Motivations and Emotional Consequences Related to Engaging in Extramarital Relationships

ABSTRACT. The purpose of this study was to allow adults who were actively engaged in extramarital relationships to explain their motivations and emotions in their own words. We recruited 77 participants (22 men and 55 women) from an Internet discussion board aimed at people who were actively pursuing or involved in extramarital affairs. Participants completed an online survey that allowed them to describe up to three extramarital relationships, including the reasons for beginning each affair and the emotional consequences of each affair. We found sexual needs, emotional needs, and falling in love to be major reasons for beginning affairs. Both men and women were equally likely to cite sexual or emotional motivations if their primary relationship was not satisfying in either of these elements. Most participants reported experiencing both negative and positive emotions in consequence of their affairs. The results of our study illustrate the complexity of these kinds of relationships.     

Incorporation,Transnationalism, and Gender: Immigrant Incorporation and Transnational Participation as Gendered Processes1

This article analyzes immigrant incorporation and transnational participation as gendered experiences. The results indicate that the incorporation of immigrants is a complex process affected negatively by class and racial exclusion and positively by their knowledge of U. S. society. The analysis also indicates that incorporation and transnational participation are concurrent and intertwined processes. Our results show that gender matters in the analysis of immigrant incorporation. The experiences of immigrant men and women share a lot in common as they confront similar challenges, but are also affected differently by the most relevant factors in the process of incorporation and transnational participation.     

An Interplay of Individual Motivations and Sociocultural Factors Predisposing Men to Acts of Rape in Kenya

ABSTRACT

There is a general public perception in Kenya that rapists are “sick” people who deserve to be put far away from the society. Consequently, rape perpetrators are left to be dealt with by the criminal justice system while most of the research has focused on the rape survivors without taking into consideration the need to explore and understand the motivations and sociocultural factors that could predispose men to rape. This paper examines this form of “deviant” sexuality characteristic of some men. The paper is based on findings of a study conducted in three main prisons in Kenya between January and March 2008. The study sample was drawn from the Kamiti, Naivasha, and Nyeri main prisons. Respondents were convicted rapists serving their jail terms. The findings suggest that a number of factors may predispose a man to rape. These factors could be either individual motivational factors, sociocultural factors, or a combination of both. The individual motivational factors identified included drug consumption, marital problems as an excuse for rape, inability to negotiate for consensual sex due to being shy or afraid of women, rape as a form of sexual access, psychological factors like pornographic influence and rape hallucinations, impersonal sex and power, and use of rape as a “tool” for punishment. On the other hand, the sociocultural factors identified included the view of rape as a sexual act rather than an act of violence, social attitude that the woman “invited” the rape, early childhood environment, cultural practices, peer influence, and a lack of parental advice on sexual activities.     

Gendered Transnational Ties and Multipolar Economies: Chinese Migrant Women's WeChat Commerce in Taiwan

After a first migration in internal China, Chinese migrant women re‐migrate to Taiwan through marriage. There, to cope with economic discrimination, by exploiting the social network WeChat, Chinese women produce physical and virtual transnational multipolar economies, connecting the society of departure, China, and of settlement, Taiwan. Engaging with the contemporary debate about migrants’ translocal practices and economic transnationalism, this research article aims at elucidating the link between migration and entrepreneurship, through the case of Chinese migrant women's physical and virtual entrepreneurial activities across the Taiwan Strait. It explores the development of a specific culture of migration and of affections during the two mobility experiences, and the creation of gendered transnational networks across the borders. Thus, it provides empirical data for an understanding of Chinese women's cross‐strait migration in terms of interconnection, circulation and simultaneity.     

Understanding the Juggling Act: Gendered Preferences and Social Structural Constraints

In this paper we use longitudinal data to test the strength of individual preferences and structural variables as explanations for married women's labor force participation. Data drawn from a subset of the Career Development Study are used to compare gendered preferences measured toward the end of adolescence vs. work and family structural variables as predictors of the actual number of hours married women work for pay. Family structures that push women out of the labor force and pull them into family work prove to be the strongest predictor of married women's employment hours, with work structures (e.g., aspects of good jobs) and the subjective definition of paid work as a career also being substantively important for explaining hours in the labor force. Our findings also indicate that attitudes formed before and during early adolescence do have a weak but statistically significant effect on married women's labor force participation, at least for baby boom women.     

Women,Gendered Work and Gendered Violence: So Much More than a Job

This article explores the experiences of individuals who work with men who are violent, focusing in particular on the differential gendered impacts of this area of practice. Violence intervention is widely recognized as work that is difficult, demanding and, frequently, confronting. It is less often recognized that such work is not only experienced differently by men and women, but significantly, that it may weigh more heavily, with impacts that are both broader and more profound, on the women working in this area. Building upon an understanding of the gendered nature of work and the workplace, this research reveals the distinctively gendered nature and impact of work with men who are violent, highlighting the complex interplay of gendered individuals, in the gendered workplace, in relation to a specifically gendered activity, that of men's violence.     

