Just Being a Woman Isn't Enough Any More

This study focuses on TV news coverage of women in the local elections held in Israel in 2008. The questions posed were: Did national TV news in Israel during the election campaign reflect the changes in the status of women in local politics that have occurred in the last two decades? How prominent was the representation of women politicians in national TV news coverage and what patterns did it display? The sample used in the study consisted of all items dealing with women that were broadcast by one of the national TV stations during the month prior to the local elections. All the news and current affairs broadcasts were analyzed. All items in which women candidates featured, as well as items dealing with issues relating to women in politics in general, were taped and transcribed. The study was based on an interpretive analysis employing the analytical tool of “media frames.” Although the extent of the coverage of women remained quite meager, this reflects the sociopolitical reality in which women politicians are still a small minority. However, whereas the literature emphasizes the negative stereotypical representation of women politicians, the national TV news representation of women in the local elections was more complex. On the one hand, it mirrored the patriarchal power structure, primarily the subordination of women to men, but on the other hand it also offered a forum for genuine feminist discourse.     

Another Issue Comes Out: Gay Rights Policy Voting in Recent U.S. Presidential Elections

Drawing from the theory of policy voting, this study examines the impact of opinions about gay rights on voting for presidential candidates. Qualitative analysis of the major party platforms and candidate campaign rhetoric from the six presidential elections held between 1988 and 2008 indicates that Democratic and Republican presidential candidates began openly expressing opposing positions on gay rights issues in 1992. Quantitative analysis of public opinion shows that, starting in 1992 and continuing through 2008, gay rights issues became more salient to the public, and opinions about gay rights began to exert a significant effect on vote choice. The study concludes with a discussion of the partisan forces that shaped the electoral significance of gay rights issues during the period from 1988 to 2008 and speculation about the role of gay rights issues in shaping future partisan electoral strategy.     

Creating a Monster

The United States Democratic primary campaign of 2007–8 witnessed widespread misogynistic and anti-feminist portrayals of Senator Hillary Clinton across all types of media. In particular, Clinton was regularly depicted as monstrous and/or cyborgian, collapsing the boundaries between male and female, human and animal, and organism and machine. Such portrayals indicate a gender crisis in contemporary American culture which intensifies when women attempt to enter positions of power in the public arena. Research has shown that television, radio and print media coverage of American political candidates has consistently relied on gender stereotypes that undermine the campaigns of women politicians. However, portrayals of female candidates in online media remain largely unexplored. This paper discusses the implications of online media for women's political campaigns and for the democratic process itself. Through an analysis of digital imagery, I argue that simulations of Clinton circulating on the Internet during the primaries sought to produce a political reality in which Clinton's bid for the White House could be rendered improper and unnatural. In so doing, I suggest the continuing potential of online media to produce detrimental representations of female politicians.     

Pregnancy,Then It's “Back To Business”

This essay theorizes the contours of a post-feminist gender regime that utilizes figures such as Beyoncé in order to hail women as self-governing subjects who make the right choices with respect to career, marriage, motherhood, and the disciplining of their bodies. As a black woman, the narrative about Beyoncé's life and choices has specific implications; it positions professional black women as ideal citizens and mothers and also seeks to reconfigure and normalize representations of the black family. The body, specifically the black female body, plays an important role in attempting to transform and normalize these representations. This essay offers one of the few examinations of black women's relationship to post-feminism. Although post-feminism has been conceptualized in ways that ignore black women, I aim to demonstrate why further consideration of black women's relationship to post-feminism is needed. It is my contention that with successful black women increasingly in the public eye, what they say about feminism and how they relate to feminist politics have important implications for how all women, but especially young black women, engage in types of activism that go beyond placing value on individualism at the expense of the collective.     

Women are angry!

This essay examines the BBC comedy pilot Lizzie and Sarah as a dissonant account of contemporary femininities. With reference to work on the grotesque, and to contemporary television comedy's use of the grotesque as a strategy, I argue that this uncommissioned pilot episode offers an incisive critique of contemporary anxieties about middle-aged women and teenage girls. While the narrative employs parody and hyperbole to humorous ends, critical commentary around the show, from its producers and from broadsheet journalists, indicates that it overstepped boundaries in terms of its account of heterofemininity. Comparing Lizzie and Sarah to makeover shows on British television, the episode constitutes an ironic feminist makeover, with its protagonists choosing to kill their oppressors rather than submit to the disciplinary regime of heterofemininity. A close analysis of the dialogue, costumes and mise-en-scene is deployed to read this comedy as a scathing commentary on the continuing limitations of television femininities.     

