Attitudes Toward Married Persons’ Surnames in Twenty-First Century Japan

Through Article 750 of the Japanese Civil Code, Japan is the only developed country to require that a married couple must choose either the husband’s or the wife’s surname upon marriage. We examine how traditional gender ideology and preference for the three-generation family household are associated with the level of support for conjugal surname sharing, from full support for the wife taking her husband’s surname to support for neither the wife or husband changing their name. We estimate generalized ordered logit models with data from the 2000–2003, 2006, and 2010 Japanese General Social Survey. Findings indicate that those who hold more traditional gender ideology are more likely to endorse surname sharing at all levels. Those who prefer the traditional extended family household are more likely to acknowledge at least some merit in a married couple sharing a surname, but they are less likely to say that the wife should take her husband’s surname without question. Attitudes toward conjugal surname sharing may have important symbolic implications for gender equality as well as potential impact on the surname law.     

The Congruence Between Adolescents and Their Parents’ Gender-Role Attitudes in Urban Slums of Allahabad,India

Gender role differentiation intensifies during adolescence. The current study explores gender-role attitudes among unmarried young men and women aged 15–21 residing in the slums of Allahabad, India. The survey asked a series of questions about gender role attitudes to young men and women and to their parents (relating to work and educational attainment for girls, marriage and husband–wife relations). Since either the father or mother responded to the parent questionnaire, data analyses are based on subsets of mother–daughter pairs (n = 2124), mother–son pairs (n = 2135), father–son pairs (n = 788), and father–daughter pairs (n = 452). No significant differences emerged in terms of adolescent background characteristics of the four groups and the adolescent population of the study. A fair amount of congruence in gender role attitudes was found in the mother–daughter and father–son pairs for most items. However, a similar pattern was not visible in the father–daughter or mother–son pairs. Multivariate regression analysis indicated strong influence of parental attitudes on the adolescent’s attitudes. While education led to a shift in girls’ attitudes to gender egalitarian ones, it did not impact the attitudes of adolescent boys.     

The Window of Ritual: Seeing the Intentions and Emotions of ‘Doing’ Gender

My goal in this paper is to revisit interaction ritual theory as a theoretical underpinning of West and Zimmerman’s ‘doing’ gender paradigm in order to develop a more nuanced understanding of what is taking place inside the interactions of men and women as they ‘do’ gender. Recent work in ritual theory, specifically the work of Bell (Ritual theory, ritual practice, 1992) and Collins (Interaction ritual chains, 2004) expands the role of the individual in the ritual process by conceptualizing ritual as a form of ‘practice’ that can be mobilized in the pursuit of emotional energy. Through the narratives of 24 married couples, I explore how domestic labor functions as an interaction ritual that is driven by ‘emotional energy’. This emotional energy shapes the localized intentions of men and women as they ‘do’ gender thus transforming gender into something that we ‘use’ as well as ‘do’. These emotions and intentions can be seen most clearly through a new ‘window’ of ritual.

农村妇女土地权利保障的法律规制研究

农村妇女土地权利受到侵害的现象已十分明显,她们对土地权利的缺失,既有传统思想意识及民间规约的束缚,也有法律规范制定缺少社会性别视角及保障措施缺乏可操作性.保护农村妇女土地权利,需要从观念到规范的重构,从宏观上确立真正的农村妇女权益的法律话语场,并在法律规范的框架内有效调适民间法,进一步明确土地所有权主体,增强农民土地使用权的确定性及法律条文执行时的性别敏感性,改进法律规范的创设和实际执行,消除立法上可能体现的性别差异.     

