Re-Examining Women's Roles

Depression in rural women is a problem of epidemic proportions. Within the parameters of a rural mental health center, a feminist group can assist women in examining depressogenic socialization messages. In this 13-week women's group, the focus shifted from a semi-structured socio-educational approach to the participants taking an increasingly active role in bringing in and working on relevant personal concerns. Crucial in the process were reexamining women's role expectations, challenging role-stereotypes, expressing anger, and bonding and networking with each other. The group fostered self-respect, awareness of choices, and assertiveness in previously depressed rural women.     

50年,我们走到了哪里?——中国妇女解放与发展历程回顾

无论从妇女解放运动还是从妇女生活和妇女研究角度,近50年均可分为两个阶段从1949年至1976年的女性的“社会性解放”时期和从1977年至今的“女性意识”和“主体意识”的觉醒时期。经过近20多年的探索,在走向女人、走向自主的个性化生活方面,中国妇女走出了自己的“本土”特色,同时也正在实现与现代化、与国际社会和国际妇女运动的接轨。     

Culture and Women's Sexualities

Anthropological studies of women's same-sex relations in non-Western societies provide an important source for theorizing women's sexuality because they allow us to go beyond a narrow focus on Western cultures and concepts. Looking at studies from groups other than the dominant societies of Europe and America, I explore the diversity of women's sexualities and the sociocultural factors that produce sexual beliefs and practices. This article argues that sexual practices take their meaning from particular cultures and their beliefs about the self and the world. Cultural systems of gender, in particular, construct different sexual beliefs and practices for men and women. I conclude the article by suggesting some broad patterns at work in the production of women's sexualities across cultures.     

Women's pensions in Sweden

This article analyses the effect of the Swedish pension rules on women's and men's pensions. This is done on the basis of an empirical analysis of a representative sample of the population. The study indicates that the rules are least advantageous for women in typical low-wage occupations. I also relate different people's pension benefits to what they have had to pay into the pension system in the course of their working lives. My calculations show that female low-wage earners probably have to pay more for their pensions than other groups.     

Internationalizing Women's Struggle against Discrimination: The UN Women's Convention and the Optional Protocol

Correspondence to Dr Kwong-leung Tang, Department of Social Work, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, Hong Kong. E-mail: kltang{at}cuhk.edu.hk Summary In the face of rampant violations of women’s human rights,women’s activism for change has extended beyond the nationalboundary. This paper discusses the importance of the UnitedNations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discriminationagainst Women (Women’s Convention) in the promotion ofwomen’s rights. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in1979, this Convention has been ratified by over 170 nations.As an anti-discrimination treaty, it has both strengths andweaknesses. Recently, it has been strengthened through the introductionof an individual complaint mechanism (the Optional Protocol).It also provides for the conduct of special inquiry into violationsof women’s rights. To draw benefits from the Convention,women across the world must understand and act upon its keyprovisions. Social workers should support and facilitate itsimplementation by educating women about its main provisions,assisting them in the complaint procedure and overseeing states’full compliance with the Convention.     

Women's rights and the Constitution

The revitalization of the Feminist Movement in the late 20th century led to the abandonment of most overt male bias in constitutional law. The Supreme Court replaced its old doctrines that accepted gender discrimination virtually without scrutiny with a rule that gender-based classification must bear a substantial relationship to an important purpose. The limited right to abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade [Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 413 (1973)] has survived 30 years of persistent efforts to negate it. Nevertheless, male bias remains entrenched in American law. Although law is no longer an exclusively male activity, legal rules originated in men's viewpoints and experiences. Examples of this kind of male bias include a concept of self-defense that does not fit the experience of domestic violence victims and child custody rulings that ignore the mother's role as primary caregiver. Unfortunately, constitutional doctrine remains impervious to this type of bias.     

Mobilizing Women's Strengths for Social Change

Group work aims both at helping individuals cope with personal difficulties and at eliminating social problems through collective action. Women's groups have made a unique contribution to linking personal and social change through their explicit dual focus. This paper deals with the different ways women use groups to mobilize their strengths towards social change. It begins by explaining why women chose all-female groups as the primary tool for building both individual strengths and a social movement. Key features of different group types are presented, including those focused primarily on social change and those in which social action is a secondary goal. The paper ends with a discussion of obstacles to social change and some ways women's groups can overcome them.     

