Bridging inequalities through inclusion: women's rights organisations as the ‘missing link’ in donor government-led participatory policy development and practice

This article focuses on women's rights organisations and their role in challenging inequality within the development process. Women in poverty are excluded as a result of their unequal societal position, geographic location, and the predominance of ‘top-down’ and piecemeal policymaking processes carried out by donor governments. We argue that in-country women's rights organisations provide the ‘missing link’ to bridge the disconnect between grassroots, marginalised women and donor decision-makers. This article focuses on the UK government's approach to developing policy and practice aimed at furthering international women's rights, focusing on the Women, Peace and Security agenda. Engaging with women's rights organisations not only ensures that donor policy and practice responds fully to the interests and needs of the poorest and most marginalised women in the global South, but renders the decision-making process itself empowering to the women involved.     

On the Margins of the Periphery: Unassisted Childbirth and the Management of Layered Stigma

This article examines an unusual practice—unassisted childbirth—and the ways in which advocates and practitioners manage the stigma they are accorded. Given their “doubly deviant” status as not only women who birth at home but also as women who choose to give birth without professional assistance, these women provide a unique case for our theoretical understanding of stigma management. As members of homebirth social networks, the women must reckon with what I term layered stigma, the broad stigma of homebirth as well as the deeper in-group stigma within their deviant community that results from their rejection of midwives as appropriate care providers. By examining the dynamics of stigma management among practitioners of unassisted childbirth, I highlight the complex, situation-dependent nature of stigma and the impact of its management on women's sense of self.     

Sighs,smiles, and worried glances: How the body reveals women caregivers' lived experiences of care to older adults

This article reports on findings from microethnographic research that examined the lived reality of women caregivers through detailed observation of their everyday, embodied experiences. The research, which was rooted in the trend in social gerontology to emphasize subjective experience, focused on five women who were providing care to an older adult with a chronic illness or impairment. Four of the five women were caring for a spouse; one was caring for a parent. Observing the women's daily realities revealed tensions and contradictions between their subjective lived experiences and the pressures of the system in which they were functioning. The data revealed a caregiver habitus characterized by the performance of emotional labor. Performance was visible through dissonance between the caregivers' verbal and nonverbal expressions, and pointed to a high degree of emotion and body management. The women consistently put aside their own needs, in what can be considered a divestment in health capital. There was also evidence of merging between the caregiver and care receiver, made visible through tandem movements. The findings lead to implications for practice and for future aging research, including the benefits of observation for enhancing understanding of clients' experiences.     

Locating Footbinding: Variations across Class and Space in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century China*

In this article I look at footbinding as a social and cultural practice embedded in the daily life conditions of women and their families. I sketch a picture of variations based primarily on regional and class differences in nineteenth and early twentieth century practices of footbinding and in efforts to eradicate them. The period in question is one of interest precisely because it is a time of transition. I look simultaneously at footbinding as a practice and as a target of criticism, defense, and transformation. This allows me to consider the ways in which it was practiced by women to represent, shape, and constrain their own, their daughters,' and their families' cultural, social, economic, and political lives. Relying largely on missionary journals, personal histories, diaries, and travel writing, I examine the practice and the demise of footbinding in various social and spatial locations. Although sources which permit a close look at embedded social practices of footbinding are scarce, it seems clear that both the practice of various forms of footbinding and the process of its eventual demise involved strategies, conflicts, and habits which differed along gender, class, and geographic lines of distinction. I suggest that the variety of forms the practice of footbinding took in lived experience of women's social lives is not incidental to its conceptualization and meaning, but rather central to it.     

Vaginal Douching Practices Among Women Attending a University in the Southern United States

Abstract

The authors assessed the frequency, characteristics, and motivational antecedents of vaginal douching practices among 125 White and 155 Black female college students. Overall, 40% of the students had ever douched and half of those women currently douche. Black women were most likely to be encouraged to douche by their mothers, whereas White women were more influenced by television advertisements. Among the sexually active women, being Black, using oral contraceptives, using spermicides, and being encouraged to douche by their mothers or by the media were independently associated with ever having douched. These associations were present among both Black and White women and were stronger when current douching was compared with never having douched. Women who were discouraged from douching by a physician or nurse were more likely to have stopped the practice. Douching is common, even among educated young women; nurses' and physicians' advice to stop douching appears to have a salutary effect.     