“It has given me life.” Latinas and the U-Visa: A Qualitative Study

Women, particularly undocumented women, are at an increased risk for gender-based violence including intimate partner violence (IPV). Women’s lack of legal immigration status is often used as a tool of dominance and control of undocumented women. The Victim of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act 2000 created the U-Visa that provides undocumented IPV victims with lawful immigration status if they are willing to assist authorities in investigating crimes. The objective of this study is to better understand the benefits of obtaining the U-Visa from the perspectives of Latina U-Visa recipients who are survivors of IPV. In this community-based qualitative research study involving IPV survivors, community leaders, service providers and academics, we collected qualitative data through interviews with 20 participants including 15 survivors of IPV who were U-Visa recipients. Interviews were digitally-recorded, transcribed and translated, and analyzed using a qualitative software to develop key themes. Women received a $20 gift card as a token of appreciation for their participation in this study. Findings highlight key benefits such as improved mental health, renewed confidence and self-esteem, self-confidence, less perceived exploitation, access to better jobs and housing, freedom to travel, and improved economic and social well-being for visa recipients and their families. Obtaining the U-Visa was a transformative and life-changing experience for Latina survivors of IPV. Social policies such as TVPA help support vulnerable women who are victims of IPV.     

Breaking Barriers: The Experiences of Women in Male Dominated Informal Sector Occupations in Urban Ghana

Globally changing economic conditions have made it necessary for men and women to cross gender based occupational lines. While some research has been conducted on the men crossing occupational barriers in Ghana, not much is known about the women venturing into male dominated occupational sectors in the informal sector. Using the concepts of ‘tokenism and ‘heightened visibility’, this research investigated the experiences of women in male dominated informal sector occupations in Ghana. The research revealed that being numerically disadvantaged and being a woman does not necessarily lead to some of the challenges highlighted as facing other females in more formal occupational settings. On the contrary, this study has revealed how the numerical disadvantage combined with socio-cultural feminine attributes, contributes to the occupational development of women. This research recommends that future programmes aimed at female empowerment should not only focus on the academic (science; technology and mathematics) opportunities, but should also highlight the opportunities for female economic empowerment within male dominated sectors of the informal economy.     

‘Unnatural’, ‘Unwomanly’, ‘Uncreditable’ and ‘Undervalued’: The Significance of Being a Childless Woman in Australian Society

Childlessness is an increasing trend, internationally and in Australia. The few studies exploring the lived experiences of childless women have been conducted in America, Canada and the United Kingdom; predominantly during the 1980s and 1990s. The experiences of childless women in contemporary Australia remain under-researched. This hermeneutic phenomenological study sought to enhance understanding of the lived experience of being a childless woman in contemporary Australia. In-depth interviews with five childless women revealed five key themes as significant facets of the experiences of childless women: notions of ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’; woman = mother; childlessness as a discrediting attribute; feeling undervalued; and the significance of being childless. By privileging the experiences of childless women in a pronatalist society, it is apparent that misconceptions and stereotypes about childlessness continue to pervade. This study contributes to understanding this growing population group; highlighting that while childlessness is increasingly acknowledged, it is still not completely understood.     

Women journalists in the Chinese enlightenment, 1915–1923

May Fourth women journalists appropriated the discourse of women’s emancipation advocated by New Culturalists to shape their discussions of women’s suffrage, labor movement, and legal rights. The rhetoric of emancipation enabled women writers to redefine gender norms and legitimized women’s presence in coeducational schools, modern professions, and public spaces. The interplay between the discourse and practices associated with new women enabled women activists to embrace the subject positions opened by the ideal of the “new woman” and to appropriate the rhetoric of human rights to advocate the sharing of male power and privilege, while seriously exploring how to be women in the political and social landscape of an emerging modern China. She has authored “Cross Dressing in Modern Japan” (Japan Studies Review, 2002), “Male Feminism and Women's Subjectivities: Zhang Xichen, Chen Xuezhao, and The New Woman” (Twentieth-Century China, 2003), and “Constructing Manchukuo Womanhood to Serve Japanese Imperialism” (The Journal of Georgia Association of Historian, 2005).     

