Upgraded to Bad Jobs: Low‐Wage Black Women's Relative Status since 1970

Labor market changes complicate the analysis of black women's status relative to white women because education, occupational attainment, and race–gender are now less predictive of earnings. Low‐wage black women's relative status has improved somewhat from 1970 to 2000, contrary to the well‐documented decrease in relative status reported for all black women wage earners since 1980, but their dramatic occupational upgrading was not responsible for the trend. White‐collar occupational positions formerly responsible for white women's relative earnings advantage no longer deliver that reward, as restructuring has produced a proliferation of bad jobs across occupational groups. This study argues that increasing exposure to precarious work is crucial to understanding changes in low‐wage black women's relative economic status since 1970.     

Women's self‐defense and sexual assault resistance: The state of the field

Public attention to sexual assault has increased dramatically over the last decade, spurring questions about how it can be prevented. One approach that has received scant attention is women's self‐defense training (sometimes known as sexual assault resistance training). This neglect is curious because empowerment‐based women's self‐defense (ESD) training is so far the only approach that has produced substantively significant decreases in victimization rates. In this article, I review the research evidence on women's self‐defense training. Does resisting a sexual assault affect the outcome of sexual violence? Does self‐defense training further reduce women's risk of violence? What are the other consequences of self‐defense training? How does self‐defense work for different groups of women—for example, those who have survived prior victimizations? Are the critiques of women's self‐defense training valid? Finally, what do we still need to learn about women's self‐defense? Overall, I argue that this evidence presents a compelling case that women's self‐defense training should be central to any efforts to prevent sexual violence.     

Consuming the transnational family: Indonesian migrant domestic workers to Saudi Arabia

Abstract There is heated debate in contemporary Indonesia about the rights and regulation of transnational women migrants, specifically about the ‘costs to families’ of women working overseas, but little attention has been given to women migrants' own views of family or women's own motivations for migration. In this article, which is based on field work in a migrant‐sending community in West Java, I focus on migrant women's narratives of transnational migration and employment as domestic workers in Saudi Arabia. I contribute to the literature on gender and transnational migration by exploring migrants' consumption desires and practices as reflective not only of commoditized exchange but also of affect and sentiment. In addition, I show in detail how religion and class inflect low‐income women's narrations of morally appropriate mothering practices. In conclusion, I suggest that interpreting these debates from the ground up can contribute towards understanding the larger struggles animating the Indonesian state's contemporary relationships with women and Islam.     

Effects of ‘women empowerment’ on household food security in rural KwaZulu‐Natal province

Understanding the dimensions of ‘women's empowerment’ that influence food security among rural households is crucial to inform policy. This study uses the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) to identify the food security status of 300 primary female‐headed households in Msinga, South Africa. Principal Component Analysis was then used to identify the various dimensions along which the rural women sampled were empowered. Finally, the Ordered Logit model was used to identify the dimensions of women's empowerment that influence their household food security status. It was found that households headed by women with higher levels of economic agency, physical capital empowerment, psychological empowerment and farm financial management skills empowerment were more likely to be food secure.     

Alternative Food Networks and the Labor of Food Provisioning: A Third Shift?

Scholars have increasingly examined the sphere of consumption in alternative food networks (AFNs). However, research has largely overlooked women's experiences as food provisioners. This is problematic, as AFNs prescribe practices that could be expanding women's food provisioning labor. This article addresses this gap in the literature by examining how the physical labor of food provisioning varies for women engaged in AFNs relative to those not engaged in AFNs, and how diverse AFNs as well as socioeconomic status (SES) influence the labor of food provisioning for women engaged in AFNs. Using data from the 2012 Ohio Survey of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Issues, I demonstrate that women engaged in AFNs, relative to women not engaged in AFNs, exert more physical labor in food provisioning, that prioritizing local food systems involves more physical labor than prioritizing organic foods, and that women with lower household incomes who prioritize organic foods exert greater physical labor in food provisioning than women with higher incomes who prioritize organic foods. I conclude by arguing that women who prioritize local food systems are engaging in a third shift and that greater attention should be paid to the role of SES in shaping women's experiences as food provisioners in AFNs.     