Gender and Women's Employment in the Male-dominated Profession of Dentistry: 1867–1917*

Cet article porte sur les expériences des femmes qui ont pratiqué la dentisterie - profession dominée par les hommes - en Ontario entre 1867 et 1917. L'auteure examine l'entrée des femmes dans cette profession et leurs expériences quant à la formation et à la pratique. La situation des femmes qui entraient en dentisterie et de celles qui optaient pour la médecine était différente: les femmes n'ont jamais été exclues de la profession dentaire. Tant en médecine qu'en dentisterie, une fois dans la pratique professionnelle les femmes étaient marginalisées et incitées à adopter des comportements et des rôles propres à leur sexe. This paper explores women's experiences in the male-dominated profession of dentistry in Ontario between 1867 and 1917. It examines the entrance of women into the dental profession, and their experiences in dental education and dental practice. Circumstances surrounding women's entrance into dentistry were different from those surrounding the entrance of women into medicine: women were never excluded from the dental profession. Nevertheless, once in professional practice, women in the two professions shared experiences of marginalization and of encouragement to pursue sex-typed behaviour and roles.     

Sexual Behavior,Sexual Knowledge,and Sexual Attitudes of Emerging Adult Women: Implications for Working With Families

The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to examine the sexual behavior of emerging adult women in relation to their sexual knowledge, sexual attitudes, and perceptions of their parents' sexual attitudes; and second, to discuss the implications of this research in working with young adult women. Three hundred and sixty-four college-age women were administered the Sexual Experiences Inventory, Miller-Fisk Sexual Knowledge Questionnaire, and the Hendrick Sexual Attitude Scale. Ninety-six percent of the sample reported primarily heterosexual behavior. Sexual knowledge of participants was not related to their reports of sexual behavior. The sexual attitudes of college-age women and their perceptions of their parents' attitudes toward sexual behavior were found to relate positively to participant sexual permissiveness and sexual practice. The implications of these findings were discussed in relation to working with families and providing effective interventions to reduce unsafe sexual practices among emerging adult women.     

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.     

Survivors of Woman Abuse

Abstract

The feminist social work and related literature on abused women has focused on women's processes of empowerment but has overlooked the question of women's movement from individual survival to collective resistance. In this feminist qualitative study, I explore the processes through which survivors of abuse by male partners become involved in collective action for social change. Using story telling as a research method, I interviewed 11 women about the processes, factors, insights, and events that prompted them to act collectively to address violence against women. I found that women's movement from individual survival to collective action entails significant changes in consciousness and subjectivity. Women's processes of conscientization are complex, contradictory and often painful because they involve political and psychic dimensions of subjectivity, protracted struggles with contradictions and conflict, and resistance to knowledge that threatens to unsettle relatively stable notions of identity. I suggest that feminist social work theory and practice must take into account three interrelated elements of women's transformative journeys: the discursive and material conditions that facilitate women's movement to collective action; the social, material and psychic costs of women's growth; and the multifaceted and difficult nature of women's journey in recognizing and naming abuse, making sense of their experiences, and acting on this knowledge to work for change. I recommend that feminist social work practice with survivors recognize that survivors can and do contribute to social change, and develop new, more inclusive liberatory models of working with survivors of abuse.     

Faith,work, and women in a changing world: the influence of religion in the lives of beedi rollers in West Bengal

In India, religious norms and values play a significant role in regulating the lives of women and girls in many communities. This article looks at how the lives of women and girl beedi (hand rolled cigarette) rollers in a Muslim community in West Bengal are influenced by their religious background, highlighting the complex relationship between gender, faith, and work. Secondly, the article discusses how secular NGOs – which in India are often seen to be hesitant in addressing questions of religious faith and practice – can engage in development work with women and girls in faith-based communities. The article focuses on the experiences of two secular NGOs working with women beedi workers in villages in Murshidabad, as they come to understand that to bring about significant changes in women's lives they must open up discussions around sensitive religious belief, within the community and their own organisations.     

