型认知上,倾向于向胖认同;在体型认同情绪上,表现为对胖不满:在体型认同策略上,以饮食减肥为主。这表明,身体焦虑已蔓延到了高中生群体,导致高中女生中存在着较为明显的体型认同偏差和盲目减肥现象。究其原因,传媒的渲染与强化起的是主导作用,家庭教养和同辈交往也有间接影响。     

Agenda Setting and African American Women in State Legislatures

SUMMARY

Political scientists have, in recent years, uncovered substantial evidence that political representation in the United States is influenced by gender and race, yet generally examine the effects of gender entirely separate from the effects of race. In this article, we explore the agenda-setting behavior of African American female state legislators. We find that African American women do respond to both women's interests and black interests. We also find that while the sponsorship of black interest measures by African American women (or other legislators) is not influenced by the proportion of African Americans within the chamber, African American women are less likely to sponsor women's interest measures in legislatures with a relatively high proportion of women present. We conclude that because of their focus on multiple groups, black women occupy a unique place in representation, and that their choices are influenced by the institutional context in which they work.     

Violence Against African American Women in Prisons and Jails

Abstract

The United States prison population is bulging and in recent years, the percentage of African American women being incarcerated far outnumber any other group. As the Black women in jails and prisons grow, so do the whispers about sexual abuse and labor abuse inside these institutions. This article discusses the nature of violence directed against incarcerated Black women and why it is important to direct national attention to this problem. It argues that though the violence may be individually directed, it is institutionally founded. Strategies are proposed for humanizing local jails and federal and state prisons.     

Gender Role Identity and Stress in African American Women

Abstract

Womanism is a feminist perspective that has recently been appropriated for social work practice with African American women (Littlefleld, in press). It emphasizes the centrality of gender role in African American women's psychosocial adaptation, and asserts that the archetypal gender role for this group incorporates both nurturing and economic providing functions. This gender role fluidity has been characterized both as a source of strength (Billingsley, 1992; Hill, 1999) and strain (Lewis, 1989; McAdoo, 1985). The present study empirically investigated the relationship between gender role identity and stress in African American women to clarify its adaptive value. The Bem Sex Role Inventory was used to classify subjects into groups based on the degree to which they identified themselves with stereotypically masculine and feminine traits. Women who endorsed high levels of both masculine and feminine traits experienced lower levels of stress than did other women. The findings indicate that gender role identity is a factor in African American women's psychosocial well-being, and that mainstream gender role norms may not be adequate for analyzing the experiences of this group.     

Political education in post-Second World War Germany and the American South

Abstract

Both American and European adult educationalists saw the Danish folk high school as a model for how to educate citizens for more active involvement in their communities. This article examines the experience of Wislade Folk School in Germany and the Highlander Folk School in the United States after the Second World War. In the German case, Wislade was unable to persuade local people to confront the evils of Nazism, but did facilitate the practical tackling of pressing social and economic problems. Highlander struggled to retain support from white Southerners as the School increasingly addressed the evils of segregation, but developed one of its most effective programmes in conjunction with African Americans as part of the emerging civil rights movement. The study concludes that political education is most effective when it addresses people's aspirations, and builds upon existing social capital.     

Support for Academic Women in Political Science 1890-1945

Between 1893, when the first woman took a PhD in political science, and 1945, about 150 women became political scientists. Support for their professional lives came primarily from other women who were their teachers or their colleagues in women's colleges. Most early women did not marry; those who did found domestic roles detrimental to their careers. Graduate departments channeled women back to women's colleges and did not recruit women for their own faculties. Women are included in the professional organization primarily as representatives of women's colleges. The condition of entry into a secure academic life was to remain sigle and accept a sex-segregated place; but this security did not provide the necessary credential of a prestigious home department for leadership of the nationally organized profession.     