Tedious: feminized labor in machine-readable cataloging

This essay examines previously unexplored IBM reports and manuals that document the development of Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) in the 1960s to understand gendered assumptions manufacturers made about the labor of information retrieval and to ultimately discuss the ways in which MARC transformed the feminized labor of information, making it more diffuse and shifting expectations about productivity. In the process, this essay will show that cataloging, like other forms of women’s labor transformed by technology in the latter part of the twentieth century, has a complicated relationship to the market labor and industrialization. Finally, this essay ends by connecting MARC and feminized labor to the contemporary discussion of BIBFRAME.     

Knowing your audience: Investigating stillbirth knowledge and perceptions in the general population to inform future public health campaigns

BackgroundThe prevalence of stillbirth in many high income countries like Australia has remained unchanged for over 30 years. The 2018 Australian government Senate Select Committee on Stillbirth Research and Education highlighted the need for a public health campaign to encourage public conversations and increase awareness. However, there is little evidence about the community’s knowledge and perceptions towards pregnancy and stillbirth, nor their aspirations for a public health campaign.AimsTo assess the general knowledge, perceptions, myths and attitudes towards stillbirth to inform future public health campaigns.MethodsAustralian participants (n = 344; predominately women n = 294 (85.5%)) were recruited via Facebook.com. They completed a cross-sectional online survey designed to assess their knowledge of pregnancy and stillbirth, with additional questions on socio-demographic characteristics.ResultsStillbirth knowledge and awareness of incidence was low in this sample. Prominent myths, such as baby runs out of room in the uterus (n = 112, 33%) and baby slows down when preparing for labour (n = 24, 27%) were endorsed. Only 25% (n = 85) knew the prevalence of stillbirth in Australia (six per day). Almost two-thirds (n = 205; 62%) agreed that there needs to be a public health campaign, however one in five (n = 65; 20%) were concerned that talking about stillbirth with pregnant women may cause them to worry.Discussion and conclusionOur findings reinforce the need for a targeted campaign, which educates the general population about the definition and prevalence of stillbirth, stillbirth risks and modifiable health behaviours. Appropriate messaging should target pregnant women during antenatal care as well as their support and care systems (family, friends, and care providers).     

“It's Up to the Women”

In 1932, Ladies' Home Journal (LHJ) ran an extensive campaign, orchestrated by public relations pioneer Edward Bernays, to persuade American women to end the Great Depression through consumer purchases. Although the campaign failed, it is historically significant, illustrating how PR and magazines worked together to prescribe women's roles—a point little explored by feminist historians. While some women read the campaign hegemonically, others resisted its message, even adapting campaign language to suggest alternative plans. Foremost among these, I argue, was Eleanor Roosevelt (ER), whose 1933 book title, It's Up to the Women, is identical to the campaign's slogan. Attributed to ER alone, the slogan has been reprised in twenty-first-century Democratic presidential campaigns and used elsewhere. Patriotic shopping has also reemerged in recent crises. Although less important to feminists, FDR's (Franklin D. Roosevelt) famous “fear” line from his First Inaugural address resembles language in LHJ's campaign. Thus, the campaign can be seen not only as a site where the contested nature of women's roles was played out but one that illustrates how media language can be repurposed to shape changing cultural and political messages.     

Visibility of the ovaries and breasts: an analysis of Angelina Jolie’s medical announcements

Advanced epithelial ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecologic cancer; yet public knowledge about the disease is limited. This essay critically examines the limited visibility of ovarian cancer using Angelina Jolie’s medical announcements in 2013 and 2015 as examples. The essay also examines how Jolie’s case reinforces and also challenges hegemonic notions of femininity, the woman’s body and health, and how it explicates limitations in discourses of choice and risk. I argue that normative views about the female body play significant roles in shaping how and what we know about women’s health.     