Who cares? A lack of self‐care for women in the non‐profit/non‐governmental sector

In this article I examine the lack of self‐care regimes for women working in the non‐profit/non‐governmental sector. While I draw on ethnographic research conducted in the Malaysian context of women's organizations, the issue of self‐care for activists and feminist activists is a global one that crosses borders and boundaries. I explore the gendered nature of care and care professions to demonstrate how women are predominantly affected in these working environments. To date, there has been little scholarship on self‐care and care in non‐profit/non‐governmental working environments. Using interviews with women working in the sector, I argue that women's emotional, mental and physical health comes at a cost in these hectic workplaces. This article contributes to the literature on gender, work and care in women's organizations by taking seriously women's concerns working in these spaces, where they experience self‐neglect and institutional barriers in care regimes.     

Gender inequality in the one percent: A look under the hood of high incomes in Germany

Gender differences in economic outcomes are important topics in social science research. However, the study of gender differences among economic elites—“the top one percent”—has received surprisingly little attention, likely also due to a lack of empirical data. This paper investigates gender differences in individual and household income among the top one percent of individual monthly net incomes and top two percent of net household incomes using data from the German Microcensus from 2006 to 2016 covering more than 3.3 million individuals. I find that women account for only around 14% of the one percent in individual incomes. Additionally, regarding the household level, women's incomes are sufficient to achieve two percent status in fewer than 10% of all households. Both numbers did hardly change over the decade from 2006 to 2016. Furthermore, women's pathways to belonging to a high-income household are far more dependent on their partner's education and employment status than men's. Overall, the findings thus show dramatic gender differences among the German economic elite that do not narrow over time.     

Women's Work? The Relationship between Farmwork and Gender Self‐Perception

Women have long been involved in agricultural production, yet farming and ranching have been associated with masculinity and men. In recent years women have become more involved and more likely to take active and equal roles on farms and ranches and thus increasingly are doing tasks that have been associated with masculinity. Prior work indicates that women are perceived by others as more masculine when they do these tasks, but less work has focused on the association between women's involvement in farming and women's own perceptions of their gender (i.e., how masculine or feminine they feel). Using 2006 survey data from a random sample of women in livestock and grain operations in Washington State, we find that women's involvement in farm and ranch tasks is associated with their gender self‐perception, with more involvement being associated with a more masculine self‐perception. Women who view their primary role as independent agricultural producers or full partners also perceive themselves as more masculine than women who view their primary role as homemaker. We discuss the implications of these findings for women's experiences in agriculture.     

“Back There We Had Nothing to Eat”: The Case of Transnational Food Insecurity

This article discusses migrant food insecurity in the United States from the perspective of Mexican and Central American migrant women. Many describe migrating because they had nothing to eat in their countries of origin. Migration is thus framed as a necessary strategy for overcoming food insecurity. I argue that these women's perspectives are unique in the migration literature because food security comprises a gendered labour from which men are frequently spared. Unfortunately, food insecurity still prevails in these women's households in the US. Assuming a “double‐duty” workday of earning wages and overseeing care within households, these women experience the added burden of ensuring food security of households “back there.” Thus, I argue that the food practices of Mexican and Central American migrant women provide a unique lens through which to understand the increased feminization of transnational migration from Latin America to other regions of the world.     

“The Way That I Look at Things [Is] Different Because It's Me”: Constructing and Deconstructing Narratives About Racialized Sexual Selves

Many gender scholars have abandoned the notion that we can explore women's experiences without attention to other identities such as race, class, and/or sexual orientation. Until now, the ways race influences the development of sexual selves has been underexplored. In this paper, I focus on heterosexual women's accounts of the interplay of race, gender, and sexualities. Based on in‐depth interviews with sixty‐two white and African American heterosexual women between the ages of twenty and sixty‐eight, I examine the ways in which narrative work tells a story about the presentation of public sexual selves. I also explore how women's personal narratives are impacted by larger cultural narratives about race. Specifically, through a study of sexuality, I focus on the social construction of “postracialism.”     