Motherhood,Myth and Gendered Agency in Political Violence

By building on theoretical insights from poststructuralist feminism and Roland Barthes' mythology framework, this article is offering a nuanced understanding of female agency in political violence by engaging with the visual and the cultural, by using a broader definition of agency in political violence and by analysing what gendered representations of war mean at the domestic level. In the first part of the article, the Myth of Motherhood is conceptualized as a meta-discourse disciplining representations of female agency in political violence. The article then focuses on two specific discourses within the meta-discourse, the Vacant Womb and the Deviant Womb, that inform understandings of gender, agency and political violence in one particular cultural artefact: the British television drama, Britz. The main argument is that motherhood is ‘everywhere’ in representations of female agency in political violence and that it is useful to think about motherhood as a myth. Only this way can we confront underlying norms, values and ideas believed to be common sense and think differently about gender, agency and political violence.     

Gendered Work Meets Gendered Goods: Selling and Service in Clothing Retail

This article explores the way retail work entails a complex form of gendering. Three distinct, but related, forms of gendering interweave in this sector of the service economy. These are the gendering of the work tasks, the gendered structure of the occupation and the gender of the retail environment. Using insights from the sociology of consumption and expanding the notion of aesthetic labour to incorporate insights from Bourdieu's sociology, the article explores how retail workers manifest particular forms of gendered embodiment, enacting a different sort of feminine performance according to the brand strategies of the organization they are employed in. The gendered objects of consumption are thus shown to be critical to understanding the nature of retail service work.     

Gendered Aspects of Conflict,Displacement and Peace Process in Turkey

The peace process in Turkey, since its inception, has not paid any attention to internal displacement or its gendered aspects. This study analyses how displaced women remember the gendered aspects of displacement and perceive reconciliation and peace. The analysis, based on interviews with 42 internally displaced women, shows that changing domestic and international contexts have substantive impact on how displaced women remember their stories and the meaning they attach to their ethnic identities. Consequently, it suggests that if the peace process is re‐initiated, leaders need to take into consideration that each component of reconciliation (justice, peace, trust towards the state, intergroup relations and truth‐telling) has different difficulties to be overcome when the gendered aspect of displacement is taken into account and consider return not only as a realistic demand but also as a political wish.     

Oral Sex,Young People,and Gendered Narratives of Reciprocity

Young people in many countries report gender differences in giving and receiving oral sex, yet examination of young people’s own perspectives on gender dynamics in oral heterosex are relatively rare. We explored the constructs and discourses 16- to 18-year-old men and women in England used in their accounts of oral sex during in-depth interviews. Two contrasting constructs were in circulation in the accounts: on one hand, oral sex on men and women was narrated as equivalent, while on the other, oral sex on women was seen as “a bigger deal” than oral sex on men. Young men and women used a “give and take” discourse, which constructed the mutual exchange of oral sex as “fair.” Appeals to an ethic of reciprocity in oral sex enabled women to present themselves as demanding equality in their sexual interactions, and men as supporting mutuality. However, we show how these ostensibly positive discourses about equality also worked in narratives to obscure women’s constrained agency and work with respect to giving oral sex.     

Remittances,Transnational Dahiras and Governance in Senegal

The potential role of transnational organisations in fostering effective governance goes unexplored despite the increasing positive role that these organisations are playing today. In Senegal, a whole range of non‐state actors have always played a substantial socio‐economic role, even before the rise of the post‐colonial state. The Murid brotherhood can be regarded as part of this category of customary non‐state actors. In the 1980s, young Murids started to organize themselves in what can be viewed as self‐help community‐based organisations whose functions included the provision of social safety nets to their adherents. By the late 1980s, the scope of these youth organisations, or dahiras, expanded beyond the national boundaries. Mention of these dahiras in the vast development literature has so far been confined to the socio‐economic importance of the money they remit. This paper offers to transcend this focus on financial remittances, to explore the potential political role of international dahiras in their home country. By playing the role of alternative providers of social services, dahiras have propelled themselves to a position of legitimate non‐state actors with political clout. Today, some of them are starting to hold government to account for their actions. Their political power is not only derived from their affiliation with customary centres of authority, but it is also the resultant of their increased financial autonomy. Because transnational dahira interventions in Senegal are mostly associated with the role of remittances, their relations with the state are analysed through the lens of revenue generation and other processes of state formation such as internal bargaining between the state and societal forces. The paper is an examination of the potential role of transnational dahiras in demands for responsive governance. Its analytical orientation is placed within the theoretical premises of the “drivers of change” approach, fiscal sociology of state making and governance.     

Caregiver Leave-Taking in Spain: Rate,Motivations, and Barriers

This paper aims to (1) determine the rate of (full- and part-time) caregiver leave-taking in Spain, (2) identify the reasons conducive to a more intense use of this resource, and (3) ascertain the main obstacles to its use, as perceived by caregivers. All 896 people covered by the sample were engaging in paid work and had cared for dependent adults in the last 12 years. This resource, in particular the full-time alternative, was found to be a minority option. The data showed that legal, work-related, and family and gender norm issues are the four types of factors that determine the decision to take such leaves. The most significant obstacles to their use are the forfeiture of income and the risk of losing one’s job. Our results suggest that income replacement during a leave would increase the take-up of these resources. Moreover, enlargement of public care services would promote the use of leave as a free choice of caregivers.     

