Crime, gender, and society in India: insights from homicide data

This study presents an analysis of inter‐district variations in murder rates in India in 1981. Three significant patterns emerge. First, murder rates in India bear no significant relation with urbanization or poverty. Second, there is a negative association between literacy and criminal violence. Third, murder rates in India are highly correlated with the female‐male ratio in the population: districts with higher female‐male ratios have lower murder rates. Alternative hypotheses about the causal relationships underlying this connection between sex ratios and murder rates are scrutinized. One plausible explanation is that low female‐male ratios and high murder rates are joint symptoms of a patriarchal environment. This study also suggests that gender relations, in general, have a crucial bearing on criminal violence.     

How diversity gets lost: Age and gender in design practices of information and communication technologies

ABSTRACT

This article adopts an intersectional approach to investigate how age, gender, and diversity are represented, silenced, or prioritized in design. Based on a comparative study of design practices of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for young girls and older people, this article describes differences and similarities in the ways in which designers tried to cope with diversity. Ultimately diversity was neglected, and the developers relied on hegemonic views of gender and age, constructed older people and young girls as an “other,” and consequently their input was neglected. These views were thus materialized in design and reinforce such views in powerful yet unobtrusive ways.     

Living in Freedom and Hope: Editors' Introduction

Have radical discourses about children's sexual liberation/empowerment become normative technologies of neoliberal governmentality? How do we see sexualised representations of girls and what does the sexualised child look like? A contemporary consensus between media narratives and radical cultural critiques about the dangerous intolerance of child sexual abuse (CSA) moral panics suggests that the CSA moral panic discourse is caught up in the neoliberal “regulation of intolerance” (Brown 2006) through the governance of the gaze. Focusing on the 2008 Australian media event that erupted over Bill Henson's “art” photographs of naked girls, this article analyses how a perception that the images sexualised children was governed by experts as a reactionary and perverse CSA moral panic gaze. I argue that this form of governance depends on the exclusion of the political gaze of the survivor, a gaze that has been vital to a feminist critique of hetero-normative paedophilia. Re-claiming an affective feminist gaze involves thinking beyond the upwardly mobile discourse of CSA moral panic and through the occluded question of the sexual politics of paedophilia.     

Rethinking gender segregation and gender inequality: Measures and meanings

It is often assumed that occupational segregation by gender is readily interpretable as an index of inequality between men and women in the labor force. Although this view has been challenged, the development and dissemination of analytic tools that could test this assumption have been limited. This article reviews two methods for identifying invidious and noninvidious components of gender segregation and develops a third approach that overcomes some limitations of the other two. Each method is applied to a data set that consists of observations from 22 countries covered in the International Social Survey Program. The results are compared and contrasted, and several conclusions emerge. First, occupational segregation is not completely interpretable as occupational gender inequality. Second, the methods differ in how large they estimate the invidious (vertical) component to be. Third, each method produces measures of invidious and noninvidious segregation that can be predicted statistically from other characteristics of the countries in question. The article ends with suggestions about the circumstances under which the various approaches may be the most useful.     

From gender identity disorder to gender identity creativity: true gender self child therapy

True gender self child therapy is based on the premise of gender as a web that weaves together nature, nurture, and culture and allows for a myriad of healthy gender outcomes. This article presents concepts of true gender self, false gender self, and gender creativity as they operationalize in clinical work with children who need therapeutic supports to establish an authentic gender self while developing strategies for negotiating an environment resistant to that self. Categories of gender nonconforming children are outlined and excerpts of a treatment of a young transgender child are presented to illustrate true gender self child therapy.     

Commentary on the treatment of gender variant and gender dysphoric children and adolescents: common themes and ethical reflections

This commentary offers preliminary ethical reflections on the range of treatments for gender variant and gender dysphoric children, adolescents, and young adults described in the preceding five clinical articles. After clarifying the terminology used to discuss these issues, this commentary reviews several common themes of the clinical articles. Focusing on ethical values of informed consent, full disclosure, the minimization or avoidance of harm, and the maximization of life options, the commentary expresses concerns about various treatment options endorsed by some of the articles. In particular, this commentary focuses on how these practices problematically reproduce social prejudices and stereotypes and how they fail to acknowledge and embrace the multiple pathways for expressing one's gender. It also compares and contrasts the ethical issues related to gender variant and gender dysphoric youths and youths who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer.     

Prime-time narcos: the Mafia and gender in Colombian television

Through a content analysis of 532 programs screened on various national television networks in Colombia, this paper examines portrayals of women in the country’s narconovelas, fictional series derived from the telenovela genre that resonate forcefully with the public. We do so in order to gain a better understanding of their role in representing gender in Colombia. Relevant topics include: the widespread violence against women in a traditional, patriarchal country, the ineffectiveness of policies targeting gender discrimination, and ideologies of machismo and Marianismo. These practices are discussed as factors that may prevent women’s social empowerment and participation in the workforce and politics of the country. Our results show that, as per Colombia’s prevailing social relations, narconovelas demonstrate a gendered power imbalance and mestizo heteronormativity via macho plots that glamorize violence against women. Women are rarely key characters in narconovelas, and when they appear, they are dependent on men, and attain status through men or their families. In addition, the genre represents continuous verbal and physical aggression against women, especially if they belong to ethnic or racial minorities.     