“Breaking Even” under Intensification? Gendered Trade‐Offs for Women Milk Marketers in Kenya*

Despite the commonly vaunted “win‐win” prospect of combining intensified livestock production with greater gender equality, the benefits of formal marketization of livestock products are generally skewed toward men. In response to this global trend, there is a growing impetus to better understand the gender dynamics underlying women's market participation to curtail the risk of worsening gender inequalities in agricultural systems transitioning to intensified production. This study analyzes the spectrum of women's informal milk market practices in two Kenyan Counties undergoing dairy system intensification. Qualitative data were gathered from dairy stakeholders and market traders to explore the localized system of gender relations mediating women's engagement with milk markets and current practices. Results indicate that increased dairy intensification and informal market use is challenging existing gender norms and disrupting the boundaries between hegemonic (socially acceptable) and pariah (socially disruptive) gender relations. While women are generally better able to control the proceeds from their dairy labor in informal markets, they also face high social culpability and danger from engaging in illicit activities that transgress local norms. These contradictory “win‐lose” dynamics and trade‐offs highlight the contested nature of gender market relations under agricultural intensification and commercialization currently being pursued under low emissions dairy development (LEDD) in Kenya. The risk of exacerbating existing gender inequalities has profound implications for LEDD and agricultural intensification more broadly.     

Gender Quotas for Agricultural Boards: Changing Constructions of Gender?

This article explores the processes by which gender is given meaning through social interaction in boardrooms. In Norway, alongside mandatory quotas regulating the composition of Public Limited Company boards, voluntary quotas were designed to increase women's membership on the boards of agricultural co‐operatives. This radical step to secure a minimum of 40 per cent women makes these boards an interesting site for investigating the construction of gender in a traditionally male‐dominated organization. In the debate, arguments in favour of a quota accentuated diversity and differences between women's and men's competences, opinions and values. The analysis of interview data from the boards of four agricultural co‐operatives suggests that equal representation is a muted, taken‐for‐granted value. Equality and diversity are not understood as incompatible ideas, and gender is produced dynamically through practice rather than constituted as an inherent, fixed attribute. Gender as difference is less pervasive than expected as women tend to be recognized as belonging to the gender‐neutral category of a board representative despite any recognized differences. The study demonstrates that voluntary quotas may change the context and both challenge old assumptions and promote new understandings of gender in local situations.     

Feminism and Imperialism, 1890–1920: Our Anti‐Imperialist Sisters—Missing in Action from American Feminist Sociology*

This article retrieves part of our historical past to address two omissions in American feminist sociology on the subject of global imperialism. The first section addresses the inadequate attention feminist sociologists have paid to how major leaders of the women's movement responded to U.S. overseas expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It documents how these early feminists had both progressive and reactionary responses to the anti‐imperialist struggles of their era. Particular emphasis is given to how issues of race, class, and gender were interwoven in their discourses on imperialism. The second section focuses on how the writings of the most famous woman theorist and critic of imperialism during this era—Rosa Luxemburg—are virtually ignored in U.S. portrayals of feminist sociology and women founders of sociology. To address this omission, Luxemburg's theory of imperialism is examined, as well as how it has influenced contemporary global feminist works. A critical analysis of these Luxemburg‐inspired works considers their implications for understanding global imperialism today. In this way, the past is used to clarify the present.     

