The politics of gender in the UN Security Council resolutions on women,peace and security

Women’s groups have worked diligently to place gender and women’s vulnerability on the transnational security agenda. This article departs from the idea that negotiating and codifying gender and women’s vulnerability in terms of security represent a challenge to mainstream security contexts. By contrasting the UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security with feminist theory, this article aims to analyze what is considered to be threatened when women’s vulnerability is negotiated. The article identifies two approaches to the gender/security nexus: gendering security, which involves introducing ideas regarding gender-sensitive policies and equal representation, and securitizing gender, which proceeds by locating rape and sexual violence in the context of war regulations. We demonstrate that, although these measures are encouraged with reference to women’s vulnerability, they serve to legitimize war and the male soldier and both approaches depoliticize gender relations.     

Sex makes a difference—How gender affects the therapeutic relationship

Because gender issues create obstacles or advance progress, this paper discusses how gender differences affect therapy. The psychoanalytic approach in the four treatment dyads of female therapist-male patient, male therapist-female patient, female therapist-female patient, and male therapist-male patient is presented to suggest propensities. A developmental focus on gender's effect on the therapeutic relationship is indicated by the theoretical rationale from psychoanalytic literature, and by clinical practice discoveries. Because therapists' perceptions about gender identity, gender roles and sexual partner orientation affect responses to patients, countertransference is considered. Acknowledgement of gender components within the transference is recommended if therapists are to provide the best treatment possible.     

How organizational characteristics shape gender difference and inequality at work

Why should students and scholars who are interested in gender difference and inequality study organizations? In recent years, as research on organizations has migrated to business schools and become less connected to other subfields of the discipline, the value of organizational sociology has become less evident to many. Yet characteristics of organizations contribute in important ways to producing different experiences and outcomes for women and men, by constraining certain individual actions and enabling or bringing about others. In this essay, we trace the consequences of four categories of organizational characteristics—the formal structure of work, employment practices, informal structure and culture, and organizational networks and fields—for gender inequality in three areas: workplace experiences, work–family conflict, and career outcomes. We close with some brief reflections on future directions for research linking organizations and gender.     

The importance of difference: conceptualising increased flexibility in gender relations at home

In this paper we have three goals. First, to provide a critique of attempts to theorise in the area of intimate care and domestic division of labour which do not pay adequate attention to issues of plurality/difference. We argue that the ideological environment within which contemporary couples operate consists of more than one existing normative structure, and that therefore an approach which can incorporate the idea of change can only really arise in the context of a focus on plurality and difference among households. Secondly, to discuss large-scale empirical evidence relating to the domestic division of labour which seem to indicate an increasingly narrow basis for blanket 'no change' arguments. Historical series of time-use diaries suggest that over a long period consistent changes have occurred in the amount of time that both women and men devote to domestic labour, such that (some) women are doing on average proportionately less, and (some) men proportionately more. Finally, to offer a framework for the discussion of difference and change in gender relations in the home. This focuses on the analysis of the continuing marital conversation as the key arena where the institutional and interactional dimensions of gender relations are played out. Our evidence suggests that the 'opening up' of the marital conversation is an important indicator and facilitator of change, and that mechanisms underlying this 'opening' can be shown to facilitate higher levels of men's participation in family work.     

Transnational issue networks in real and virtual space: the case of women,peace and security

To what extent do online issue networks serve as a proxy for their real‐space counterparts in structure and substance? This question is significant because a number of scholars have begun to study transnational advocacy networks through their representations online. We explored whether this assumption is valid by comparing the network composition and agenda composition of the advocacy network around ‘women, peace and security’, as operationalized through a web‐based survey of actual activists, and the network's online representations of itself, as measured through advocacy websites. Two specific concerns drove the study. First, how closely does the structure of issue networks, as represented on the World Wide Web, correspond with actual advocates' understanding of the players within a specific issue domain? Second, to what extent does the online issue agenda correlate with the most prominent issues described by real‐space advocates within a transnational network? Our findings yielded a high correlation between the online issue agenda and activists’ interpretations of the agenda. However, we found that while hyperlink analysis is an effective tool for identifying the ‘hubs’ or ‘gatekeepers’ within a specific issue network, the nature of the World Wide Web makes it is a blunt tool with which to capture the broader network. This suggests that while the web poses important opportunities as a data source, scholars of transnational networks must pay closer attention to the methodological assumptions implicit in their reliance on this and other new media.     

War and security,women and gender: an overview of the issues

This article addresses the gender division of war and the significance of men and masculinity in processes of militarisation. Three phases of the continuum of war are considered. In periods of war-readiness, societies see a diversion of spending from social provision to the armed forces, accompanied by an increase in patriarchal ideology and authority. The actual waging of wars calls for the delivery of extreme but disciplined violence, and combat training shapes masculinity to this purpose. Armed conflict often involves a massive sexual assault on women. Women have recently intervened internationally to argue that if peace is to be more than a mere cessation of hostilities, ‘security’ must be redefined to mean the satisfaction of human needs, including comprehensive safety for women. Women's peace movements, worldwide, are theorising that gender power relations are significant among the causes of war, and transformative change in how we ‘live’ gender can be a significnt resource for peace.     