Education and the changing age pattern of American fertility: 1963–1989

Using pooled data from the 1980, 1985, and 1990 Current Population Surveys, we describe fertility trends by age and education for the period 1963–1989. Interest focuses on whether the effects of education have changed across this period. We show that women with college degrees experienced dramatic shifts toward later ages of childbearing. This shift is consistent with arguments we develop about the increased opportunity for women to pursue careers and about changes in the availability of child care     

农村人口流动对农田生态建设的影响

本文从我国实际出发,分析了农村剩余劳动力流出及其回流对农田生态建设的影响,趋利避害,因势利导,为新形势下我国农田生态建设提出相应的建议,以期为我国经济建设提供良好的生态环境支持和强大的经济动力。     

Cross-National Sources of Health Inequality: Education and Tobacco Use in the World Health Survey

The spread of tobacco use from the West to other parts of the world, especially among disadvantaged socioeconomic groups, raises concerns not only about the indisputable harm to global health but also about worsening health inequality. Arguments relating to economic cost and diffusion posit that rising educational disparities in tobacco use—and associated disparities in health and premature mortality—are associated with higher national income and more advanced stages of cigarette diffusion, particularly among younger persons and males. To test these arguments, we use World Health Survey data for 99,661 men and 123,953 women from 50 low-income to upper-middle–income nations. Multilevel logistic regression models show that increases in national income and cigarette diffusion widen educational disparities in smoking among young persons and men but have weaker influences among older persons and women. The results suggest that the social and economic patterns of cigarette adoption across low- and middle-income nations foretell continuing, and perhaps widening, disparities in mortality.     

The Case for Same-Sex Marriage Before the European Court of Human Rights

For proponents of same-sex marriage, this essay sets forward a critical analysis of relevant arguments before the European Court of Human Rights. The privacy aspect of Article 8 European Convention of Human Rights will never be a successful argument with reference to marriage, which involves a public status. The equality argument (Article 14) is useful in addressing this issue with its close connections with citizenship, symbolic value, and proven record internationally. Difficulties remain with the equality argument; its conditional status, the width of the margin of appreciation allocated, and the need for an equality comparator. The equality argument needs reinforcement by use alongside a developing family law argument under Article 8 and a dynamically interpreted Article 12 (right to marry) argument. Ultimately, the success of any argument depends on convincingly influencing the European Court to consider that sufficient consensus has developed among Member States of the Council of Europe.     

The effect of media sexism on women’s political ambition: evidence from a worldwide study

This paper presents results from one of the first global studies on the relationship between media sexism and the share of candidates for the lower chamber of national parliaments who are women. Data on media sexism come from the Global Media Monitoring Project, the most reliable worldwide source for media coverage from a gender perspective. The data on share of female political candidates come from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The results show that that there is, even when controlling for the number of women in parliament, electoral system, gender quotas, level of human development, level of women’s rights, freedom from corruption, and media access, a significant relationship between media sexism—measured as (i) the share of all news subjects that are women and (ii) the share of all news subjects portrayed in the function of experts who are women—and the share of women candidates for parliament: the higher the level of media sexism, the lower the share of women candidates. The theory discussed zooms in on a bystander effect: We hypothesize that sexist portrayals of women in the media stifle ambition among women who, in a less sexist media environment, would be willing to stand as political candidates.     

Mediating Healthy Female Citizenship in the HPV Vaccination Campaigns

Analyzing the HPV awareness and Gardasil® vaccine campaigns for the United States (US), we argue that the campaigns reflect “the new public health” model that positions individuals as neoliberal citizens responsible for managing their health and maximizing public health opportunities. The campaigns, directed primarily at girls and young women and their mothers, also mobilized neoliberal discourses of risk, choice, and self-management alongside postfeminist political rhetoric that values empowerment, freedom, choice, and rights. Postfeminist tropes were co-opted by Merck's marketing imperatives in order to produce girls and young women as an agentic, niche market of health consumers. We then foreground a low-budget counter-narrative alternative media campaign produced by young women and disseminated through YouTube. This campaign demonstrates the role of new media in producing alternative perspectives on agentic female citizenship and disrupts Merck's campaign imperatives.     

Publicity and education on family planning information in Keshan County

In 1984 the Keshan (Northeast China) County Government and the Family Planning Committee initiated an education campaign to disseminate family planning information to farmers. The team of propagandists consisted primarily of full-time family planning workers. Village cadres, school teachers, and rural physicians, who are properly educated and positive about family planning work, enjoy high prestige among the workers. They were invited to be team members after training and are supported by the villagers because they come from among the local people. All the childbearing women aged 15-49 in each village were classified by the propagandist into 5 groups according to their marital and childbearing status, i.e., women at the age of puberty, women of new marriage, pregnant and lying-in women, women with children to be reared, and middle-age and old women. The women were organized into groups to attend lectures on different subjects such as population policy, relationship between population growth and socioeconomic development on the 1 hand and individuals and environment on the other. Also included were physiology, the health birth and rearing of children, and health care for women and the aged. The publicity effort included broadcasting, films, video aids, and slide shows. Increased classs were during the slack seasons, and lectures were given once a week. By 1986, about 80% of the population at childbearing age in Keshan County had attended the family planning lectures.     