Is Gender Mainstreaming Viable? Empirical Analysis of the Practicality of Policies for Agriculture-Based Gendered Development in Ethiopia

Gender mainstreaming is a global strategy to ensure gender-equality in agriculture and other economic sectors. However, the operationalization of gender mainstreaming is often contested in the global south. Using a concurrent mixed method design, this study investigates if the gender mainstreaming narratives embedded in agricultural extension and food security policies in Ethiopia are practical for improving agriculture-based gendered development among smallholder users of climate-smart agricultural technologies. Results demonstrate that women smallholders’ needs that are essential to the use of agricultural technologies are overlooked. Despite they are “users” of agricultural technologies; women’s access to agricultural inputs and extension services is restricted. There is a lack of synchronized activities and strategies to guide the implementation of gender mainstreaming, as well as separate gender budgets to address gendered agricultural problems. Increasing agricultural production is a national policy goal, although gender equality in production growth is not a key priority in the implementations of agricultural policies. Although improvement in the institutionalization and implementation of the GAD approach for addressing strategic gender needs is a priority in gender mainstreaming, an interchangeable and concurrent institutionalization and implementation of the Women in Development approach for addressing practical gender needs and the Women Culture and Development approach for addressing constraints that emanate from the multiple realities and identities of women are also required. Identifying and addressing the practical gender needs of women and problems that emanate from their multiple identities and realities are essential prerequisites for the practicality of gender mainstreaming for gender equality in agricultural development. Furthermore, there is a need to design and implement locally specific gender-mainstreaming strategies that address the distinct needs of women smallholders, as well as separate gender budgets to reach local contexts.     

Women,islam, and the state in Pakistan

In this paper, I outline the history of Pakistan’s experience with “Islamic” laws and their impact on women. I also trace the links between the state, nationalism, religion, and women’s organizations, and demonstrate how they have shaped women's lives in Pakistan. I focus mainly on General Zia ul-Haq’s influence in fostering and reinforcing certain detrimental ideologies and policies regarding women. I argue that a close examination of the state, nationalism, the search for cultural authenticity in post-colonial nations, and the struggles and dilemmas of women's activism in Muslim cultures are all central to advancing the discussion of women in islam. With chains of matrimony and modesty You can shackle my feet The fear will still haunt you That crippled, unable to walk I shall continue to think. (Kishwar Naheed, a contemporary poet, quoted in Mumtaz and Shaheed 1987: 77) Her current research interests include gender and development in third-world countries and transnational feminist movements. Her dissertation examines the role of women's non-governmental organizations in Pakistan.     

An Inductive Analysis of Young Adults’ Conceptions of Femininity and Masculinity and Comparison to Established Gender Inventories

This study provides an analysis of the content of feminine and masculine characteristics/behaviors described in writing by 366 young women and 289 young men from the U.S. Emergent characteristics/behaviors were placed into domains. For both femininity and masculinity, the domains of “physical differences related to sex” and “emphasized physical differences” emerged. For masculinity, additional domains were: “activities and interests focused on the body,” “powerful or oriented toward power,” and “emotion-control or emotionally-limited.” For femininity, additional domains were “lacking power,” “orientation to other people,” and “emotional.” We then compared the characteristics/behaviors and domains we discovered to gender inventories that are commonly used in the contemporary period. The masculine domains focused on physical differences, activities, and interests that emerged from the present study are mostly absent from these masculinity inventories. The domains focused on power and restricted emotion are evident in these inventories, but these inventories do not cover all of the characteristics within our domains. The feminine domains that emerged from the present study are more often covered in these inventories, but some of the specific feminine characteristics we found are not evident in these inventories. Results are discussed in terms of gender role theory, gender inequality, and potential application for qualitative and quantitative inquiries into the construction of gender.     

Pension policy in the European Union: Responses to the changing division of labor in family life

In this articles the authors analyze pension rights in the national pension schemes of the European Union countries from a gender perspective by using the mainstream regime-type framework based on the work of Esping-Andersen. An important aspect of pension benefits is the extent to which they allow individual claims for benefits or ‘family’ recipients through derived benefits or household means testing. Individual pension rights refer to a person's own insurance record or residence-based rights whereas derived rights are based on a spouse's insurance record. From the gender perspective, the authors examine how policymakers have responded in pension policies to challenges due to changes in the gender division of labor and the reshaping of the family institution.     

Female Status and Infant and Child Homicide Victimization in Rural and Urban Counties in the U.S.