Locating difference: class, 'race' and gender, and the shaping of social inequalities

The current interest in difference has arisen in part because of its importance in recent recognition claims, and in part because of a belief that as a concept it can illuminate social diversity. Debates here have stressed the importance of the symbolic in the construction of social relations and social diversity, and have highlighted the relational underpinnings of diversity. In this paper we seek to take forward aspects of such an analysis by examining some issues in the shaping of difference and inequalities in the domains of gender, class and ‘race’. It is our argument that we can gain insights in these domains by better describing and theorising the mutuality of value and material social relations. The paper argues that issues of identity and difference need to be more firmly located within relational accounts of social practice, and in the nature of claims (to recognition and resources) which emerge out of different social locations. By exploring issues of difference in debates on class, gender and ‘race’, we argue that relational accounts must be placed within a perspective that also emphasises the content and patterned nature of (highly differentiated) social relations.     

Goodbye to sex and gender

The sociological distinction between ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ has been paradigmatic for twenty years and is still taken for granted within the discipline. However it is a distinction that will no longer serve. Doubts about its continued usefulness surfaced as a result of a variety of influences. This paper refers specifically to the history of sex and to recent work in genetics in order to demonstrate that sex, like gender is a discursive construction. I argue that the sex/gender problematic is wrong to assume biological differences are naturally given and that sex cannot operate as a natural base in a theory of difference.     

'Nothing that is earthly': Ideology,performance and colonial difference

Abstract

Recent scholarship on the early Americas has posited performance as the site where colonial difference is enacted. This article examines the ways in which performance was used to disseminate (and conversely, to subvert) Christian ideology in New Spain, in dialogic texts such as Sahagún's Colloquios and in missionary plays by Father Andrés de Olmos and others.     

The gender identity/gender dysphoria questionnaire for adolescents and adults

The present study reports on the construction of a dimensional measure of gender identity (gender dysphoria) for adolescents and adults. The 27-item gender identity/gender dysphoria questionnaire for adolescents and adults (GIDYQ-AA) was administered to 389 university students (heterosexual and nonheterosexual) and 73 clinic-referred patients with gender identity disorder. Principal axis factor analysis indicated that a one-factor solution, accounting for 61.3% of the total variance, best fits the data. Factor loadings were all >or= .30 (median, .82; range, .34-.96). A mean total score (Cronbach's alpha, .97) was computed, which showed strong evidence for discriminant validity in that the gender identity patients had significantly more gender dysphoria than both the heterosexual and nonheterosexual university students. Using a cut-point of 3.00, we found the sensitivity was 90.4% for the gender identity patients and specificity was 99.7% for the controls. The utility of the GIDYQ-AA is discussed.     

Are there children to educate for peace in conflict‐ridden areas? A critical essay on peace and coexistence education

In this paper, I reflect on the education that is being conducted in two Israeli schools, often held up as exemplary, that have the declared educational aim of cultivating tolerance and recognition of otherness. What is ‘going on’ with those presumed to be the primary beneficiaries (the children studying at these schools) of an integrated educational enterprise? Should the focus for future peace be on these children at all. I take a critical look at the way we are attempting to forge a peaceful future through our young.     

The new gender essentialism--domestic and family 'choices' and their relation to attitudes

This paper critically examines two strands within contemporary gender essentialism--that is, the argument that men and women are fundamentally different and that it is this 'difference' that explains the continuing social and material differences between the sexes. The first strand we examine is Hakim's 'preference theory', which has argued that persisting sex differences in employment patterns are an outcome of the 'choices' made by different 'types' of women. We next examine the claims of populist conservative feminism, that has argued that women (and men) in partnerships will be happier if they adopt a gender role traditionalism in the domestic sphere. Our empirical findings suggest that neither of these theoretical explanations are supported by our data, which is derived from the samples of six countries participating in the International Social Survey Programme Family 2002 module.     

Interdependencies, values and the reshaping of difference: gender and generation at the birth of twentieth-century modernity

The paper explores the mutuality of values, claims and social relations in the process of social change. Values are not separable from social relations but are embedded in the shaping and reshaping of social difference and interdependence. The paper focuses on developments around the turn of the twentieth century, and analyses changes in the relative social positioning of children and adults, and women and men, shifting patterns of interdependence, and linked values and ideas about difference. The reconfiguring of generational and gender relations was integral to the first fertility decline, to transformation in family life and societal divisions of labour, and to the embedding of particular values and claims regarding gendered difference, identities and gender appropriate roles. Analysis of these developments reveals the mutuality of 'cultural' and 'material' processes and holds lessons for interpreting social change today.     

The REFLECT approach to literacy and social change: a gender perspective

The introduction to this article on the participatory learning approach to literacy and social change known as REFLECT locates the origins of the approach in the philosophy of Paulo Freire and notes that REFLECT was developed by ACTIONAID in pilot projects in Uganda, Bangladesh, and El Salvador and is now used in 25 countries by 90 groups. REFLECT considers gender equity integral to social change, analyzes the causes of inequalities, creates a process for examining social stratification, addresses conflict as a reality, is an evolving process that embraces innovation, recognizes the importance of individual transformation, and seeks an equitable practice of power at all levels in the process. The article describes how REFLECT sessions are conducted and how they result in women's increased mobility, increased participation in family and community, and changes in the gender division of labor. Examples show how REFLECT sensitizes men as well as women to gender issues, especially if the implementing agency is gender-aware. The article then contrasts the "primer method" of literacy training promoted by the "Women in Development" model to REFLECT's "Gender and Development" (GAD) approach that links literacy to empowerment, raises community consciousness of women's subordination, and creates local-global links. The article concludes by discussing ways to strengthen the GAD/feminist approach in REFLECT, given the fact that it is possible to avoid gender issues in most discussions.