Political battlefield: aggressive metaphors,gender, and power in news coverage of Canadian party leadership contests

Our study analyzed aggressive figures of speech used by the Globe and Mail to describe the personas, performances, and prospects of women and men leadership candidates for the (Progressive) Conservative Party of Canada in 1976, 1993, and 2004. We codified four distinct forms of power communicated by the aggressive metaphors—power over, power to, power with, and power as—to investigate what these battleground metaphors communicate about gender and political power. Our content analysis and discourse analysis of the phrases applied to each of the candidates revealed gendered assumptions about political leadership. All three women candidates in our study—Flora MacDonald (1976), Kim Campbell (1993), and Belinda Stronach (2004)—were discussed as formidable foes, capable of using considerable force in their efforts to win. Indeed, Campbell became Canada’s first and only woman prime minister. Yet, much of the aggressive mediation confirms the gendered mediation thesis that aggressive metaphors exclude women and reconstitute politics as masculine. Many of the combative phrases cast doubt on a woman candidate’s ability to successfully compete on the political battlefield.     

The effects of gender on climate change knowledge and concern in the American public

This study tests theoretical arguments about gender differences in scientific knowledge and environmental concern using 8 years of Gallup data on climate change knowledge and concern in the US general public. Contrary to expectations from scientific literacy research, women convey greater assessed scientific knowledge of climate change than do men. Consistent with much existing sociology of science research, women underestimate their climate change knowledge more than do men. Also, women express slightly greater concern about climate change than do men, and this gender divide is not accounted for by differences in key values and beliefs or in the social roles that men and women differentially perform in society. Modest yet enduring gender differences on climate change knowledge and concern within the US general public suggest several avenues for future research, which are explored in the conclusion.     

Globalization,Technology and Female Empowerment: Breaking Rights or Connecting Opportunities?

What are the main impacts of globalization and new information and communication technologies (ICTs) on female empowerment? The first part of this paper surveys two main disputing arguments concerning this issue through a review of the literature investigating the causal mechanisms that links both dimensions. One stream of academia highlights the negative impacts of globalization. It argues how market liberalization resulted in the weakening of welfare policies and the flexibilization of labor rights. Another stream of literature emphasizes the role played by international organizations, like the World Bank, as well as civil society movements, and highlights how globalization made it possible for women conquer an important place in their societies. This paper attempts to add to these analyses the assumption that ICTs provided differential opportunities to women. The second part of the paper verifies which arguments are most consistent with empirical data. In a panel analysis from 2000 to 2014 we focus on how globalization may have affected female economic empowerment (measured as women’s participation in the work force) and political representation (measured as women participation on the labor force and participation in national parliaments). We find evidence that access to ICTs may represent a crucial variable to enhance women’s empowerment.     

Female genital mutilation: Conditions of decline

Female genital mutilation (or femalecircumcision) has been experienced by over 100 millionwomen in sub-Saharan Africa and the Nile valley.Efforts to suppress the practice were made in theearlier decades of the present century, especially bymissionaries in Kenya in the 1920s and early 1930s.Successful indigenous opposition to this activity ledto a cultural relativist attitude toward FGM beingdominant among governments and international bodiesfor the next half century. This situation has changedover the last 20 years as the women's movement has ledan attack on the practice, so that by the mid-1990sall relevant major international bodies andgovernments without exception had committed themselvesto its suppression. Nevertheless, efforts to counterFGM have often been weak and there has been littleevidence of their success. This paper draws on acontinuing research program among the Yoruba peopleof southwest Nigeria to show not only that FGM hasbegun to decline but that this occurrence can beexplained wholly by programs organized by theMinistry of Health and women's organizations. Thefocus of this paper is on the determinants of thischange. These are shown to be: (1) a reduction inceremonies associated with the practice, (2) itsincreasing medicalization, (3) indigenous secularcampaigning based on the provision of information, and(4) a focus on individuals, especially women. There islittle belief that the campaign is an assault on theculture, but rather a growing feeling, especiallyamong those influenced by it, that it would be moreappropriate once such a campaign has begun for it tobe whole-hearted rather than lukewarm.