Women on the margins? Intellectual sociability and citizenship in belle époque France

Prosopographic analysis of three gender-inclusive civic associations, the Union pour l'Action Morale (later Union pour la Vérité), the Société de Sociologie de Paris, and the Société pour l’Éducation Sociale, demonstrates that at the turn of the twentieth century intellectual sociability and the networks it fostered enabled certain well-connected women to practice citizenship without the right to vote. If gender inclusive, these enterprises were far from egalitarian. But their social composition and the sociability that characterized them facilitated women's access to the public sphere, an important dimension of citizenship. For this reason, the article concludes, models of citizenship without voting rights that emerged during the period appealed to contemporary women, to whom they seemed much less contradictory than we find them a century later.     

Changing the Palace Guard: Analysing the Impact of Women's Entry into Medicine

Women's rapid entry into medicine raises important questions about change in this historically male-dominated profession. In addition to shifting the gender balance, do increasing numbers of women signal a more fundamental change in the way in which medicine is organized and practised? A growing body of research suggests such change. Yet there is continuing controversy about the meaning of observed gender differences in practice, whether they reflect an essentially pragmatic response to women's dual workload of family and career, or whether they are the result of underlying differences in attitudes, values and orientations. This article uses data from a survey of a recent cohort of family physicians in Ontario, Canada, to document the extent of gender differences and similarities in medical practice, and their interrelationships to family situation, political attitudes and patient care attitudes. The results show that seemingly related differences in practice are accounted for in different ways: while some are associated with differences in family situation, others are tied to attitudes, while others are a function of gender alone. The results also reveal gender similarities which do not suggest that women are becoming more like men, but that men, and the profession as a whole are changing. We would emphasize the importance of interpreting gender differences and similarities within a broader conceptual understanding of change in the profession.     

Women in Politics in Post-Transitional Democracies: the chilean case

This article looks at women's participation in formal political institutions in posttransition politics. Employing the case of post-dictatorship Chile, it outlines the barriers to women's participation in the formal political arena; discusses the various strategies that Chilean women are currently employing to overcome their exclusion; and finally, examines the challenges that political women confront in promoting 'women's interests' in political institutions. Throughout the article two main arguments are advanced. First, where women's movements do not demand institutional reforms during the transition period - a time when movements enjoy influence and parties are in flux - then the barriers to women in political institutions re-emerge. In Chile, the fact that women did not demand institutional reforms, such as quotas for women in decision-making positions, is linked tothe broader strategy of the movement tomake citizenship demands based on women's 'difference'. This strategy inhibited women from demanding power (i.e. access to institutions as individuals) because this conformed to a masculine-defined notion of politics inconsistent with women's 'different' style of practising politics. A second,related argument is that a strategy based on women's 'difference' hinders women in politics frompromoting feminist goals,especially in the climate ofsocial conservatism that characterizes post-transition Chilean politics. Despite these constraints and the many challenges Chilean women in politics confront, gains are being made, as women recognize the need for, and begin to demand, institutional reforms to expand their presence in formal politics.     

Fickle Families and the Kindness of Strangers: Social Capital in the Lives of Low-Income Single Mothers

This article is a qualitative study that examines the social capital in the lives of 20 formerly homeless and nearly homeless single mothers with children in their care. The findings for this study indicate that the mothers' close social ties simultaneously served as a resource and a hindrance to their progress into sustainable work or education. Findings also show that nearly all of the women in this study benefited from “weak” ties by receiving information or other kinds of resources from strangers or friends of friends. Implications for policy and practice are also discussed.     

Broadening the Intersectional Path: Revealing Organizational Practices through ‘Working Mothers’ Narratives about Time

This article is concerned with the complex inequality experienced by mothers in employment, and applies ‘strong intersectionality’ to women's narratives about time to reveal the intersecting inequalities women experience and gendered organizational practices. Drawing on empirical research with 30 Irish ‘working mothers’, this article explores the way time is ordered and managed to create gendered inequalities for women at the intersection of maternity with paid work. By conceptualizing gender, maternity and class as simultaneous processes of identity practice, institutional practice and social practice, following Holvino, women's narratives reveal that organizations manage and order time to fit with notions of ‘ideal workers’, which perpetrate older hierarchies and gendered inequalities, and which create regimes of inequality for women at the intersection of maternity with paid work.     