Civil Society Partnerships: Power Imbalance and Mutual Dependence in NGO Partnerships

This study examines the distinction between power imbalance and mutual dependence to better understand how NGOs manage resource dependencies in their relationships with civil society partners. The NGO leaders we interviewed emphasized mutual dependence in the relationships they developed with other NGOs regarding access to financial and information resources. In contrast, discourse about their relationships with IGOs focused on the acquisition of legitimacy and access, and was dominated by power imbalance. NGOs were largely accepting of both forms of dependence in pursuit of the community’s shared goals and for the greater good of constituents. Our finding that NGOs refrain from terminating suboptimal relationships also reflects the extent to which mutual dependence governs NGOs partnering strategies.     

Gendered Congregations,Gendered Service: The Impact of Clergy Gender on Congregational Social Service Participation

Using data from the 1998 National Congregations Study, I present empirical evidence that shows that the gender of a congregation's leadership makes a difference in the likelihood that a congregation will participate in a social service programme. The results from binary logistic regression indicate that the odds of congregations with women head clergy participating in a social service programme are four times greater than those with men head clergy. In addition, as the percentage of women on a congregation's governing board increases the probability that a congregation will participate in a service project also increases. The specific types of social service programmes a congregation pursues also differ by gender of leadership, with women‐led congregations significantly more likely to pursue service projects that could be labelled feminine while avoiding programmes that are clearly feminist. To explain this gendered behaviour I incorporate Acker's (1990 ) theory of gendered organizations.     

Subtypes of Problem Gamblers,Sociocultural Factors,and Availability of Gambling

Finnish treatment-seeking gamblers were examined in light of predominant problem gambler subtype models. “Psy science” oriented problem gambler subtypes were found to be considerably influenced by gambling cultures and treatment traditions in the countries from which the mainstream problem gambler research originates. Thus, models that emphasize the psychopathology of the individual might cause some friction when applied to countries like Finland with a quite particular gambling culture and addiction treatment system that traditionally functions on a social work basis. It is suggested that specialists helping problem gamblers should acquire local knowledge with which to complete psychiatrically oriented scientific knowledge.     

Consequences, opportunities, and procedures

This paper reflects on consequentialism which underlies the traditional normative economics. It asserts that the informational basis of normative economics should be expanded so that the intrinsic value of social choice procedures should be properly taken into account along with the value of their consequences. Three examples – the problem of fair cake division, the role of competition in the promotion of economic welfare, and bilateral trade restrictions – are invoked to pinpoint the services rendered by procedural considerations in making social welfare judgements. The Pareto libertarian paradox is also re-examined within the extended framework incorporating procedural considerations along with consequential considerations. Received: 25 March 1997 / Accepted: 8 July 1997     

Women Managers,Gendered Cultural Processes and Organizational Change

This paper develops a critical approach towards the nature of research and knowledge about Women in Management (WIM). A variety of perspectives in the WIM area are reviewed from an inter-disciplinary standpoint. Drawing on radical approaches to organization analysis, the paper aims to evaluate the insights provided into the position of women in management from the perspectives outlined. It is argued that feminist approaches which focus on the gendered nature of organizational processes and in particular organizational cultures, represent an important way forward in the development of adequate theorizations of the position of women managers. The paper examines the implications of this analysis for the Women in Management research agenda and explores appropriate strategies for organizational change within this arena.     

Prevalence and Motivations of Vaginal Practices in Tete Province,Mozambique

ABSTRACT. Vaginal practices have been linked with an increase in risk for HIV transmission and other harms. In 2007, a household survey of 919 women was conducted in Tete province, Mozambique, as part of the World Health Organization Multicountry Study on Gender, Sexuality, and Vaginal Practices. Women aged 18 to 60 years old were interviewed to determine prevalence and motivations for vaginal practices. A large range of frequently used practices was identified. Nearly 80% of women reported three or more current practices, and virtually all had used at least three practices in their lifetime. Elongation of the vaginal labia minora was universal (99% of women), while a quarter stated they had made small vaginal cuts or incisions at least once. Ninety-two percent of women also reported ever use of intravaginal cleansing, and insertion of substances in the vagina was practiced by 72%. Around half (48%) reported ingestion of substances to affect the vagina, mostly to heat, tighten, or loosen the vagina. Application of substances on the genitalia (16%) and steaming (15%) were less popular. To prepare for sexual intercourse, women reported products were commonly applied, ingested, inserted, or steamed. Pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum were also associated with ingestion (26%), steaming (39%), and cutting (32%). Adoption of microbicides and condom use may be influenced by vaginal practices. HIV-prevention messages and interventions, including future microbicides, need to take into account the high prevalence of vaginal practices and motivations for their use. Further attention needs to be given to potentially harmful practices in HIV-prevention efforts in Mozambique.