Source‐Country Gender Roles and the Division of Labor Within Immigrant Families

The authors examined the relationship between source‐country gender roles and the gender division of paid and unpaid labor within immigrant families in the host society. Results from Canadian Census of Population (N = 497,973) data show that the 2 indicators of source‐country gender roles examined—female/male labor activity ratio and female/male secondary education ratio—are both positively associated with immigrant wives' share in their family labor supply and negatively associated with their share in housework. The association between source‐country gender roles and women's share in couples' labor activities weakens over time. Moreover, the relationship between source‐country female/male labor activity and immigrant couples' gender division of labor is reduced when immigrant women have nonimmigrant husbands, indicating that husband's immigration status matters.     

Gender Ideology and Women's Labor Market Transitions Within Couples in the Netherlands

Objective

This study examines the role of women's and their partners' gender ideology in shaping women's labor market entries, exits, and changes in hours of employment.

Background

Recent research argues that women's gender ideology is crucial for understanding women's contemporary labor market participation. However, the role of male partners' gender ideology for partnered women's labor market participation has received less attention.

Method

The analysis uses three waves of a large‐scale household panel survey based on a random sample of individuals within Dutch households. Random‐effect models are applied to study whether women's and their partners' gender ideology are associated with women's labor market transitions and whether relevant household characteristics' associations with women's labor market transitions are conditional on both partners' gender ideology.

Results

Women's gender ideology is associated with the probability of women's labor market entries and exits, but not with changes in women's hours worked, whereas their male partners' ideology is related only to the probability of women's labor market exits. Furthermore, the negative association of having children with changes in women's hours worked is stronger for traditional compared to egalitarian women. There is no clear evidence that gender ideology moderates the association of the male partner's labor market resources with women's labor market transitions.

Conclusion

Women's labor market transitions are not only reactions to economic pressure and institutional constraints but also women's and marginally their partners' gender attitudes.     

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.     

What Women Do,Believe in,and Financially Contribute—What Matters More in Couples' Decision Making? Gender Inequality in Ghana's Small-Scale Fisheries☆

Studies of couple's decision-making power consistently show that women disproportionately occupy subordinate positions. Using survey data (N = 400) from an ethnographic study on Ghanaian female fisherfolk, we examine the influences of women's financial contributions, ownership of production assets and gender role attitudes, and how they interact with the bodily capacities required to perform different fishery tasks to shape women's decision-making power. Findings show that financial contributions and ownership of production assets remain salient determinants of women's fishery decision-making power. However, their participation in strenuous tasks dampens the positive relationship between their financial contributions, gender role attitudes and decision-making power, such that financial contributions become insignificant. Women's decision-making power varies according to the sex-typed division of labor in small-scale fishing, and those who violate it are ‘punished’—as evident in their decreased decision-making power. Attention to the co-implications of socio-economic forces and material factors such as women's embodied experiences highlights (1) the specificities of occupational sex segregation and decision-making in agricultural sectors of developing economies and (2) how such entanglements can be reconfigured to enhance women's decision-making power in such contexts.     

From Tupperware to Scentsy: The gendered culture of women and direct sales

Consumer culture has transformed the lives of working women and family life for well over a century. Perhaps one of the most gender distinct forms of consumer culture introduced in the 20th century was the direct sales industry. The business model of direct sales depends on women's social circles as a means to market products directly to consumers, antithetical to retail spaces of malls and shopping outlets. In this literature review, I explore how women construct meaning behind products in this sales culture, while examining the emotional investment that women make as direct sales consultants and the personal outcomes of this investment. To begin, I include a brief history of the direct sales industry with a focus on three pioneering companies: Avon, Tupperware, and Mary Kay as foundational to women's contributions and involvement in the industry today. Next, I explore the pathways that motivate women's draw to direct selling as a form of emotional labor that allows them to balance professional work and family life while yielding minimal financial gain. I analyze the messaging of direct sales companies that cleverly speak directly to women's needs for recognition and assist in constructing personal identity and self‐worth. Finally, I examine trends for the future of direct sales companies as they look to maintain relevance through global markets and brand recognition that will expand beyond women's social circles and parties.