Women leaders,self‐body‐care and corporate moderate feminism: An (im)perfect place for feminism

This article offers self‐body‐care as an aspect of corporate moderate feminism and a manifestation of postfeminism for women leaders. It explains how postfeminism as a bodily practice surfaces through women leaders' body work and how women ‘top' leaders strategize to stabilize their credibility by identifying their own and other women' body work needs and the steps they take to meet these. Self‐body‐care extends understandings of body work as part of postfeminist governmentality and contributes to understandings of moderate feminism as that which deflects and reflects feminism and constrains and empowers subjects. As such self‐body‐care offers an (im)perfect space for disruption and for Gender and Organization Studies (GOS) scholars to pursue the implications and potential of postfeminism. We call for women elite leaders to be part of feminist futures and illustrate self‐body‐care as an aspect of corporate moderate feminism by highlighting complexity in the postfeminist thesis and reflexively re‐examining two of our previous published empirical studies of women ‘top' leaders.     

Listening to Older Adult Parents of Adult Children With Mental Illness

This article uses qualitative research and narrative analysis to examine the experience of women age 55 and older who are parents caring for adult children with mental illness. Knowledge about the conflicts of older parents with dependent children is underdeveloped. In this study, analysis of women's stories about parenting in later life reveal that the women have two sets of feelings: wanting to be free from the responsibility of caregiving and feeling responsible to continue the support and protection of their adult vulnerable children. The women's conflicts are palpable and are found in the ideational themes of the narratives, as well as the structure of how the narratives are spoken. The discussion highlights the relevance of the theory of ambivalence for clinical practice when working with older women who are caregivers for their adult dependent children.     

Traumatic Responding in Children Exposed to Domestic Violence

Abstract

The present cross-cultural study summarizes the traumatic responses of Mexican, Mexican American, and non-Mexican American children who were residents of three shelters for battered women in Monterrey Mexico, McAllen Texas, and Ft. Worth Texas. Sixty-eight mothers reported on their children's (n = 90) individual and total traumatic symptoms. Findings revealed very slight differences in individual responses with no overall trauma symptom differences. Multiple regression analyses revealed that mothers' experiences of physical, and sexual abuse predicted greater trauma responses in children. Implications for practice with children and mothers in shelters for battered women are highlighted.     

The Barbie Mystique: Satisfaction with Breast Size and Shape across the Lifespan

ABSTRACT

The prevalence of breast augmentation and breast lift surgery suggests that many women are dissatisfied with their breasts. This study analyzed women's and men's views about breast size and shape among 52,227 heterosexual adults, ages 18–65, who responded to an online survey. Although most women (70%) were dissatisfied with the size or shape of their breasts, most men (56%) were satisfied with their partner's breasts. Younger and thinner women worried that their breasts were too small; older and heavier women were more concerned with breast droopiness. Women who were dissatisfied with their breasts were more likely to report lower body satisfaction and to express concern about wearing a bathing suit in public. Further, dissatisfied women were also less willing to undress in front of their partner and were more likely to conceal their breasts from their partner during sex. These findings suggest that dissatisfaction with breasts is widespread among adult women.     

Innovative Social Policies: Implications for Work–life Balance among Low‐waged Women in England

We investigated innovative social policies drawn from the European arena — universal systems of childcare, a shorter working week and shared parental leave — asking about their relevance to the work–life balance of low‐waged coupled mothers in England. While in principle the policy environment has shifted from assumptions of a male breadwinner to dual earners, in practice severe constraints on mothers' labour market attachment bring women half the lifetime earnings of men. British Household Panel Survey data for coupled low‐waged women in England show them as likely to work short part‐time hours, have low‐waged partners and low household wages while belonging to male breadwinner partnerships in terms of their contribution to household wages and unpaid work; but that few women support this model. Interviews with low‐waged mothers show evidence of limited choices, constrained by social policies which offer limited and piecemeal support for working parenthood. Given the choice, low‐waged mothers and their partners would find policies available elsewhere in Europe attractive. They see a more universal comprehensive system of childcare as enabling women's employment and improving children's quality of life; a shorter working week as enabling mothers and fathers to lead more balanced lives and a father's quota of parental leave fitting with their assumptions about sharing care.