Studies consistently show that female labor force participation is a correlate of infant and child homicide victimization. Research and theory supports the notion that as women’s economic status improves, children are safer. Yet few existing studies make use of feminist perspectives to explain child homicide. Further, homicide studies have focused heavily on urban areas leaving a lacuna of understanding in the literature regarding rural areas. This study explores the connection between absolute and relative female economic status and infant and child homicide victimization in both rural and urban U.S. counties. Results show that absolute female economic status is positively associated with infant and child homicide in urban areas, but not in rural areas. I argue that in rural areas, stronger collective sentiment and less differentiation diminishes the effect of women’s status on child homicide. While rural areas are characterized by harsh economic realities, these realities are nevertheless shared among men and women, decentering the link between child victimization and women status.

Rethinking Women and Their Bodies in the Age of Biotechnology: Feminist Commentaries on the Hwang Affair

Many Korean women felt strongly positive about donating their eggs for Hwang Woo Suk’s research, in spite of the fact that Hwang was accused of fraud. It is said that there is a kind of unique ‘egg donation culture’ among Korean women, which urged them to donate their eggs for his research. However, positing such a Korean ‘egg donation culture’ does not seem to give a sufficient explanation of why so many Korean women were seemingly willing to provide their own eggs for Hwang’s research. Instead, we suggest that egg donation issues in the Hwang affair can be interpreted under the paradoxical context, in which Korean women are situated in the age of biotechnology. On the one hand, the invisibility of women as subjects in the public sphere led to their lack of social control over ova trafficking and made it possible for a huge number of eggs to be supplied secretly for Hwang’s team. The patriarchal structure of family, the myth of economic growth, and the restricted activities of feminist organizations are possible contributors to the invisibility of Korean women. On the other hand, in the practices of bodily technologies such as cosmetic surgery and reproductive technologies, Korean women have been highly visible. With the help of those technological instruments, women have been empowered to own their own bodies and to have them at their disposal. We argue that these dualistic realities of women as egg owners can explain the egg donation culture among Korean women in the Hwang affair.

Boundary Making and ‘Good’ Stem Cell Research (SCR) in Mainland China: Including Bioethics,Excluding Debate

This study probes into what public Chinese stem cell scientists involve in defining what is ‘good research practice’. Thomas Gieryn in 1983 argued that scientists draw up boundaries between the realm of ‘real science’ and that of ‘pseudoscience’ in order to claim and defend their own territory. The aim was to protect the autonomy of scientific research and to elicit financial support and political backup (Gieryn, American Sociological Review, 48(6), 781–795, 1983). This article builds on, redefines and extends Gieryn’s concept of ‘boundary-work’ to apply to and include boundaries between ethical and non-ethical science, while emphasising the global scope of boundary work. It shows how scientists use both ‘science’ and ‘bioethics’ boundaries to demarcate their own territory and to exclude certain publics from debate in the field. By elaborating Gieryn’s concept of boundary work in the new and different context of bioethical science regulation, the article shows how Chinese stem cell scientists, by using both kinds of boundaries—between science and pseudoscience and between ethical and non-ethical science—at the same time welcome and abhor bioethical research regulation. This article also indicates the need to understand this extended form of boundary making in terms of global science collaboration and competition. It shows how the self-awareness of scientists as global actors in stem cell science has led to a moral economy of science and ethics involving global boundaries rather than local conditions. Such boundary making does not just function to strengthen group identity and to elicit political support; it is also mobilised to direct and, in many cases, to ward off discussion with bioethicists and the public.     