Colorstruck: Skin Color Stratification in the Lives of African American Women

This paper examines the stratification among African American women by skin color on indices such as education, income, and spousal status. How racial and colonial ideologies situate whiteness and blackness as symbolic representations in relation to one another and the subsequent systems of discrimination that develop from those ideologies is the crux of the theoretical argument in this paper. Infusing the concept of constructed notions of beauty into this racial paradigm further elaborates this process for African American women. I hypothesized that light-skinned women would have higher educational attainment, higher personal incomes, and would be more likely to marry high-status husbands than would darker-skinned women. Even when controlling for background variables, all three of the hypotheses are confirmed and the significance of skin color, particularly the privileging of lightness, is demonstrated.     

Election Systems and the Representation of Black Women in American State Legislatures

Both blacks and women are under-represented in American elected offices. At the local and state legislative levels, however, the under-representation of blacks is almost entirely due to the under-representation of black women. Black men have achieved or exceed parity between their population proportions and their proportions among elected officials; therefore, the under-representation of blacks and women are one and the same. Women are more likely to be elected in multi-member districts than in single-member district systems. Black women, in particular, are more likely to come from multi-member district systems whether in overwhelmingly white or black majority constituencies. Redistricting to multi-member districts with black majority and overwhelmingly white constitencies, then, could aid in the election of more black women without hurting black representation overall.     

Political discontent in new democracies: the case of Brazil and Latin America

Political changes related to globalization apparently produce similar effects on old and new democracies. All over the world, comparative research on democratization has showed that political distrust is a common variable affecting the whole of the State and the relationship between citizens and democracy. Nevertheless, political discontent in old democracies has stimulated citizens to adopt new attitudes and modes of political participation, while in newly democratized countries citizens tend to withdraw from politics as a consequence of institutional distrust. In fact, in many new democracies, although adhering to the normative meaning of the democratic regime, distrust of democratic institutions is associated to citizens’ negative feeling about political efficacy, low levels of political interest and political participation, and also preference for democratic models which exclude political parties and/or parliaments. This paper evaluates the meanings and consequences of the contemporary phenomenon of political discontent in Brazil and Latin America and discusses its implications for democratic theory.     

Perception of Sexual Violence Against Women in Asian American Communities

Abstract

The study was a cross-sectional survey using a convenient sample of 186 respondents to examine the perception of sexual violence against women and help-seeking responses to sexual victimization among four Asian groups; Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian (Cambodian, Laotians, and Vietnamese). The authors examined respondents' perception of the severity of the problem of sexual violence against women for Asian American populations, the perceived relationships between perpetrators and victims, the preferred preventive measures, and help-seeking responses. Findings indicated a split opinion among the four Asian groups regarding the perceived severity of the problem. There was a perceived insignificant role of family members in inflicting sexual violence, a general tendency of not choosing an immediate, confrontative stance against the perpetrator to stop sexual violence, and a preference to utilize help from the private domain in situations of sexual victimization. In addition, findings of the study supported the role of shame in deterring individuals from seeking outside professional help and demonstrated the existence of inter-group differences among various ethnic groups. At the same time, findings of the study raise important questions pertaining to the role of family members in sexual victimization of women, changing perceptions, inter-group differences, and the importance of localized knowledge in generating intervention efforts. In addition, findings of the study challenge a simplistic view of the reluctance of Asian American populations to utilize outside professional help. Implications for developing culturally relevant interventions for prevention and treatment as well as future research are discussed.     

Abortion Policy and Vulnerable Women in the United States: A Call for Social Work Policy Practice

Repressive abortion policy in the United States creates undue burdens for groups of vulnerable women, including adolescents, women of color, women living in rural areas, and women with economic disadvantages. Repressive abortion policy creates a two-tiered system of access to reproductive health care that is a particular disadvantage to vulnerable women. In this study, current policy is discussed with examples of such policies outlined in three areas: insurance coverage and Medicaid restrictions, mandatory waiting periods, and mandated state counseling. Social workers' role in policy practice is emphasized in regard to advocacy and abortion policy.     

The Isle of Man and the First Votes for Women

Over a century ago, the Isle of Man became the first country to grant propertied women a parlamentary franchise. This paper presents a case study of the Manx Election Act of 1881 which first enfranchised women and examines some of the factors which may have helped make its passage possible. Chief among these were the involvement of the Manchester National Society for Women's Suffrage and its liberal, middle class appeal, strategy and tactics; the personalistic style of politics on the island; and the absence of any party system.