Does Welfare Participation Affect Women's Wages?*

Objectives. This study examines how welfare participation and employment affect women's wages. Methods. We use longitudinal data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation and fixed‐effects regression models to test our hypotheses. Results. Our results indicate that time spent on welfare while unemployed results in a wage penalty that is similar to the penalty associated with nonwelfare work breaks. Time spent on welfare while employed has no effect on wages, unlike the strong positive impact of nonwelfare work periods. Conclusions. Working while on welfare does appear to prevent further wage deterioration, but does not lead to substantial wage growth.     

试论中国特色的妇女解放运动

中国特有的国情决定了在妇女解放问题上必然与西方有着不同的探索过程。中国的妇女解放思想的形成经历了四个阶段,最终形成了有中国特色的马克思主义妇女理论。中国共产党一旦拥有了马克思主义妇女观作为指导思想,便自觉地将它与中国妇女解放运动的实践相结合,形成了有别于西方的妇女解放运动。但随着中国社会的转型,新的问题不断涌现,马克思主义妇女理论也要不断发展和完善,我们要吸收西方女性主义思想,结合中国当前和谐社会的理论,构建平等、差异、融合的两性关系。     

The Women's Movement in South Korea*

Objectives. The objective of the study is to examine the underlying explanations for the relative success of the women's movement in Korea. Building on the resource mobilization model, the present research investigates how women's groups in Korea mobilize resources, increase membership and participation, and pursue alliances and coalitions to achieve their organizational goals. Methods. This research analyzes the data collected via a mail survey of women's groups during November 2000 and May 2001. Results. The study finds that disparate women's organizations (radical vs. reformist) have had distinct resources, strategies, support bases, tactics, and relations to others groups to mobilize more support and effect their goals. Conclusions. From an organizational standpoint, it is clear that democratization brought about an increase in the number of women's organizations that turned women's grievances into a capacity to act collectively.     

Women's Experience of the Workers Compensation System

A phenomenological study was undertaken to understand women's experience of the workers compensation system. Eleven women were interviewed. They ranged in age from twenty‐five to sixty‐five years and represented diverse socio‐economic and educational backgrounds. All women were from a non‐indigenous background. The initial question to women was “Can you tell me what it is like to be involved in the workers' compensation system?” The narratives were analysed and interpreted using Hycner's (1985) phenomenological guidelines. The knowledge embedded in the interviews, expressed through core stories and themes, was essential to making women's voices visible and provide insight into service delivery based on women's experiences and needs. Four core themes were found: negative versus positive experiences, the workplace response and role in the process, women's experiences of payouts, and reasons why women may not claim workers' compensation. The women indicated that the workers compensation process was a disincentive to making a claim. WorkCover was viewed as siding with the employer, bureaucratic in nature and lacking values associated with empathy, sympathy and caring. Recommendations for improvements to the workers compensation system included to establish legal obligations and enforcement of occupational health and safety responsibilities to injured and to ill workers; adoption of occupational health and safety values by employers; change the attitudes of employers (recognising women as breadwinners and that workers are not disposable); a single case manager to advocate for injured or ill workers; recognition of mental and emotional consequences of an injury or illness; provision of rehabilitation that recognises mental and emotional factors as well as the importance of family participation; greater involvement of employers and employees in the rehabilitation process; and finally, improved service delivery that involves consistency, ethics, clarity (regarding the WorkCover process for injured workers and employers), accountability and involvement of all parties.     

The Relinquishment of Newborns and Women's Reproductive Rights

This article by People's Artist of the USSR Georgi Tovstonogov, chief director of the Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater and a Lenin Prize winner, is the author's summary of his address to a conference of the Leningrad branch of the All-Russian Theatrical Society, called to discuss the problem of artistic expressiveness of productions on a contemporary theme. Sovetskaya Kultura, (Soviet Culture), December 9, 1961.