我国女性“法律失语”现象及成因解构

我国女性“法律失语”现象严重,诸如：男女两性权利表达标准失衡、反性骚扰立法疲软、刑法对妻子性权利保护的忽视、离婚经济补偿制度对女性权利保护不足、彩礼返还之规定对女性有差别对待之嫌等。文章从社会性别这一视角透视女性“法律失语”现象,解构并归结成因为：法律中的“男性”立场、法律传统中“女性话语权”的缺失、女性对自己权利认知“集体无意识”。     

The Allocation of Housework: Extending the Gender Display Approach

The current study attempts a simultaneous testing of economic models, the gender display perspective, and gender-deviance neutralization hypothesis that attempt to explain present housework arrangements between men and women. The study uses fixed effects models that can produce more robust coefficients than the standard regression models generally used in cross-sectional designs. The findings in the study reveal the inadequacy of economic models and the gender display theory to account for men’s housework behavior. The study introduces the marital contract hypothesis as an alternative theoretical framework for explaining men’s housework behavior. According to the study, what is crucial for achieving housework parity is changes in women’s gender related attitudes and their economic and labor market standing and orientation to paid work. The study suggests that attempting to change men’s gender beliefs can do little to achieve the goal of housework parity.     

“Your Picture Looks the Same as My Picture”: An Examination of Passing in Transgender Communities

Transgender people remain one of the groups most susceptible to discrimination in the U.S. Previous studies have examined the discrimination and stress transgender people face, but few studies have examined trans identities using existing sociological theories of marginalized groups and identity formation. Using the theories of Dubois and Cooley, this study explores identity formation in conjunction with the phenomenon of passing among transgender people residing in Nebraska. Results suggest that while trans people do pass as a mechanism for subverting discrimination, there are other factors that influence an individual’s choice and strategy to pass or not. The current investigation lends a sociological perspective on the social aspect of gender presentation and gender visibility for trans individuals in a largely conservative Midwestern state.     

Emancipation, crime and problem behavior of women: A perspective from Germany

The debate on women and crime has been dominated by two paradigms during the last decades: The “power-paradigm” predicted a steep rise of female crime rates, as a result of the thorough change of gender roles in this period, while the “victim paradigm” directed attention to rising rates of alcohol and drug addiction as well as mental health problems and suicides among women. Both paradigms have been linked by the proposition that the low involvement of women in crime was compensated by their higher rates of all types of passive problem behavior like depression or addiction. In this study, which covers the period from 1965 to 1990, both paradigms are examined by analysing female and male crime rates, as well as respective rates of alcohol and drug addiction, mental disorders, and suicides for all of Germany (before reunification), an urban metropolitan region and a rural state in the North of Germany. The results clearly show that both paradigms were wrong in exaggerating a negative impact of the process of emancipation. Until the early 1980s, female crime rates as well as proportions of other types of problem behavior only slightly gained compared to men, but since 1985 this trend has levelled off and has been inverted, most visible for crime rates. In contrast to both paradigms, these results show that women profited enormously in terms of mental health and other problem behaviors from the opportunities opening up in the process of emancipation. They clearly lend more support to two more recent theories, the “power-control” theory by Hagan and the “control-balance” theory by Tittle that both stress potential gains for women. Susanne Karstedt is an asociologist and criminologist. She is Professor of Criminology at the Department of Criminology of Keele University, Great Britain. In the field of gender studies she has pbulished on female criminality, problem behavior of women in social crises (postwar Germany), on the definition of social problems by the women's movement in the 19th century from a, comparative perspective and on the women's movement from a historical and comparative perspective.     

Using Split-Population Models to Examine Predictors of the Probability and Timing of Parity Progression

Survival models are widely used in demography to analyse the timing of events such as death or leaving school. However, for events such as marriage or childbirth that are not experienced by everyone, standard survival analysis conflates the speed of progressing to an event with the proportion that never experience the event. The problem can be overcome by applying a ‘split population’ or ‘cure’ survival time model which splits the population into those who eventually experience the event and those who do not, and determines the speed of progression for the former. This paper demonstrates the use of split-population models in examining variables which affect the propensity and timing of additional births. The data analysed are from a sample of women from the 2001 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey (N = 4,611). We model the propensity and time to have another child given sex composition of existing children, number of siblings and age at first birth for three cohorts of women. The study finds evidence of a preference for a mixed-sex composition, and an increased propensity for women with two boys to try for a third child. Women in later cohorts tend to have more children if they themselves come from larger families. Age at first birth is strongly associated with the propensity to have another child and with the speed of progression.