Drag kings in the new wave: gender performance and participation

In an examination of Midwestern drag king performers and communities that have emerged since the study by Volcano and Halberstam of king cultures in London, New York, and San Francisco, this article considers traditional and alternative ways of "doing drag," both performative and participatory, as a means of interrogating the proximity of a "new wave" of king culture to academic theory. Tracing the evolution of drag king performance in the Twin Cities from the 1996 workshop by Diane Torr to the formation of two distinct king troupes in the late 1990s demonstrates a particular trajectory in kinging that reflects a new consciousness and enactment of gender theory through artistic praxis. Participation plays a key role in breaking down the distance between spectator and performer in venues such as the First International Drag King Extravaganza in Columbus, Ohio, and Melinda Hubman's art installation "Performing Masculinities: Take a Chance on Gender" in Minneapolis. By engaging the "audience" in drag, the Extravaganza "Science Fair" successfully referenced drag kings' shared history with early American freak shows in a clever and critical way. Moving beyond the contest framework of early king shows, new drag king troupes like Minneapolis' Dykes Do Drag are "mixing it up" in an attempt to complicate notions of butch/femme gender roles, sexuality, and drag stereotypes.     

Language matters: an introduction

That language and sexuality are closely connected is one of the enduring themes in human sexuality research. The articles in this special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality explore some of these language-centered insights as they apply to same-sex related desires, identities, and practices and to other dimensions of non-normative sexual experiences. The articles address language use over a range of geographic and social locations. The linguistic practices discussed are diverse, including the language associated with Santería, comments viewers make about gay pornography, homophobic discourse, coming out stories, stories where declarations of sexual identity are tacitly withheld, sexual messages in Black hip hop culture, assessments of urban AIDS ministries, and policies that limit transgender subjects' access to urban space. Taken together, these articles demonstrate that language matters in the everyday experience of sexual sameness and they model some of the approaches that are now being explored in language and sexuality studies.     

Total work and gender: facts and possible explanations

Time-diary data from 27 countries show a negative relationship between GDP per-capita and gender differences in total work—for pay and at home. In rich non-Catholic countries, men and women average about the same amount of total work. Survey results show scholars and the general public believe that women work more. Widespread average equality does not arise from gender differences in the price of time, intra-family bargaining or spousal complementarity. Several theories, including ones based on social norms, might explain these findings and are consistent with evidence from the World Values Surveys and microeconomic data from Australia and Germany.     

Considerations of family structure and gender composition: the lesbian and gay stepfamily

Lesbian and gay stepfamilies are unique family forms which must be investigated as such. This paper explores the similarities and dissimilarities between heterosexual stepfamilies and lesbian/gay stepfamilies, arguing that similarity of structure is impacted by gender composition. Utilizing face-to-face and telephone interviews with biological and stepparents in 23 lesbian and gay stepfamilies, the results show that while lesbian and gay stepfamilies share some challenges and strengths with heterosexual stepfamilies, they also evidence a unique and flexible adaptation to becoming a family. The paper is aimed at delineating future areas for lesbian and gay stepfamily research.     

Aging society,health and the environment

In a general-equilibrium OLG model with endogenous longevity, a political economy and a social planner solution are contrasted mainly with respect to public supplies of health care and environment protection. The latter is relatively more supported by the young because its beneficial effect on longevity takes more time to occur but then lasts longer; while the old relatively prefer health spending. With population aging, political claims for health care expenditure are self-reinforcing. This framework is able to generate a quite rich set of results. In the political economy larger health care/consumption and health care/environmental quality ratios are implemented. Changes in risk aversion, production pollution, health inputs’ elasticity of substitution may have opposite impacts across regimes. More complete annuity markets improve welfare. Further comparative statics is analyzed.     

The gender longevity gap: explaining the difference between singles and couples

This paper studies the respective gender longevity gap in favour of women among singles, utilitarian and altruistic couples. The following hypotheses are derived: (1) the gender longevity gap is smaller within couples than among singles; (2) marriage increases longevity of men but decreases longevity of women; and (3) the gender longevity gap decreases with an increase in wealth. The hypotheses are tested using a complete data set of the Swiss deceased at the age 65+ in 2001 and 2002, with information on the individuals’ age at death and their average earnings over the life cycle.     

Child gender and the transition to marriage

We estimate the effect of a child's gender on the mother's probability of marriage or remarriage using data from the PSID Marital History and Childbirth and Adoption History Files. We find that the birth of a son speeds the transition into marriage when the child is born before the mother's first marriage. A competing-risks analysis shows that the positive effect of a son is stronger for marriages to the child's biological father than for other marriages. We find no significant effect of child gender on the mother's remarriage probabilities when the children are born within a previous marriage. These results are consistent with a marital-search model in which sons, more than daughters, increase the value of marriage relative to single parenthood.     

Occupational segregation and the gender wage gap

The role of occupational segregation in the determination of gender wage differentials is assessed. It is found (1) that occupational segregation plays less of a role in explaining wage differentials than do traditional human capital variables; (2) that earnings profiles generated with data that include a percent female (PF) measure of occupational segregation are not ideal for testing human capital predictions yet nonetheless yield parameters consistent with neoclassical theory; and (3) that lifetime work considerations, such as the degree of one's labor force intermittency, are important in determining both one's occupation and wage. The implications are that government antidiscrimination policies based on outcome measures are in general inefficient. Instead, the government should concentrate on creating incentives for women to participate in the labor market on an equal basis as males.     

Research on gender in demography: Limitations and constraints

This paper explores the issue of gender in demography, focusing on the question of why we don't know more than we do about the role of gender in demographic processes. Our lack of knowledge is partly explained by demography's research and policy focus on the two questions central to the field in recent decades, fertility decline and the relationship between economic and demographic change. The focus on these issues – sometimes at the expense of other research questions and issues – has meant that some social processes surrounding demographic change, including the role of gender, have not received the attention they deserve. Understanding gender's complex relationship to social behaviors, such as demographic behavior, requires attention to social/cultural context and to power. Demography needs to expand our knowledge of gender through the development of new research questions, research designs, and methodologies. Doing so will give us new insights into demographic processes.